Blog Roundup

Slow moving today after way too much last night. The Cinch was fun, then weird, then messy, then home. No stories from me today, but here's some choice comments from blogs I read:

From the Foxy Librarian: All the Porn that's Fit to Print

-Hello, I need a publisher’s contact information. For a magazine.
-No problem. What is the name of the magazine?
-It’s a…uh…an adult magazine. Is that O.K.?
-“Go ahead,” I replied using the weary, flat affect of one who’s heard it all, a tone I’ve been really cultivating lately.
-Mandate. One word, I think.

I turned to Ulrich’s, the venerable, authoritative reference source of bibliographic and publisher information for periodicals. I wasn’t sure if Ulrich’s indexed smut, but I was quite curious to find out, since I really wasn’t eager to see what a Google search would turn up.

-“I found two, one published by the United Church of Canada and the other by Mandate Publications LTD. I have a hunch it’s the latter.”

I had to say that I like the authoritative quality of that title, and the humorous pun for which that genre of magazine is often known. I saw that Ulrich’s categorized Mandate under the subject heading “Men’s Interest.” I wondered what other publications had that subject heading. The journals ranged from fashion and lifestyle, like Vogue Homme and Cigar Aficiando, to erotica to the hardcore, to the deviant - some really sick shit. Oh, I had my fun browsing the list of titles the rest of the afternoon.

Read the rest.

From Joe.My.God: Walker/Don't Walker

I usually only get approached by hookers when I'm in the vicinity of fancy midtown hotels, where well-dressed young women will smile as if you're an old friend and say brightly, "Hey, you havin' a good night?" Maybe they think I look like an expense account-toting bidnizman, but I usually say flatly, "I live here" and they go on their way.

Last night I was waiting to cross the street near Times Square, when two very young girls sidled up to me. One of them said, "Wassup, you lookin' for a date?" I shook my head and turned my attention back to the traffic signal. She tried again. "You wanna party with us?" Without looking at them, I said forcefully, "NO!" Not liking my 'tude, she barked, "Damn. Why you gotta be that?" I said, "Well, for starters, you're underage and you're female." The second one pulled her friend away and said, "Ooh, she just mad cuz she too old for Splash."

Damn. Why they gotta be like that?

And there is still lots being said about GOP Washing State Senator Richard Curtis who is claiming he was a victim of extortion because he (the senator) wouldn't pay a hustler the $1,000 he promised if, after the male hooker did him, the hustler would allow the senator to bareback him, which he did, and then the senator didn't pay. The huslter and general ne'er do well took the senator's wallet when the senator refused to pay, called him up and said you have to pay or I might tell your wife. The the senator called the police and they arrested the hustler for blackmail. Oh yeah, the republican senator likes to get nailed while wearing women's clothes and stockings, has lots of kink fetishes, and trolls adult bookstores and gets on his knees in the stalls.

The senator has a long record of virulent anti-gay politics and votes against any protections or civil rights for gays and lesbians.

Astoundingly, none of the mainstream press is talking about the hypocrisy, or the rash of married-straight-republican-gay-sex scandals and the whole topic that repression and demonizing of same-sex relationships is what forces people to act out in such destructive ways.

Pretty much, the mainstream media just stops at "gay sex." Just after they make it all filthy and effed up.

This is all happening on Dan Savage's turf, and his blog Slog has some excellent coverage. Also of the whole sex-restop police sting that nabbed 20 guys doing it/trying to do it with other dudes in a highway rest stop.

All of the men self-identify as straight and conservative.

All of the men are married.

Except for the priest.

I am not making this up.

On the Republican State Senator Curtis and his male prostitute story:

Dan Savage

For the latest on not-gay GOP state rep Richard Curtis, click here—and, believe me, the click is more than worth your while. Lingerie, cell phone pictures, anal sex, casinos, and more!

UPDATE: Aaaaaaaaaargh! There’s even more! Rope! Stethoscopes! Barebacking! More, more, MORE!

As if the details about anti-gay Washington State Rep. Richard (R-La Center) and his tryst with a male escort in Spokane, Washington, weren’t sordid enough, I spent the last hour wading through the 15 page police report. Holy crap! Curtis, hoping to keep this whole thing quiet, called the police himself. And when the police asked him what happened, Curtis told them everything.

It goes on with details. It would be hilarious if it weren't true, and if this guy hadn't dedicated his professional life to beating down the gays. Dan sums up the story nicely:

Holy crap. My God. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What. A. Mess.

Active political blogger Pam Spaulding may have said it best. Her conclusion is being quoted by many bloggers (including me):

OK. I'm living a relatively plain jane lesbian existence simply asking for my civil rights while closet cases like Curtis get all sorts of kinks on while railing against openly LGBT citizens. It makes me sick.

And I like this guy's take on the coverage and the scandal:

I'm souring a bit on these stories.

First of all:

Please, each of you ... Think of your own sex life. Especially my gay readers. If you really had to write it all out, partner by partner, episode by episode, blow by blow ... How sordid would it actually seem? I have a feeling that even those among us with a rather tame romantic history would find their own lives to appear quite debauched if reported in the same breathless manner as news stories that are coming out about Washington state representative Curtis.

I do not care whether he likes to wear women's "panties" or cavort with male "escorts," as long as the encounters are non-violent, consensual and do not impinge on the rights of a third party.

What I care about is the hypocrisy.

Once again, as we've seen over and over, we have a self-proclaimed "Conservative" using his position of power to make gay people's lives miserable, while at the same time secretly using us for his own sexual gratification.

The problem is that this story -- as perceived by the public -- is not about hypocrisy.

The general public will understand this story as one about the intrinsic sordidness of the lives of gay people.

News reports about Curtis say nothing about his voting record or his standing as a "social Conservative." They are just about cross-dressing, male prostitutes, anal sex and blackmail.

He also has a comment on The New York Times story I cited earlier regarding the vanishing gayborhoods.

Perhaps some of my straight readers can tell me ...

What is the instinct that drives straight, white people -- the powerful mainstream -- to invade minority enclaves and seize them, despite the fact that there might be better places to live nearby that aren't already taken?

Straight people need to move in to mostly gay neighborhoods.

What drives you?

Neither Chelsea nor the Castro are known for the quality of their housing stock. Or access to high culture. Or food culture. Or schools. Or really anything, except for gayness.

Yet, you must live there. You are driven with this weird passion. Doesn't that seem kind of strange to you?

I have no desire to move anywhere near where you live.

Not really. Why would I?

Check out how upset people were when a so-called "Leather Fair" was held recently in Greenwich Village, New York's historic gay neighborhood. "The children! The children!" people screamed about the fair, which was held on Weehawken St. Weehawken St. is basically an alley that runs behind The Dugout bar on Christopher St. one block over from the highway, next to an adult bookstore.

The only "children" to walk along Weehawken St. in recent decades are transgendered teenagers making their way from giving blowjobs on Christopher St. pier to the PATH station down the block.

I do not understand you people.

I have the same attitude to those who decry the festish fairs (Folsom, Dore, etc.). If you're offended by it, don't go. Same way I feel about the censorship of books and television. If you don't want to see it, don't watch. The television has a channel changer, and an off switch.

But seriously, for a good time go check out the Foxy Librarian.
(pun intended)