So Harlequin is going to be publishing Gay and Lesbian romances. And, like, smutty books.

No, really.

No ... really.

Carina Press [...]

... Most likely, to the extent that gay romances get published, they're going to be M/M romance rather than gay -- that is, aimed and oriented at their women readers, rather than at the gay market. Developing a new client base would be massively difficult, after all, and they've had Torquere and Samhain and Dreamspinner and Ravenous Romance and (somewhat accidentally) Cleis Press to show them that yes, there are lots and lots of women out there who will read stories of men in love and/or gettin' it on. And Carina, as long as people know that it's a Harlequin imprint, would be a desperately hard sell to gay bookstores and gay male readers. After all, men have long been conditioned to run screaming into the woods at the very sight of a Harlequin romance, because gooshy books that women like are icky! Icky icky icky! (We men are delicate flowers that wilt at the mere mention of women's literature and/or romance. Be gentle with us.) [...]

...I have to admit, I am rather curious as to how Harlequin's M/M books will turn out. My main issue with the M/M romances that I've read is that the men frequently aren't particularly realistic, but then, I'm never quite sure how realistic romances are supposed to be. After all, they're a fantastical sort of literature, entirely by design. It seems rather pointless to harp at fantasies for not being real. I suppose my particular taste in romantical literature would be for more real men, though. Somehow, that seems to make for a story that works better....

...Given Maine's history, the result should have surprised no-one. The plain fact is, majorities will not choose to recognize civil rights of any minoritiy of their own free will. It simply will not happen. Whenever this sort of thing comes up for a vote, it allows the majority to say, "We don't like you, we don't want you, and we think you are not human enough to share our rights." And they do, and they will. DC has one thing right; it refuses to allow people to vote on rights enumerated in its Human Rights Act, because they will use that opportunity to express prejudices and reject minorities, as Maine has done here.

Am I saying that we should give up, give out, give in? No, of course not. I am saying that we're going to have to go back and do this again and again and again, in all the same places and in different ways, before this is finally going to stick. And if history is any guide, we've only seen the leading edge of resistance at this point.

Some people like to refer to the Civil Rights era, likening this struggle to that one. But historically, looking at that struggle, the way this eventually works is for the laws either to come out of the courts -- or, more rarely, from legislatures that are ahead of the people they represent -- and then for the states to essentially get battered into resentful submission by lawsuits from affected minorities, with support from the court system which says to the state, "This will happen." That level of support from the courts and the legislatures does not yet exist for gay rights. It is, surprisingly enough, coming; it's just not there yet....

Huh.

So in other words, HIV/AIDS in blacks in the US looks almost exactly like HIV/AIDS in Africa.

I can't figure out if that's more encouraging or disturbing.

On the one hand, hopefully it will help, at least a little, to reduce some of the ostracising of bisexuals and gays in black communities and neighborhoods. And maybe, if the information gets out where it's needed, it will help empower both women and men to protect themselves with condoms. (Though, sadly, considering the ferocious infection rate among teens -- who really aren't great at thinking ahead and thinking of consequences ... well, one can hope.)

On the other hand ... well. I don't want to contribute to the profoundly stupid noise on the whole "down low" issue ... but I'm not entirely sure that I quite believe these findings....

... But on the ... well, not so much an upside as a "gee, wonder if they were paying attention" side, it looks like they're going to be reinventing the better years of Deep Space Nine -- only with characters that weren't quite developed for any story that dark, and putting it in a terribly compressed storyline. After all, one can but assume that they're not going to make war with the Klingons/Romulans any kind of long-running theme through the next and succeeding films; that would hamstring their ability to tell stories that didn't have to do with the wars of the worlds. Any war is likely to be a one-and-done story, maybe with enough time passing between the films to say, "So, right after Nero, the Romulans/Klingons did this thing, and then the Federation finally retaliated, and then we had this war, see?" [...]

[...] Sounds like the new film is going to be all about defining the parameters and ethics of the new Federation....

Two small stories from a distant state, and from elsewhere, presented mostly without comment...

Well ... it's all very nice, I'm sure, but I'm not sure I get the point. Yes, what happened to Turing was horrible, and he deserved better ... but this doesn't expunge the conviction, he's not around to benefit from the apology, he doesn't have any descendants to whom it would matter. His contributions to the war and cryptography are exactly as important as they ever were, no more, no less. So, really ... not getting this. I am one with the not getting of it...

I do not doubt that many people -- some of them even living in DC -- will be lobbying Congress to intervene. And, quite honestly, I'd be rather startled if Congress didn't intervene -- quite possibly at the discreet and understated and off-the-record, but nonetheless express, request of the White House. They've made it quite clear that they want this issue to vanish from their view for the next four years, ideally....

Would someone please explain this to me? Why do so many people want to see this guy naked? (Or, as it seems, possibly only mostly, but not essentially, naked, if you know what I mean and I think you do.) Because I truly, truly do not quite get it...

[...] Playgirl vs Unzipped is only the tip of the hot throbbing iceberg, as it were. Other gay porn outlets have been offering him money to pose naked, and possibly do a bit more. Mr. Johnston does not, it appears, seem to be taking those offers even remotely seriously...

[...] there's also been a veritable feeding frenzy over the shirtless photos of him changing his kid's diaper. (Scroll to the bottom of the Advocate article for a sample.) Is he a good looking guy? Well, yes, I suppose. Needs some chest hair. But yes, he's perfectly decent looking. Is there perhaps a touch of the schadenfreude in having the baby daddy of Sarah Palin's daughter's child doing something of which former Gov. Palin and her social conservative set would strongly disapprove? Oh, hell, yes! Does all that account for all the unseemly feeding frenzy in wanting more, more, MORE of him? Well ... not really, no.

Sometimes, I just don't understand the gays.

...Disney keeps growing and growing and growing. One wonders what the debt load of this company is these days. (And there's something that people never thought about before recent years. I wonder if it's possible for a media company like this to hit the official "too big to fail" point. But I digress.)

The puzzling thing about this transaction is that Disney just licensed several of its characters to Boom Studios. You'd think that if this was in process for a while -- and given the sheer size of the transaction, it must have been -- that they'd have held off and given the license to Marvel. Though, that said, the puzzling thing about giving the license to Boom in the first place is that Gemstone Publishing has long held the rights to most of the Disney characters. Though, given Gemstone's recent struggles, Disney may have been thinking of pulling the licenses, or at least was understandably reluctant to give them new business. Even on Gemstone's own site, there's an ad for a title that Disney gave to Dark Horse.

In any event, as the story notes, this is going to allow Disney access to expertise to reconnect with the young male market. In theory, at least. It is interesting to see that Marvel's movies -- as opposed to their comics -- really do connect to that young audience, while the superhero comics audience is aging and shrinking. You'd think that the film success would indicate that Marvel could connect with the younger audience in its comics, but strangely, that doesn't happen. The youth audience seems profoundly disinterested in the source material for the films....

The attorney representing two gay men who sued in state court and now in federal court in southern California to win the right to marry hopes the case will spawn a political movement that will result in residents there voting by ballot initiative to divide the state in two....