IMHO: "The Tyra Banks Show": Gay for Pay

On Thursday, The Tyra Banks Show discussed "gay for pay", featuring straight men who work in gay porn. While Tyra makes for great Soup fodder, I occasionally feel a bit of sympathy for her. Her show is often cringe-inducing (particularly when she tries to be socially relevant) but she usually approaches these topics with good intentions that sometimes mitigate her stupid questions and tendency to not listen to her guests.

Overall, I found the show fairly well done, and actually managed to dodge a number of potential pitfalls. Find out why I'm giving this episode an up arrow, in detail, below.

Kurt

When Tyra talked with four "gay-for-pay" performers (Kurt — the guy who was fired from Subway when he was recognized by a customer, Aaron, Dean and porn-star-turned-conservative columnist Matt Sanchez) I was pleasantly surprised. I went into the this episode worrying that these guys would feel the need to make homophobic comments to assert their heterosexuality and that the audience would be eager to declare them gays deep in denial.

Homophobia was discussed briefly, but mostly to give Tyra's gay-for-pay guests a chance to acknowledge that working around gay men as gay-for-pay performers has gotten them to change some of their earlier homophobic views.

Kurt and Aaron

Tyra then tried to offer a different take on gay-for-pay by talking with a trio of straight guys who tend bar in gay clubs where the tips are better. Unfortunately, that segment made me realize new fears for this episode as the guys compared notes on the money smitten gay customers offered for sex or, in once case, to lick the bottom of his boot.

I was getting pretty uncomfortable at this point, picking up a general tone of "You wouldn't believe what deviants gay men are!" Tyra diffused that, however, by pointing out how straight men often make female bartenders uncomfortable by being too touchy and declaring, "A lot people say that gay men are freakier than straight men. That's not true, a man is a man and a man's just nasty."

This was followed by a story about Tyra's first encounter with a gay-for-pay bartender, the first time I was happy to hear Tyra find a way to turn the conversation back to herself since, by the time she was done, it was time for a commercial break.

Dean

I hoped that the show would delve into some of the issues gay people have with gay-for-pay. Unfortunately, that point of view was articulated by The Advocate's Sean Kennedy, who didn't take long to declare that bartending jobs in gay bars should be filled by gays.

Tyra tried to get the discussion back on course (seriously, I started wondering if I accidentally watched an episode from the TiVo that catches signals from Bizarro Earth, where Bizarro Tyra understands what her guests are trying to say better than themselves) but that didn't last for long. Kennedy went on to make a blanket description of porn as leading to substance abuse and risky sexual behavior, which left him sounding like a total reactionary.

What did you think? Was Tyra able to handle the topic responsibly, considering the potential for homophobic comments? Did the gay-for-pay guests come off well?