I really like the movie Shortbus (though I like Hedwig a helluva lot better), but there’s one line in there that really pisses me off:

“Let’s face it, monogamy’s for straight people.”

If you haven’t seen Shortbus, it’s a great story about how people connect blah blah blah whatever, and one of the stories within the movie is the relationship between the two Jamies, Jamie Shorthair and Jamie Masturbateatthestartofthemovieandcumsinhisownmouth. They’re complex characters. So, the two are sitting with a Canadian sex therapist and they discuss bringing in a third guy into bed (who turns out to be emo/country YouTube sensation Jay Brannan). Oh, by the way, SPOILERS. Sorry, maybe I should have warned you about that earlier.

Let me start a new paragraph; this is already getting too complex. They talk to the therapist and Jamie Shorthair says that line that pisses me off. Is it really possible that gay men simply have too much testosterone to make a lasting relationship work without bringing in a third guy? One of the “excuses” I have heard from gay guys is that men who date men are more interested in sex than an actual relationship. Is this true?

Shortbus

First, I feel the need to say that no, I do not believe in the nuclear family as being the ideal family. No, a relationship between three partners is not a bad thing. I also don’t necessarily believe that the only good relationship is one that lasts a lifetime. Divorce exists for a reason, and I think that’s a good thing. Personally I want “a” partner, not several, and I do aim to have a life-long relationship. Maybe things won’t work out that way, but this particular blog is going to cater to this way of thinking. Deal with the heteronormativity for just a bit, ok? Cool.

My first explanation for this way of thinking is that laws regarding gay relationships do not promote the same idea that is promoted to heterosexuals. That is, marriage laws for heterosexuals sort of mark a goal for straight relationships: marriage is what you want/need in order to be happy. Gays do not have this privilege, so it is as if there is no aim or goal (if you are willing to label marriage as such). No, marriage is not for everyone, but god leave me alone about being PC and being fair to everyone for a little bit. kthxbye.

Without being granted marriage/unions/whatever gays are not presented such images in the media. The only time I have ever seen a gay couple that lives together was on an episode of Desperate Housewives, and I’m pretty sure they’re evil bastards so who’s to say if that’s necessarily helpful? What we do see is single Will and single Jack on Will & Grace going on continuous dates and never finding love (unless they did, I sort of stopped paying attention, anyone know?). What else do we have? Queer as Folk, aka soft porn and gays getting beaten by baseball bats. Queer Eye: a show which has nothing to do with gays in relationships, but rather promotes somewhat positive stereotypes about gays. And gay movies? Shortbus is great for promoting tolerance of all sexual ways of life, but it doesn’t really show a gay relationship like the one I am looking for. Rocky Horror? No. Bent: great movie about love between gays in a concentration camp, but it kind of ends SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER on a not so happy note.

Going into a gay club presents interesting images as well and I would be willing to say it’s different from a straight club in that the gay clubs are frequented by people of all ages, not just the youth. Why are 50 and 60 year old guys in the scene? By them being there, it’s like they’re saying, “This is how you will live for the rest of your life.” That scares me, because while C St. is fine for dancing and releasing stress now, I don’t want to be going there when I start having hip problems. I’m not always going to be able to shake that groove thang.

I think it’s very possible to have a gay relationship that lasts. Oddly, two of the three examples I have witnessed among my friends are like the Jamies in that both partners share the same name. Kind of freaks me out but I’m down with it. These couples have already lasted many years and I can foresee them doing the whole being in love forever thing. What makes them different from all of my friends who go through relationships every few months? Do they live in Europe and not have to deal with American laws? No. Do they only watch Desperate Housewives? God I hope not. Are they in the scene often? No. Hm. Interesting. Unless there’s something else going on that I’m missing, I think we may have found the problem…

hooray for couples who share the same name

When it comes right down to it, there’s only one question that really matters. It’s a question so epic that men have been ruined from answering it. I am prepared to answer that question, and I hope to sway some of you people who think otherwise onto my side.

