Straight Men Are Gayer Than They Think

Today we’re going to talk about porn and sexuality. This will resonate more with heterosexual males but there’s a lesson here for everyone. I have no intentions of offending my sizable gay following—a bear needs cubs, after all—but I don’t understand you people so you’re going to have to do your own math.*

Porn is a multi-billion dollar industry. And, like any other successful enterprise not founded by Oprah, it is made for heterosexual males by heterosexual males.

While depraved internet coinsurers can find all types of salacious, subversive, and deviant content with a few clicks of the mouse, the vast majority of porno patrons are paying to watch Jack fuck Jill in the missionary position. Porn may be served in over 9,000 flavors but most men are happy with just a scoop of vanilla.

What types of porn do you watch most often? Answer honestly. I won’t pick on your lackluster imagination. If you’re like 79%** of self-professed heterosexual males, then you are watching some variation of “boy penetrates girl (in her vagina).

Here’s the M. Night Shyamalan style twist: Observing heterosexual intercourse is not necessarily a heterosexual action. I’d argue it’s not even that close. Your only interactions are with the DVD player and the hand lotion. If I watch Paul Bunyan cut down trees all afternoon, I’m not going to call my Mom and tell her I spent the day lumberjacking.

I can hear your feeble objections already, “but, but, I’m… identifying with the male in the video!” Sure. Prove it, homo. Maybe you’re relating more to the washed up starlet tickling his pickle and you don’t even know it. In either case, you’re merely a voyeur and not a participant.

Again, watching a heterosexual act does not necessarily equate to engaging in one. Consider that masturbation while fantasizing about women is heterosexual but if another man were to watch a video of you masturbating that would be, in fact, pretty damned gay.

Look, there’s no need to get defensive. I’m not calling you gay; I’m just saying that you could be straighter.



Given enough time and data, one could chart all forms of sexual expression from “absolute queer” to “ultra hetero.” And while fucking a woman is straight, masturbating to the video image of a man fucking a woman is closer to the middle of the spectrum (see graph s01). A precise charting requires complex mathematics, but a fairly simple algebraic equation*** can give us a pretty good estimation of any sexual encounter. We'll refer to resultant as the Hetero Quotient. Where d equals the number of dudes, c equals the number of chicks, and p is the total number of people involved…



Let’s apply that to some real world situations:

1) If Mikey roofies Sally at a bar, takes her home to his Grandma’s bathroom, violates each of her precious orifices, and chokes the life out of her before cutting her into tiny pieces, what is his Hetero Quotient?

For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that Grandma was out playing bingo so we will assume that Sally is the only chick and Mikey is the only dude (giving us two total participants).

((1/1)+ 1)/2 = 2/2 = 1, or 100 percent.

One-hundred percent straight; way to go Mikey!

A second example:

2) Bob masturbates to Barely Breathing 3, a fine geriatric themed production starring Groucho Dix and Sugar Succulence. How straight is Bob?

There are two dudes, Groucho and Bob, and Sugar is the only chick. There are a total of three participants.

((1/2)+1)/3 = 1.5/3 = 0.5, or 50 percent.

Uh oh, Bob’s actions are only 50% straight.

Let’s try a longer problem (and pay close attention to the details):

3) Shane goes to Tijuana and pays five pesos to watch Victor Victoria bang Maria De Los Burros in a dirty old barn. Victor Victoria is a transvestite. He dresses like a woman, and he has pretty perky boobies too, but he packs heat down south. Shane is turned on but he’s also confused. Exactly how gay is this situation?

The tricky part in this example is whether to count Victor Victoria as a dude or as a chick? Well he/she/it is somewhere in between, I suppose. Not altogether womanly but not exactly a typical man. You can decide on your own value here, but for the sake of simple we’ll pretend Victor is half of each gender. That means we have 1.5 chicks and 1.5 dudes in Shane’s scenario. Let’s figure out his Hetero Quotient.

((1/1.5)+1.5/3 = 2.1667/3 = 0.7222, or 72 percent.

Shane’s actions are actually straighter than Bob’s.

