Popingay

If gay were a choice, I’d choose gay

It’s well-documented that being gay is not a choice, and considering the one Xmas I received a calculator instead of a Tamagotchi, I’m pretty sure the power of prayer is even less effective at keeping me away from penises. But considering a hypothetical world where sexual orientation and gender identity were a choice, I can conclusively say that I would pick gay again, and again, and again.

“Why would anyone want to be gay if they had the choice?” I’ve heard this argument from queer folks and pitying straights alike who think that being gay (although innate) is a recipe for a difficult life of secrets and discrimination. And I’m not going to say that there aren’t struggles for queer individuals. We live in a largely unfriendly world, and even though there are wonderful people, and things are changing, the reality is that the world is not a wonderland for those on the rainbowy side of life.

But I’d rather ask, if we’re talking about your religious-socially-conservative version of heterosexuality as the alternative: who in their right mind would choose to be straight?

Your straightness is a culture of no. Living your life according to rigid sexual and gender roles to maintain your fragile sense of sexuality, gender, and self. As a man only willing to like sports, cars, beer, and objectifying women because you’re afraid that your love of ballet would somehow destroy your straightness. Or declaring the very end of the world itself because your son painted his toenails pink or likes to play with makeup. Or making your worth directly correlated to your attractiveness or the fertility of your womb. Because your kind of straight tells you no, no you cannot do, like, enjoy, or want whatever is in your heart.

But gayness, queerness, is a culture of yes! Yes I can profess my deep-seated love of musical theatre and shirtless men dancing to electronic music. Yes I can also like sports, or fatty foods, or watching horror movies in my sweatpants.

And sexually? If I enjoy being pounded by a hairy man-beast while trussed up like a Christmas turkey, then god damn it our community will let me go for it. Because if you don’t like it, well then fuck you.

And we stand up for each other’s right to be individuals, to choose our own paths in life free from judgement, interference, or control. It might not be what I want per se, but if it’s how you are, then you damn well better be running down the street in spangly gold booty shorts shrieking Beyonce tunes at the top of your lungs and grabbing your genitals. Whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, or whatever permutation under the umbrella you are, or if you’re our equally important straight allies, we are the ones who say YES. YES, BE YOURSELF!

Because it’s not just the fight for me to be fabulously gay, but the right for me to be fabulously, and unabashedly me no matter what that looks like.

Go ahead, tell me my life is sad and hard, and no one would or should want it. Because me, and all those with me, know who really has it hard, and we’ve got each other’s backs while you are busy stabbing your own.

So ask yourself again if being gay is a choice. Because if it were, then who would ever choose to be straight?

Why I will never understand webcamming

Webcamming is just watching poorly-lit porn with less attractive people, and a little window in the corner showing what they’re seeing of your doughy, misshapen self. It’s a situation where no one wins, and it confuses me.

I have no problems with the idea of procuring sex on the internet. Okay, I have a problem if you’re paying for it, but otherwise this is the information age, and if you want something you go to the internet. But outside of Chat Roulette’s unsettling plethora of penises, you will likely run across people who want to have virtual sex via webcam. And I just can’t get behind this.

First of all, I don’t understand the point. If I’m not going to get physical sex out of this, then why am I not watching porn? To me, webcamming just seems like a less satisfying version of jerking off to porn at home. And when the better alternative to sex requires the same amount of effort to yield about the same results, then why choose it?

I get that it’s an interactive experience. But so is real sex. And so, for that matter, is playing with a Tickle Me Elmo, but you don’t see that turning me on. Just because it’s a version of porn that can wave at you in a choppy, poorly-rendered fashion, does not make it truly interactive. Wouldn’t it be more involved if, oh I don’t know, you actually boned someone?

The only thing about webcamming that intrigues me is being in full control of the angle and lighting under which someone else is looking at my body. I think part of the reason I’m such a raging whore is that I enjoy lying on my back; it’s the most flattering position for anyone. Thanks to the magic of gravity, everything kind of sinks in and together, and we can go on pretending I’m a little bit higher up on the looks ladder than may be true. However, after some experimentation with taking a nude photo, I realised that I’m even less of a fan of photos of me naked than of photos of me clothed. And consequently no I don’t have any photos, and no I don’t plan on taking any ever again without extensive professional photoshopping, and I refuse to subject a poor graphics artist to retouching my ass.

Although I can see the merits for people in a long-distance relationship, there is never any circumstance under which I will see webcamming as a viable anonymous sexual activity. So please don’t ask, because the answer will be no unless you’ve stumbled on the secret to the naked equivalent of the Myspace angle to make everyone look good. Then we might have to talk.

5 Reasons Why I Make A Terrible Boyfriend

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and they’re like: I’m lactose intolerant. There have been numerous occasions when I feel undateable, and although narcissistic, it’s not as though I lack the self-awareness to know why.

After all, my ex-boyfriends have given me such endearing nicknames as “asshat”, “jerkwad”, “annoying”, and “stop stabbing me; I’m calling the police”. So maybe it’s best that, in the interest of full disclosure, I explain how that came about.

