Pariah is headed for New York.
Lady Gaga has given Rolling Stone an advance preview of some songs from her upcoming album, and they’re giving the rest of us a track-by-track rundown.
Those of you who live in Australia and are in same-sex relationships lasting longer than 8.8 years (the length of the average heterosexual marriage there) should consider lending your stories to The Commitment Project. They want to prove that same-sex relationships deserve the same legal rights and respect as their “opposite marriage” counterparts.
There’s an interesting piece over at Sociological Images about the Born This Way site, which “posts photographs of gay-identified adults as children. Submitters argue that the photographs are proof that they were born gay.” The author of the SI article, Lisa Wade, writes:
Perusing the photographs tells an interesting story: being gay – that is, being sexually attracted to members of the same sex – is conflated with being gender non-conformist – adopting the mannerisms and interests of the other sex. This is the argument made in the vast majority of posts: it’s obvious I was gay because I broke rules of masculinity/femininity.
It is a specifically American belief that gay men act feminine and lesbians act masculine. But, in fact, gay men and lesbians have a wide range of gender performances, as do straight and bisexual people. In fact, most of us could probably find a picture or two in our histories showing gender non-conformity. Meanwhile, most gay men and lesbians could probably find pictures of themselves conforming. That gender performance is associated with sexual orientation in our society is a belief in U.S. culture, but it’s not somehow inevitable or biological.
The problem, for Wade, is that “excellent research has shown that there is no trans-cultural, trans-historical gay identity and interpretations of same-sex sexual behavior vary wildly (see, for example, Herdt’s Same Sex, Different Cultures, DeEmilio’s Capitalism and Gay Identity, and Katz’s The Invention of Heterosexuality). And genetic, hormonal, and neurological research has thus far failed to show conclusively that being gay is biological.”
I don’t know about you, but the writing was on the wall very early for me. Yes, I have the photos of myself in football and Tarzan gear to prove it, but I also have the memories of knowing I was gay before even having the language to articulate it. What do you think of the Born This Way site and Wade’s comments on it?
Check out the new video from Misster:
Out contestant LaKisha Hoffman (and her sister, Jennifer) made their debut on the premiere of The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business last night.
Come back for Grace Chu‘s recap of the episode tomorrow.
God-Des & She are ejoying some Kodak moments in Memphis:
Care to caption that photo?
Did you catch out comic (and new Chelsea Lately writer) Fortune Femister making her first trip to Chelsea’s round table last week? If not, you can watch it here:
The new episode of Bestsellers, from Susan Miller and Tina Cesa Ward, is up and ready for you to devour!
The third season of Miller and Ward’s other project, Anyone But Me, goes into production on February 26!
Kathy Griffin and Loretta Devine will play Regionals judges on Glee. TVLine.com reports (based on info from the casting breakdowns) that “Griffin will be playing a Sarah Palin type, my source tells me that Tammy Jean, the D-Listed liberal’s home-schooling Tea Party candidate character, isn’t really anything like the controversial former Alaskan governor. … Devine, meanwhile, will tackle a sister act – as in Sister Mary Constance. Though the character wears a halo and a habit now, she is said to have worn a lot less in her former profession, at least by the end of a shift: She used to be a stripper!”
Finally, I know I’ve thrown a lot of video at you already today, but I just couldn’t wrap up AD without sharing this clip too:
I always thought she was in on the joke!
