Recently, in a bright exchange of words I like to call a meaningful conversation, my good friend and I pondered about various famous men we lusted after in middle school.  Once Ricky Martin and his taut cheeks came up in the mix, we drooled and pondered about how he also liked men with taut butt cheeks.  Then we really got to thinking and grew depressed at the disappointment of the day Lance Bass took a giant leap out of the closet (even though it wasn’t the most surprising news we’d ever received).

The bright side? I hadn’t thought of Ricky Martin since shaking my bon-bon in my parents’ basement at the respectable age of 13. His coming out lifting him from obscurity and catapulted him back to the level of his days sipping out of the Cup of Life. I was hearing about him virtually everywhere. Ricky Martin hid from fame for so long and with his news, came out of a closet and basked in US Weekly glory, paycheck after paycheck.

Coming out in Hollywood is like working overtime.  It’s the key to success for has-been A-listers, a chance to return to relevance and once again soak up the limelight.  Look at Lindsay Lohan for instance; she didn’t need her leggings line anymore once she started toting DJ Samantha Ron-Hizzle around.  And who needs the title of American Idol when you’re sporting eye liner and getting frisky with other dudes on stage like one Mr. Adam Lambert? And you know Lance Bass’s “I’m Gay” cover story took him from former boy-bander who no one remembered to insta-celebrity over night.

It’s true: going gay is the life jacket to Hollywood careers. It does what no publicist, Oscar nomination or incarceration could ever manage. It’s more powerful than a nipple slip, more potent than an ill-fitting stage ensemble, and more memorable than general douche-baggery. It’s the key to going from child-star-turned-Vegan-farmer to Reality TV Show host with endorsement deals and magazine covers to boot.

And keeping that in mind, I’m surprised Heidi Montag hasn’t gotten a girlfriend yet there are a few suspect D-Listers out there who might want to consider throwing open the doors of the closet they’ve been hiding in. We haven’t seen or heard much from these peeps in awhile, but that’s nothing that an “I’m Gay” won’t fix. You can thank us later, Hollywood. Read More »

So, have you ever broken up with someone, and sworn to stay friends with him or her? Have you ever fallen out of touch with that someone, and decided to catch up on his or her life by looking at Flickr? When you found that person’s Flickr, did you happen to see several drugged-up hipster burlesque girls licking each others’ necks?

No? That’s what makes my exes special.

When I saw that my former beau was posting pictures of sexually adventurous Brooklynites, I had to call him up.

“Those ladies sure do like to lick each other,” I said. “Why is that? Are they tasty? Are they all covered in nacho cheese?”

“Girls do this,” he said. “Every time I get out the camera, they start making out with each other. I take picture one, they’re friends, picture two, they’re friends, picture three, they’re sucking face. I just stand there, like, ‘I didn’t ask for this! This is all on you two!’”

Kissing girls, to be honest, is trendy. Right now, one of the biggest songs out there is called “I Kissed A Girl.” It’s by Katy Perry, and it’s got all the right props: drinking (“I got so brave, drink in hand”), a Lolita vibe of horny-yet-so-far-untouched experimentation (“It’s not what, I’m used to / Just wanna try you on / I’m curious for you”), and, most depressingly, a boyfriend lurking just out of sight, reassuring us that this girl isn’t really a lesbian (“I kissed a girl just to try it / I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it”). Read More »

I get looks a lot. That shouldn’t really strike me as surprising; everyone gets looks. Amused looks, horrified looks, heartbroken looks, enamored looks…I’ve gotten them all. Still, nothing was quite the punch in the gut as the look my mother gave me when I told her I was going out with a girl.

I’d been dating Megan for something like six months around the time I finally talked to my mom. For six months, I was horrified at the concept of telling my middle-aged, old-fashioned African-American mother that her daughter, the girl she had been a father and mother to for twenty years, was very much in love with your typical Irish girl (sans fiery-red Weasley hair).

I had told my mother that I was bi before, but it was some six years ago and I’m pretty sure that she just passed it off as me being dazed after being hit over the head with puberty. I was almost certain that she’d forgotten (she hadn’t, the old elephant), and when I told her, a look of terror and disgust would follow suit.

It didn’t, and I still can’t decide if I’m grateful for that or not. Read More »

It was the fall of senior year. My dorm was hosting a party loosely based around an Angels and Devils theme, but really—like a lot of college festivities—the theme was mostly centered on girls wearing slutted-out attire and screaming tournaments of beer pong.

I remember standing in the hall with one of my best friends since Freshmen year. We were pretending to have a conversation so I could stare over her shoulder at the snowboarding, dimpled love of my life. He didn’t know he was the love of my life, but somehow I was going to fix that. Somehow.

When I finally steered my gaze back to her face (the love of my life had fallen into a trashcan and was stuck in an adorable drunken stupor), I noticed she was looking at me strangely.

“Hey” she said, shifting her weight and pushing her long hair out of her face, “I need to tell you something.”

“Sure” I said, although I was hesitant to take my attention off my trashcan love. What if he got out and I wasn’t there?

“Let’s go into your room” she said, “it’s sort of…a weird thing.” Read More »