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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 16, 2004)
17 APHRODITE REVIEWS M en A re P igs b u t W e L ov e B a c o n : N o t S o S t r a ig h t A nsw ers from A m erica ’ s M o st O u t r a g eo u s G ay S ex C o lu m n ist Men are PiGs, But We Love Bacon by Michael Alvear; Kensington, 2003; $15 softcover Headboard” and “Kink: Putting the Fuck Back into Fucked Up.” Sometimes offensive, always delightful, Men Are Pigs should be required reading for all meat eaters. — Floyd Sldaver W here t h e B oys A re ot wcxxJ? Then you’re a typical gay man. In knots about your wcxxP Then Ask WtxxJy or, better yet, read Men Are Pigs hut We Love Bacon, a collection of WtxxJy Miller’s popular sex advice columns, which appear in more than 20 publications nationwide. For three years, syndicated gay writer Michael Alvear, who pens the column “Slouching Toward Gomorrah,” has been pseudonymously writing the entertaining sex column “Ask Woody.” Alvear is finally identi fying himself as WtxxJy and is “throwing cau tion to the winds the way many readers throw their legs in the air—with wild abandon.” “Ask WtxxJy” was conceived three years ago when, ironically, gay sex columnist Dan Savage’s syndicator refused to sell his col umn, “Savage Love,” to queer papers. When the editor of The Washington Blade asked Alvear to write about sex, he replied: “Fine. Send me your cutest employees, and I’ll get started.” Alvear has assembled hundreds of read ers’ letters and his hilarious answers into this anthology of useful tidbits on gay sex, dating and relationships. And, while his advice is medically correct, it is rarely politically cor rect, as Alvear delights in excoriating every one from “Safe Sex Nazis” to “Monogamy Mommas.” In fact, while he’s in favor of truxJerate drug use (“There are three things that men will always play with,” he writes, “fire, drugs and themselves”), he is firmly opposed to obesity (“lard ass sex”) because of associated health problems. He believes that everyone who is overweight puts their health at risk but that only “irresponsible” drug users do. It’s a curious blind spot and one that could damage his credibility with some readers. But, as WcxxJy would say, “I only say I’m sorry when I’ve done something wrong, like forgetting my boyfriend’s name, which I unfortunately tend to do when we’re in bed.” Alvear’s caustic, ribald humor comes through in Men Are Pigs (“Alcohol isn’t a problem solver unless that problem is a potential trick having second thoughts”), and the book is divided by topic into chap ters like “Safe Sex Doesn’t Mean a Padded G EVERY BOOK OF GAY EROTICA < S > Bel Am i Sum m er Diary. Naked Euro-boys w / m eat whistles aplenty. Color photo bk. $35. • :V 1 A U t i illiam Mann’s fourth htxik, Where the Boys Are, claims to he the first novel about circuit boys. Let’s hope it’s also the last. The overlong story, coming out in paper- hack next month, takes place over the course of a year as a group of circuit hoys (“my sisters,” they call each other) travel from party to party across the country. Its first-person narrative revolves among the three maiifcharacters, Lloyd, Jeff and Henry—all virtually identical with similar things to say, leaving the reader to constantly refer hack to the section heading to remember whose turn it is. The plot (which, considering the length of the book, is remarkably thin) revolves around Lloyd and Jeff, ex-lovers who have gone separate ways hut desperately want to he together again. Lloyd has purchased a bed and breakfast in Provincetown with a friend who turns out to he psychotic, and Jeff, a bkx:ked writer, wants nothing to do with the inn or the friend. Meanwhile, Henry is in love with both of them. At the same time that Lloyd and Jeff pine away for each other, they also desperately miss their mentor/lover Javitz, with whom they lived in a polyamorous relationship. (While Javitz died of AIDS complications, one sus pects he was also bored to death by their nar cissistic musings.) Where the Boys Are is a particular dis appointment after 1998’s Wisecracker, Mann’s page-turning biography of openly gay Holly wood film star Billy Haines. But, unfortunately, he’s not a storyteller or a novelist. There’s never any doubt in the reader’s mind that Lloyd and Jeff will end up together again, and (worse) we don’t care. Mann has interesting theories about the cir cuit and gay life in general, which he presents as the interior monologues of his protagonists, hut the dialogue never rises above the level of aftemtx>n drama, and his characters fail to dis play the complexities his theories imply. — fs j n W Available at PSU Box office or Ticketmaster For information: http://qa.pdx.edu4 qa@pdx.edu or (503) 725-5681 iiv i im f liiii i A w iii H m i* [ [J Tp - m ¡lyjiU r n r n i n 1 ■aaJr 1 ¿Axousinq c(Lji(is nom anlic ¿Accessories Kink. Dirty stories about whips, feet, cuffs, sandw iches, skin, and n o s.l & 2. Whew! $16. Corner of Sandy and NF 04th ( S ) Barbarians. Julius’s new illustrated story White house with picket fence SOI 280 8080 about boys and men in ancient Rome. $27.00. 3100 \F 64th • Portland, OR 9721 3 DOWNTOWN <S 9 2 " SW OAK A V . Tickets Student/Sr./Staff $7 Adv. $10 Door General $9 Adv. $12 Door Sc ALWAYS IN STOCK! © VY M U by William J. Mann ; Kensing - ton, 2004 edition; $16 softcover Saturday April 24th 8PM - Midnigh Queers & Allies Presents A P H R O D ITE (Queer Prom 2004) 226-8141 TICKETS: 503 274-6588 WWW.PCS.ORG APRIL 1 3 - may 30 III! SW BROADWAY 25 & UN0ER-SI6 W - » 9 neon tttvi insuramcc commny m i | I ff t C IV biAt to tM
