26 February 2009

Unabashed Gay Face-Off

My friend and former co-worker/drudge to Arianna Huffington, Adriana, always keeps her eyes peeled for me for news of the queer while she's blogging for Takepart.com. Adriana tipped me off to Scientific American blogger Jesse Bering's recent piece about a study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology regarding the human ability to distinguish men's sexual orientation based solely on their face.

In a series of experiments, starting with full faces and dwindling down to only the eye and mouth regions, participants were more often than not able to identify the sexual orientation of the man whose face or facial feature they were viewing. I find it easy to identify a gay man's face cause there's usually a dick on it.

The scientists who conducted said experiments suggest this innate knowledge is an evolutionary tool for women to know which men "aren't worth the trouble and for men to know who's not really a sexual competitor." While perusing UrbanDictionary.com, Bering comes across two definitions for so-called, "gay face." One suggests that us gay men have mongoloid features which Bering quickly dismisses as derogatory and having no evidence although I hear Corky from Life Goes On knows how to work that tongue. The second Urban Dictionary definition begins with a twinge of possible logic:

The use of certain expressions can become ingrained in the musculature of the face over time. Since effeminate gay men utilize similar facial expressions as women, they develop female aging and muscle contraction patterns in their face.

But quickly veers off course:

For example, gay face includes tightness around the mouth from pursing the lips, a facial expression common to gay men and women—but not to heterosexual men. Also, gay men are more emotionally expressive, leading to a general 'tightness' and muscular activation throughout the entire face. Gay face includes an eye expression that is both surprised-looking and predatory. Eyebrows are usually arched higher than that of straight men, and eyebrow hair is manicured.

Now I resent that. That is not a shocked or predatory look on my face, that is me smiling with my eyes. I'm not thinking of little boy dick, I'm thinking of bunny rabbits and rainbows. Furthermore, I love a natural brow on a man. I discourage the manicuring of one's eyebrows unless you're Fyvush Finkel or Gene Shalit. Now if I could just learn to smile with my mouth. And suck dick.

See also: Physiognomy

24 February 2009

Unabashed Bromance Makes Me Wanna Die

This movie makes me want to rip my face off, stick needles in whatever is left, and then fuck it. I hate Judd Apatow's films, I hate the name Judd Apatow, I hate the fat guy with the curly hair, and I hate Paul Rudd.

Watch a scene from this bunk-ass movie.

16 February 2009

Unabashed Whoa-Oh-Oh: What's Trans Got To Do, Got To Do With It?

Ohio Wo-Man Kills Husband With Exercise
"Woman" Exercises Husband to Death

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for female killers. The lovely ladies featured on the Oxygen network's, Snapped, for instance. Aileen Wuornos--love her. Lorena Bobbit--she didn't kill but she might as well have--adore her. And now I can add Christine Newton-John to my list.

Last week, Mrs. Newton-John (more on her name in a second) , 41, pleaded guilty to reckless homicide of her 73 year-old husband by forcing him to swim in the pool of their apartment complex past exhaustion, resulting in a fatal heart attack. Security cameras caught the entire episode and police counted 43 times that Mrs. Newton-John prevented her husband from leaving the pool. Swim at your own risk, girl.

Many major media outlets played up the fact that Mrs. N-J is transgender and ran that as part of their headline. The fact that she had sexual reassignment surgery in 1993 is much less fascinating to me than the fact that she changed her surname to Newton-John in honor of Olivia. That is fierce (and not in a Tyra kind of way). Even more interesting is that she "exercised her husband to death." That's a headline. That we haven't heard before. If anything, she's creative.

People love to hate on a tranny. In a piece for the Advocate entitled, "My Sisters," Patrick Moore eloquently states that trans people are at the core of the queer struggle because they "challenge both gay and straight ideas of respectability."

The media seems to be perpetuating an idea that trans people are cuh-ray-zee and freakish. Unlike my last post about the transgender mafia boss, while it may be an interesting factoid, Mrs. N-J's gender is inconsequential to the story.

14 February 2009

Unabashed Queer of the Week: Kitty, The Real Bella Mafia


Now this is a real Unabashed Queer Bee-otch. A male-to-female transgender mafia boss. Fuck yeah.

Today, UK Newspaper, The Sun (a tres tacky New York Post for the Brits), dropped the story of a male-to-female "transsexual" mafia boss who goes by the name Kitty. Born Ugo Gabriele, she is only 27 years old which is almost as remarkable as the fact that she is the ill tranny boss bitch in the notoriously misogynist Italian mafia.

The newspaper rudely refers to her using male pronouns throughout the entire article. That's okay 'cause she'll get out of jail and everybody knows when you get scratched by the kitty it goes from ear-to-ear jugular style. Can I get a "Queer Power" up in this piece? (Queer Power.)

We be showing up everywhere poppin' bitches' heads off. Salud, Kitty!

13 February 2009

Unabashed Late-Night CVS Lust

I remembered that I had no Ambien at 10:30 last night so I threw on a housecoat over my bra and panties and shlepped to CVS. "Dollah-fifty for good night sleep" said the pharmacist in broken English referring to my $45 bottle of Ambien.

