Not sure whether the friendly slap on your ass from the guy in the locker room at your local gym is just doing that weird straight guy thing or is he inviting you over?
Well have no fear because Bryan Hawn & Vlad Parker are back with the latest episode of Bro Science where he deconstructs the sexual #NoHomo tension of virtually everything that happens in a gym shower using empirical scientific methods.
Hawn clears up so many misconceptions with clear slaps and eloquent faint praise you wonder why someone hadn’t sorted this all out eons ago.
Why, I asked Hawn, is it so important to get this info out to fellow bros? “So much of communication in the locker room is non verbal, so its important to understand what things mean so you don’t accidentally send the wrong signal.”
Everything You Think You Know About Butts Is Wrong
Bryan Kutner is a serious scholar who’s putting his reputation on the line for butts.
From left to right: Dr. Kopano Mmalane, Dr. Bryan Kutner, nurse Nicola Keletso Sarameng, and Savas Abadsidis at the International Conference on AIDS in Amsterdam July 2018.
Bryan Kutner is telling me how he got into studying butt stuff over coffee.
“So,” Kutner says, “I was counseling cisgender men and trans folks in public sex venues — bathhouses basically — for an HIV/STI prevention project, and people would often share intimate details about their sex lives.”
One night, a guy in his 50s commented, offhandedly, that bleeding after anal sex was normal. This was the second guy of the same age saying the same thing, and it baffled the public health worker. How could gaymen in their 50s, he wondered, who’ve been sexually active for 30 plus years, not know that bleeding is unnecessary. “I thought, ‘Wait a second. If bleeding is regular for these guys then a medical provider needs to conduct an anal exam, to find and treat whatever is causing the bleeding.’”
It struck Kutner that we’ve done a somewhat fair job of educating people about HIV. But could it be, he wondered, that that same public health effort inadvertently reinforced the notion that anal sex is inherently harmful? Could we be conflating anal sex with disease in such a way that we’ve trained people to expect and accept other sexual health problems, like bleeding or pain, that are preventable? “It’s almost like our HIV prevention campaigns have colluded with a taboo about anal sex. Maybe that’s inadvertent, like a natural consequence of repeated public health messaging, ‘Hey, think about HIV when you have anal sex.’ But, in other cases, that conflation of anal sex with harm is conspicuously informed by stigma toward anal sex. Remember that ‘It’s Never Just HIV’campaign?”
While Kutner pondered the ramifications of these bathhouse conversations, he received a call from a friend as she walked down 8th Avenue after a gynecological visit. “She was in tears. She’d been in the stirrups and the doctor was nearly done with the exam and my friend asked, “Would you check a little lower? I think I felt a bump or something.”
The doctor did look a little lower and saw a wart somewhere near her anus. The doctor’s response was accusatory, “Are you having anal sex? You shouldn’t be doing that. It’s dangerous.”
The doctor then froze the wart, one of a few options — and certainly a painful one given the location. “It struck me that my friend did the very thing we encourage people to do: ‘When you have a medical question, ask your doctor,’ right? But that resulted in a slap on her hand and an all-or-nothing message that she shouldn’t be having anal sex. It’s the opposite of harm reduction. Just telling someone not to do something, expecting somehow that a warning alone is going to scare people into changing behavior. Well, my friend never saw that doctor again and it disrupted the continuity of her health care to boot. But she didn’t stop having anal sex. She just stopped talking about it with her doctor.”
These two experiences got Kutner thinking that people, in general, may need basic information about anal health so they can advocate for themselves, and that providers specifically may need skills to broach this topic with their clients, to encourage disclosure by framing anal sexuality in terms of pleasure and health, rather than just harm.
Kutner had been a public health trainer in the harm reduction movement for several years, so he developed a new training curriculum and piloted it through the Harm Reduction Coalition. The training on physiology and health went so well that he added another day focused on how to communicate information. “I based the training in motivational interviewing, one of the better researched interventions when it comes to helping me consider behavior change. With the help of all these public health workers who’ve attended, we now have little mantras that embrace the diversity of people who have anal sex. Like, ‘Everyone has an ass, so everyone has the capacity to enjoy anal sex.’ It’s really beautiful the way people frame this not in terms of gender, but in terms of the diversity of human sexuality, in a sex-positive way.”
