The entrepreneurial Canadian bodybuilder and founder of the Mr. and Ms. Olympia bodybuilding contests Joe Weider was a rare heterosexual among physique publishers and was employed Hal Warner as editor.

These beefcake magazines of the 1950's and 60's allowed men to explore their interest in body building and fitness with a secondary purpose for men interested in men. The small format magazines are filled with photographs of muscular "beefcakes” who are typically young and attractive men in athletic poses, usually in revealing, minimal clothing.

Their unstated primary purpose was erotic imagery, primarily created by and for gay men at a time when homosexuality was the subject of cultural taboos and government censorship.