Television

What kind of breaking news is this? “Story highlights” include the singer’s cup size

By Mary Elizabeth Williams

The headline reads “Jessica Simpson finds a bosom buddy.” It’s the day after an election; there’s a potentially deciding World Series match tonight, but in the world of entertainment, thank heaven for those Simpson hooters.

When Simpson replied to a Twitter update from the similarly endowed Dolly Parton on the subject of back pain (“You lug these around and see if your back don’t hurt!”) with an “Amen, sister!” CNN promptly posted the news, with a helpful charticle of salient factoids. “The singers’ cup size — double D — has been a hot topic throughout their careers.”

The story then went on to chronicle the history of both women’s breasts in popular entertainment, from Parton’s prior complaints about her assets to Simpson’s cleavage-flaunting appearance at the Grand Ole Opry earlier this year.

via Broadsheet – Salon.com.

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We’ve heard endless explanations for the “Twilight” series’ supreme popularity — from its romanticizing of retro gender roles to the creation of a new genre of “abstinence porn” — but it’s much simpler than all that, argues Stephen Marche in Esquire. The real reason for vampire mania? “Young straight women want to have sex with gay men,” says Marche. “Not all young straight women, of course, but many, if not most, of them.” Nice of him to assuredly explain women’s unconscious sexual desires, isn’t it?

The vampire metaphor isn’t one that’s easily reduced to “women want sex with gay guys”

In fairness, though, he’s right that Bella, “Twilight’s” protagonist, is attracted to Edward Cullen “because he is strange, beautiful, and seemingly repulsed by her.” He writes: “This exact scenario happened several times in my high school between straight girls and gay guys who either hadn’t figured out they were gay or were still in the closet.” Sure, a similar scenario can be found among the pinups of effeminate teen idols gracing young girls’ walls — but the fantasy isn’t about gay men so much as it’s about boys and men who represent true romance, as defined by fairytales.

After all, Edward does desire Bella — more so than he has ever desired anyone else, we’re told — but his everlasting love for her overrides his lust, at least temporarily, because he doesn’t want to get lost in the heat of the moment and hurt or kill her. He fights to keep his passion (for blood, for sex) at bay; he is, essentially, a guy who’s willing to wait for it. Now that’s a way to make teenage girls’ hearts flutter — just look at the Jonas Brothers and their, swoon, promise rings.

via Buffy the gay vampire lover – Broadsheet – Salon.com.

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Human sexuality, in all its glorious, fascinating diversity, should be a limitless source of entertainment. So why are so many TV sex advice shows either horrifying or boring? Remember “Loveline,” the radio show that made it to MTV in the late ’90s? Before turning up on “The Man Show” and “Celebrity Rehab,” the program’s classy hosts, Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew, were infamous for insisting to a huge number of female callers that they must have been sexually abused as children. Even my favorite sex advice show, Oxygen’s “Talk Sex with Sue Johanson,” can get old: The novelty of watching a grandmotherly woman (however adorable) dispense tips on vibrators and orgasms just wears off after a while. Apparently viewers agreed. The show went off the air in the U.S. in 2008.

And that’s why I’m so excited to hear that Dan Savage, of “Savage Love” fame, is shooting a pilot for HBO. The syndicated sex columnist writes that his series, which would also be titled “Savage Love,” “will focus on current events and cultural trends with sex as the filter.” And his approach to the show seem specially designed to fill the TV sex programming void: “I’m hoping to bring a new kind of conversation to TV about sex — an honest conversation, one that’s informed without being (too) wonky, funny without being (too) cruel, sexy without being (too) cheesy. Basically, my sex advice column — but on the teevee!”

Well, hooray for that! The prospect of Savage getting his own show is exciting on many levels: For one thing, the kinky and complicated topics he takes on never hurt for entertainment value. And I’d love to see his nonjudgmental “good, giving and game” ethos expand its influence beyond the writer’s devoted following of alt-weekly readers. Savage never sugarcoats, and his candidness only makes his advice more trustworthy. In a recent (NSFW, obvi) podcast, he tells a caller whose boyfriend has been choking her during sex, “I would not see this guy again if I were you — ever. He is an unsafe, untrustworthy, emotionally sadistic piece of shit. And you shouldn’t fuck him ever again.”

via Dan Savage, TV star? – Broadsheet – Salon.com.

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