Jake Shears has a nice butt.
Kutner, eventually decided it was time to get more training himself, so went back to school, first for an MPH in epidemiology and then a PhD in clinical psychology. He says he landed on this topic for my dissertation, thinking it might be useful to understand more clearly the possible relationships between devaluation of anal sexuality, the concerns and questions people harbor, and how this might affect our HIV prevention efforts.
“In some ways, at least for queer men, we’ve placed anal sex at the center of the HIV epidemic, but we know so little about how people think and feel about it, outside of the focus on HIV.”
As he prepared to train others, to his surprise, Kutner found there was so much to learn and convey in trainings. “If you gently stroke the top of your hand with your finger, see what sensations you notice,” he says, “Now flip your hand over and gently stroke your palm. You naturally feel a difference.”
That Kutner says is an easy way to communicate the sensitivity of the anus, the opening before the anal canal. “It’s a part of the body with lots of nerve endings packed into a small area. That may be a hard concept to communicate as a health worker, but it’s a little easier with visuals and little tricks of the trade people share in trainings.”
There’s also the prostate, “Contractions around the prostate produce a sensation of orgasm, and typically these contractions contribute to ejaculation. But pressure internally from a toy, object, penis, or hand, or pressure externally against the perineum — aka the ‘taint’— can also produce this orgasmic sensation, even without ejaculation.”
He adds, “Pelvic floor muscle exercises, like Kegel exercises, may also aid discovering this sensation, by building the ability to stay in the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, riding the rise of orgasm without ejaculating — basically a multiorgasmic experience. It’s the p-spot in ‘male’ anatomy, akin to the g-spot in people with ‘female’ anatomy.” Kutner recommends a few books on the subject Multiorgasmic Man and another The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure.”
And then of course, there’s Anal Pleasure and Health by Jack Morin which is a go to source because it’s so comprehensive.”
Kutner continues, “When I first started, people thought the training was all about men’s anal sexuality. But at a population level, there aren’t that many men who have sex with men, maybe 2-4 percent. Women make up a much bigger part of the world’s population, so if even a minority of women are having anal sex, it’s likely to outnumber men who have anal sex with other men. This is a woman’s health issue too – or, really more to the point, a health issue that isn’t about gender binaries but about the diversity of how human beings have sex.”
At first, Kutner struggled to find accurate, science-based information about anal sexuality beyond men’s sexuality. “There was very little written about physiological sources of anal pleasure in relation to the clitoris. I kept searching online and one day in 2009 found an obscure blog postand YouTube video from the Museum of Sex. I didn’t know the clitoris had legs — and, apparently, we didn’t discover that until 2009!” There’s a lot more information out there than there used to be. “Still, there’s very little I’ve seen about lesbian and transgender anal sexuality – they’re both a very neglected area of research, I think. Most of what I’ve found, in general, is from a cisgender perspective, and mostly about penetration, which is just one aspect of sexual activity.”
On that note, Kutner shares some more of what surprised him as he learned more. The legs of the clitoris extend into the pelvic floor musculature and seem in part to be responsible for pleasure and possibly orgasm through anal stimulation, even when the visible clitoris is not directly stimulated.” Kutner notes, “The clitoris has legs and bulbs that extend deeper into the body than just the visible part under the hood.”
Kutner recounts how a transman once described how hormone therapy enhanced his experience of anal sex, bestowing him with a sensation that he remarked, wassimilar to the way cisgender men describe satsifcation from prostate stimulation.
“There’s so much to learn,” Kutner says seriously as this is generally an understudied area of sex research. “I’m not exactly a sex researcher myself — as in I’m researching sociobehavioral phenomenon but not conducting direct experimental or observation studies of physiology and sexual response. This is all just stuff I’ve picked up by reading and talking with health providers and educators.”
