I think it’s tricky with Towleroad because he’s trying to have his cake and eat it too. Towleroad is on some level a serious, credible endeavor, with posts about gay bashing and other community matters, so bravo to him for that. But his credibility seems undermined by posting about the status of Jake Gyllenhaal’s (sp?) chest hair. Of course that’s what pays the bills, and even I admit I find the titillation juicier and more clickable . . . .

So I don’t want to be in the position of scolding people for their desires, or for voicing those desires. (In other words, there’s nothing wrong with saying Avery is hot.) But when a blog takes on issues of social consequence — i.e., is not a porn blog or a gossip blog — I think it should be accountable for its spurious speculations on other people’s sexuality, whether they’re marginalized trans teens or putatively straight hockey players.

On the other hand, complete unaccountability (in the case of say, dlisted.com) is a whole other bag. There, something about this blog-writer’s — let’s call it — queer performativity that allows him to spew the meanest, most homophobic and misogynistic speculations on Tom Cruise, and not offend — because the offensiveness and self-loathing is so foregrounded. (Some similar effect occurs with Proust’s character Baron de Charlus — spectacular, performative meanness.) I’m still trying to figure out why the less politically correct writer somehow comes off better (perhaps because he’s self-aware and mining his own political incorrectness), but those are my INCHOATE thoughts at the moment.

But back to your post, it’s amusing how the Towleroad “demographic” just has a tin ear to any subtle analysis of their various consumptive habits, and perhaps by extension, to their whole habitus. I’m sure you have noticed your post on Towleroad didn’t ignite any further discussion. That’s my experience over the years of trying to say anything truly challenging at Towleroad. For example when I posted years ago at the height of Abercrombie-mania that their homoerotic imagery was paradoxically exploitative of middle America’s internalized fears and prejudices about male sexuality it just wafted over everyone’s head, apparently.