Print Out (Part 2)

There has been some hype about Genre magazine relaunching with some significant changes, and since I had previously identified it as providing the least value in major gay lifestyle magazines, I was curious to see if there would actually be any improvements or not. I was a little surprised to find that it is pretty much the same, and certainly provides no new reason to select it off the newsstand instead of any of its competitors.

The changes to the magazine were promised by its new editor-in-chief, Neal Boulton. To create buzz around any such changes, he characterized them as being part of trend towards a "post gay America". The concept is so ludicrous I won't waste space discussing it here, but will summarize that Boulton wanted to use it as an excuse to make Genre a more generic (i.e. less distinctively gay) mens magazine. To clarify, he is looking for some way to sell more subscriptions and increase newsstand sales and his thought is that he can do it by broadening his target market segment to be all men.

Boulton said in his inaugural editor's letter that he wanted Genre to be a "magazine for every man". That's strange, because looking through the first issue it is not clear how a story about a gay porn star or a gay rugby team would necessarily appeal to "every man".

The new editor also explained that gay interests like wanting a hot car, a hot body, and hot clothes are things that everyone else in America shares. How out of a touch can a person be? Straight men are still buying pickup trucks, chowing to excess at the Golden Corral buffet, and buying their "good" clothes at Wal-Mart.

The truth is, that like detergent companies that add an extra drop of fragrance to their product and call it "new and improved", Boulton so far has made minor changes for show instead of working on the actual quality of what he is trying to sell. To me it looks like the same magazine except for two things. One is that the front cover is trying to mimic tabloids by emphasizing the proven trick of using numbers to convince people that there is a lot of material inside (e.g "101 Ways to ..."). The second thing, in the October issue, is a two page spread on motorcycles. Actually, it was only a one page article with a facing title page consisting primarily of a picture of one motorcycle. In usual Genre tradition, the magazine makes sure it doesn't overwork its writers. Ditto for the page on Manuka Mule - a whole page for instructions on making a drink consisting of four ingredients. I'd like to be the person who got paid for those two minutes worth of work.

I will give credit for reducing the number of pages devoted to average Joe's. While some in the past have been good to look at, their inane answers to even dumber questions only showed what useless slugs they are.

Unfortunately for the magazine, it may intentionally be moving further away from having any raison d'etre at all. If looking for a real gay lifestyle magazine, for four cents less on the cover price, Instinct would a better deal. The October issue of Genre and the November issue of Instinct both had 96 pages (including Genre's useless 15 page "special advertising section") but Instinct just has more worthwhile copy in it. Genre took me less than 10 minutes to go through it cover to cover, while I am still not done with Instinct as it always takes several sittings to get through.

Bachelor Of The Year

Last week I watched the annual cheesy photo-op of Cosmo magazine's 50 hottest bachelors on the Today show. Seeing a sample of men from each of the states provides a nice variety of eye candy. Of course they are really only the hottest of the limited number of people who actually applied, but it still made for a pleasant view. I was never interested in collecting the 50 state quarters, but this is the kind of cross country collection that I could get into. Hurrah for federalism!

Cosmo magazine annually has its readers submit and vote for their favorite bachelors. One bachelor is selected from each state to be eligible to be selected the magazine's bachelor of the year. The 50 men are paraded through New York City with a shirt advertising the magazine and their home state. In exchange for their dignity, the winner is awarded an oversized cardboard check for $10,000.

The Today segment was short, beginning with a pan of the man mob, followed by Ann Curry trying futilely to hold onto her journalistic integrity, and ending with an inexplicable push-up "contest" between Maryland and Illinois. I had to go to the magazine's website to find out more. There I found pictures of all 50 men along with some facts and some personal comments, which were of the low quality variety that you typically find attached to fold-out, pin-up models.

Perusing through the pictures, I quickly realized that the best men came from the midwest Great Lakes and Great Plains states. Comparing region to region, it wasn't even close. Corn-fed beef reigns supreme. It makes me want to eat some corn on the cob instead of using it for its other purpose.

The comments the guys made taught me something about straight men - they are surprisingly needy. Examples:

• Relationship must-have: “I’ll do anything for a girl I love. But I want her to be ­devoted to me too.”
• Dating deal breaker: “When girls talk only about themselves. Make space for me too!”
• Sweet chick move he digs: “When I get ­separated at a party from a woman I’m dating, I love when she comes back to me for a bit to let me know she’s thinking about me.”
• Chick trait he craves: “I hope to meet someone who is a good listener. I can talk a lot, and I want to sense that she’s really listening to what I’m saying.”
• Hint from a hottie: “The typical guy needs to be reassured every once in a while that his girlfriend still has strong feelings for him.”

Other comments involved promoting the stereotype that men are easy to understand and that women are not. From Mr. Ohio (at left): [If he had a superpower:] “I’d want to be able read girls’ minds. Then I’d write a book about it to help out other guys, since we’re all in the dark!”

