A Magazine With a Lot of Issues

When I was on the long, slippery road to Gay Town but still grasping at any discernible straw of heterosexuality, I would pass the time on long plane flights by reading magazines like GQ, Details and Esquire.  If the sight of boobies held greater than usual appeal, I would even slum it with a copy of FHM, Stuff or Maxim.  And if I were feeling really daring, I might sneak aboard with an Entertainment Weekly or People, although I would fold the cover back on itself so that no one could easily spot my nelly love of celebs and gossip.

Now that I more fully embrace my gayness, I have made it a hobby of sorts to gently help escort the queer or questioning from the dark, unfriendly recesses of the closet.  It is good for the cause, and the more heteros who know we walk in their midst, the better.

Which is why it is long past time for Details magazine to come out.  I don’t just mean the next issue, I mean come out.

It is hardly novel to wink coyly about the true sexual predilections of Details.  But what does seem new is that Details isn’t just stepping perilously close to the gay line anymore; it has sashayed, tap-danced and strutted its stuff so far beyond the line that the line is barely visible to it anymore.

Details is like the closeted man who tries a bit too hard to fit in: overcompensating with one too many references to mainly straight passions like cigars or scotch, or the ostentatious use of the word “wife” when you can almost hear the uncomfortable throat-clearing that preceded it.

But the struggle inside Details is apparent in the multiple hints it drops about its true orientation.

Put aside for a moment the overall metrosexual air of the magazine, its obsessive focus on waxing and cosmetic surgery and the promise of eternal happiness if you just buy that $2,000 Marc Jacobs coat or the $700 Jil Sander pants or the $75 Paul Smith coffee mug ($75!).  Forget its exclusive use of impossibly beautiful, twinkish models on almost every page.  Overlook the fact that come-hither or shirtless photos of men outnumber similarly sexy pictures of women by about five-to-one (there is even a profile of a scantily clad Mary-Louise Parker that is a doppelgänger for Instinct’s “Chick We’d Switch For” feature), or that many of the same homoerotic ads found in gay magazines also grace the pages of Details, unaltered.  (Isn’t that guy from the Camel ad on p. 55 a Village People alum?)

For even more blatant examples of its MSM nature (and we don’t mean mainstream media), flip through the pages of the August issue alone:

  Look no further than the cover: David Beckham, object of pretty much every gay man's fantasies (and a few straight women's), shirt open, with homo-suggestive caption (“David Beckham has the world by its balls”).  The accompanying article inside has a beefcake pose by Becks that would probably quicken the pulses of even a few Kinsey-Scale zeroes.

Then turn to the letters section.  Three of the six letters have a strongly gay point of view, and that doesn’t even count the queen who thinks that Nancy Grace “rules the TV world.”

On page 58, there is a blurb about queer rocker Bob Mould’s new CD, with the tagline: “Welcome back, Bob.  We’ve missed you.”  (I’ll bet you have, wink-wink.)

On page 80, Details covers the same gay rodeo that was featured on A&E’s ultra-homo “Sheer Dallas,” complete with a photo of a naked cowboy who is, apparently, “going bareback.”

There is an article on page 88 about whether men should “show nipple” (because of tight shirts worn without undershirts) that plays footsy with an endorsement of the concept, only to belatedly mumble something about how nipples actually belong on, uh, women-folk.

The story on page 94 about “when stars go bald” is written entirely as a metaphor for living as a closeted gay man. (“For some actors, a naked scalp has become a more damning secret than a gay lover.”)  Spoken like a gay man so deep in denial that a team of spelunkers couldn't extract him.

An article on page 96 dwells on people named “Dick” with the same childish glee as a third-grade boy about to touch one, other than his own, for the first time.

Flip one page to an article about hot Irish actor Cillian Murphy and its headline screaming about his upcoming role as a “troubled tranny,” a fact that merits little more than a footnote in the article itself.

Then there is the hilarious piece on page 110 about office parties by very gay writer .  (“I, at least, did not sleep with Doug from the mailroom, mostly because Doug was hetereosexual.”  If Doug is heterosexual the same way Details is, Augusten, then you’re in.)

This is followed a few pages later by a story on real estate by CNN’s is-he/isn’t-he/he-is anchor, .

Finally, there is the most prominent subhead on the cover, “Is Your New Baby Making You Gay?,” whose square inches don’t match in importance the trifle of a piece on the last page.  (The article naughtily posits that being a new dad makes one seem gay, replete with cute references to Baby Wipes.  It seriously gave me uncomfortable flashbacks to Details’ controversial “Gay or Asian” piece from last year.)

Clearly, there are a lot of gay writers and, likely, other gay staff at Details.  But the sexual purgatory it exists in is unsettling.

Holding up Details next to its louder and prouder counterparts – Instinct, Out, Genre, et al – is a little like watching some of the gay Republicans I’ve known on Capitol Hill: You can see just enough telltale signs to arouse suspicions, despite their fervent attempts to hide them, when the truth is they’re secretly giving blowjobs in the Russell Building restrooms.

Comments

[demetrius]

wow, you read 'em mista!

see you at the coming out party?

[jay]

men r less intimate than grls. women mags show worse, which is why boys read them. that detaiils mag makes me want 2 barf!
http://www.spongeblog.blog-city.com/

[Jay]

I subscribe to Details, I completely agree with the writeer and the fact that Details Mag is indeed "in the closet" however I dont mind the fact that most of its issues have something related to something which is very "nomal" now days, I think we can all use a little bit of culture. Keep em' cumming Details!