Both Body Beautiful and Adonis magazines were published by Joe Weider, the entrepreneurial Canadian bodybuilder and founder of the Mr. and Ms. Olympia bodybuilding contests. Weider was a rare heterosexual among physique publishers

Beefcake magazines of the 1950's and 60's allowed men to explore their interest in body building a fitness. The publication had a secondary purpose for men interested in men. This set of Body Beautiful magazines from the late-50's and early-60's are filled with strapping young men moving their bodies. 

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.