Great Moments in Straight Guy Fashion: Members Only

Forgive me, fashion, for I have sinned. My last confession was in 1983...

GG, what color was yours? Ever worn sans shirt and mostly unzipped?

Mine was actually a knock-off but I'll take the hit anyway.

Anyone else?

--Straight Guy

Gay Guy / Straight Guy Bad Idea Award: Fireshaving

Gay Guy,

Fire shaving can be used on all the same areas as regular shaving. Faces, legs, and manscape are all fair game for fire shaving, and while the exact prep work and procedure may change slightly for the different areas, the basic technique is the same. Start off by modifying the lighter to give around a 2" flame. A flame of this length is large enough to burn off a good area of hair at once, while still being easy to control...

If you don't know about instructables.com, it's a site where everyone can share their bits of expertise on a wide range of topics: crafts, home improvement, technology, recycling, whatever. Just write it up, step by step, upload some photos, and voila, you are now the premier authority.

This kid, however, is a nut job.

I have no problem with shaving like a normal person, there are many things I do like a normal person. It is just sometimes I want a quick way to eradicate all the little hairs on my face without all the ceremonious procedures of a regular shaving.

Ummm, OK. And protectively wrapping your head in painter's tape is not a ceremonious procedure?

Honestly, I would rank flame-powered, below-the-belt, manscaping right up there with waterboarding as an effective way to get people to talk. But I have plenty of blue painter's tape, and you're welcome to have a roll if you're feeling adventurous, GG.

--Straight Guy

Straight Guys: Predictable, But Not Hopeless

Gay Guy,

The results are in.

AOL's men's lifestyle site, Asylum.com, recently asked what celebrity most guys wish to party with. Of the more than 83,000 respondents, 40 percent named Megan Fox, while 31 percent chose Tina Fey. Trailing the Transformers sex symbol and the 30 Rock life force, respectively – and by quite a distance – were Paris Hilton, Penélope Cruz, Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan.

No surprise to me. I noticed Tina Fey a long time ago when she transitioned from head writer at SNL to anchoring the Weekend Update skit. Smart, sassy, self-deprecating. She's got it going on.

Fox is just the latest ce-web-rity whose internet fame far exceeds her current accomplishments. How could you possibly know if you'd enjoy the company of someone, even given the fact they they bent over rather attractively in a "Transformers" movie... which I have probably never seen.

I guess the word "party" is open to interpretation, and I'll admit that straight guys get this wrong quite often. Just because you crack a can of Michelob in the 7-11 parking lot and scream "part-eee!" at the top of your lungs does not magically make it so, dude. But if I was single and given the choice, I'd probably find myself in the back of the room snarking on the idiotic shenanigans, and Fey would be welcome company.

So give us a little credit. Even though if you dig through the results a little deeper, you'll find out the Asylum readers' ultimate party involves beer-pong at the Playboy Mansion.

George Clooney and Owen Wislon topped the list for male party companions.

Readers, GG, who are your party picks?

-Straight Guy

How Do YOU Roll? Gay/Straight Car Survey

Straight Guy,

Sorry to be quiet over here in Gayland. Work's been a drain.

Speaking of silence, you still haven't told me how you new mini-van is working out. But now you can. Amazing, non?

Gaywheels.com wants to know what straights and gays drive. Yes, straight people, too. In fact, the survey is "actively recruiting non-LGBT respondents." We gays love to recruit. And, cruise, with or without cars.

Take the LGBT car survey.

Since I don't drive, someone be sure to tell me what happens after question one. That's right, readers: GG does not drive. How gay is that?

SG, while you and our car-driving readers are filling out the survey, I'll come up with some posts.

--Gay Guy

Straight, But Gay on Craigslist. Thanks, Honey!

Angry ex-girlfriend gets her revenge by posing online as her boyfriend, only gay...

The ad, which was posted in Craigslist's "Casual Encounters" section, included several photos of the 24-year-old..., including one explicit image, and his business phone number.

There are worse things that can happen. But this is only half the story. He must have done something. Thank goodness Glenn Close didn't have these options in Fatal Attraction. "You will not be ignored!"

Now I know that when Gay Guy does me wrong, I will punish him by posting an "encounters" entry describing him as a Dockers-wearing, NASCAR-loving, Applebee's-eating, straight guy. But I won't give out his work number. That's just mean.

