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Dear Camille:
So, George Michael is caught red-handed (or something like that) in a posh
Beverly Hills toilet. What do you think? Did he, subconsciously, want to get
caught, like those serial killers whose murder scenes scream, "Stop me
before I kill again!" or was this his routine MO with an embarrassingly
unimaginable outcome? And why do men go for these thrill-seeking sex
encounters and women, on the whole, do not?
Right-wing Fan
Dear Fan:
The X-rated George Michael saga has been carefully suppressed by the liberal
major media, which barely reported the facts and then buried the incident as
quickly as possible. In contrast, actor Hugh Grant's 1995 Los Angeles arrest, while he
was receiving the back-seat attentions of a spirited streetwalker, went on and
on in the news, prolonged by the ribald jokes of talk-show hosts.
The Michael incident, occurring across the street from the luxurious Beverly
Hills Hotel, is dangerous to the gay image,
since it threatens for the first time to expose the sexual realities of gay
male life to the multitudes. Though his career is long past its 1980s
creative height, Michael remains a far bigger international star than Grant. The refusal of the American major media to explore or
follow up on the story shows just how biased news management can be -- and how
cowed Northeastern journalists are by gay-activist intimidation. The fear, of
course, is that long-derided conservative allegations about a "gay lifestyle"
would be too richly substantiated by full reporting of Michael's tastes and
adventures.
Into the vacuum left by supposedly unbiased "serious" journalism has stepped,
as usual, the National Enquirer, our tabloid of record, to which I give
fervent thanks for its fascinating account of the Michael arrest (in its April
28 issue). Here are the lurid, nitty-gritty details, along with a sunny
photo of the Spanish hacienda-style men's toilet in Will Rogers Park where
Michael was nabbed. We also get photos of his flamboyant, clothing-designer
Brazilian lover, who died of AIDS five years ago, and of his current, hunky
but rather generic boyfriend, a fresh-faced Texan seen strolling with him in
France.
No, I don't think George Michael wanted to get caught. He was just doing what
comes naturally in the social fast lane, protected by a media culture that
facilely equates homosexuality with heterosexuality and asks no deep questions
about human psychology beyond the superficial liberal-vs.-conservative,
freedom-vs.-oppression dichotomy.
Gay men used to explain away their attraction to sex in toilets by blaming it
on homophobia: There was supposedly no other place for the persecuted to
meet. That reasoning is clearly specious today when the industrialized
nations are dotted with hip gay meccas. My current theory (see Michael
Hattersley's interview with me in the current [Spring 1998] issue of the Harvard
Gay & Lesbian Review) is that toilets provide anxious gay men with a form of
aroma therapy, boosting their testosterone levels and subjective sense of
manhood through the acrid hormones excreted in male urine.
I loved the now-defunct magazine Steam, which reverently chronicled hot
spots for anonymous gay sex across the country, from rural highways to big-city bus stations. If I were a man, I'm sure I would have gone whole hog for
this -- the murky shadows, electric glances, risky chances and hit-and-run
raids on bulging meat baskets. I can see the excitement of it, and I
understand George Michael's addiction to it.
Women, however, as I pointed out in "Sexual Personae," to the aggrieved
squeals of the politically correct, do not have compartmentalized
equipment that can be conveniently whipped out, heated up, honed to a peak
and pacified in alleyways and toilet stalls. Give us "the comfort zone," to
quote the delectable Vanessa Williams.
My libertarian position is that all people, gay or straight, should be free to
pursue any brand and degree of consensual sex, as they see fit. But I'm
getting sick and tired of the sentimental, feel-good, liberal propaganda that
is concealing and denying the blatant, Nero-era decadence of so many gay men's
lives, where compulsive, tunnel-vision promiscuity has become
institutionalized. A gifted artist like George Michael should be focusing his
obsessiveness on the recording studio, not the Beverly Hills latrines. Gay
culture is progressively being lost in provincial self-absorption.
As an open lesbian, I have no problem conceding that heterosexuality is and
always will be the great human norm. Indeed, as a disciple of Oscar Wilde, I
positively glory in homosexuality's oppositional character. One reason I
reject gay studies and queer theory, as they are presently practiced on
campus, is that self-interested partisans seem constitutionally incapable of
honestly facing the disturbing ambiguities and complexities beneath the party-time surface of modern gay life.
Dear Professor:
As the pounding of the PR drums increases to migraine-inducing
intensity, The Most Important Event in the History of All Media is
drawing near. I refer, of course, to the finale of "Seinfeld."
Corporate America is scrambling to pay million-dollar-a-minute fees to
advertise on the last episode. Bars are planning send-off parties. To
paraphrase Waugh, Entertainment Weekly will be carried frothing and
screaming to the newsstands when the fateful day arrives.
A little tartness, please, to counteract these cloying valedictories.
What would YOU like to see occur in the show's climax? Lots of hugging,
lots of learning?
Colin Covert
Dear Mr. Covert:
Well, very tartly, "Seinfeld" can go out with an hour-long Hitchcockian focus
on a bloody, swirling tub drain, for all I care. As a student of popular
culture, I have of course monitored the "Seinfeld" phenomenon, but as a
committed television enthusiast, I think the show is a big bore -- smarmy,
trivial, claustrophobic and adolescent.
While I respect Jerry Seinfeld as a great stand-up comedian of sharp insight
and impeccable vocal timing (just as I do Ellen DeGeneres, whose tedious,
imploding show was thankfully canned by ABC last week), his 9-year-old
sitcom has never risen above narrow, peevish urban clichés. "Seinfeld"
completely lacks the emotional breadth and timeless, universal appeal of a
truly great television series like "I Love Lucy," which can be appreciated by
far-flung audiences outside the United States.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine) has enormously grown as an actress, and I will be
following her career with interest. But it's her hilarious, satirical hair-color commercials, rather than her contributions to "Seinfeld," that have charmed me. The
George and Kramer characters (played by Jason Alexander and Michael Richards)
are so physically repellent that I find the show literally impossible to
watch. The real-life Manhattan resident on whom Kramer was based seems, on
the basis of a brief TV interview I caught, far more interesting, attractive
and bohemian a personality. Like the real-life Soup Nazi, he has legitimate
grounds for quite a beef against the show.
So to "Seinfeld" I say, good-bye and good riddance!
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