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1. I will push your buttons. All of them. At once. Together.
I have the maturity of a 10-year-old boy on the playground kicking the shins of the boy he likes. One of the ways I show I like you is by figuring out what your buttons and annoyances are, and making sure that I push those buttons as often as possible. It’s endlessly amusing for me, and I’d like to think it has a certain childlike endearing quality. Even when you’re ready to kick my ass.

2. I’m kind of a nerd.
Being the only gay boy wearing grammar-shirts to the club (another reason why I rarely get picked up), I’m pretty liable to correct your grammar at all times. I’d like to think of it more as being your personal grammar/spell checker, and less being a pedantic jackass who likes to ensure you use correct version of who/whom. I also do this during sex. What? Grammatically correct dirty talk is hot.

3. I will do anything for a laugh.
Up to and including an elaborate series of events just for a single punchline/payoff even weeks down the road. A lot of times you’ll be wondering why I took so much time, money, and energy constructing the perfect circumstances for a single, kind of stupid, pun.

4. I am sexually bipolar.
If there were lithium for sex-drive I would take a whole bottle before you could tell me that the side-effects include loss of penis. My sex-drive swings wildly between let’s-fuck-right-this-minute-every-minute and don’t-touch-me-let’s-just-cuddle for about a week at a time. It’ll likely throw you off balance, but if you’re ready to go during my let’s-fuck phases, we’ll probably maintain constant genital contact. And that’s more than you ever wanted to know about my sexual desires.

5. I get ridiculously excited about things.
I go on momentary flights of fancy from time to time. Whether it’s obsessively watching every episode of a TV show, or a new video game, or I’ve been inspired to get a job turning panda flesh into edible burgers, I will go through periods where I get an idea in my head and I won’t let go of it. It’s all I’ll talk about for a while, and then one day will drop it like a penis with genital warts. You’re expected to indulge this behaviour.

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But at the end of the day, I am attentive, thoughtful, and not at all capable of inducing multiple gunshot wounds to the face. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell the officer when you go mysteriously “missing”.

6 Ridiculous Weight-Loss Schemes I’ve Considered

Every May I routinely give the impression that I’m some sort of inflatable device filled with Crisco. And it sadly has nothing to do with fisting.

You see, as a student working two jobs, and desperately trying to finish my degree, April became a month recognizable for two things: stress, and late-night pizza in the name of sanity. In fact, on more than one occasion did I lock myself in a room with take-out Indian food to finish a paper or project. At one point I think my veins contained more butter chicken sauce than blood.

So now that school’s over, and I’ve officially retired (for now) at being gay-for-pay, it’s about time I did something about that. Like the rest of my generation, I demand instant and visible results due to a lack of patience, and ADD medication. And as appealing as Mary Katkins is, my possibly insane imagination has come up with some ridiculously fantastical ideas for how to lose weight fast.

So I’m introducing my patented 6-part fitness and weight-loss routine! Use the steps in any combination, but use all 6 for maximum results! It’s currently in testing phases, so I’m giving you the ideas here free, dear internet, in the hopes that you’ll share positive testimonials and endorsements. And when you’re trim and delerious with joy, I’m sure you’ll write me cheque in thanks. Please make them payable to cash.

Because when your buns are less “of steel” and more “sponsored by Cinnabon”, you have nothing to lose. Except your life.

1. Release deadly animals into your house
Like tigers starved for weeks.

Living in a constant state of abject terror increases your heart rate, and is excellent for cardiovascular health. As is running around your house away from a predator intent on eating your entrails. Think about it: every minute of every day becomes a fight for survival, and you’re in a constant state of exercise. The only risk is a slight possibility of dismemberment or death. No big deal when 10 pounds hangs in the balance.

2. Dangling cake in front of youBecause cake is irresistible to fatties.

If only more weight-loss plans were inspired by old cartoon standbys. Whether it’s a dog, or a person with the physical make-up of a beluga whale, the old trick of dangling a cake in front of their faces makes them run after it without regard to safety or logic. As long as they can’t get at it, it’s like a perpetual motion machine, waddling its way down the road with the promise of dessert in the end. A dessert that will never come.

3. Bone your way to fitness
Sadly, all I got from this method was a reputation for being a slut, and a terrible case of genital herpes. (via Wikimedia Commons)

“It’s for my health” will be the new rallying cry for slutty people the world ‘round! Sexercise has been lauded as good for your health by such respectable medical journals as Cosmo. There is no reason you shouldn’t be able to bone your way to your fitness goals. Strippercise is now a thing, and wouldn’t a large, dark room full of people having sex be just a more efficient way to both sex and wellness? Suddenly your daily lunchtime trips to the bathhouse can be expensed under your company’s fitness-spending credit program. Win!

