With the 2008 Summer Olympics about to get underway, we thought we'd take a look at one of the beefcakiest Olympic arenas: the swimming pool.

If there's one thing the summer version of the games has over the winter games, it's the abundance of half-naked guys. And if there's one thing that the diving/swimming events have over any other event (even figure skating!), it's the number of gay men who have competed. Whether they competed as out men at the time, or came out later, there's no denying that the water has an allure for gay athletes, and these gay athletes certainly have an allure for us.

Matthew Mitcham (AUS)

We've mentioned Australian Matthew Mitcham before, but he deserves another showing. This 20 year old will be competing as part of the Aussie diving team as an out and proud gay man.

Mark Tewksbury (CAN)

Canadian Mark Tewksbury won bronze, silver, and gold medals in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics (and made the cover of Time magazine). He came out a few years later (losing a six-figure contract as a motivational speaker because he was "too openly gay"), and has since become an important gay activist in Canada.

Andrew Langenfeld (USA TBA)

American Andrew Langenfeld competed last week for a spot on the Olympics team. While posting a personal best, he didn't make the cut, but look for this out hot, buff cutie athlete to be a big name in the future.

See more glistening gay bodies after the break.

James McAvoy breaks out the guns in Wanted

The insane action epic Wanted opens today (Ed. note: It's mad fun. Seriously.), and Scottish actor James McAvoy plays an everyman who's given the chance to become an action hero. From the pic above, it's obvious that James isn't an everyman, but a buff He-God. It's a far cry from how I remember him best, as Mr. Tumnus, the faun, in The Chronicles of Narnia:

Lots of actors try image changes in their career, but one of the toughest to pull off must be when actors try to break out of the "boyish, sensitive" mold and transform themselves into bad boys or kick-ass superheroes. Here are a few more examples of actors who went (with varying degrees of success) from wimp ... to pimp. (I know that was horrible, but it rhymed.)

Tobey Maguire

When the sensitive lad from The Ice Storm, The Cider House Rules, and Pleasantville was cast in the long awaited big screen version of Spider-Man, people scoffed at the idea ... until they saw him shirtless in the movie. I clearly remember the audible gasps in the theater when he stood in front of the mirror, and the jealous straight guy in front of me who turned to his girlfriend and whispered, "It must be CGI."

Ben Foster

I knew Ben primarily from when he was a kid on the tv show Flash Forward, and as that creepy guy on Six Feet Under, so I was not prepared for it when he spread his wings in X-Men:The Last Stand. Unfortunately, he was only in the movie for literally five minutes (rip-off!), because I would have loved to have seen him really spread them wide.

See more transformations after the break!

It happens every year at this time. From the end of May til the middle of September, everything else becomes meaningless, and my entire being is focused on one thing - tennis.

What is it about tennis that makes it arguably the most popular spectator sport for gay men? I don't have any statistics to back that up, but from personal experience, most of the gay men I've known (even the ones who generally detest watching sports) follow tennis. For me, I think it comes down to the personalities and the drama.

There was Martina Navratilova, who took the harassment and scorn of homophobia and triumphantly turned it around, becoming a legend and one of the greatest gay icons of all time. Monica Seles (my all time favorite), who brought power to the women's game, who was well on her way to becoming the all time best, then watched it all disappear in one of the most horrific moments in sports history. The Williams Sisters, who brought much needed diversity to the sport, and the sexpot campiness of Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova.

On the men's side, there's an added appeal for gay fans. In addition to the personalities and drama, tennis has the hottest men of any sport. There have been plenty of hot tennis guys in the past, like Patrick Rafter, Mark Philippoussis, and Bjorn Borg. Here are ten active players to add to the list, and if you weren't a fan before, maybe this will help convince you.

Andy Roddick - USA

I have to admit, Andy Roddick is not my favorite player (he can be very obnoxious at times), but I also have to admit that he's still the sport's reigning male pin-up. I also think he's so much hotter with a little meat on his bones.

Robby Ginepri - USA

Robby Ginepri (aka "my mountain man") is not as well known as his fellow Americans Andy Roddick and James Blake, but he's every bit as hot.

See more tennis hotties, and a clip of a big Russian in his underwear, after the break.

Today is going to be filled with parades, beer, and lots o' green. Before we head on out to enjoy the festivities, let's to take a moment to pay tribute to ten Irishmen with whom we'd love to share a Shamrock Shake.

Colin Farrell piqued our interest in movies like Tigerland, Daredevil, and Phone Booth, and somehow survived Alexander unscathed. We fell in love with him in A Home At The End Of The World, and that was cemented when we learned he would be the best man at his brother's gay wedding.

Pierce Brosnan first caught our eye as the suave but shady lead of Remington Steele, then brought that same magnetism to the Bond franchise. He always manages to leave us shaken and stirred.