--Straight Guy

Mainstreaming MILFs and Cougars

Last fall, I mentioned the term "MILF" to Gay Guy, and he puzzled for a few moments before it clicked. I understand that GG has no use for the term in a literal sense. And I admit that I've aged out of the demographic of applicable and ironic use myself. (If anyone is still in the dark on this: "Mom I'd Like to..." First made popular, I believe, in regards to the character known only as Stiffler's Mom in "American Pie").

Yes, it's course and just another form of male objectification. But who uses the F word literally except porn stars and Dick Cheyney? Even if it is taken at face value, there's a compliment in there somewhere, right? It's certainly less offensive than the other circulating alternative, "Yummy Mommy" which seems childish and gross. "Cougars" are the flip-side of the coin, older women on the prowl for young guys.

Obviously sexy women who have kids are not a new phenomenon. But the classification is becoming mainstream. Don't doubt it: Will and Jada Smith are developing a sitcom called "MILF and Cookies," Courtney Cox will soon premier "Cougar Town."

The term MILF implies maturity –– if not sophistication –– and nothing about the woman's morality. "Cougar" seems to imply the opposite, no? One is passive, while the other is predatory. It's a matter of perspective, right?

If youth-based pop-culture is finding mature women to be sexier than before, that's healthy, I assume. And if new cougar Madonna (at 50+) wants to start dating 20 something models, it's the same thing that rich men have been doing (and getting grief for) for years.

Readers, let me know. MILF: crude but complimentary? Cougar: less raw, but more insulting, right?

Also, can this have possibly gone any worse for the ultra-serious Moro Islamic Liberation Front? Good luck with your web domains, dudes.

I'll leave you with a recent SNL skit featuring Cameron Diaz and Alec Baldwin as a "Cougay." (Still doubt that this stuff is mainstream? Note that Baldwin also plays the executive on 30 Rock who champions the show-within-a-show: "MILF Island.")

--Straight Guy

Men in Tights...

Gay Guy,

Maybe we can meet in the middle...

U2 and Julie Taymor team up for a Spider-Man musical on Broadway

According to the press release, “Spider-Man’s battles will hurtle the audience through an origin story both recognizable and unexpected — yielding new characters as well as familiar faces — until a final surprising confrontation casts a startling new light on this hero’s journey.”

--Straight Guy

Circumcision: Slice of (Boy's) Life

Straight Guy,

Thanks for your February 24 piece, no pun intended, on circumcision. You chopped off the detail that you are likely kissing the ground with joy for having daughters only.

This post might not be for everyone, so skim and skip if necessary. But, SG asked, so I answer.

Don't know if I have anything special to say on the topic of circumcision, but because, as a gay man, I am both an owner/operator and consumer of penile products, here goes.

Much as I like thinking about men and their little buddies, I don't like thinking about the mechanics of how the hood in what's under the hood becomes obsolete. In fact, as I sit on the sofa writing this I've noticed that I've subconsciously pulled a pillow between my thighs.

Consistent with the vast majority of post-World War II, hospital-born, middle-class American men, I'm cut. I doubt my parents spent ten seconds thinking about what to do with my newborn junk. Nor did my friends' parents. I can count on exactly two fingers the number of uncut boys I saw my entire K-12 locker room career. They were brothers who moved to our town when we were in about the sixth grade. I was trying not to look at their stuff despite how fascinating it was, but someone in the locker pointed and asked, in essence, "What the hell you got going on down there?"

Circumcision was so common that I never thought about it either. Looking back on it, I see now that it was one of the few ways I wasn't different than other guys. In fact, when I learned that there was cut and uncut, I didn't really understand it and agonized trying to figure out which one I was. This is where pictures can really help in the learning process.

My personal penile Consumer Reports is that this is all about aesthetics not utility. As long as you like the look, either brand is fine and provides the same amount of customer satisfaction. But, this is something that men can really get hung up on. I have friends with strong preferences.

My educated guess is that guys who prefer uncut are probably cut and turned on by the difference. The guys who are cut-only consumers are probably cut and just want to stick with their own kind. Personally, I don't care if the little guy sports a crew neck or a turtle neck, though I must admit that the foreskin version feels like it should have a foreign accent attached.

Men use cut and uncut in their online profiles to describe either what they want/don't want or what they have to offer. It's usually written as 'c' and 'u/c'. Avid cook that I am, the first time I saw this I thought that 'c' was like something in a recipe. . . a cup of what I wondered?