Kutner’s been surprised by a lot since embarking on this field of study. Since early 2016, he’s been conducting his dissertation, a mixed-methods study on anal pleasure and health. “One thing I’d never considered is just how the omission of basic information about anal sexuality can affect people,” he says, “I interviewed cisgender guys as a lead up to developing quantitative measures for the online survey.”
Guys asked him questions he’d never considered, “like whether someone can ejaculate directly from the ass — as in literally cum or ejaculate sexual fluid from the ass.” Kutner knows that’s not happening from an internal physiological process, “as far as I can tell: it’s lube, precum or semen from someone’s penis, not from the rectum.”
But that’s not what his study participants said.
“They encouraged me to look online for “creaming” videos because it’s a thing.” He laughs at his own naivete, “I didn’t know it was a thing AT ALL. And that’s amazing in itself. Here we are, 35 years into an epidemic spread in large part through anal sex, and people still haven’t been given accurate, specific responses to their questions about anal sex. And, at least in my case, I didn’t even know some of the questions they had!”
If there’s shame in learning any of this, Kutner believes it lies, “in our neglect of such an obvious area of study.”
Another preliminary finding from the qualitative interviews Kutner found, is just how woven together experiences of devaluation are. “It’s not just that people stigmatize anal sexuality, all on its own. It’s racism, xenophobia, sexism, and other forms of human devaluation intersecting with people’s experiences of anal sex.”
This in and of itself did not surprise Kutner, but, people shared quite painful experiences. Kutner pauses, “Some of these guys grew up thinking all gaymen were supposed to enjoy anal sex, so syllogistically as they came of age desiring other men they thought they should bottom even if they didn’t like it, even if it was painful and not pleasurable.”
It didn’t occur to them that they could decline anal sex. They also didn’t know how they could learn how to find pleasure in it. Which to Kutner, “Sounds awfully similar to women’s sexual experiences catering to men’s desires rather than holistically to their own desires too.”
Kutner was also struck by how, at least for the men he interviewed, anal sex is intimately associated with experiences of racism and sexism. For example, one black man shared that even though a white sex partner would never consider himself to be racist, once in bed it became quickly apparent that his fantasies about anal sex were indeed racialized — and in ways that were not mutually pleasurable. Men of color, in particular, experienced being objectified by their race in ways that seemed to potentiate a partner’s pleasure even while it inhibited their own pleasure and, at times, lead to physical and psychological discomfort. Kutner says, “It’s a strange paradox that anal sex is obviously pleasurable to many people, but how it’s practiced is still mediated by social processes that make it less enjoyable and, at times, appear to increase psychological and physiologicalharm — and that appears to be experienced by men of color in very different ways than white men.”
Even with these painful experiences shared in research interviews, for the most part the people he’s surveyed are interested in hearing more about the positive aspects of anal pleasure. “They’re hungry to have their questions answered, and to hear more directly about anal sex.”
That is what Kutner hopes to finally understand upon completing his dissertation, how to leverage these interests in anal sex to promote more engagement in HIV services. “That’s one of the problems we have with the epidemic in the U.S. We have all these interventions available — ARVs, PrEP, PEP, behavioral interventions — but can we find new ways to engage people?”
Bryan Kutner has worked in public health for over 15 years, first helping to launch the Harm Reduction Coalition’s Oakland training calendar, then offering case management services for people living in supportive housing. In 2001, he began training for the University of California San Francisco AIDS Health Project, traveling throughout the state to facilitate workshops for HIV service providers and to collaborate with the California Department of Public Health on policies and procedures related to HIV counseling and testing. Bryan continues to consult with a handful of domestic and global NGOs to develop training programs for mental health, supportive housing, sexual health, and HIV prevention projects. He earned an MPH in Epidemiology from Columbia University, is nearing completion of a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington, and is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers, a group dedicated to the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practice.