See eight more reasons to celebrate after the break.

British gay magazine AXM has released their list of the ten sexiest men, as voted on by their readers. Comparing their picks with our own AfterElton.com Hot 100 List, the differences are noteworthy. Four of their picks made our top 100, but only one made our top 10.

Their #1 pick is no surprise. You may have heard of David Beckham: he's an underwear model, metrosexual trailblazer, and I think he plays some kind of sport. Surprisingly, he only came in at #39 in our poll. (Oversaturation, maybe?)

Channing Tatum comes in at #2. The model, Step Up and She's The Man actor was our #23 pick.

See the rest of the AXM top ten after the jump...

Last month we were honored to bring you our first installment of Bad Beefcake™, which included such gems as Sean Connery in a thong, Chace Crawford as a come-hither cowboy, and Ralph Fiennes channeling George of the Jungle for a Vanity Fair cover. (You can click on the thumbnails below to enlarge these gems.)

We thought Bad Beefcake would only be a one-off feature, but no, in the last month even more egregious lapses in male celebrity judgment have surfaced. And so we bring you....

Bad Beefcake Volume 2!

First up is Thomas Dekker, the young heartthrob whose Heroes character who was so infamously de-gayed last year. Given that history, one wonders how these publicity shots for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles slipped past his agent. And, er, what does a mylar heart balloon have to do with Terminator?

Stilll, we're not complaining because they certainly are good for a laugh.

Speaking of Heroes...

Out actor Russell Tovey 

Not that we needed further proof that American television is woefully behind the rest of the world in terms of censorship and content, but when the evidence is this round and perky, it's hard to ignore it.

Just this week on British television, two young actors bared their buns in two different dramas. Actually, probably a dozen more actors in a dozen more shows did the same, but for our purposes we'll focus on these fellas. Wait, did I say "focus"? I meant "drool".

First up is gay actor Russel Tovey, in the BBC drama Being Human. Well, the title says it all, really, as Tovey is featured as stripped-down and human as you can get several times in the show. Here's a relatively demure shot, and I've snuck in a few racier pics after the jump. 

Did I mention that Tovey plays a werewolf in this show? I guess even werewolves are manscaping in 2008.

Folks may know Tovey as sporty Rudge from The History Boys, but many don't know that he's openly gay. We're looking to see much more of this talent in the future ... wait, let me rephrase that ...

Our other bun-flasher is Mitch Hewer, who plays the beloved gay character Maxxie on the teen drama Skins. Nice to see that an otherwise straight show about teen relationships is objectifying the gay kid just like it does everyone else ... and it certainly doesn't hurt that Hewer has a body that could make a Bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.

Enjoy more pics (a few are NSFW) after the jump! (For more, check out this site, who was kind enough to screencap all of this wonderfulness.)

Here's something to chew on: Anyone notice the resemblance amongst three of our current beefcake darlings? From haircut to cheekbones to aviators, David Beckham (for Armani manties), Dominic Figlio (for 2xist and on The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency) and Perry Ullman (from Make Me a Supermodel) may as well be the same guy at three stages of his modeling career.

Allow me to illustrate (I know it's hard to look, but it's in the same of science):

David Beckham reclining

Dominic Figlio reclining 

 And what about this...

Dominic on the runway

Perry on the runway 

And then there's this...

Perry wearing sunglasses

Beckham wearing sunglasses 

Okay, this is silly, but there's something going on. Is it safe to say that StarBecks fever has trickled down through gay-targeted underpants advertising and splashed into the rather stagnant pool of reality show models? Not too far-fetched, and much more palatable than my other theory: that they're all the same person, and that person has a time machine to match his perfect jawline. 

Come on, have you ever seen them in the same room together? 

What do you get when a male celebrity intentionally and self-consciously tries to be sexy? You get bad beefcake. And hey, in my book there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Silly though it is, sometimes bad beefcake is actually sort of cute. Case in point: recently a whole series of photos of Gossip Girl’s Chace Crawford popped on the web. No question the boy is adorable - but he might want to rethink the fringe suede jacket, ten gallon hat and come-hither smile. (Okay, he can keep the come-hither smile.) Now that’s bad beefcake, and I love it.

Anyway, Mr. Crawford’s recent photo shoot got me reminiscing about bad beefcake from years past, and I pulled together some of my favorite photos for AfterElton.com readers to enjoy. Brad Pitt, Ralph Fiennes, Rob Lowe, Mario Lopez, Sean Connery – all beautiful men – but all with very bad beefcake lurking in their closet.

I hope you enjoy the gallery of schmaltz after the break. And hey, if you have any favorite bad beefcake shots of your own, please share the wealth and post them in the comments!