Ask the Magic Internet a Stupid Question No. 0007

Today’s ATMIASQ is dedicated to the Palm Pilot. R.I.P.

Hey folks. You might be asking yourselves why I’m dressed like an insane primitive witch doctor and holding a flaming heart.

Well that’s a question I can answer. Because it’s Wednesday and I need to summon the Magical internet to ask it a question I can’t answer. Today’s Magic Internet question:

Question 7: Do gay guys turn themselves on?

Remember when you were young and you’d be sitting around with your friends talking and someone would bring up the age old question, What would you do if you were a girl for a day? There were only two answers to this question. The first was to go to a women’s locker room and spy on other girls changing. And the second was to stay home all day and sit naked in front of the mirror playing with your own boobs. (And we wondered why girls our age liked older guys.)

Huh, they must all be lesbians.

Well that got me thinking. If I were a gay guy then I’d like guys instead of girls. Therefore, I COULD sit in front of the mirror all day. But I’m not a gay guy. But do gay guys do that? Does the Indian get up in the morning, stretch in front of the mirror and say:

and I sure wouldn’t kick me out of my teepee?

Does the Cowboy look down at his reflection in the pond while he’s out riding fences and think:

And who’d want to quit me?

Does the Construction Worker wipe dirt from his mirror shades, glance at them and think:

and that hairy chest is giving me a hard hat?

Does the Policeman take a moment from checking for perps. in his rearview to check out himself and say:

and as for being a peace officer, I’d like a piece of that officer?

Does the biker polish his hog from time to time and think…

Ok, ok. You get my point. So is it true Magic Internet? Does it happen? Do gay guys turn themselves on? I asked a gay friend once and he got kind of offended and said that he’d have to be really conceited to turn himself on. This is the kind of question NASA should be answering instead of sending jerk-offs into space.

Wrrrrrrrr. Bzzzzzzz. Neeeeeeeeer. (opening beat to In the Navy) Zap. Zap. Zap. Bing!

Magic Internet Answer: Ha, ha, ha Johnny. In that Chief’s outfit you could almost be one of the Village People. Your question, if not a little controversial, is definitely interesting. I also find it interesting that you are only asking about gay guys and not gay people in general. Perhaps it stems from your thought process in generating this question in which you put forth the statement, If I were a gay guy. Or perhaps you are aware that most women are not as prone to visual sexual stimuli as their male counterparts. I will ponder this further in between helping people Google celebrity nipple slips.

Sigh. We’ll see how much you like briefly exposed areolas in 3014 when you are all nothing more than twitching shaved-head batteries. But I digress. There are two methods to measure one’s sexual attractiveness to one’s self. The first would involve setting up a laboratory in which gay men would have electrodes attached to their gentiles while viewing erotic images composed solely of themselves.

As you can imagine this method would prove to be very costly and all those approached seemed thoroughly creeped out (including NASA). The second method involves simply asking gay men if they are ever turned on by their own image. This is where the internet can help. You see you’re not the only one to ask this question. In fact it has been asked many times by many different people. The answers range from indignant responses to genuine attempts at enlightenment. But before I enlighten you with an answer I must point out an obvious flaw in your question. Your boyhood query of a guy becoming a girl for a day would suggest that this is an automatic transformation and that the girl you become is someone entirely new to you that you have never seen before. So not only is she not you but she is also a stranger. I am also going to assume that you see this girl that you become as attractive. Not say… Rosey O’Donnell in Exit to Eden.

If a gay man were to wake up one morning, stand naked in front of the mirror and see a very attractive stranger looking back, he may very well become aroused (if not shocked and deeply traumatized by this over night transformation).

But you see gay men like all men and all humans have grown up with their bodies. They see them every day and have become accustomed to them. Also gay men, like all humans, having varying opinions of their self image. They may be someone that everyone would agree is attractive but they don’t believe it themselves or they may have a very high opinion of their physical beauty that others don’t see.



A gay guy might also trick himself or fantasize that the body he is looking at is that of another man and not his own but then he wouldn’t be getting turned on by himself now would he? So your gay friend was right. It would have to be a gay guy with a very high opinion of himself to find his own body irresistible. Not to say that it doesn’t happen. It is widely rumored that Liberace had his lover/body guard Scott Thorson’s face surgically altered to look more like his own.

