Michael Stokes’ book is an album full of scarce, nude photographs of soldiers taken mostly during the World War II. For your eyes only.

Long before homosexuality ceased to be a taboo subject and when still no one wandered around with a camera in their pocket, some soldiers were perhaps more intimate during their free time than what one would expect today (since the threat of social media stalking is preventing us from being private even in our our personal moments.) Michael Stokes wanted to capture that intimacy in his album ”My Buddy book: World War II Laid Bare”, collecting 500 rare photographs mostly from the ’40s. Bear in mind that the introduction of the book is written by the 89-year-old Scotty Bowers, a former Marine, who talks about his sexual experiences as a Hollywood promoter n his book ”Full Service book” In his Stokes’ book, however, he describes how the World War II changed for good his attitude towards straight and gay guys.

Michael Stokes’ book is published by Taschen books.