Mar 11
JeremyHumor, Relationships porn, sexuality, watchmen
Question:
Dear Ask Daily,
Why are straight men so into lesbian porn? I mean, what’s the deal with that? Is it some kind of lesbian conversion fantasy or what?
-Inquiring Minds Want to Know
Answer:
Dear Inquiring Minds,
One of my friends, a heterosexual male, was describing the new movie Watchmen to me a few days ago. His biggest commentary on it, other than the awesome violence, was that there was waaaaaay too much male full frontal for his liking, accompanied by physical shuddering, etc. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a comment like this. Hence, I can come up with only two hypotheses regarding the impact of the sight of the male generative organ on men: it makes them feel inadequate or it makes them gay.
So far, we’re not even talking porn here. But imagine, if straight guys get this upset about a bit of penis on the big screen, a constant barrage of it on their TV screen (or, more likely, computer screen) has got to be panic inducing. It raises all kinds of questions in the male mind, such as “Does my girlfriend want me to be that big? Cuz seriously, I’m not even half that size” or “If I get turned on watching this, does that mean I’m gay? I mean, yeah, there’s the girl, too, but I’m seeing his man parts and I’m enjoying myself!” Consequently, thoughts like these can only negatively impact the man’s performance in the bedroom. When he suddenly can’t get it up with his girlfriend, he then starts to convince himself that he IS gay and then he feels inadequate because he has no fashion sense and doesn’t know the words to any ABBA songs.
So how does all this relate to your question? Clearly, this sexual insecurity about, or even fear of, the penis expresses itself in the desire to watch girl-on-girl action, in which the only competition is a clearly fake strap on. Lesbian porn takes away the threat for straight men.
However, this doesn’t begin to explain all those lesbians who purportedly get off on guy-on-guy action.
Feb 03
JeremyHumor
Question:
Dear Ask Daily,
I’m concerned that my son has a secret girlfriend. My 17 year old son has been very secretive with me lately, recently he has started to refuse to go to church with the family and tonight when I was going through his room I found a magazine with naked men in it. He obviously has a girlfriend that he is hiding from me that brought that magazine into my home and I am afraid they are having intercourse and I am greatly concerned that he is going to get her pregnant. What should I do about this?
-A Concerned Parent
Answer:
Dear Concerned Parent,
Well, this experience should teach you a lesson about snooping. Your son is seventeen, so it’s time he transitions to a bit of adult responsibility, which includes a right to some privacy. You should just forget all about finding that magazine in your son’s room. This should not be a problem for you, as you already appear adept at ignoring things.
If memory serves, last year, you wrote me because you were having separation anxiety with all the weekend camping trips your son was taking with his Scout leader. You were also concerned that despite all this extra attention, he didn’t seem to be earning any merit badges. And the year before that, it was something about music. Ahh, here’s the old letter.
“My son has wonderful taste in music. He doesn’t listen to the garbage that most kids do nowadays. He plays all the big old Broadway musicals. Sometimes, he even dresses up and acts them out for us. He does a wonderful ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and the gingham dress fits him perfectly! But he plays them so loud, especially when he and the other boys are in his bedroom. How can I get him to turn the music down?”
Concerned Parent, you can count on this: your son won’t be knocking up any girlfriend any time soon. Just to be sure, though, you might want to encourage him to attend college far away from home. Maybe NYU or UC-Berkeley. Or a nice art school. As for getting him back to church, perhaps a different congregation might interest him more. That nice Unitarian Universalist church with the pretty rainbow on the sign, for example, might be just the thing.
Forever Yours,
Ask Daily
This article inspired by you by FAIL Blog
Dec 29
JeremySociety and Culture Chanukah, Christmas, holidays, Kwanzaa, Yule
For most of us, the month of December is a non-stop, dizzying ride of celebrations and associated travel, gift-giving, greeting card-sending, and all the like. Rarely do we stop and take a moment to think about what we are celebrating, though. Instead, we rush from one to the next and eventually hope that we’ll come up with some excuse to skip the next celebration just so that we have a few minutes to sit down and wrap the gifts. This year, I decided to sit down and meditate a bit on just why we do celebrate this time of year.