Now we’re approaching the point of the lesson. Pornography comes in many shapes and sizes and one shouldn’t be afraid to experiment because the stuff you’re already looking at is probably gayer than you think.

The numbers don’t lie, folks; keep them in mind the next time you’re scouring the internet to make a deposit into the spank bank. Watching a she-male bone a(nother?) chick can be considerably less queer than that standard male/female fare already beginning to bore you. If you call yourself a straight man maybe it’s time to start acting like one.

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Notes:

*I offer no apologies or disclaimers to the fairer sex—and what would be the point? They won’t read this unless it’s reprinted in US Weekly.

**All statistics are based on a private sampling of the different personalities trapped in my head.

***The “simple equation” is surprisingly accurate but not always sufficient. Anything involving plants, for example, would yield confusing returns.

stellastarr*’s Civilized is competently disappointing

left: Civilized, the new stellastarr* album; right: stellastarr*, their kick-ass eponymous release.

There isn’t a single stellastarr* album review on the internet devoid of references to ancestral new wave bands or post-punk bands or post-new wave bands or whatever other silly genres we like to invent.

stellastarr* doesn't tread new ground, I get it—but to adequately review them do I really have to point out specific riffs in “Numbers” or “Tokyo Sky” that are influenced by the Cure? Robert Smith isn’t the first guitarist to use a chorus or delay pedal, and he holds no patents on the sounds they create. Then what’s the brouhaha? I’d bet a month’s salary that stellastarr* guitarist Michael Jaurin owns a copy of Disintegration, but he isn't a plagiarist.

Besides, stellastarr* is the band you blast on you car stereo when the weather is nice and the windows are down. Their songs are made to be sung over, even if harmonizing with your friends means one of you has to go falsetto. Unlike their oft-cited predecessors, connecting to stellastarr* doesn’t require the introspection you can only gain after your dog hangs itself or your girlfriend fucks the entire Australian national soccer team.

Maybe Civilized, their newest effort, owes as much to Whatever Wave as their first two albums—it not worth harping over either way. This isn’t Pitchfork and listening to music needn’t always involve a history lesson.

There are only three questions worth answering:

1) Is Civilized a fun listen?

2) Is there replay value?

3) Does its unrivaled awesomeness compel you to drink two-liters of Mountain Dew before throwing your little brother through the living room window so you can yell out (through bloodied shards of glass) into the night, “Civilized brings the Motherfuckin’ Ruckus!”?

In short, “yes,” “to an extent,” and “no.”

Civilized is a competent effort with high production values (especially considering they left RCA to pursue their own label) and solid guitar work that punctuate each song. It’s disappointing, though, in comparison to their debut. It has nothing as vocally textured as “Jenny” or “No Weather,” nothing as hypnotically relaxing as “Moongirl,” and nothing as explosively jubilant as “My Coco.”

Amanda Tannen at T in the Park

Amanda Tannen is the hottest bassist in the biz and an excellent backup vocalist. I wonder if she'd be okay with living in my Mom's basement.

It starts off with promise. The up-tempo “Robot” is Civilized’s shortest and simplest song—Amanda Tannen repeatedly intones “by design / you’re gonna hurt yourself” over a few sanitary melodies—but the simplicity serves stellastarr* well.

“Tokyo Sky” is a curious track. Shawn Christensen’s vocal approach is unsettling and rustic and, well, it makes you wonder whether all his singing prior to this has been a fraudulent Morrissey impression. “Graffiti Eyes" is Civilized's first single and thankfully reminiscent of the band's eponymous album. In it, Tannen and Christensen croon together flawlessly; the guitar oscillates between a measured verse and a meth-infused hyper chorus (thank you, Mr. Black); and the spirited breakdowns are as thunderous and pleasant as any boy could hope for.



There are misfires, too. “Freak Out” sounds like an aborted Eagles of Death Metal song; it’s grating enough to be skipped after one listen. “Prom Zombie” shoves so much sugary sweetness down your throat that you might as well be watching Brooke Banner deep-throat the Kool-Aid Man.