Oprah Motivates, Batfleck Passes the Torch, Ted Bundy Has A Huge Following in Prison, Aqualad, Transformers, and, Yes, Marc Singer In ‘Beast Master’ Made Me Gay, and More: HOT LINKS
BATFLECK’SOUT! Deadlineis reportingthat Ben Affleck is passing the torch. In an EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. is dating their next rendition of Batman for June 25, 2021. This is the one that Matt Reeves has been attached to as writer and director. Ben Affleck, we hear, will not be donning the Dark Knight’s tights after playing the Caped Crusader in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Justice League and that’s because this movie will focus on a younger Bruce Wayne.
Reeves boarded Batman in February 2017, taking over for Affleck who was originally set to direct off a script he wrote with DC’s Geoff Johns. Affleck, we understand has a busy plate: As Deadline exclusively broke he is starring in and producing the feature adaptation of Kate Alice Marshall‘s novel I Am Still Alive, which Universal won in a competitive bidding scenario. The two-time Oscar winner is also starring in the Warner Bros.’ Gavin O’Connor drama Torrance. Affleck worked hard on The Batman story, but knew he wasn’t the right one for this particular version. A search is underway for a new Dark Knight.
BREAKING If you are Black and live even near the vicinity of the polar vortex then you have the God’s permission to be ashy today says The Root in the funniest isht I’ve read all week.
MY HUSBAND’S ALMOST DEAD He’s on death row. Thanks to things like Dateline and the My Favorite Murder podcast, we’ve known America is here for true-crime stories and serial killers to scare the living daylights out of us when we’re on a stroll and needing to pass time before the dog poops. The true-crime nightmare-inducer du jour is Netflix’s Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. It’s a docuseries about Ted, a serial killer who confessed to 30 murders (and the actual number is likely higher); alas, this is America, and we can’t have nice things. People who have watched the docuseries are zeroing in on how “hot” Ted is, and Netflix would like them to cut it out.
CNN says people in 2019 are doing the same things the now-executed killer used to manipulate them into very unfortunate situations. Fine, Ted was a looker with dreamy blue eyes…and is also being portrayed byZac Efron in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile. Hollywood is clearly on board with the thirst for Ted train because the trailer for that shows off Zac’s pecs and only glosses over him dragging a torso through the woods…..
Netflix has had enough of people on Twitter being like, “Yeah, he was LITERALLY the worst demon ever…but look at those cheek bones!” It finally slapped back at the thirsty hos on Twitter:
I’ve seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service — almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers
The #BatmanWhoLaughs. After my #Penguin sketch from a couple weeks back, I’ve wanted to draw more #Batmanvillains — and this guy was top of my list. My morning drawing/sketch, enhanced on #ProcreateApp. (A little fill mistake gave#BWLaughs and his #Robin blackened teeth; I liked the effect so kept it here!). Shameless plug: The original, in-enhanced #pencil and #marker drawing is for sale along with some other great stuff at my new art dealer, @modernmythologycomicart ! They’re terrific guys and doing right by me. Check em out!
After graduating from The School of Visual Arts in New York City, 21-year-old Jimenez was hired by DC Comics, the American publishing house and division of DC Entertainment, where Pozner was his boss and mentor reported Plus magazine. “He was an incredibly talented man,” Jimnez said of Pozner, whom he immediately admired.
By the time they’d met, Pozner (who had designed album covers for The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix before he moved to the comic world) had risen the ranks at DC from production designer (where he wrote the ’80s-era Aquaman miniseries) to group director of creative services. The artist’s well-known exacting standards shaped Jimenez’s artisitic style, and they did little to discourage Jimenez from developing a crush on his 37-year-old boss. “I’d hang out with him at work, in the offices, far later than I had any reason to,” Jimenez recalls. “I would buy clothes I couldn’t afford to impress him. And eventually, I mustered the nerve to ask him on a date.”
Another #tbt —My #Tempest entry from an old #SecretFiles (you can still see some of the power descriptors on the scan). Been feeling sentimental about this guy lately. Hope I get to draw him again someday #oldschool @dccomics
But Pozner was hesitant to date someone who was both younger and HIV-negative. “He was 15 years older than I was,” Jimenez, now in his 40s, acknowledges. “And he had been my boss. [But] against his better judgment, he said yes. And it actually ended up being a really wonderful relationship.”
