The latest crop of Dancing With the Stars contestants won't be officially announced until mid-August, but TV Guide is reporting on rumors that Lance Bass has signed on for season 7.  Not so surprising considering previous contestants have included former boy band members Joey McIntyre, Drew Lachey, and even a former N'Syncer, Joey Fatone.  What is unique about this casting rumor is that supposedly the show's producers are considering pairing the out Bass with a male partner.

No doubt there are a good number of gay professional male ballroom dancers to pair him with, but I find it sort of hard to believe this stunt is being seriously considered. Maybe having Bass dance with a male partner as a "one-off" so to speak — but to pair him with a man for an entire season?  Even if Bass himself were game for it (which is questionable), I just don't think it would go over all that well with the typical Dancing with the Stars viewer.

Kathy Griffin gets a game Bass to drop trou for Bravo's A-List Awards

And to be honest, it might not even be that interesting to gay viewers either. Maybe it's just me, but a big part of the fun of ballroom dancing are those the glittery and revealing dresses the women wear. All the feathers, the glitter, the twirled up skirts.

So unless Bass is going to be performing in drag (which certainly could be interesting), I think the idea of pairing him with a man on this show is a non-starter.

Curious what other AfterEltonites think. 

Christian De La Fuente and friend (Brad Barket/Getty)

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• I'm not going to spill who won Dancing with the Stars, no matter how many times you ask. Unrelated: Finalist Christian De La Fuente was the big star at today's 100th birthday party for Milk-Bone dog biscuits!

• NYTimes food critic Frank Bruni takes a moment to mourn the loss of the late, great Meatpacking gay dining institution Florent, and tosses in a few mentions of his days at The Anvil and The Mine Shaft along the way. Meat packing, indeed!

• Enter the contest to win a trip to the True Colors Tour in San Francisco, where host Carson Kressley will be tearing it up with Cyndi Lauper, The B-52s, Wanda Sykes, Andy Bell, The Puppini Sisters, and more.

• Like I need another reason to get excited about the upcoming "Boogie Nights for Soccer Moms" series Swingtown: One of the stars is Miriam Shor, best known for playing transgender BFF Ytzak in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

• Not for nothin', but WowReport nailed the dream casting of 'N Sync svengali Lou Pearlman for the inevitable biopic...

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

On the April 1 elimination show of ABC’s blockbuster reality competition, Dancing with the Stars, the judges chose Steve Guttenberg, star of Police Academy and Three Men and a Baby, for a repeat dance. But Guttenberg wasn’t partnered with Anna Trebunskaya, his teammate for the season. Instead he danced a cheek-to-cheek tango with her husband, DWTS dancer Jonathan Roberts – a tango they had briefly practiced earlier in the week when Trebunskaya fell too ill to rehearse.

Was the televised “Mango” a trial balloon being sent up by DWTS executive producer Conrad Green? Are Green and ABC contemplating a same-sex dance team for a season of DWTS? Was this an opportunity to judge audience response? (For the record: the audience LOVED it.)

Cut to late January, and AfterElton.com’s interview with Green for our insanely informative (if we don't say so ourselves) 2-part investigative report, "Gays in Primetime". At the time, we asked Green: Would they consider a same-sex partner dance team for DWTS? Green found the idea “interesting,” saying he was “open to it.” And straight-shooting ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson responded affirmatively to the notion, as well: “Yeah. I think there’s no reason not to.”

In fact, Green seemed to be working through the idea for the first time in our interview:

“I wouldn’t be against it (same-sex partners on the show) in principle. But I think where the difficulty comes, is we try to duplicate the real competition rules. … However we are an entertainment show so we are not necessarily bound by that. It’s not something we’d have to adhere to; it’s something we tend to adhere to. The other thing is you’d have to make sure that the dancer felt comfortable with it. And what I wouldn’t want to do is let it turn into a circus, if you see what I mean. If it would just look silly and feel like a stunt.”