The Answer: Cream cheese, dips, that chili dip where you use an entire block of melted creamcheese, gouda, mozzarella, oh god mozzarella!, mozzarella sticks, cheese-stuffed pizza crusts, cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, pepperjack, cheese naan, paneer makhani, paneer in general, bosco sticks, feta, parmesan, nachos, Swiss, American, cheddar, any cheese served on a toothpick, brie, the calcium, rauchkaese, crumbled feta on a salad, bergkaese, bruschetta with cheese, tomato and mozzarella, ricotta, cheez its (not so much cheese nips), asiago cheese, provolone, deep dish, tortillas, spreadable jalapeno cheese, Chihuahua, that joke where the pun is “nacho cheese!” stuffed peppers, basically cheese on almost any sandwich, chili cheese dogs, chicken cordon bleu, chicken parmesan, omelets, cheesecake, macaroni and cheese, broccoli and cheese, 3-cheese lasagna, cheese Danish, corn chowder and cheese, burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, cheese wiz (sp?), on a bagel, the leaning tower of cheese-a!, fondue, quiche, kaesebrotchen, any food with the word “melt” in it, topping any pasta, but usually spaghetti, jumbo pretzels and cheese, calzones, on crackers, in, on, or around potatoes, melted over scrambled eggs, on certain types of scones, melted on beef sandwiches, stuffed mushrooms, in crepes, and, of course, on pizza.

The Answer

When asked upon whether I would sooner give up blowjobs or cheese for the rest of my life, I would clearly rather give up the blowjobs. Ain’t nothin’ more satisfying than cheese.

Oh, and the same goes for peanut butter, a food which is arguably more impressive because there are less foods where you can use pb as an ingredient and yet I would still be willing to give up blow jobs in order to have it, but I like my cheese list a lot more than I like my peanut butter list.

Last night I had the pleasure of going to Life Ball 2008 with some of my closest friends here in Vienna. For those of you who don’t know, which is probably all of you since the American press never seems to advertise these sorts of things, Life Ball is an annual charity event that takes place in front of Vienna’s city hall in order to raise AIDS awareness, promote finding a cure, convince people that homosexuality is totally normal, and to basically have a good time and gawk at crazy ass costumes and oogle over celebrity appearances.

When I first got there with my boy Jensen and my bud Roland we thought the whole thing was going to be cut off from the public. They kept us out with fences and laughed in our faces when we asked if they would be taking them down to let the public in to watch the costumed party goers go down the red carpet. I made an angry YouTube video which you can see here:

EDIT 01 June 08: I had to take this video down for reasons I will probably mention in a later post. But not now, because it ain’t the right time for fights of that nature. Woof.

Yeah. So naturally 42 seconds later they opened the fence, right where we were standing, and let us all in. We got an amazing spot right on the red carpet and were able to see everyone perfectly. I was just a whiny little bitch. It happens.

We were able to watch them do preparations for the fashion show which involved the pope wrapped up in a rope and being dragged down the stage by models. They were very sexy models. Do take note.

Soon the show was about to begin. It opened with this guy, the Rocket Man, blasting off in a jetpack and then crashing into the red carpet, burning a hole through the damn thing. We have some good video of that too but I’ll let you search for that on your own because you’re a big boy and go to college and know how to do these things.

Shortly thereafter the Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence came down the red carpet. The Sisters are a group of gay nuns, if you will, who have orders all over the world promoting human rights issues in the LGBT community. Naturally, I knew one of them. Rosa La Ola Grande saw me and walked up to me to have a little chat. Yeah, I felt pretty bitchin’. I met Rosa La Ola in Rostock, Germany when I was studying abroad there in high school. She was a friend of my ex and she would always be dressed up at the clubs handing out free condoms, lube, and pamphlets about safe sex. I recall coming home from a volleyball tournament once and running into her without makeup. Totally bizarre. Point of the story is she gave me a kiss with her blue lips and confused the hell out of my boyfriend.

Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence

Suddenly a large amount of guests started strolling down the red carpet. I think I heard the number was around 4,000 or so. In order to get a ticket you needed to enter a raffle and if you happen to be selected you pay 150 euro per ticket. Something like that. If you happen to be lucky enough to win a ticket your goal is to make an extraordinary costume that matches the theme, which, this year, was Landing on Planet Life Ball. This basically meant the theme was aliens and would allow for all sorts of messed up costumes. I have lots of pictures of these but some of them probably aren’t allowed to be posted on this site. Lots of tits, my friend, lots of tits.

Yes, I am aware that those are not tits. No, I will not post them for you. I gotta keep it classy.

A lot of the costumes involved aluminum foil, rubber, or plastic tubing. Apparently aliens like to wear PVC as jewelry. There were lots of cool costumes. An old woman was decked out entirely in rubber bands (which she naturally shot into the crowd), a naked man wore an S&M rubber mask, shoes (no socks), and painted his *ahem* blue. Might I add that it was a very European and very uncut *ahem.* My favorite costumes were probably the ones that involved body paint. These men and women had crazy scales or were cyborgs or combinations of both. Some carried large balloons, others water guns, and others passed out cups of fruit covered with whipped cream and schnapps. It was a good time. Well, for the first hour or so, after which it became pretty damn repetitive.

Never fear! Soon the celebrities entered! Aside from German TV stars and models from Germany’s Next Top Model, there was also Debbie Harry (of Blondie fame), Sharon Stone, the only Austrian astronaut, a former goalie from the Austrian soccer team, that crazy chick who talks like she’s a jaguar and has gigantic lips (Amanda Lapore?), and of course, my favorite guest of the evening, Kim Cattrall, aka Samantha from Sex and the City. Kim seemed to be the guest of the evening as she was welcomed last and honored with a huge line of glowing butterfly people. She spoke on stage and had memorized a few lines of German. Unfortunately I didn’t get all of this on cam, and we weren’t close to the stage at all so you can’t see her, but whatever man, it’s Kim Cattrall.

Sharon Stone

Kim!

Debbie Harry performed, or rather, did some interesting dancing as she lip synced to a song that I’d never heard before. A Falco (<3) song was played and there was some crazy video of aliens dancing with Viennese girls in a park. There was a giant UFO and crazy dancing and giant lipstick and all this crazy stuff that I could write about but Jesus this blog is already way too long for its own good, so let me talk about one last thing and then I’ll let you go. For real.

After the waltzing aliens things got serious. They talked about AIDS and how much it sucks and how what really sucks is when a mother passes it on to her child through birth. It’s true. That DOES suck. Then the organizer of the event, Gery Kreszler, was honored with a fantastic award from some Austrian minister of yada yada yada. I know, this is the actual interesting stuff that will make a difference in the world, but at this point I had been standing outside the city hall for 5 or 6 hours and was ready to go home. What I think the whole event was getting at was that AIDS is bad, discrimination of gays is bad, and dressing up like a damn fool is good.

The Producers, a current hit in Vienna theater right now, took the stage and started singing a German version of Keep It Gay. This was my signal to leave, grab a kebab, and then, shortly after, regret the kebab.

It was a great show, got a bit long and I probably missed some stuff. Apparently Alan Cumming was supposed to be there. And Rose McGowan too (wasn’t she awesome in Planet Terror?). I just couldn’t deal with being there anymore. Maybe I’ll stick around next time if I land upon the 150 euro ticket, but chances are that it may be a while.

http://thesisters.org/
http://www.lifeball.org/
http://www.rocketman.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRNrau5KC3Y <— my vid of Kim Cattrall speaking at Life Ball
http://youtube.com/watch?v=liiOBZOIcrw <— footage of Kim Cattrall speaking at Life Ball press conference

P.S. I have exactly one million more photos from this event, so if you want to see them and happen to be my friend, check out the album I’m posting on Facebook. If you’re not my friend, you’re a stalker and you should stop biting the hand that feeds you!

View of the Rathaus/City Hall at Life Ball 2008 in Vienna, Austria

Why the hell is prostitution illegal? If someone could explain why it is, I encourage you to please do so. Prostitution should be legal, and this column/blog/whatever will be devoted to explaining why that is.