Another #tbt —My #Tempest entry from an old #SecretFiles (you can still see some of the power descriptors on the scan). Been feeling sentimental about this guy lately. Hope I get to draw him again someday #oldschool @dccomics
#NEWCOMICBOOKDAY Hurray it’s new comic day! As any good geek or nerd in the know is well aware Wednesday is a weekly holiday a pantheon of publishers bequeath on anticipatory fanboys and girls. Below we grabbed some excited fans and specialty shops Instagram posts from around the country and also review Heroes in Crisis number 5 that sees the return of the #NoHomo fan fave due Blue Beetle and Booster Gold: The Blue and the Gold.
WONDER WOMAN #63gets the manga treatment by Japanese superstar Kamome Shirahama.
When Themyscira and the remnants of Olympus fell, the Gods weren’t the only refugees to come to Earth. A small horde of mystical creatures have found their way here, and they’re determined to start new lives…but what happens when the people of our world are equally determined not to let them? Can Diana open their minds and show them that a centaur is more than half a person?
Kamome Shirahama is best known in the United States for her comics cover art at DC and Marvel, including such titles as Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, and Batgirl, and the Birds of Prey. Witch Hat Atelier is her first manga to be released in English.
HEROES IN CRISIS is something new in comics and boldly tackles mass shootings and PTSD.
“Can I tell you a secret Goldie?” Harley Quinn says to Booster Gold, early on in the first of issue of Heroes In Crisis — DC’s new company-wide crossover series — “You promise not to tell?” Harley continues seductively, “I hate pudding.” Here, Quinn is referring to both the options on the dessert menu at the diner she and Gold find themselves in, and we assume her on again/off again boyfriend The Joker, for whom “puddin’ ” is her trademark term of endearment.
Turns out the duo — as unlikely a pair as you can find — have been secretly operating “the Sanctuary,” an ultra-secret hospital for superheroes who’ve been traumatized by crime-fighting and cosmic combat. And that’s just the tip of the house-sized mysteries suggested in the the first issue of Heroes In Crisis. A mass-shooting massacre is at the center of C.I.A.-operative-turned-comics-writer Tom King’s story, where he poses the question: How does a superhero handle PTSD?
King has proved his writing mettle with his still ongoing, award winning runs on both Batman and Mister Miracle. He continues to be able to oscillate between both the incredibly cosmic (Batman and the Justice League against a New God) and masterfully grounded stories (like Bruce Wayne serving on a jury attempting to convict the Batman of assault against Mr. Freeze).
In issue five of Crisis, King deftly maneuvers between humor and heavy emotion and brings us closer to an understanding of who the mastermind behind the moves is or are.
The term “crisis” is a storied one in DC lore, stemming back to the 1960s when the Justice Society of America (JSA) from Earth-2 (containing DC’s 1940s golden age characters) and the Justice League of America from Earth-1 (the JLA we know essentially know now) would team up against odds that only the two greatest superhero teams in the multiverse could combat.
In the DC Universe (DCU), the term Crisis has become a brand that consistently brings the greatest crossovers year after year.
With Heroes, King takes that concept and does something truly original and cinematic.
Parents of Transgender Children Call on Congress to Pass the Equality Act
Today, HRC’s Parents for Transgender Equality National Council, a group of the nation’s leading parent-advocates in the fight for transgender equality, met with members of Congress to discuss their families’ moving journeys and the urgent need for Congress to pass the Equality Act. The Equality Act is a comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights bill which is a priority for the U.S. House’s new pro-equality leadership and is expected to be re-introduced soon
U.S. Representative Joe Kennedy, III (D-MA), chair of the Congressional Transgender Equality Task Force, hosted the convening of parents of transgender and gender expansive young people. Representative Kennedy was joined by U.S. Representatives Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), Mark Takano (D-CA), Jennifer Wexton (D-VA), Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA), Chris Pappas (D-NH) and Gil Cisneros (D-CA).