Most of the celebrations in December revolve around some religious holiday, whether we’re talking Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Yule, or whatever other celebration of light you honor. But you know what? These holidays provide us with an excuse for celebrating, not a reason. I know very few people who give the spiritual aspects of these holidays more than cursory notice. For example, if you’re Christian, how much time did you spend in the last week contemplating the fact that Jesus was basically a pretty awesome guy who wanted people to be good to each other? I think you probably spent more time figuring out where you could get that last gift that eluded your shopping efforts.
That leaves us with the celebrations themselves, the excuses to be social. As much as the all the parties and lunches and Yankee swaps may drive us to distraction, they fulfill a very basic need in all of us: the craving for social contact. Built around the excuse of “the holidays,” we’re suddenly willing to accept a hectic social schedule that any other time of the year would be laughable. The reason for this is because we know we have to be with other people this time of year. In fact, we recognize this as an expectation, but rarely remember that the expectation built from an original desire.
But why now, why December? Well, let’s see. It’s damn dark outside. Even our pre-electrical ancestors must have wanted an excuse to light an extra candle or two now and then. The crops were all gathered in and some of them were probably pondering going bad, meaning it’s an ideal time for that big party that eats it up before we had to throw it out. Something like that becomes tradition because we enjoy it.
It’s too bad that we’ve forgotten how much we once enjoyed those gatherings. Instead, we tend to focus on the headaches of planning them, or travelling to them, or “I can’t believe I have to see that jerk, even if it’s only once a year.” We take for granted all the people with whom we value contact, even if it’s only now and then. We take for granted all the effort we and others expend into creating elaborate meals and finding just the right gift.
My Christmas was a little different this year. I went to series of very small gatherings that allowed me to just focus on the people. On Christmas Day, I had a quiet day with my mother, stepfather, and grandmother. We shared a dinner that was simple and delicious. We opened a box of gifts shipped from my sister, which consisted mostly of a homemade photo album for each of us, along with a group gift intended to remind us of my grandfather. This is what made me stop and reflect.
The holidays really are a time to celebrate. They give us the opportunity to celebrate each other. The why is all about being together and the why now is more like why not now. As goofy as it sounds, being together is something we all need and something we all need to be reminded of, whether we like it or not. No matter how much we may complain, we know deep down that there is a purpose: to appreciate those around us and know that we are not alone.
Dec 18
JeremyMovies brett ratner, bryan singer, hugh jackman, Ian McKellan, james marsden, patrick stewart, X-Men
Question: What is your favorite superhero movie adaptation?
Answer: Hands down, this is so much easier than the Harry Potter question where I actually had to think about my answer. This time, I can go on pure instinct: the first two X-Men movies (thought I think I’m gonna give a brief shout out to Iron Man as runner up!). It might be cheating, but I’m going with both because I really view them as a single adaptation.
The first movie revived the 90′s-moribund superhero genre, despite Storm’s bad hair and “Do you know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning?”; up to that point, the movie superhero had been largely dormant for quite some time. I mean, seriously, those were people’s main quibbles with the first movie. Well, those and Magneto’s largely one-dimensional minions. But it brought us action, it brought us character development (for the good guys) and it was superbly cast. I mean, the brilliance of casting Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan aside, Hugh Jackman is just delicious (and maybe James Marsden too).
Moving right into the second movie in a way that really advanced the plot and the relationships between the characters was superb. Anyone who has ever felt marginalized can really connect with these people who really would rather just be left alone to live their lives in peace. At the same time, it’s easy to understand how the experiences of someone like Magneto have shaped him in a way that has built up a burning hatred within. How often does Hollywood manage to give us good action with a moral (that doesn’t feel like a moral bludgeon) and still leave some ambiguity in how we’re supposed to feel? Rarely, but it was achieved with these two films.
Yup. That’s my pick.
And now, a moment of vituperation: Damn, damn Bryan Singer for bailing on us and letting Brett Ratner ruin the third! I find it entirely ironic that Singer jumped to Superman Returns and Ratner to X-3 and then no one liked either movie. Wouldn’t it be awesome if Twentieth Century Fox would be what Warner Bros is doing and just ignore the bad movie and move on with producing a replacement?
