This photo was posted on the Twitter account @oldmasc and I swiped it for this weekly blog post. I can’t tell much about this photo other than that Harvey (on the left) was eighteen years old when the picture was taken. I assume these are military uniforms. Are you able to glean anything from the clothing or hair style that might pinpoint a date or location when these three were photographed?
Men in the past were often photographed close together and touching, but the photo strikes me as more intimate with each man interlacing his hands and sharing a seat so that the men on either side are half seated on the arm of the chair and half curled around each leg of the man in the middle. Certainly it would have been more comfortable standing on either side or behind the man in the middle.
I dedicate this weekly post, featuring vintage gay photographs, to the men and women who lived in a more critical time where being true to yourself and loving who you want wasn’t always an option and came at a great price. Do you have a photo you would like to share? Email me at bosguymail@gmail.com.
BosGuy 
Still looks like a thruple to me…
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I support your take. That’s a very intimate pose. Those guys were naked together at some point, and I think the man in the middle was the +1 who stayed.
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The only thing I can really tell you about this photograph is that it’s of three American soldiers from the World War I era. The insignia pin on their collars seem to indicate they were in the signal corps. My guess this is a photo taken while at training camp, though it could have been taken while they were serving in France.
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That’s amazing insight Joe. Thank yhou.
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I’m a WWI historian, that’s what I went to grad school for, and I now work in a military school’s museum. We have hundreds of uniforms and probably thousands of insignia pins.
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