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New York City’s Museum of Sex is set to debut The Sex Lives of Animals - a celebration of the diversity of animal sexual behavior. Direct from Stanford University, this emergent research has resulted in new interpretations, delving into the possible evolutionary benefits of non-reproductive sex, for both individuals and social groups.

Set to debut in this exhibition are life-sized animal sculptures custom-made by Rune Olsen. Composed of the “social materials” of newspaper and tape, these pieces explore the physical world with the immediacy and expressiveness of hand drawing. Through the incorporation of human-like glass eyes, the distance between human and animal vanishes, seducing the viewer into a direct interaction with the gaze of the animal.

In this “new natural history” the Museum of Sex is presenting an uncensored story of the natural world, moving animal sexuality beyond the confines of reproduction and mating, towards discussions of orientation and cognition. By exploring the most intimate part of life, where it is often said we are most animal like, we can appreciate the significance of research on animal sexuality and, perhaps, extrapolate these concepts to larger issues regarding sexuality in general.

THe exhibit begins July 24, 2008 and continues into Spring, 2009. To know more about the exhibit, visit the Museum of Sex. 

Christopher Ciccone

From Time Magazine:

The release of Life with My Sister Madonna — the breathless tell-all from the Material Girl’s brother, Christopher Ciccone, with writer Wendy Leigh — couldn’t have been more fortuitously timed. As the book hits stores, the world’s most famous Kabbalah practitioner is fending off rumors of a pending split from husband Guy Ritchie and of an alleged affair with New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, whom she reputedly “brainwashed,” causing the dissolution of his marriage. So bright is Madonna’s star that this jumble of reheated anecdotes warranted an initial print run of 350,000 copies.

What those readers will get is a narrative that reveals less about Madonna than about the brother condemned to living in her considerable shadow. Ciccone, an artist and interior decorator, served stints as Madonna’s backup dancer, her “dresser” (a role in which his tasks included wiping sweat from her sometimes-naked body) and later as her designer. But mostly, by his telling, he functioned as her doormat. And, occasionally, her garbage can (one of his chores was allowing his sister to spit cough drops into his palm). “I find no excuse for Madonna’s grossly unfair treatment of me,” he acknowledges. She jilts him repeatedly — summoning him to New York and then relinquishing her offer of a place to stay, or forcing him to eat half the cost of a set of paintings he purchased at her behest. Yet Ciccone is unable — or unwilling — to resist her magnetism. They are no longer close — but that may be as much her choice as his.

Madonna is 27 months older than Ciccone, and she snatched his innocence around the same time she was surrendering her own. She gives him his first joint, his first ecstasy pill, his first visit to a gay club. These events foreshadowed a peculiar sort of sibling bond. Consider: Both lost their virginity in the backseats of cars to guys named Russell. True to form, he notes, she “bests” him even here: her dalliance took place in a Cadillac, his in a Datsun. It was clear during her childhood in Michigan, Ciccone says, that Madonna wasn’t shy about deploying her sexuality to get what she wanted — Bette Midler once called her “the woman who pulled herself up by her bra straps.” But while his sister wielded sex as a weapon, especially after dropping out of college to pursue stardom in New York, Ciccone’s sexuality often posed him problems. After he came out to his father, a conservative Catholic, the elder Ciccone sent Christopher a letter offering to pay for a psychiatrist to “help you with this problem.”

Of course, it’s Madonna’s love life that readers want the scoop on, and Ciccone is happy to pry open her bedroom door. He dishes on becoming Sean Penn’s blood brother and Warren Beatty’s habit of quizzing him about what it’s like to be gay. Madonna bedded so many luminaries, it seems, that some notable members of this diverse group — John F. Kennedy Jr., graffiti pioneer Jean-Michel Basquiat, basketball star Dennis Rodman and steroid-user-turned whistleblower Jose Canseco — rate no better than a passing mention. Ciccone paints Ritchie in a particularly unflattering light, claiming the director’s homophobia drove a wedge between the siblings.

Lurid details aside, the book offers a peek at a man still grappling with his sister’s dizzying fame. Ciccone calls the book a “catharsis,” and given the hurt splashed across its pages, that’s easy to believe. But it’s hard to muster a ton of sympathy for a guy profiting handsomely from a hatchet job on his own sister — regardless of how miserably she may have treated him.

Fox’s new president Kevin Reilly

Fox Entertainment’s new president Kevin Reilly was put in the hot seat Monday during the Television Critics’ Association Press Tour in Los Angeles. Reilly was introducing Fox’s fall line-up on the same day that GLAAD was releasing its annual Network Responsibility Index report. The report excoriated Fox for its underepresentation of the GLBT community. In answer to questions about Fox’s failing grade, Reilly said “I can say that we’ve got several shows now moving forward with gay characters in them. Sometimes you’ve actually got great representation, and then for creative reasons or commercial reasons, something gets canceled and your numbers go down. That’s something we’re really committed to. In fact, we’re in production on a pilot right now, Virtuality, that Ron Moore and Michael Taylor created. Pete Berg is directing it. And it’s got a gay relationship that is as dimensional and as honest as anything I’ve ever seen portrayed on television. So if we move forward on that, I think that would end being something to really note.”