The creepy part of the circumcision debate is the father/son identification issue. As the author of the article you found writes:

"That's when I realized my quest to keep my son uncircumcised was at least partially ego-borne. I wanted him to resemble me -- and I don't mean I just wanted strangers to tell me he had my eyes."

I've read and been told that pediatricians advise parents to have a son shall we say coifed to match the father to facilitate father/son bonding. If I were to compare scars with my dad, I hope it would stop with a vaccination mark. Who bonds over something like this? What ever happened to chess? I'm just as happy to know that I resemble my dad because we have matching noses and are insufferably moody and leave the rest to the imagination.

There has to be a better way. If the surgical vanguard can fix a cleft palate and invent a new face for Joan Rivers, you think they could come up with a baby boy demi-cut. Sort of a half and half. Just a trim, please. It'd soothe the guilt factor and split the decision making like Solomon's sword. Figuratively only, I mean.

--Gay Guy

Gay Weddings, Straight Weddings: Does it (Gift) Register With Me?

Straight Guy,

I found this link in my mailbox today to a New York Times article about gay engagements and weddings that ran on Valentine's Day. Sorry I missed it when it ran, but I am behind in the never-ending task of attacking the stack of newspapers in my apartment. (My manically tidy mother started to comment about it; I distracted her by telling her that it was an avant-garde art installation. I must say that I am beginning to worry that it will fall on me in the night and cause me to suffocate in my sleep.)

Anyway, back to here comes the bride and bride.

The nut of this very sweet article is that gays and lesbians imitate heterosexual traditions --sentimental proposals, rings, trips down the aisle, inviting guests for an over-the-top dinner. Shocking! Everybody, including gays, covets what they see. We all grew up attending and imagining straight weddings so that's what we know.

None of this seems very newsworthy to me --but the more straight people know about the wonderfully ordinary dreams and longings of gay people, the better.

Any thoughts of a wedding for me are purely academic: My dating career of late. . . well, let's just say that the economy is not the only drastic recession affecting me. But, when I imagine myself sailing over the line between being single and officially no longer single, I am not sure how I would want to acknowledge or celebrate it. A ring, yes. A bended knee proposal? I don't think so. I think the "proposal" as it were would be much more of a quiet acknowledgment of what had already occurred. Maybe going down on a bended knee while filling in the 'next of kin' line with my boyfriend's name is more like it. A wedding reception. . . probably not.

A few years ago, a gay couple who are dear friends invited friends and family to join them for a celebration of ten years as a couple. Their reasoning was that anyone can start a relationship, but being together --and still happy-- after a decade deserved a party. I think that's the approach that rings truest to me.

Don't get me wrong, I love being invited to weddings. . . straight or gay, church or harbor cruise. I feel honored and always mist up being part the special and sacred moment. I really enjoyed myself when you and Mrs. Straight Guy got married. Until then, I had no idea what a good dancer you are, SG!

But, should I ever get married in some traditional way, I promise you two things, Straight Guy. One, you'll be there. Two, in a place of honor, just behind the high-end catered food, there will be a tray of cheese doodles and Hostess Ho Hos and a bowl of Milk Duds just for you. I'd hate to see you go home hungry from my big day.

--Gay Guy

"Share a Taste?": Gay/Straight Fork in the Road?

Straight Guy,

Will straight guys share a “taste” of dinner?

Last evening a friend and I had a fun dinner out. “How’s your food?” I asked. “Great,” she replied. “Do you want a taste?” she asked while easing her plate a few inches across the table toward me. I traded a fork of my tuna steak for a taste of her lamb.

“This is why eating with gay men is nice,” she said. “Straight men will never take a taste of any one else’s food.”

Straight Guy, does her observation ring true?

I’ve been thinking over my friend’s comment. I usually take a taste if offered. If I don’t remember to offer a taste, it’s usually because I am selfishly hogging my choice. I know I share “tastes” with female friends. And, last week I had dinner with a straight male friend and we traded a forkful each. But, I know that if I asked my dad if he wanted to try a taste of something I ordered, he’d look uncomfortable and decline. You and I don’t eat together much so that's not much help there. So, I’m stumped.

Readers, straight and gay. . . what’s your take on taking a taste? Leave a comment below and help me solve this savory question.

--Gay Guy