Laid Bare: Essays and Observations, Judson, Tom [best self help books to read .TXT] 📗

As another stick of butter melted away in Paula’s skillet Tim shook an accusing finger in the direction of the computer which lay on the coffee table and asked, “Those, uh, those guys on that website… Do you think their lives are just perfect? Do you think they’ve just got everything they need and are happier than shit?” My knee-jerk response was to say, “No, they’re just a bunch of fucking assholes and are probably miserable,” but after what that poor Gary Coleman went through I was feeling a little more charitable than usual.

I pondered Tim’s question as I licked the orange cheese dust from my fingers.

Yeah, I suppose the really gorgeous, Adonis-like guys have a leg up on some things in life. They may get served first at a crowded bar. They’re invited to hang out with others of their ilk on the beach. The shirt that looks great on the mannequin will look just as good on them when they get it home from the store.

But are their lives better simply because they’ve been graced with good looks? I don’t think so. We assume the Chelsea Boys and the WeHo guys lead lives far more interesting and exciting than our own because we want to think they do. Believing the pretty boys not only have fabulous faces and bodies, they also have fabulous lives in which to display them gives us yet another reason to resent them, to beat ourselves up about it. We almost need them to live wonderful lives to help explain the normalness of our own. We’d be just as special if we were that beautiful, too. Right?

But the majority of the beauties we see everywhere lead average lives. Why? Simply because most people are average. (That is, after all, why it’s called “average.”) They have attainable ambitions which they muse on in Ikea apartments. They have uninspired opinions on forgettable movies and possess a small shelf of books, all of which, besides “The DaVinci Code”, are emblazoned with a large “O” on their covers.

There’s nothing wrong with a life like this. It’s a life—with subtle variations--not unlike that of most Americans. When it’s lived by a Beautiful Man, however, a man who we expect to be a superior being—as superior as his physical appearance—it seems banal and meaningless. “That isn’t how someone who looks like a movie star lives! That’s how I live!”

We go directly from hating these guys because they’re better than us simply because of their looks to hating them because they’re no better than us even with their looks. We wouldn’t feel contemptuous of a bland looking guy who leads a bland life because we probably wouldn’t think twice about him in the first place. A bland person can be bland anonymously while a beautiful man is bland in a spotlight. It’s that variable of “beauty” that makes them susceptible to increased scrutiny.

I’ve seen a similar phenomenon at work in the porn industry. My own anecdotal research suggests that the principal assumptions about guys in porn is that they’re dumb. I would have to concur; most of the men working in the adult film industry are not brilliant. Most of the kids in the chorus of “42nd Street” , in which I appeared (no, as a principal, darling) also were not brilliant. When I worked at Pizza Hut in high school none of my coworkers were sending rockets to the moon. Because (altogether now) most people are average.

But the guys in porn possess an even more volatile variable than the beautiful guys: we masturbate to them. For the ten or fifteen minutes (OK, the hour or so) we watch a porn flick we are so invested in the men in the scene that they actually serve as our sexual proxy. How could we lower ourselves to blow a load over someone who’s nothing but a big dope? In our minds we make these guys stupider than they really are to explain away our lust.

Are there good-looking, in-shape men who are intelligent and thoughtful, in happy, fulfilling relationships with jobs that further the welfare of mankind? Sure there are. And are there porn stars who are dumb as posts with nothing much to brag about other than a big dick and a flexible pelvis? Believe you me—they’re out there.

Tim clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and sighed. “But we shouldn’t assume anything about either of those groups because prejudging anyone about anything is unfair to them and counterproductive to our own self-esteem,” he sing-songed with the half-hearted enthusiasm of a teenager promising to have the car home by midnight.

“I guess so,” I shrugged.

“Oh great! Just as I was working up a really nasty punishment for ItalynMsclStud.

Sorry, Tim. Let’s assume from now on that the beautiful guys and the porn guys are just average fellows like us trying to get through the day in one piece. The beauty they’re cursed with really doesn’t make it any easier for them in the long run.

Those trust fund babies, on the other hand…

THE CHURCH OF ME

A lot of the guys I worked with in porn were ostensibly heterosexual. It’s something that has long puzzled me and, after reading a fascinating interview in the Dallas Voice with former porn star (and personal favorite, I hasten to add) Tom Katt, I’m even more confused. Katt, who now goes by David Papaleo (surely a name ripe for changing—who could remember that at the video rental counter?) is not only through with porn, he’s gone straight and—here’s the kicker—found Jesus. He’s even considering joining the clergy.

To give Mr. Popodopolous his due, he doesn’t seem to have a problem with homosexuals or bisexuals or the kind of sex those groups engage in, it’s just not for him. “’If you