Men kissing men

(Hoping some people in Utah will find my blog through Google searches ;)

So you may have heard that Adam Lambert kissed a guy--his keyboardist--at the American Music Awards last weekend. The incident caused quite a bit of controversy, with some expressing appalled outrage and others delighted support. To be clear, I fall in the latter category, since I look forward to the day when such acts are seen as perfectly acceptable by everyone.

Anyway, I find it interesting how there has been a much stronger negative reaction to Adam's kiss than there tends to be when two women kiss on TV--say, Madonna and Britney at the VMAs. It seems this is because, in general, men like seeing girl-on-girl action but are disgusted by guy-on-guy action. Women, on the other hand, do not have such a strong negative response to seeing girl-on-girl activities. So quite simply, guy-on-guy is offensive to half the population, while girl-on-girl is not particularly offensive to most people.

I have long been puzzled by the apparent disgust men feel at the sight of guy-on-guy action (I remember guys refusing to see Brokeback Mountain because they couldn't bear the one minute of male-male intimacy. Heads lopped off? Blood and guts spilling forth? Cool! Guys humping? Ugh I can't bear to watch it's just so wrong make it go away!!). I think personally, my reaction to seeing a woman kiss another woman is not unlike my reaction to seeing a woman kiss a man I don't find particularly attractive. It's kind of neutral. Not something I'm dying to do myself, but seeing it in a movie or TV show doesn't mean they're making me do it, so why should I care?

The Lambert incident served as a springboard for me to investigate this mystery. I quizzed a male friend over lunch (poor guy) on what exactly this disturbed reaction to male-male action is and why it exists. It is understandably difficult to express, but he made a good effort at getting me to understand his viewpoint.

My first question was "What exactly is this feeling of disgust? I mean, is it like the kind of disgust you'd feel finding a bloody, half-eaten hare with its guts hanging out in your backpack? Or is it like the disgust you feel when your housemates once again leave their dirty dishes on the counter for several days?" His response:
"Well, how would you feel if there were some ugly obese guy in a Speedo making out with an ugly obese girl in a bikini? Wouldn't you think, Ugh, that's disgusting!?"
An interesting point. Of course, ugly people are by definition unpleasant to look at, so it is not unnatural not to want to look at something unpleasant. The two men kissing are not themselves unpleasing to look upon. So it's not an exact analogy, but still, this was an enlightening explanation.

The second question was "Why do you find it so disgusting seeing two guys kiss?"
This was a tougher question with a more hand-wavy response. He explained that a large part of male personality is masculinity, and, to be frank, penetration (implied: of women) is a crucial part of masculinity. Thus, the thought of gay sex which requires a male to be penetrated is so contrary to the nature of men (as seen by straight men) it is abhorrent. I pointed out that seeing two guys kiss is a far cry from forcing you to have gay sex. He said that he does not find men pleasing to look upon, so if both of the kissers are men, it is displeasing to see (I didn't think of it at the time, but this seems pretty irrelevant because obviously men don't mind watching men do other things on TV or in movies). But even if I understand why guys don't enjoy watching men kiss, that doesn't explain why men find it so gross. Here he brought out the fat and ugly couple in bikinis example, saying that seeing the kissing is gross because you picture yourself in the situation and find that situation to be gross.

A third, kind of food-for-thought question that we discussed was whether the negative reaction to men kissing is instinctual/natural or cultural/societal. He was quick to blame it on nature, but my little knowledge of the ancient Greeks gave us pause. According to Wikipedia, it didn't matter so much the gender of the person a man was penetrating, it just mattered that the penetratee was a social inferior--a woman, a slave, or a youth would be acceptable. In such a society, two guys having sex would not be seen as abnormal, as long as the more dominant of the two were doing the "active", penetrating role. Since this was well-accepted in society, I would bet that in that culture, men would not have been immediately disgusted by seeing two males kissing.

So I guess the summary is that (straight) men find it gross to see two men kiss because they can't help but imagine themselves in that situation which they would find disgusting because it implies sexual relations that defy the very nature of masculinity in our culture. This explanation still has holes, and it is entirely anecdotal, coming from just one person. Does anyone else have any input?

Where's the pot of gold?

Not long after I walked back from work in the rain this evening, I noticed the sun shining brightly through my window from the west. Like any sane person would do, I immediately snatched up my camera and darted outside to look for a rainbow. The full double rainbow reached its peak a few minutes later. I might have gotten a better picture if I'd walked down to the river, but the ground is really muddy (it's been raining a lot lately), and I might have missed the rainbow's peak in brightness. Here is one of the photos I took:



I've seen brighter, but the cool thing about this one is that the rainbow ends right on the lawn, in front of the bushes. It may be a little hard to tell; it always looks brighter in person. So where's my pot of gold?

Interestingly, what I was doing when the sun started shining through my window was watching the new Funny or Die video "A Gaythering Storm" that spoofs the "Gathering Storm" anti-gay marriage ad. "Gathering Storm" would be laughable in its own right if it weren't for the fact that a significant portion of people in this country agree with it. "Gaythering Storm," though, is pretty funny.


Anyway, it was a pretty nice rainbow. And what better way to celebrate Earth Day than with such a beautiful wonder of nature?

George Takei weds

Original Star Trek star George Takei wed longtime partner Brad Altman in Los Angeles this past Sunday.

While Massachusetts has had same-sex marriages for years, it seems that the recent legalization of gay marriage in California has garnered a lot more attention, in part because so many celebrities live in California, and many of them are gay and letting people know about their happy marriages.

I haven't gotten political in this blog before, and it's not my intention to get very political. I generally try to avoid unneeded confrontations; in person, I've always been a bit of an appeaser--usually with things as simple as likes/dislikes of movies, foods, etc. ("That movie was so dumb." "I loved it!" "Oh, I just mean I wasn't really in the mood for it at the time...")--I don't like to offend people because of their opinions. In truth, there are some political or economic issues about which I don't see myself as informed enough to make a strong argument. But when it comes to certain social issues, I can be very passionate and get into heated arguments. But I don't want to get into any heated arguments here (with no one reading this blog, there's no one to argue with... though it does mean that I don't have to worry about offending anyone).

All I want to say here is this: I was watching Ellen DeGeneres' talk show last week, where she was showing a lovely video montage from her August wedding to Portia de Rossi. Now, I don't usually get sentimental over weddings, but I got a little teary-eyed watching the video. The wedding was so beautiful, and they looked so loving and happy together, I don't understand why anyone in this country would wish to deny them that joy.