Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (July 25, 2008)

IN PRAISE OF THE MEN OF SWINGTOWN!
Here’s the thing. When I first heard about this show, Swingtown, that was supposedly about set in the 70s and was all about a neighborhood of swingers and wife-swappers, I thought , “Oh, geez, what an obvious gimmick.”

From left to right: Josh Hopkins,
Jack Davenport, Grant Show

It’s a little like Big Love, which similarly annoys me, because it pretends to be about a real-world issue, polygamy, but it’s really just a cheap, titillating way to attract attention to itself.

But we have to preview anything remotely “gay” for the site, so I watched the first couple gauzy, sepia-tinged episodes of Swingtown. I wanted to hate it, but I couldn’t quite. The sets, costumes, and references from the 70s made me smile. The lead actresses all have that wonderful “I Am Woman” vibe goin’ on. And — let’s face it — the four male leads are all very, very easy on the eyes.

Then three weeks ago, they did this episode, “Friends with Benefits,” where the slutty housewife gets hit on by an ex-boyfriend. He wants to have an affair, but she tells him that she and her slutty airplane pilot husband are a “package deal,” which results in the three of them having a threeway of sorts (although no “gay” interaction is necessarily implied).

From left to right: Show, Lana Parilla, Ryan McPartlin

Again, all very titillating and gimmicky. I would have shrugged the whole thing off except for one thing:

The ex-boyfriend was the most drop-dead gorgeous guy I’ve ever seen in my life!

His name is Ryan McPartlin. Tell me if you don’t think he’s a total hottie:

Then two weeks ago, Swingtown did an episode called “Heatwave.” As a former creative writing instructor, I knew immediately that the “heatwave” was no doubt something called an “objective correlative” — a termed popularized by T.S. Elliot to describe the writing device in which the themes of a story and the emotional states of the main characters are projected onto a physical metaphor outside the characters.

In other words, yeah, it’s hot outside, but the episode was really going to be about passion between the main characters.

Foolish me! Okay, sure, the heatwave was something of an objective correlative. But much more importantly, it was an excuse for all the men on the show to take off their shirts! And then slip into tight, 70s-style briefs and trunks.

Suddenly, I am a very, very, very big fan of the show!

But enough of my slobbering. Let’s get to the men!

My favorite guy is resident twink, Doug Stephens, played by Michael Rady. (Interestingly, the Microsoft Word dictionary does not include the word “twink.” Yeah, like there’s no gay internet-surfing going on on the Microsoft campus!):

Next page! More swinging men!