Alas and alack…at least I hear good things about X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Dec 10
JeremySociety and Culture day without a gay, gay marriage, gay rights, protest, volunteerism
Today, December 10, 2008, is being hailed by gay rights advocates as “Day Without a Gay.” Why? Because it rhymes and it’s kinda catchy. In all seriousness, today is also International Human Rights today and it’s being used as an opportunity to call attention to the anti-gay state initiatives that recently passed in California, Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida along with the continuing lack of recognition for gay rights in most states. It’s sort of like a sick out, but instead it’s a gay out. All over the country, gay men and women (along with every alternative label you can imagine) have called into work gay. Lest you think this is a freebie day off, those who participate in the protest are being asked to volunteer their time at gay-friendly (or at least neutral) non-profits which always need another hand or twelve. Basically, gay people are standing up and saying “You deprive me of basic human rights every day, so for just one day, I’m depriving you of my service.”
It sounds like a pretty cool idea in principle. In practice, I’m not sure how many men and women are actually doing it. I’m clearly not — I’m sitting at my desk doing both my regular day job and my writing job here. I, in fact, did consider taking part in the day. Then I realized that if all the gays and lesbians where I worked called out gay, the place would shut down for a day. Okay, not really, but pretty close and there might be some mission-critical elements that went undone for a day. Of course, maybe I work somewhere unusual: two out of seven senior executives are gay and another five or so department heads, let alone the individual faculty and staff. Then again, maybe working in such a gay-positive environment and living in a generally gay-friendly state makes me complacent and maybe that’s why I’m not participating. But I’m not sure that explains the fact that I don’t, offhand, know of anyone participating today.
Volunteer opportunities, along with general information, are listed at the website daywithoutagay.org. In all honesty, though, I was disheartened to see only three volunteer opportunities listed for Massachusetts. Heck, I’m sure there are more than three GLBT organizations in the state, let alone all the other groups that could use some help. A quick search shows that most states are in similar or worse shape, except maybe California. Really, I’m pretty surprised by that given that Day Without a Gay was not a left-field thing. I saw sporadic articles about it across the internet over the past month. If I found it without even paying attention, I can’t see how this protest opportunity could not have easily come to the attention of many more non-profits that could have posted themselves on the website and received some benefit today.
Maybe I should have done this. Maybe I should have called my boss this morning and said “I’m calling in gay. I’m going to deprive you of my services for a day and offer them for free to someone who really needs them.” But would it work? (I don’t think anyone even noticed that I was out sick yesterday.) I think passive resistance protest is too…well…passive for me. I’d rather go to a rally where the impact of thousands of people can be seen by sheer volume if nothing else than try to make quiet waves. I’m not disparaging the idea, but I don’t think it’s the right one for me.
Maybe this article is the way I turn it around and make it work for me. By showing up to work (and let’s face it, I haven’t been so prolific with the writing lately), I got you to read this article. That reminded you that there are people fighting for equal recognition under the law. Whether you meant to or not, I got you to spend a day with a gay. That’s how I’ve made my difference.
Dec 04
JeremyMovies Film, Harry Potter
Question: Which Harry Potter movie so far is the best adaptation of the book its based on?
Answer: Hmmmm. Tough choice. What does “best” mean? For my money, the first two were the most faithful to the source material, but I’m not sure that means “best.” The characterizations and plots were taken straight from the books with little change. I thought they did a good job with compressing the story down and relocating a scene here or there so that important material was still covered. But I don’t think they are the best entries in the series because the child actors simply weren’t mature enough to have any real level of craft yet.
I can tell you right now that the fourth (Goblet of Fire) was the “worst” adaptation; there’s no question of that in my mind. A lot of the plot decisions were questionable in my mind. They kept Rita Skeeter in, but made zero use of her or her subsequent plotline, which I think they did solely because they announced Miranda Richardson’s casting before the script was even written. As a result, they cut Dobby who plays such an important role later on. And that was just the beginning of bad choices. To me, this film is the Star Trek: Generations of the Harry Potter movie world.
Accordingly that leaves me with two choices for the best adaptation: the third or the fifth. I think I shall have to choose the fifth (Order of the Phoenix) because such a long novel required so much adaptation to fit in two hours on screen. The script for this film showed the finesse that the fourth film did not. The important plot points were all met or exaggerated in a way that made them real visually. I mean, the wall of Umbridge edicts was just amusing and the visual effect of them smashing to bits was great. The production team chose to highlight all the right pieces and cut away the additional plotlines that didn’t serve the core of the film franchise. Yup, number five is definitely my choice so far. We’ll see about the coming attractions.
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