On my way out I noticed two handsome men perusing a shelf together so I made sure to spy on them. Ah-ha! I knew it. Personal lubricants...and pregnancy tests. It was the lubricant/pregnancy test shelf.  I don't know which one they were looking for but I sure was turned on.

10 February 2009

Unabashed Str-Hate

"QUEERS READ THIS" is a leaflet passed out at the 1990 Pride March in New York City published “anonymously by Queers.” It is a manifesto meant to empower, enrage, and fire up complacent gays into action. The leaflet's final section is entitled “I Hate Straights," an epithet that enters my mind on a regular basis.

After seeing an all-gay cast in a performance piece last weekend, I commented to a gay friend that gay people are more talented than straights. "I don't know about that," he said with his brow furrowed. So, in the fine art of Matt Siegel, I took it to the next level and said, "I hate straight people."

"A lot of my best friends are straight," he said as if trying to raise my awareness.

Didn't he know he was simply supposed to agree with me, not try to teach me a goddamn lesson? My absurd comments were meant to bring us together as gay sistas. Gay people rarely say that we hate straights. We rarely turn the tables and try to exclude them and deny their basic human rights. That is the fun in saying the shit.

My biological father's mother, the dreadful cunt, used to say, "You don't hate, you dislike." I hate her. Hate is not a strong word. For instance, I hate when people say, "It is what it is." I hate the Overstock.com commercial with the country couple singing to each other. Levels of hate vary. If it makes you feel better, replace hate with resent. I resent straights unless they are obese--the fats know our pain. I especially resent straight men. I especially, especially resent straight, white men.


A winter day in L.A., 68 degrees and sunny. We all have Uggs and mittens on. I’m discreetly crossing the street toward Quiznos Sub shop. Walking in front of a cop on his motorcycle I think about how I detest the pigs.

"GO BACK WHERE YOU ARE. DO NOT CROSS,” I hear over a loud speaker.

Looking over my shoulder, I see an embarrassed man return to the sidewalk. I giggle to myself pondering what I would be like as a cop with access to a loud-speaker. I would definitely be shouting every chance I got, alternating between black woman ("YEAH I GOT YOU. I GOT YOU ON CAMERA. YOU ON CANDID CAMERA, NOW. YOU AIN'T KNOW THAT.") and Faye Dunaway-as-Joan Crawford voices. “I’LL TELL YOU WHATCHA YOU’RE GONNA DO. YOU’RE GONNA MARCH YOURSELF BACK TO THE GODDAMN CURB AND STAY THERE UNTIL I SAY SO.”

Standing in line for a veggie “Sammie”--no mayo or mushrooms, add honey mustard, please--I notice a man around my age, taller, white, with glasses perched atop his head like a lady. He is nice-looking in my quick glance but I don’t ogle as a general rule. As my Sammie makes its way through the conveyor belt toaster, the tall man speaks to me. “Do you work in the Hollywood Production Building? What show do you work on? Where’d you go to college? Where are you from? Cut or Un-cut?” (No, he didn’t say that.) It turns out that he also works in my building so we walk back together. As he rifles through his wallet to give me his business card, he says, “Oh, by the way, I’m not gay.”

I feel my face flush. One cheek embarrassed, the other angry.

“Neither am I,” I say.

“Oh really,” I hear him stammer.

“No, I’m kidding.”

“Well, we should sit down and get coffee some time,” the straight says.

“OH YEAH,” I think, “LET’S DO THAT IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN SUCH A JOY AND HONOR BEING IN YOUR STRAIGHT, IRRESISTIBLE PRESENCE. YOU KNOW US GAY PEOPLE, IF A MEMBER OF THE SAME SEX SPEAKS TO US, WE CAN’T HELP BUT WANT TO BED THEM. THANK YOU FOR PREVENTING ANY EMBARRASSMENT ON MY PART IN SUCH A GENTLE, UNASSUMING WAY.”

I'm not sure what to deduce about this incident because the truth is I probably would have let him S my D. With that said, I never indicated any interest in him whatsoever and for him to clarify his sexuality like that is very typical straight male behavior. It's kind of along the same line of thinking that every gay man is a pedophile, that we cannot help ourselves from sexualizing everything we come into contact with.

I hate straights. It feels good saying it. It rhymes. I really hate the straights who think they're so fuckin' liberal cause they have a gay sibling or a gay friend who they accept. Or cause they support "No on 8." I hate straights who think they are down with me and my struggle so they can make jokes about HIV and AIDS. I hate straights who imitate effeminate gay men or use the term "flamer." I am not on fire, I don't need to be put out. I hate straights who think the gay struggle is over, they say, "oh it's so much better these days." IS IT? An effeminate fourteen year old boy was murdered outside of Los Angeles just a few months ago for being faggoty. Mainstream heterosexual press barely covers the hate murders that take place every year in this stinkin country. I hate straights who think they can identify in any way with my oppression. Your parents getting divorced when you were five years old is not equal to my oppression. I want to start a fucking Black Panther Party for queer people. You might catch me on the street with a megaphone shouting "KILL STRAIGHTY."

Anyways, if you want to have coffee with a dreary, assuming straight man, here is his business card (name blurred out cause all I need is a straight man suing my gay ass).