Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (August 22, 2008)

MANHUNT IN THE GAY NEWS!
Last week, Out.com published a provocative, insightful, and much-discussed essay, “Has Manhunt Destroyed Gay Culture?” in which author Michael Joseph Gross says, “I don’t like to think about the number of books I could have read, languages I could have learned, and friends I could have stayed in better touch with if I had not wasted so much time cruising online these past 12 years. I hesitated to write this essay, because I am not proud of having acted like a moron, and because contemplating the just deserts of my online adventures is unpleasant.”

From there, he basically asks a gay variation on the question, “Is the internet ultimately a good or a bad thing?”

And for me, the answer is … who the hell knows? Let’s face it: the internet is about freedom. It’s a place where you can find pretty much anything you want. And because it’s all mostly anonymous, there’s nothing, not even social stigma, to stop you from getting and doing whatever you feel like. Unfortunately, this goes for pedophiles and serial killers too.

Worse, the disembodied virtual nature of the medium seems to change how we view other people, making them mere blips of light rather than actual human beings.

According to Gross (and I agree with him), the internet dehumanizes people. There are whole websites singing the praises of "barebacking" and happily encouraging others, even teenagers, to blithely join in. If someone like that showed up with a booth at a gay pride festival, he'd hopefully be scorned by every person there, rightfully equated with the amoral monsters that killed Matthew Shepherd.

But because it's the internet, we all just sort of shrug our shoulders and say, "Whatever." What the hell is that about? You might even say that, to varying degrees, the internet brings out the serial killer in us all.

Can human beings, gay or straight, handle the internet, with its complete freedom and dehumanizing nature? And if my older generation, with our lingering guilt and parent-imposed empathy, can mostly handle it, what about the following generation — the one completely raised in an instant-gratification, judgment-free, serial killer-friendly internet world?

Michael C. Hall as Dexter, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy

As someone who makes his living providing internet content, I’d like to be able to say, “Of course humans can handle it!” But honestly, who knows? And I definitely think it’s a question worth asking.

MANHUNT IN THE STRAIGHT NEWS
Manhunt also hit the mainstream press — sort of — when it was revealed that John McCain had accepted a donation from Jonathan Crutchley, one of the founders of Manhunt.

Now I have absolutely no love for McCain, and the demagogic accusations he’s throwing at Barack Obama are as vile and reprehensible (and, ultimately, as character-defining) as anything George W. Bush and Karl Rove threw at him in 2000. But I’m not sure how exactly it’s a “scandal” when someone accepts a legal donation from anyone. Are politicians supposed to be mind-readers now? Should the Obama campaign Google all two million of their donors, to make sure no white supremacists have given them money?

That said, a gay man giving to John McCain — and one of the founders of Manhunt, no less? The presidential candidate who has pledged to appoint even more anti-gay right-wing lunatics to courts all across the country, who fully supports “abstinence-only” sex “education,” and who says he doesn’t know if condoms prevent the spread of HIV?

Jonathan Crutchley, John McCain, Karl Rove

I know human beings are capable of all kind of crazy self-delusions, but wow. Screw Xanax — whatever this guy’s taking, I want some.

Next Page! How animated movies got so crappy!