4. Ipecac. A.K.A The Bulimia Diet Plan.
Serious eating disorders are fun!

Although I’d never advocate an eating disorder, there’s nothing wrong with the idea of sipping ipecac every time you have a large meal. It’s the perfect system. You can binge on everything and anything you want, and the projectile vomiting will likely dislodge an organ, which only means more weight lost. Speaking of body part weight…

5. Who needs limbs?
It’s moments like these when I wish they’d have accepted me into medical school. (via: Wikimedia Commons)

One thing is holding you back from your goal weight: the weight of those pesky, needless limbs. Aputation provides a fast, blindingly painful way to remove this burden. A leg’s got to be a good many pounds, and by getting rid of one, it would be much harder to hobble yourself over to the dessert buffet.

6. Become the living embodiment of a nightmare
Ah! It’s spotted me! Run! Save yourself!

Pictured above is the method of last resort. When the only way you can fill the gaping, loveless void in your heart is through more surgeries in a single day than thought survivable, then you may be Heidi Montag. Heidi Montag-ism is not for everyone. This method is not reversible, and will make adults cry like small children at the sight of you, but it will render you with a low enough percentage of human body parts to qualify you for cyborg legal status. So there’s that.

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Or, you know, you could eat less and exercise more. But that’s for boring people.

Bulge-Enhancing Underwear: One Horrifying Trend I Refuse To Join

In the gay world, underwear is as important a fashion choice as the pants that cover them. Maybe I’m not the best guy to critique underwear; after all, I actually have about a dozen pairs of the same black Calvin Klein boxer-brief trunks. With my focus on underwear utility and uniformity, you’d might as well give me a flannel shirt and call me a lesbian.

 No amount of wearing this particular underwear will ever get me into this guy’s.

Still, gay boys love their underwear, and cute/sexy underwear is kind of a concern in and amongst the gay herd. Bars even have sexy shorts nights dedicated to amateurs strutting about in their hottest underwear so that men too can feel the objectification typically given to women. Yay, equality.

But one expanding trend has me concerned: bulge-enhancing underwear. Like a push-up bra for your junk, this underwear’s designed to put your best dick forward.

 And, like a bra, it has a cup waiting to be filled with tissues.

Sociological Images pointed this out in a post nearly a year ago that I stumbled across while researching this post (read: staring at pictures of guys in underwear), but the description is honestly the best part:

Features Show-It Technology 2.0 with a hidden “comfy cup” that gently lifts and presents the package to the front.

 The horseshoe shaped inner cup is lined by soft elastic that gently aids in the lifting and adds up to 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) to a man’s frontal measurement and provides the biggest enhancement of any underwear.

Delightful.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t understand the concept of bulge-enhancing underwear. I get the literal meaning (for any smart-asses out there), but I don’t really understand what’s the use? Aside from all those nights I casually work as a stripper (read: street-walking hooker) where I’m often found in my underwear for viewing purposes, my underwear is really only looked at pre- and post-coitus. And I’m not really sure what benefit I’m getting from boosting up my package if they’re just a thin fabric obstacle moments away from being removed. At that point, no amount of “Show-It Technology” is going to change what’s there.

It’s also a general annoyance that in its pursuit of bulge-enhancing powers, this style of underwear lacks a fly. I’ve read in the past (I love not having to cite my sources at all times) that most guys just pull out the top (or the bottom for some lucky few not requiring bulge-enhancing wizardry) of the underwear, but I don’t get that. I use the fly to pee. It’s there. I like it. I need it. Every other option is just annoying.

But I digress. Bulge-enhancing pouches aren’t just limited to specialty sexy/cute gay underwear, it’s really making it into the design of everyday underwear brands too. You’d think this isn’t such a huge problem. Right, that’s until you realise that it, like all things people do, is taken to inevitable extremes that will cause NSFW nightmares for everyone (there’s your warning, people).

 Mmm. Natural.

This kind of super-bulge underwear (like the kind from NSFW stripper-supply store Cocksox) claims it’s an anatomically “natural” look, like in this description:

The John Sievers Natural Pouch Brief will forever change the way you think about your underwear. Unlike the old fashioned pouches on most other briefs, the revolutionary John Sievers “Natural Pouch” has a special, deeply-contoured shape that conforms perfectly to your male anatomy. 

Yes, it will forever change the way I think about underwear. Because if I ever see this in real life, all I’ll be able to do is scream, “PENIS! PENIS! STRANGELY-SHAPED UNNATURAL PENIS!” in a way I’m sure not at all intended by the makers.

Skewed conception of “natural” aside, maybe you just want to forgo all pretence at making it look like your junk, and instead give me nightmares for years, and years to come.

 Haven’t you always wanted your genitals to look like you ripped them off a mannequin and glued them overtop of yours? Buffalo Bill approved!

With the help of Andrew Christian, you can apply a “soft-foam cup with authentic looking male features”. In other words, you’ve just padded your junk in the most disturbing way possible: with a practically inhuman, vaguely penis-shaped etching. You can even buy separate replacement cups, you know, when you’re washing one, and need a backup. This kind of fashion choice is clearly inspired by the human skin suits made famous by psychopathic serial killers. It’s only a matter of time before someone goes for total realism and stitches someone’s severed penis inside his underwear.

So thank you, underwear industry, for introducing a terrifying new concept that makes me officially scared and confused to go wandering into a boy’s pants. My sex life, and un-enhanced bulge, hates you.