Virtuality, a sci-fi drama set on a spaceship, looks to be one of the breakouts of Fox’s upcoming season. According to the script breakdown, the couple in question are life partners Manny Rodriguez (Jose Pablo Cantillo), a mathematician, and Valentin “Val” Orlov (yet to be cast), a Russian geologist, who always seem to be bickering; Has a Fox show even featured a gay relationship since those two episodes of the OC where Marissa thought she was bisexual?

Ironically, Fox’s cable channel, F/X, came out on top of the GLAAD report. Of 62.5 total hours of original primetime programming, the network offered 28 hours (45%) with LGBT-inclusive content. Most of those shows were shepherded to the air by F/X’s former president, a guy named…Kevin Reilly. Hopefully, he’ll be able to bring his cable sensibilities to his new position at the network.

Link to GLAAD report: http://www.glaad.org/media/nri/

Source

From NY Daily News:

“Borat” star Sacha Baron Cohen packed an Arkansas cage fighting match with beer-swilling good ol’ boys who got the shock of their life when the male fighters started tearing off their clothes and making out.

The elaborate stunt is expected to be part of Cohen’s next big flick called “Bruno,” in which he plays a campy gay fashion reporter from Austria.

Posters for the Blue Collar Brawlin’ event were promised “hot chicks, cold beer, and hardcore fights” but got a little bit more when another Cohen character, “Straight Dave,” pulled an audience member into the ring. The audience member was in on Cohen’s scheme and all hell broke loose when the two stripped to their tighty whiteys and locked lips.

“It was all staged to get a reaction,” said Karin Hobbs of the Ft. Smith Convention Center. “The crowd went nuts when they started making out.”

Cops broke up the event on June 6 after audience members started tossing beer and threatening to rush the stage. Cohen and another performer had to race off-stage to safety through a tunnel as the cameras rolled.

Cohen’s publicist, Matt Labov, declined comment.

An elaborate array of mounted and handheld video cameras captured the crowd of 1,600 who had to sign release forms to gain entry. Cops invited to the event were also fooled by the “Borat” star and not happy. “They said it was to essentially poke fun at wrestling - two guys rolling around on the floor, all sweaty,” said Fort Smith police sergeant Adam Holland. The officers thought they were in on the joke, but were not prepared for the man-on-man display.

It “went right up to the line” of the city’s morality laws, said Holland. “It set the crowd off lobbing beers. They had beers in plastic cups. Those things can get some distance on them actually.”

Cohen became a national celebrity after his 2006 hit “Borat,” in which he played a bumbling reporter from the Central Asia nation of Kazakhstan. He has often used the “Bruno” character originally developed for his HBO “Da Ali G Show” to shock homophobic individuals. His past targets have included racist and anti-gay skinheads.

Don’t you simply love the accompanying music!

Who knew Mr. Takei is so funny.

British soap fans, rejoice! Last week, Channel 4 announced that Craig Dean (played by Guy Burnet) would be returning to Hollyoaks together with his long-lost love John-Paul McQueen (James Sutton).

For those of you who missed it last season, John-Paul and Craig enjoyed a torrid (and secret) love affair until Craig, unable to go public with their relationship and still struggling to accept the fact he’s gay, left for college in Ireland. Now John-Paul has gone and hooked up with the hot new village priest, Father Kieron Hobbs (Jake Hendriks). What will happen when the super-conflicted Craig returns to discover JP and Father Kieron’s most unholy union?

Burnet returns to filming next month and will start airing in early September. Until then, non-UK fans can get caught up with the drama on YouTube.

If you have an iTune canada account. You can get the single “Black & Gold” FREE this week (June 10 - June 16, 08). 

Go grab your FREE copy now.

For those of you don’t know who Sam Sparro is or want to see his videos, go here.

American composer Charles Wuorinen has been commissioned to turn “Brokeback Mountain,” the film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger, into an opera. Wuorinen has agreed to compose the opera, which will premiere in 2013 spring season.

CHARLES WUORINEN (b. 9 June 1938, New York City) has been composing since he was five and he has been a forceful presence on the American musical scene for more than four decades.

In 1970, Wuorinen became the youngest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in music for Time’s Encomium, an electronic composition written on commission from Nonesuch Records. He has written more than 240 compositions to date. His newest works include Eighth Symphony for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Theologoumenon for James Levine and the MET Orchestra, Spin 5 for Violin and 18 players for Jennifer Koh and Ashberyana, chamber settings of poems by John Ashbery. 

Based on the short story by Annie Proulx, the opera, like the feature film, will follow the 20-year love affair of two men who fall in love in 1963 Wyoming.

‘Ever since encountering Annie Proulx’s extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it,’ Wuorinen said in a statement.

Click the photo below to see the complete gallery

Our NY gay lovers, Katie and Fred, grabbed these photos of Jake Silbermann, who stars as the totally hot Noah in As the World Turns, while he tossed a ball into the crowd at a NY baseball game. The game was CBS vs ABC’s ‘10th Annual Tammy Rubin Rice Celebrity Softball Game’ to support Shorefront Friends for Hospice. The game was held at Midwood High School, in Brooklyn, NY.

According to Jake, Van Hansis, (aka Luke) couldn’t make it… it was his mother’s birthday. What a good gay son!!