Mark Wahlberg

Marky Mark

UPDATED 05/04/1992 at 01:00 AM EDT • Originally published 05/04/1992 at 01:00 AM EDT

With ripples like Lake Michigan and a stomach you could scrub clothes on, who can blame the biceptual rapper for going shirtless? Certainly not his weak-kneed fans, who, he grins, "throw condoms and bras and panties onstage."

Hardly what Mark Wahlberg was used to growing up in a blue-collar Boston suburb, where "if you wanted to get with a girl, you had to give her a six-pack or maybe two." That was before he joined brother Donnie's New Kids on the Block and then made his own 1991 debut album, Music for the People.

His muscle-heavy video Good Vibrations firmly established his trademark torso-baring, crotch-grabbing cockiness. But Mark, 20, says, "I'd rather be known for my music than for that body stuff." Yo, fat chance: Daily workouts should keep him on Best Chest lists.

Too busy for a steady, he wants to hook up one day with "an independent, career-type woman like Jodie Foster. She's sexy because she's intelligent." Yo, better skip the six-pack.