First of all, prostitution is an amazing business if you believe you can have sex with a stranger without feeling bad about it. Tons of girls on campus do this every weekend (short skirts in January in Champaign weather on a Saturday night and you want me to believe they aren’t going home with some drunk and horny frat guy? Please.), so they might as well make a little money while doing it, right? Seriously, if you lack the morals generally hammered into you as a child by organizations such as the Catholic Church and/or Sesame Street, this is a business where you basically sell nothing, at most your orgasms (even faked orgasms!), and make a lot of cash in return. Strap on a condom and you have relatively good odds that you won’t catch one of the STDs that are currently floating around campus. But, of course, this is all dependent on not feeling guilty about sex without love. Maybe it’s not for you, but looking around campus it definitely shouldn’t be a problem for a lot of students.

Many people believe that both men and women enter the illegal world of prostitution in order to take care of their coke habits. This may be true, but if listening to pop music over the last few years has taught me anything, there are also prostitutes who simply just need to take care of their families. Perhaps your husband or wife has left and you need to bring in some extra cash in order to keep feeding little Timmy those toaster strudels he so greatly desires. Prostituting your body is almost noble! I know this may sound like sarcasm, but quite seriously, as stated before this is a business where you trade in nothing for something, and extra cash for an hour or two of sex with a stranger may definitely seem like a situation worthy of getting into in terms of keeping food on the table.

But hey, maybe you just want to get into prostitution for fun. It’s something new, something wild, something dangerous … what’s stopping you? Perhaps it’s the whole STD thing. Or maybe it’s the getting preggers thing. But what would scare me if I were to get into prostitution would be the pimp. I’ve seen Snoop Dogg, and while I’m all about the Sensual Seduction, he freaks me out a bit. I mean, the dude is as old as my dad and he’s still smackin’ that bitch up. And I read Catcher in the Rye. Remember that part where the pimp practically kills Holden? Okay, maybe he didn’t practically kill him, but I sort of had a crush on Holden and therefore everything that happened felt even a bit more exaggerated than what was actually written. ANYWAY, point of the story is that pimps are scary and want to take all my hard-earned (giggle!) cash away, and that’s a problem considering I like wearing clothes that are classy, and classy means expensive. I cannot deal with a pimp taking away a percentage. And this is where the benefits of legalization come in:

A) No pimp. Everything is organized through the state. I mean, maybe that’s worse. Being taxed on your prostitution business kinda sucks, and filling out all those forms is both time-consuming and exhausting, but it keeps things legal and the government gets to cash in on an institution that normally actually costs tax-payers cash. Less policing against prostitution means less money in fighting prostitution, and when we tax prostitution the government gets to take that cash and finally build that auditorium your high school so desperately needed. Finally! Thanks to whores like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman you can finally put on that production of Les Mis!

B) STD Checks. This is where I’m actually most concerned in terms of legalizing prostitution and am not kidding at all. If prostitution were legal, the government could enforce certain laws in regards to it, specifically required STD checks for all prostitutes to ensure that customers won’t be catching anything they don’t necessarily want. The porn industry already has these rules set, and porn stars are required to perform STD checks before every film they act in. More STD checks means that STDs are discovered more often and therefore spread less. This is good.

C) Less rape? Maybe? Look, I don’t know if this is true or not, but if a guy could get laid for a reasonable price whenever he was horny, maybe he’d be less likely to roofie that chick he thinks is do-able. Maybe not … I mean, if a dude is willing to rape, he’s probably the type of guy who is relatively cheap and wouldn’t be willing to pay a hundred or two on a quick lay, so I guess I am just full of it, but maybe the statistics could prove otherwise.

D) Fight the War on Drugs! Bush, you’ll love this. If you get all the names of prostitutes in a database, you can easily find out if they’re working for “noble” reasons or if they’re just trying to get some smack. So basically you can force all prostitutes to enter rehab programs and therefore help them “get on the right track.” And I’m sure you could pay them enough to give up their sources in terms of where they’re getting their drugs, and you’re all about that, right? So take this opportunity and use it to your advantage!

