the awesome/terrifying freedom

john talks about the phenomenon of male objectification in the media.

i have a lot of theories on all this - some of which have gotten me into drunken screaming matches in bars.

i've been thinking about where this new male objectification implies that our society might be heading. it's always been interesting to me that socially, women are allowed and encouraged to evaluate the attractiveness of other women, but straight men must deny any knowledge of what makes another guy hot, or even what makes themselves hot. classic female beauty is the result of innumerable products, scrubs, applications, peels, treatments, etc. but classic straight male hotness must seem accidental; the great body comes from playing sports, which comes from a desire to beat the shit out of other guys - and definitely not from needing a good v-shaped back because it looks really good with the new tapered button-up, untucked shirt look.

it all seems to stem from a key difference between men and women - that men require arousal for sex to take place - and that arousal is easily gained through visual image. and so women, since the beginning of time, have beat themselves and each other up trying to look good enough to give johnnie a stiffy. nice deal for johnnie, huh?

so why is it that 'gay men always dress better,' 'have better taste,' and 'care about how they look'?? because gay men are subjected to the same litmus test that straight women face: that ultimate siskel and ebert, the erection. and gay men know it on an even more intrinsic level than women do because we are faced with the litmus test every time we look in the mirror. 'do i look hot enough to turn myself on?'

and now we've reached the era of johnnie homo - an era where the adonis complex is no longer just a gay phenomenon. where women not only have spending power, but sexual power. an era where straight men are getting cosmetic surgery more than ever before - and part of me thinks this is great! straight men finally know what superficial objectification feels like! but then part of me thinks how sad that we all just can't be hot the way we are. will the rodney king of the future be saying 'can't we all just be hot?'

last night i watched a bit of 'in the life,' a gay news program on pbs that i used to sneak out of bed to watch back when i was in high school.

one of the lead stories was on ageism in the gay community - another phenomenon i find fascinating. what is going to happen to my gay generation when we hit 50-60-70 years old? we will be a very unique group of elderly - we will have survived the aids crisis, we will have lived through our youth without the grand scale war of our parents (and their parents) went through, and we will be the first generation of eldery in all of history where the majority of us will have lived out of the closet for almost our entire lives. so it's very possible that we'll see a whole new market emerge as we get older.. and hopefully the ageism will start to disappear as the young'uns start feeling the cold march of time themselves. those centrum silver and depends commercials are going to get a lot more fabulous. gay men may finally discover what the straight world seemed to know all along: that men can be sexualized well into their 60's. remember sean connery boning catherine zeta jones in 'entrapment?' well it was creepy, but you have to examine what makes that type of pairing possible; it's the same phenomenon that allows ron jeremy to be a porn star - men who see the film want to believe that even when they're old they can bag a chick like zeta jones. hmm.. i guess that doesn't really help my point, does it? we're still talking about a youth based, image perfected fantasy, only made more accessible through the fulcrum of a leathery old man.

i'll talk about sugar daddies later.

are gay men doomed to replace their sexual power in youth with financial power in old age? unless old people suddenly become sexier than younger people, i think the answer will always be yes.

anyone have any insights? anyone want to throw a drink in my face?