Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (January 30, 2009)

I’ve been thinking about sexuality a lot lately, which is different than thinking about sex, but not by much.

Why are most men the way they are about sex — and so different from most women? Are gay men different from straight men? And what does the internet have to do with it?

Interesting questions, no? Even if they're not, the subject of "Male Sexuality" gives me an excuse to write about sex in this week’s edition of the BEST.GAY.WEEK.EVER!

HOW SEXUAL ARE YOU?
In order to get in the mood, let’s begin with a brief quiz, shall we? (FYI, the quiz program won't let me use "dirty" words — words like "sex".)

MALE SEXUALITY IS A BEAUTIFUL THING
I’ve never been one of those who say, “Men are pigs” — implying that those of us with “Y” chromosomes are somehow less evolved or less developed than, well, women.

Or, rather, I do say that men are pigs, but that this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Yes, men obsess over and often fetishize sex. But women obsess and fetishize things too!

Case in point: I happened to stumble upon Marie Osmond on QVC the other night.

First, I have to ask: are we really supposed to think those aren’t hair extensions? Squint your eyes, and all you see are hair and teeth.

Anyway, Marie was flogging something called Marie Osmond Dolls, which I guess she started making way back in the early 90s, post Donny & Marie and her minor “a little bit country” singing success, but pre-Dancing with the Stars/Celebrity Duets/70s camp resurgence, when her career was totally in the toilet.

Her dolls are seriously freaky. They all have a theme, usually based on some extreme 1950s stereotype, like “drum majorette” or “happy little baker.” But the theme is really just an excuse to take a baby or toddler and wildly exaggerate its features, with enormous eyes and bulbous lips. Then Marie piles on other extreme gender stereotypes, like puffy princess dresses and perfectly coifed little curls.

Talk about fetishization! These things were seriously creeping me out.

That’s when I realized that I was looking at one female version of porn.

The point is, sexuality makes different things endlessly fascinating. For many men (and a few women), it’s close-ups of engorged genitalia, run in an endless loop. For many women (and a few men), it’s babies and Marie Osmond dolls.

You say tomato, I say tomahto.

MARIE OSMOND SEX DOLL!
Oh, come on: you knew I’d end up here eventually, didn’t you? It’s the Male Sexuality Edition!

But what if Marie did design a sex doll? It might look something…like…this…

(Just to be clear, Marie Osmond isn't really producing a line of sex dolls, nor is this doll really modeled to look like her. It's actually one of the state-of-the-art "RealDoll" models — the same brand of doll featured in the movie Lars and the Real Girl.)

Next page! Palin by comparison!