I have the same feelings for prostitution that I have for abortion. I do not really agree with it, but I realize that if someone is desperate enough to fix a bad situation by doing something incredibly dangerous, they will do it whether it’s legal or not. If you make prostitution legal, you can at least bring in some governmental revenue and make things a bit safer (no pimp, no drugs, no STDs) for everyone involved. If you make abortion illegal, women will find underground ways of getting their abortions. Hell, even if they just do it legally in another country, those are dollars going towards a government that is not the American government, and since the Euro is currently valued at around $1.53, I think it’s time we start paying attention to what this country really needs: some hardcore sex with a stranger.

Gay people piss me off. Not all gay people, just the ones who claim to be straight-acting, or, as defined by themselves, “str8” acting. Apparently the straighter you are the more your spelling goes to complete shit. Don’t get me wrong. I am not talking about masculine gay guys. But this is not what a straight-acting guy actually is.

Str8-Acting, as defined by me: A gay guy who wants to present the image of being straight. He plays sports and has lots of straight friends and just looooves frat parties and getting totally schwasted. But don’t forget, he tries to play off this straight image all the time. Most of his gay friends are also straight-acting and they tend to be in the closet, though secretly hooking up with random frat boys thanks to wonderful websites like Craigslist.org. Allen Hall Cafeteria, don’t act like you don’t know who I’m talking about. I am not quite sure what is so attractive about this. What I want is a man, that is to say, not acting at all:

Man: a guy who is pumped full of testosterone. Maybe he plays sports, maybe he wears scarves in the summer, maybe he has scruff, but with or without these he most definitely has balls. He is not going to go around pretending he is something he is not. He’ll tell you like it is and if you don’t like it, it’s your problem, not his. He is competitive. He will put up a fight and he will defend you. He may have either masculine or feminine qualities, but these do not define him as a whole. He is his own person and he’s not going to try to fit in.

This is NOT a synonym for straight-acting. I have straight friends, I have gone to class with many straight men, and as it so happens both my father and my father’s father have both slept with women (or so I’ve been told), but I would not be willing to say that all of these people meet the qualities of being men. There are plenty of straight guys running around the U of I campus who would not be willing to fight for their woman, guys who are not always honest, and guys who are not always willing to make a decision. They may technically be men, but they don’t have balls. They are, however, straight. Ah ha! You see the conundrum!

Basically, I find all of the queers who are str8-acting to be total pussies who are not willing to be themselves. There are plenty of straight men on campus that are also str8-acting, trying to put out an image that they simply aren’t. These are the guys who spend a lot of extra time at the gym and have bigger breasts than their girlfriends. These are the guys who toss the terms “fag,” “homo,” and “Pike Nation!” around in order to prove that they are indeed men. Real men do not need to prove they are men because they know that what they have in their shorts is proof enough.

My advice is basically something I read on the side of a wall in Vienna: If you are an apple, do not try to be a banana. You will always just be a second-rate banana. I am sure it’s a quote from some random hippie and appears as MySpace headlines across the nation, but the message is what’s important: just be yourself. If you’re masculine, be masculine. If you’re feminine, be feminine. If you’re something that is not defined by any particular word in our society, that’s fine too, be that. But do not try to kid yourself; you’re not impressing anybody. And get a haircut. You’re supposed to be str8, not a sloppy mess.

When I hear most discussions on gays in the military, I’ll hear one of two arguments. The first is that it’s a travesty that our military discriminates. “How dare they?!” the people shout, in incredibly fabulous voices. They tend to remind you that gays have been in the military since the beginning of time. Remember Alexander the Great? Total queer. And I don’t have to remind you about the incredible amount of gay jokes made about the U.S. Navy. Face it, gays have been in the military killing people who are “a threat” to American soil since the start of it all.

Then, of course, the counter argument, gays are a threat to our “other” American soldiers. They’ll be too busy checking out their comrade’s ass to realize that he’s being shot and will more than likely start having sex with his dead corpse as soon as he has the chance. “They’ll just be distracted the whole time!” cry the husky men with moustaches and John Deere hats.