That straight women buy into this load of crap makes me think a little less of them. The honest response is, "If I can pretend that I don't know what you're talking about because I'm a man, I've got a great excuse for ignoring you and doing whatever the hell I want to."

A third theme running through the comments was the need for the men to get away from their girls. South Carolina: "I like to go to a secluded place in the mountains and spend time relaxing and reflecting.” I know these guys are straight (or at least have to pretend to be in order to win), but isn't this what Ennis Del Mar wanted also?

The winner was Ohio. Best dark horses: Alabama and Utah.

When Straight Men Stray

Senator Craig from Idaho gets arrested for allegedly making improper advances to a male undercover cop. He claims afterwards that he is not gay. I for one have no reason to doubt his statement. Straight men performing sexual acts with other men is not unusual. If anything good could come from this unpleasant situation, it would be a better understanding of the fact that straight men occasionally stray "gay".

I wouldn't want to wade too deep into the question of what does it mean for a person to be considered gay or straight. However, I will mention one interesting thing I heard on the subject some numbers of years back. It was a statement from the then director of the Kinsey Institute (located in sexually active Indiana). She said that, 1) science didn't know yet what caused heterosexuality, and 2) straight/gay were defined by who a person falls in love with. I liked that the definition steered away from who you have sex with, since there are gay people who don't have sex with their own gender and there are straight people who sometimes do.

Still, I'm not sure if this makes the discussion clearer since it would be easy to fall into a side discussion of loving someone versus being in love. Instead let's go with the sense of attraction, skipping love and sex altogether. I don't think Senator Craig wanted to go for long walks on the beach with his cop, or spend a evening with him at a romantic candlelit dinner. He would want to with his wife or at least some female, but with his potty paramour, he would only want to take care of business. It's just an extension of masturbation.

So why wouldn't a straight guy just wait until he got home to the missus or just jack the hammer himself? I think straight men would deviate into stall balling for two reasons. One is that when they need to get off, they need to do it right now and with whatever is available. Two is that men need variety in their sexual activity. Same-sex sex provides the unusual thrill that makes up for the other 90% of the time when they are harpooning their hag in the stale old missionary position.



Straight men, whether they be politicians or twenty-something internet studs, can and will have sex with other men. Thank goodness or we wouldn't have some of our favorite adult entertainment websites. The only problem really is that we need to get people out of public restrooms, parks, and bookstores. I think the best solution would be to add darkrooms to sports bars. I would put up with a few quarters of watching football for a little backroom Monday Night Bar-balling.

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When straight men have to do that gay thing

Hardee's: Feeding Straight Men

For quite some time the Hardee's burger chain has been targeting straight, blue-collar males in their advertising. It is the only demographic that would find scenes of exaggerated mastication and licking food off paper, fingers and pants as something that would encourage them to eat at the sponsoring restaurant. I have found these commercials to be moderately sickening, but for attracting the target market I'm sure it has been a good ploy.

With most advertising campaigns, you know that it is only a matter of time before it is replaced with a new one, so you only have to bear the bad ones for a limited amount of time. Unfortunately, with this campaign it seems like it has been going on for several years with no end in sight, and even worse the company's ad buyers seem to be deliberately concentrating their placement on shows I watch (which doesn't say much for their selections).

I admit sometimes I have had a strange fascination watching the ads, trying to understand what my not gay counterparts would enjoy about them. For example, there is the latest commercial video with the near nude blonde ripping into an oversized burger. I'm not sure how the imagery of a woman savagely using her incisors on a piece of meat is considered an appealing visual for wooing males (straight or otherwise).

It has occurred to me that perhaps there is a positive side to all of this. For any gay men with a fetish for straight guys, Hardee's can be your hetero hunting ground. Spend your lunch hour absorbing the smells of burnt meat, testosterone, and construction sweat. I wonder if Hardee's has thought about the possibility of this marginal offshoot from the gay community.

(a parody)

On a side note, on my way home tonight I noticed a sign in the window at my local Hardee's advertising their 2 for $3 Big Shef special and I decided to do some on-site research. I went through the drive-thru and even though the glass was tinted (to block the customers' view of any health code violations?), I could see that the store inside was devoid of customers. Oh, well. I imagine in my neighborhood most people would be like me and feel that eating in the store is akin to eating in a restroom, so I wasn't surprised. Still, I liked Burger Chef's Big Shef back in the day, and was willing to check out Hardee's incarnation of the famous sandwich to see how close they came to the original. The time that has passed since Hardee's devoured the Burger Chef chain and threw out their menu has not been so long that I wouldn't know for sure that the Hardee's and Burger Chef versions are not the same. They both have a bun and some ground meat but that is the extent of the similarity.


The sandwich was edible, although in keeping with the maximum unhealthiness campaign it was strongly over salted. There was no problem in getting it down as the thick concentration of grease allowed the bites of burger to easily slide down the gullet. However, the layer of grease seemed to also block any taste other than the salt from getting to the taste buds. If you go to Hardee's for the man watching, I suggest just getting a diet coke, and if you sit in the dining area, wear something easily washable.