In an article revealing teenager’s new attitudes on oral sex (they agree with Bill Clinton: it isn’t), the Chicago Sun-Times (3/25)runs into a teeny-tiny sexist problem: without saying so, the author is only talking about girls, humm, helping guys out. The reverse is apparently unthinkable! Same paper, same page: Black colleges are reporting an increase in male HIV infections from ‘brothers on the down-low’ men who absolutely hide their … ummm, gay … sexuality and who ‘don’t consider themselves to be at risk for HIV.’
We told you last week of the death of movie star Mercedes McCambridge, famous among gay and lesbian movie buffs for out-testosteroning a ‘virile’ Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar. This week the NY Times (3/24)reports that that strange western flic has been transmogrified into a musical play. The reviewer thinks the production is too family friendly and longs for Joan and Mecedes duking—or do I mean dyking—it out?
Speaking of movies: the Sun-Times (3/22)reports Naomi Watts really had to hold her boyfriend’s hand re his upcoming movie Brokeback Mountain. B. F. Health Ledger was VERY nervous about being the main squeeze of Jake Gyllenhaal. One wonders how this two-cowboy waltz will turn out, which is to say how truly sexual/romantic it will be.
In that vein, which we might term, the ‘None-Dare-Call-Them-Eunuchs’ file, Slate.com (3/24)the online magazine covers this topic saying that in reality TV (and one could add sit-com TV)gay men can dispense fashion, taste and wit, can be spoiler prize for a straight woman (the ‘… Surprise Old Maid Card hidden in the deck of boy-girl romance,’ but that they are never shown doing ‘… the very thing that defines them as ‘gay’ in the first place: loving other men.’
How appropriate that Rhea Tennessee County Commissioner, J. C. Fugate, wanted, according to the Chicago Sun-Times (3/18), to make it illegal to be homosexual there. Considering that the rhea is an ostrich-like bird and we all know the cliché of what ostriches do in times of stress.
Truly highlighting the difference in opinions re gay issues in the younger and older generations, the school newspaper of William Howard Taft High School (3/04)has an editorial totally supporting the idea of gay marriage: citing the use of the Bible to justify gay discrimination, it says, is hypocritical and appalling. Meanwhile, in another school in North Carolina, Principal Elizabeth Miars is defending her school librarian’s checking out the book King and King, a 1st-grade story in which Prince Bertie picks Prince Hall instead of a princess. Certain parents were annoyed.
And to finish, a gay decorating stereotype rolls over into a real romantic fairy tale: the Chicago Tribune (3/21)says in Las Vegas the wildlife habitat, Flamingo Las Vegas you can check out Mr. Bubblegum and Mr. Pink Floyd, two male flamingos who have set up a same-sex relationship for all to see. Sounds better than Wayne Newton.