Best. Gay. Week. Ever! The (Almost) Totally Naked Issue!

IS THE GAY GLASS HALF NAKED OR HALF DRESSED?
So I was thinking about naked men this week — as part of my job, you pervs. Get your minds out of the gutter!

Actually, it wasn't just naked men I was pondering, but gay/bi male sexuality and how it's treated in the traditional media. Have things gotten better? Worse? In what ways? Is the gay glass of male sexuality half full or half empty?

What got me thinking about the topic? Well, like most things these days, it can be traced back to Glee which actually seems pretty emblematic of the whole topic. And more specifically it was the new issue of GQ featuring Cory Monteith, Dianna Agron and Lea Michele from Glee, that got me pondering the subject.

When I first saw the GQ cover I thought to myself, "Wow, what a double standard. You'd never see that sort of thing with the guys from Glee."

Given the high school theme, it seems pretty clear these images are meant to evoke Glee's underage female characters and are clearly designed to titillate GQ's mostly male readers. And, I harrumphed to myself, we'd certainly never see a gay version of this. Just look at that picture Chris Colfer did for Rolling Stone.

Then I went back and actually looked at Chris' Rolling Stone picture again. 

While the pic is certainly open to interpretation, there is no denying this group of older gay men (Bears! Yay!) are eying the virginal Colfer (or Kurt Hummel depending on your POV) and that it's perfectly reasonable to see an erotic element at play. So in retrospect, my initial reaction that there was a total double-standard at work didn't quite hold up. Clearly things are changing.

So is this diminishing double-standard of overt sexuality a good thing or a bad thing? I'll leave the discussion of the continuing sexualization of popular culture for another time (or you can see what the ladies of AfterEllen had to say about the GQ spread), but in terms of gay/bi male visibility and the normalization of our community, it's hard not to see this as hugely progressive.

It not only acknowledges that gay male sexuality exists, but by including it in a hugely popular magazine like Rolling Stone, it's shown as being a perfectly appropriate topic. And that helps Americans get more comfortable with gay male sexuality and past the idea that gay sex is "icky" and "other." In fact, I'd argue that popular culture is so influential in helping us achieve equality that this inclusion of gay sexuality is truly a marker of how far we've come. 

Which isn't to say that we don't have a long way to go for full equality. While the Colfer pic is progress, we're still a long way from how heterosexuality is portrayed. After all, can you imagine any of the Glee guys posing for these pics Michele did for GQ?

Yeah, me either. And I know GQ is ostensibly aimed at straight men, but given the erotic nature of the rest of the pics, I find it highly amusing that GQ kept Monteith dressed from head to toe in an utterly safe manner. True Blood on the cover of Rolling Stone this ain't. (Then again, that cover was really remarkable for featuring two naked men in the same pic.)

Glee itself is a pretty good example of how things have shifted in our favor having given us almost as much male eye candy as it has hot cheerleaders. In fact, it's probably given us more as I can't recall seeing any scenes of the girls' lockerroom. Meanwhile, Glee practically lives in the guy's lockerroom, including the showers. 

Then when you throw in shows like Spartacus and Blue Mountain State, which not only serve up huge portions of male beefcake (and great gay characters in the case of Spartacus), but are shows presumably aimed at a heterosexual male audience, you really can see how much things have changed.

But Glee also embodies society's tentative approach to gay male sexuality. While we are getting plenty of beefcake from the show, it's interesting to note that while last week's episode gave us two hot cheerleaders macking on each other, we have yet to see a same-sex male kiss on the show despite Kurt being an openly gay character. When he gets a boyfriend, will we see them making out the same way? This is Fox after all. That will be telling either way.

Next page! Is this really just an excuse to ogle nearly naked men? Would that really be so bad...