Ruminating on the concept, Green continued, “But having said all that: it’s an interesting thought. It would make quite a statement in a way. I’m sort of open to it, but curious about the implications of it.” Green twice repeated the phrase “it’s interesting” as he turned the idea over.

Cat Power

Every Friday our friend Colin over at NewNowNext tips us off to what's hot in popular music. Take it away, Colin!

Video of the Week: Cat Power Performs “Metal Heart” on David Letterman

While her new cover album, Jukebox, definitely deserves a listen, check out Cat Power performing an old single on David Letterman. Chan Marshall gives a very hunched-over, breathy and mesmerizing performance of her Moon Pix album’s “Metal Heart.” Check it out after the break.

New Goldfrapp video

Having taken a turn for the subtle and folksy for its Seventh Tree album, the Goldfrapp duo is back with a one-take, bizarre yet feel-good video of utter bliss.

Kylie shoots for the Stars

Kylie Minogue has come to America for the release of her X album – so check out her performance on Dancing With The Stars of her first U.S. single, “All I See.”.

Pete Wentz talks to NewNowNext

Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, who rocks guy-liner like no other, chatted with NewNowNext.com about his band’s new concert DVD, as well as high heels and hair-straightening.

Bjork's "Wanderlust"

New Bjork video - "Wanderlust"

Bjork ‘s new “Wanderlust” video is one of the more artistic we’ve seen in a very long time: The mix of lush sets and CGI creates something strange and absorbing … as we’d expect from Bjork..

Leona Lewis stream on LOGOonline

The U.K. phenom Leona Lewis’ debut album, Spirit, is still streaming on LOGOonline – and here’s what we think of the two new U.S. tracks.

On last night's Dancing With the Stars, Steve Guttenberg and Jonathan Roberts danced the "mango" together, as Guttenberg's regular partner was out. The two played it mostly "straight", with some jokey macho posturing at the end. I'll be damned if I can tell who was leading, but the audience ate it up.

To add to the camp value, pint-sized pop star Kylie Minogue was also on hand to perform two numbers. What, did they let Bruno direct this week's episode?

(Thanks to oodles of tippers for emailing us about this one, including QueerTwoCents, who had the video up.)

Kathy Griffin and me a porn star at the gay porn awards

On Saturday night Andy took me to see Kathy Griffin at the Madison Square Garden WaMu Theater (the WaMu part was new to me ... but then the manhole covers in this city will probably have corporate sponsors before Bloomberg's done with it). As we approached the theater, the transient Midtown crowd started more and more to resemble what Noah's Ark might have looked like had he opted not to repopulate the world with animals but instead to preserve paired examples of the many species of gay men who live in New York City.

"Look, it's a pair of Prada-footed Guppies!" "Hey, a Muscle Mary ... and his matched mate! They do tend to travel together ..."

And of course whatever Andy and I would qualify as, other than old, boring, and probably not nearly fabulous enough for a classy event like this. Would they make us sit in the back? What if I went to the gift stand to buy a "MAIN GAY" t-shirt and they told me I wasn't fun or pretty enough?

The night was only beginning and already I was shame-spiraling into disaster. You can take the boy out of the Catholic Church, step-ball-chain, step-ball-chain, repeat...

Fortunately, the minute that Kathy's show started, I forgot about all that (and almost forgot about the private atmosphere of suffocating perfume that hovered over our section, courtesy of the 300 or so women drinking red wine out of plastic cups all around us). Clips of Anderson Cooper calling Kathy "Bitch!" from The Celebrity Mole?! Clips of Kathy on Seinfeld? Clips of Kathy having her face beaten in with a hammer by her pregnant lesbian lover from the white-hot B horror movie The Unborn?!?! 

Okay, this is where I belong after all.

Kathy's act was what you'd expect: polished, wonderfully serpentine, and selectively ruthless. In the show that we saw (which she presaged with the promise that it was ALL NEW), Kathy's main targets were Oprah, Britney, Barbara Walters, the Christians ...

... and Marie Osmond.