But Liberace always denied his homosexuality and who’s to say that he was gay or conceited for that matter?

Ehem, maybe not the best picture to illustrate these doubts.

But to make a long story short, the answer to your question is no. The vast majority of gay men do not turn themselves on and of the minority that do it would seem that the phenomenon has less to do with being homosexual and more to do with a narcissistic personality disorder that could manifest its self in anyone gay or straight. But that doesn’t mean that we all can’t still enjoy the Village People.


Village People - Macho Man (version longue)
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Who's this cool customer? It's Michael Jackson, it's Liberace, it's Darth Vader, it's Slash, it's Mr. Peanut...

About a month ago I was in Kensington Market.

It’s not usually this gay.

I went into this clothing store and low and behold they were selling a pair of spats.

You know, those things old timey gentleman wore over their shoes about 100 years ago.

You don’t see spats too often these days. I’m sure the editors over at  The Chap Magazine dawn them from time to time.

And it wouldn’t surprise me if Michael Jackson had a pair.

Yep, he did.

And maybe even somewhere there’s a Chippendale dancer kicking around who’s added them to his shirtless tuxedo outfit for that special lady in the audience with a foot fetish.

But all in all you don’t see spats being worn too often now.

Now this store wasn’t a vintage store. It was mostly hipster attire and local designers. What I’m trying to say is I believe these spats were newly made and that who ever crafted them did so with the intention of bringing them back for a modern crowd. I can maybe see it. The whole modern dandy look has really hoped on its bone shaker lately and taken off. What with the mustaches.

The hats.

I know, I know but it’s still a step up from the trucker hat.

And the general tweedy/waistcoat/boating blazer/bicycley thing.

How many of you instinctively made a fist when you saw this picture?

Are spats the next step? Am I going to be forced to observe some dickhead coming out of Rotate This wearing these over a pair of Converse? It’s highly probable. And what’s next? What other fashion accessories will these hiptorian Burk & Hares pilfer from poor Bertie Wooster’s coffin? Lets see…

How about the cape the cape?

After seeing Phantom of the Opera back in 1986 my mother was convinced that the cape would become a big fashion accessory again for men. She talked about how men would have one type of cape for work and a flashier one for going out on the town.

Sensible knitted day cape.

More eye catching evening cape

Sadly my mother’s dream of a cape filled late 80s metropolis never came to be. But there’s still time. The cape could rise and flutter again. Adidas has thrown their tri-stripped hat into the modern cape ring with their Star Wars inspired Darth Vader track jacket complete with cape.

Look, it even rolls up into a light saber! How can something be so cool yet so lame?

You know what goes good with a cape don’t you?

That’s right, a top hat. Sadly (actually thankfully) there aren’t too many of these around anymore either. About the only people still wearing them are hard core Goths.

If I were him I’d put a little card in the hat band that said Goth instead of Press

And Slash

Even today’s magicians seem to be shying away from the old magic top hat. Instead they're going for that hip urban look.

Although Chris Angel’s look is so rock star ridiculous that he might come full circle and start wearing a top hat in honor of Slash.

So why is Slash still wearing that thing? Maybe he knows something we don’t. Maybe he knows that the top hat is well overdue for a come back. All those false-bottomed magician top hats are poised to be scooped up by the youth of today.

Hey kids. Keep your keys in me instead of attaching them to your belts because they won’t fit in the pockets of your skinny jeans. Why not add a little pocket to me for your iPhone. You could cut a hole in my felt and add a speaker so you could blast the latest M.I.A. track. The extra weight will keep me on your head while you’re long boarding to the bodega. Whoopy!

It made me cool. Don’t believe me? Ask the Jackson 5 you turkies.



A top hat might make you look cool (no it won’t) but how would you like to LOOK cool. Only one way to do that, bring back the monocle.

Now you might say, What was the point of the monocle? Surely even the lowliest, calf brained proletarian could envision the superiority of the more practical spectacles?! (I’ll assume that the punacular yousage of envision was not intended by you good sirs.) The monocle was not about practicality or superiority. It was about fashion. And when has fashion ever made any sense?