They’re both right. And they’re both wrong. I tend to side with the gays on this one because of lots of fun reports I’ve read. I remember the first one that really took my attention came out a few months after the attacks on the World Trade Center. It turned out that a bunch of gay translators were discharged due to their sexual orientation and this therefore decreased the size of a translating team. The documents/audio they had been translating turned out, apparently, to have a lot of information about the September 11th attacks (as in it could have prevented the whole damn thing from happening). Of course, there are conspiracy theorists who believe it was our own government who planned the attacks, but that’s a different subject entirely and I’m not going to bother you with that because you’re a nice person and nice people don’t need to deal with that.

Point is, gays know how to kill people just as good as anyone else; however, if they want to fight for the U.S. Army, they really should be silenced about their sexuality. It’s for their protection.

Have you ever met a mass amount of American soldiers? They’re an interesting crowd, aren’t they? Yes, there are quite a few who are in the army so they can fund their education, but who are the majority of our soldiers? They’re recent high-school graduates who don’t know what to do with their lives after high-school, are patriotic, and more than likely, haven’t really been in “the real world” just yet. Everything they know about people has been from experiences they’ve gathered growing up in their random suburb next to Random City, USA.

According to former Republican presidential candidate Congressman Duncan Hunter, most of our soldiers are indeed conservative (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-wJkrEnmtg) and they hold “Judeo-Christian values.” He claims that forcing these units of soldiers to change their views to accept a gay soldier is doing just that, asking them to change their views.

He’s absolutely right. Having a gay soldier in a troop is not going to deter the gay soldier from doing his job, but it will prevent the straight soldiers from doing theirs. It’s not the gay soldier who will be checking out the straight soldiers; rather it will be the straight soldiers constantly checking out the gay soldier to see if he’s screwing up. For some reason it seems conservative young men cannot grasp the idea that they aren’t always on a gay man’s mind and that a gay man has priorities other than anal sex and lots and lots of glitter.

In other words, our soldiers are just too narrow-minded. The gay soldier is in danger, not just because he’s at war with an opposing army, but because of his American comrades. He is a gay soldier in a country far away from home in the one “branch” of human life that actually encourages the use of weapons in the destruction of others.

Now, I understand that many students here at U of I are related to someone in the military or have a best friend in the military or have dated someone in the military. Hell, I’m sure a small percentage has actually served in the military. This article probably offends a good portion of you. This is why I decided to ask my friend, Soldier X (name left anonymous for obvious reasons), what his thoughts are on what would happen if he were to come out to his troop. Soldier X is a homosexual male who has served two tours over seas and has recently been training to become a Green Beret. His opinions are as follows:

“As a straight acting homosexual, if I were to come out to my fellow comrades, their reactions would be the same as when I first came out to my friends as a sophomore in high school. ‘Yeah right Soldier X.’ But were I to convince them of the truth of my sexuality, they probably wouldn’t care much. I base this opinion solely off of my performance in the field. I was always viewed by my comrades as an asset, not only being a marksman, but also being able to interpret the Iraqi language. Because of this, I don’t foresee them trying to get rid of me simply because of my sexual preference. However, that’s not to say that it’s the same throughout the military. There is always someone out there with a chip on their shoulder and nothing better to do than bust someone for being gay and discharge them. This is why I favor the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy. It protects me from such people. It would be nice to not have to hide my sexuality from those who think I’m checking them out all the time.”

As this is a blog, I hope that someone, anyone, will comment about how wrong I am. But, when you do so, I really want you to tell me why I am wrong. For instance, if you believe gays should be able to openly serve, explain to me how the gay soldier actually would be safe in his troop. Explain to me how the unit cohesion of a troop would not be threatened by a gay man’s presence.

If you feel the opposite, that gays should not serve in the military but for totally different grounds, please explain to me what they are. Do you really think that a gay soldier cannot handle his job? My friend Soldier X has clearly been able to handle his job for quite a while, but of course, he’s had to hide his homosexual identity in order to do so.

One last thought for you from Soldier X, “Having been through countless firefights, mortar attacks, and IED’s, I know first hand that the only thing going through my mind is getting out alive. Definitely not sex.”