“Sonja Cries” is a typical tear-jerking finale (though certainly not The Standard By Which All Others Are Judged) with captivating vocals and affecting guitar melodies. It isn’t a spectacular song, but it’s pleasant enough to make you forget some earlier failings.

Go ahead and buy Civilized; stellastarr* is a worthy band and you were going to spend that money on candy anyway. It’s not their best endeavor, but it’s a step up from Harmonies of the Haunted and any progress should be encouraged with positive reinforcement.

#7: Sex: The Annabel Chong Story (Lewis, 1999)

Sex: The Annabel Chong Story (2008)

"Gentlemen, we found a vibrating brass cock ring buried inside Mrs. Chong. Please pick it up later today at 'lost and found.'"

Sex: The Annabel Chong Story is a documentary chronicling a woman’s attempt to fuck 300 men in one day of work. Annabel will inevitably be transformed from a giddy young porn starlet into a confused and insecure mess—and I simply do not care. She is tragic figure, sure, but her manically insipid dishonesty fails to generate in every scene.

Grover Cleveland may have once said, “Even lifeless documentaries are worth watching if they impart wisdom.” The Annabel Chong Story taught me that the University of Southern California is actually a pretty good place to meet sex workers, but I’m not sure if that’s what Old Grover meant.

I honestly wonder why Sex was ever made. Should I be impressed by Annabel’s attitude or accomplishments? (I’m not.) Moved by her relationship with conservative family? (I wasn’t.) Sickened by what we see of the porn industry when the curtain is pulled back? (I am, but certainly there are six million better ways to tell that story.)

Maybe Annabel and her friends are simply so intriguing as subjects, cameras can’t help but film their every movement (including movements from the toilet). However, Annabel’s trumped-up neuroses and predictable responses (“If I got AIDS from the whole thing, I’m not going to regret it. I had the experience. I lived.”) are boring and the other characters are worse.

And that’s a problem since Sex strives to be shocking above all else (e.g. one interviewee who never mentions Annabel is clearly kept in the film so he can say, “Why can’t you pay someone to suck your dick? Why is that wrong?”). Maybe this footage was riveting in 1999. I doubt it, but I don’t know. In today’s world, where you can’t throw a pretzel without hitting three people who have seen 2 Girls 1 Cup*, we aren’t shocked very easily.

A little research uncovers that director Gough Lewis dated Annabel throughout most of the project. The woman he cares for decides to fuck 300 other men and his reaction is “let’s film it!” What the hell? I would have rather have seen a documentary about him.

Instead we watch Annabel stumble over her own words and are asked to seriously consider her career path as a legitimate interpretation of feminism. Worse yet, the documentary is planned and executed terribly.

The editing is either sloppy or dishonest; we are asked to believe a secondary crew is already filming in her porn producer’s office when Annabel randomly decides to telephone them in hopes of negotiating a raise. The shot selection is amateurish (e.g. an extreme close-up of Annabel’s dark and shifty eyes for what seems like an hour—and yes, she looks as bored as I feel).

Near the end of this meandering, pointless little film, Annabel explains her love of gang-bang as a natural byproduct of her healthy psyche; in the next scene she gives us a tour of the random London flat where she raped by a dozen consecutive different men. The juxtaposing is ineffective and the sequence doesn’t work because neither the editing nor the subjects are trustworthy.

Sex: The Annabel Chong Story (2008)

Annabel was emo before it became trendy.

Annabel finally admits making pornography is far less fun than it looks. She thinks being the subject of a 251 person gang-bang (I guess she cramped up before reaching 300) is the most torturous event a person can experience, but the only true test of endurance here is staying awake for 85 minutes worth of worthless documentary.

(NOTE: In one obviously staged scene, where our porn star slices into her arm in order to “let out the pain inside,” I briefly imagine Sex might be the worst documentary ever made. Fortunately for Annabel and company, I’ve also seen Kurt & Courtney.)

Final score: 16 out of 100.
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*Sorry sickos, you're going to have to track that one down on your own.