“For transgender young people, passing the Equality Act would be life-affirming and, in some cases, lifesaving,” said Jay Brown, Acting Senior Vice President, HRC Programs, Research & Training.“These parents’ children need and deserve clear protections from discrimination throughout daily life, from welcoming schools to inclusive health care. The unique stories and voices of these parents have already changed countless minds, and they will be critical in continuing to push equality forward alongside allies like Representative Kennedy and the Congressional Transgender Equality Task Force.”
“For two years, transgender children have fought daily battles against intolerance in their schools and their communities, while the adults tasked with protecting them at the highest levels of this Administration offer words of bigotry and hatred instead,”said U.S. Representative Joe Kennedy, III, chair of the Congressional Transgender Equality Task Force. “Listening to these parents today demonstrated once again that there is no force greater than a parent’s love and no force darker than a government that fails to see the humanity in her youngest citizens. We fight with those children and their parents because they should never doubt that they are heard and they are seen, and they should always know that they will never be erased.”
“Our families need the Equality Act to become law,” said Rachel Gonzales, a member of HRC’s Parents for Transgender Equality. “As residents of Texas, our family has experienced first hand the threat of both a hostile state government and cruel federal administration. Our state or zip code should not dictate whether our daughter is protected from discrimination.”
The Congressional Transgender Equality Task Force and the pro-equality members of Congress who attended the convening are on the frontlines of fighting for transgender youth, service members, patients and workers. Members in attendance who served in the previous Congress were all co-sponsors of the Equality Act.
The Equality Act was first introduced in July 2015. A recent study from PRRI found that seven in 10 Americans (71 percent) support laws like the Equality Act, which protect the LGBTQ community against discrimination in employment, public accommodations and housing. More than 130 major employers, with operations in all 50 states, have also joined HRC’s Business Coalition for the Equality Act, urging Congress to pass these crucial protections.
The meeting on Capitol Hill followed a two-day summit with HRC’s Parents for Transgender Equality National Council at HRC’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. Parents brainstormed strategies for change, discussed priorities and heard from HRC staff and leaders, including those working to expand inclusion in schools, child welfare and adoption agencies and health care facilities.
In conjunction with the summit, the HRC Foundation released a new guide for parents of non-binary, gender fluid and gender-expansive youth. The guide includes a helpful primer on terminology, resources for building inclusive communities and answers to frequently-asked questions from parents of gender expansive, non-binary and gender fluid youth.
A recent survey from HRC underscored the critical need for the new guide. HRC and researchers from the University of Connecticut found that less than a quarter of transgender and gender expansive youth feel like they can definitely be themselves at home and more than seventy percent of transgender and gender expansive youth reported hearing their families make negative comments about LGBTQ identities.
To read the new guide, click here. To learn more about HRC work on transgender equality, visit hrc.org/transgender.
Unlike the Dyke March, which discourages participation from allies, and the Pride Parade, for which groups have to pre-register, the Trans March is open to anyone who identifies as trans* (and/or gender non-conforming) and anyone who wants to stand with them. – Now Magazine
Kim Davis Must Pay the $225,000 in Legal Fees for the Gay Couples Who Sued Her, Say Governor’s Lawyers
Governor Matt Bevin and Kim Davis / Twitter
Lawyers for Kentucky GOP Governor Matt Bevin say that former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis must pay the $225,000 in legal fees owed to the gaycouples who sued her for refusing to issue marriage licenses because of her Christian-based opposition to same-sex marriage.
The Lexington Herald-Leader reports: ‘Although Bevin, a Republican, publicly has praised Davis as “an inspiration … to the children of America,” his attorneys are taking a more critical tone in court briefs, blaming the ex-clerk for failing to do her job following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage. A three-judge panel will hear arguments about the case’s expenses Thursday at the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. A district judge ruled in 2017 that the couples suing for marriage licenses clearly prevailed and that the state of Kentucky must pay their fees and costs.’
Bevin’s lawyers want the bill handed to Davis, and say she acted alone in denying the marriage licenses.