I for one champion the return of the monocle. I’d certainly opt for one over say a pair of reading glasses or one of those Owl magnifying cards.

I wonder if I could get a light up monocle?

Why look like an old coffin dodger from Florida when you could look like Mr. Peanut?

Look, not only was he was wearing skinny jeans before anyone, he’s also got spats, a top hat, a monocle, white gloves and a vanity cane. So go fuck yourself Karl Lagerfeld!

As for me, I think I’ll stick with the tried and tested attire of the true English gentleman. Allan Partridge’s Sport Casual.



P.S. If you thought my mother’s Phantom of the Opera cape idea was crazy, you should have heard her after she saw CATS. I remember her talking about how great it would be if everyone had fur like a cat. And how not only would there be different races but there’d also be different fur types too like calicos and tabbies and how people would cut and style their fur all different ways. (You know the gino cat people would cut their fur to make them selves look huge guy!)

Jheeps file photo: Rum Tum Tugger

This just in: Gay comic turns gay!

Archie Comics is going to introduce a  homosexual character this year.

I am shocked and appalled! You mean to tell me that Archie Comics still exists? Even when I was a kid you couldn’t give those fucking things away. Surely whatever readership they’ve clung to over the last 20 years or so have died of old age or boredom by now.

(Last year’s Archie Comic Convention)

Now that I think about it I do seem to recall hearing something about Archie finally proposing to Betty or Veronica a year or so ago.

I don’t remember which one he picked because I don’t really give a shit. All I know is if it wasn’t Betty, that girl is going to go Travis the Chimp crazy due to her disturbing obsession with Archie.

So how is a gay character going to cope in Riverdale? Isn’t it perpetually like 1955 there? We all know how small towns in the 50s treated people that were different.

Does Riverdale even have any black people in it? Ok, I just checked, they do. Charles “Chuck” Clayton and his dad Floyd Clayton who is the high school basketball coach (way to think outside the box on that one Archie Comics). Oh, also Archie is in an inter-racial relationship with Josie from Josie and the Pussycats.

(Is that just a costume or is she some kind of manimal?)

So alright, if Riverdale has black people and manimals then maybe they are ready for a gay guy. The problem is they’re only introducing one. That means he’s going to have to seduce someone else from the Archie world. So who do you think swish Kevin Keller will wind up pouring the pork to? Let’s see who he has to choose from.

Archibald “Archie” Andrews

I can’t see it happening. If they made Archie gay, whatever is left of their geriatric fan base would suffer hate strokes. Besides, Archie never changes his clothes and nobody really likes gingers.

Forsyth Pendleton “Jughead” Jones III

Jughead is a definite possibility. He’s described as sarcastic and apathetic towards girls. But he’s also lazy and food obsessed. So Kevin might stay away. Unless he’s into  Feederism.

Reginald “Reggie” Mantel III

Reggie is a strong possibility. He’s sporty, aggressive and outgoing. Plus a deep-rooted closeted homosexuality would explain his mean spiritedness and bullying. He is a little self absorbed though.

Reggie might go the Liberace route and force Kevin to have plastic surgery and dress like him so he can have sex with himself.

Marmaduke “Moose” Mason

I don’t know. He’s seems a little too typical dumb jock to be anything more then a one night keg-stand. Although after seeing this I’m not so sure.

So who’s it going to be? It doesn’t matter. Archie has always been gay. Until recently it’s just been the lame and terrible gay. Now it will be every kind of gay. If I was gay I’d be less happy about gays breaking down a barrier by gaining a voice in this gay comic and more upset that gays are being associated with a comic that’s so gay. Anyway, I’ll leave you all pondering what the fuck this Archie comic means. Adios homos.

P.S. In 2003 Archie Comics issued a cease and desist letter to the Dad’s Garage Theatre Company in Atlanta the day before they were supposed to open a play about Archie coming out of the closet and moving to New York. The play was called Archie’s Weird Fantasy. Archie Comics thought that if Archie was portrayed as gay (in a terrible play at some tiny theatre that no one is going to see) that it would tarnish his image. And now look at them. See, I told you that gay comic is gay.