By now you probably all of read the story in the New York Times Magazine by Benoit Denizet-Lewis about tweens coming out in middle school, right? What do you all think about these gay tweens?

I kinda think it’s great. I mean, really great. Generally middle school is a time when queer kids get depressed and hate most of the world, but not for these kids. Look at how fun their gay tween dance is!!!

Not that I don’t have my skepticism about an 11 year old’s ability to comprehend sexual identity, but as the article notes:

Still, the younger they are when they come out, the more that youth with same-sex attractions face an obstacle that would be unimaginable to their straight peers. When a 12-year-old boy matter-of-factly tells his parents — or a school counselor — that he likes girls, their reaction tends not to be one of disbelief, dismissal or rejection. “No one says to them: ‘Are you sure? You’re too young to know if you like girls. It’s probably just a phase,’ ” says Eileen Ross, the director of the Outlet Program, a support service for gay youth in Mountain View, Calif. “But that’s what we say too often to gay youth. We deny them their feelings and truth in a way we would never do with a heterosexual young person.”

Q: what kind of fucking asshole would I have to be to tell these kids they can’t know who they are?

A: One really big fucking asshole, the same kind that grows up and makes gay people’s lives miserable. So shut the fuck up and let them define themselves and figure this stuff out.

So even when I question the long term truth of the high number of kids in this article identifying so readily as bisexual, I chalk it up to “kids being kids” and discovering who they are. The fact that this generation even has a lexicon to identify queer sexual feelings is impressive, and, I think, very important. I can’t help but notice how AWARE these kids are of the fluidity of their own identities at this age, as one student, Alison, says, “We can’t even keep up with who’s gay or bi and who’s into who, and we go to school here!”

It seems like these kids might even be aware of some of issues that complicate adult queer life and identities. The following paragraph could pretty accurately describe any age group of queers in relation to mainstream society:

In particular, openly gay youth who are perceived as conforming to adolescent gender norms are often fully integrated into their peer and school social circles. Girls who come out as bisexual but are still considered “feminine” are often immune from harassment, as are some gay boys, like Laddie, who come out but are still considered “masculine.” “Bisexual girls have it the easiest,” Austin told me in Oklahoma. “Most of the straight guys at school think that’s hot, so that can make the girl even more popular.

I had so much internalized homophobia, it took me until after high school to come out. I have friends who didn’t come out until their mid 20s. I can’t help but wonder what sort of person I would be if I had spent middle school and high school somewhat well adjusted about myself and my sexuality. I laughed when Alison and Justin give Benoit a tour of the school to identify the gays and bisexuals with the terms “paws” and “woof” respectively, and end up speculating that their school is full of confused bisexuals and gays. Their behavior — these attempts to navigate the fairly complicated world of human sexuality — at 11 seems to mirror some of mine when I was 18. The world I grew up in seems alien in comparison, and I was lucky to grow up in a liberal area that had one of the ealier Gay Straight Alliances. My world in the 90s must have seemed pretty alien to the previous generation — the rate of change is astounding.

It’s really inspiring to be living at a time when a segment of the population, considered doomed to a life of loneliness, blamed for a worldwide epidemic, and told that part of who they are is a “choice” that condemns them to hell, can finally grow up, just maybe, feeling good about themselves and with the sort of emotional milestones during adolescence that are more easily experience by their straight counterparts. This starts to look like change I can believe in. It was enough to provoke a tear or two by the end of the article.

This optimism and these emotions could be just what the author wants me to feel. It’s hard to take stock in few case studies presented in this article when hate crimes towards trans, gays, and lesbians appears to be on the rise. There’s a lot of work to be done, and a couple case studies do not necessarily reflect a sea change in national attitudes.

It’s good to see that some things about the teen gay experience haven’t changes since my adolescence:

It’s not uncommon for gay youth to have their same-sex attraction discovered thanks to a rogue number on a phone bill or, more often these days, a poorly concealed Internet search history. “We see a lot of kids get outed by porn on the computer,” Tim Gillean told me in Tulsa. “I knew one kid who told his mom: ‘I don’t know how that got there. Maybe it was dad!’”

And we only had dial-up. I can only imagine what I would have been looking at if high speed connections had existed. Jesus, I would have got in trouble.

So the new season of Gossip Girl has been on for two weeks. People are saying the show has really gone downhill. You know what? I kinda agree. But I also don’t care. Because really, Gossip Girl is one of the only shows on television trying to really show how pervasive new media is in the way people socialize today. So yes, the show is ridiculous, but who the hell cares? Besides, I have a crush on the dreamy alterna-nerd Penn Badgely who plays Dan.

Anyways, what do you all think about this GG in college business? I mean, I think it offers a lot of opportunities for binge drinking, drug use, sexual escapades, drunk texting, sexting, and all the other great mistakes people make, but I am wondering if the show will really “go there.” I mean, I feel like they need to stop making it so “social rivalry” and make it a little bit more like Brandi and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine.” You listening GG producers? Romantic rivalry always will play out more realistically once people are college aged.

However, I do hear in one aspect the show will go there. There’s gonna be a gay kiss and it’s gonna be with Chuck Bass.

So while I am not part of this crowd, most people have celebrity crushes on Nate Archibald and Chuck Bass, played respectively by Chase Crawford and Ed Westwick. Remember when the tabloids thought they might be gay together in real life? That was so silly! But inspired by the stories, some genius made a mash-up of Chuck and Nate clips set to a Magnetic Fields song. You can probably guess track they used.

Damn right it’s about time you tap that ass!

How do you guys feel about Andrew Sullivan? Do you read him?

I used to not like him so much, taking him to be more of a conservative stick in the mud, frumpy, complaining bear of a gay. But in the most recent couple of years, I have really warmed up to him and like him more every day. Ever since the possibility of equality of gays and lesbians has become more real in recent years, I find him to be a great source of inspiration when it comes to defining the complicated concepts of gay solidarity in our current era.

He recently wrote a really great piece centered around a quote from Neil Patrick Harris in New York magazine, mostly concerning the tug of war between assimilating to straight culture and maintaining a radical queer culture. On this blog (where I have butted heads with a fellow writer here in the past) and elsewhere, I’ve always been one to argue that gay rights is not just about letting housebroken gay couples in the suburbs have their quiet life and children as much as it is about allowing the flag waving queen on the pride float the opportunity to have a family without either of them changing who they are. The way I see it, the only thing that “sets back a movement” is our inability to embrace the queens, glitter freaks, trans boys, and others who deviate from the mainstream as real people that deserve the opportunity to have a family, even if that family might seem weird to someone else. I mean, there’s no laws preventing a snake dancer and the guy who puts nails up his nose from getting married, so people who think two guys dancing on a float covered in glitter once a year is somehow “anti-family” are just finding ways to rationalize their homophobia.

So obviously I found particular inspiration in the following quote:

The simple truth is that a lot of closeted gay people out there need and yearn for representatives who seem straighter or more “normal” than some gays. And the difficult task is to accept that and be glad for it but never to forget that there is no cultural or personal criterion for civil rights or toleration. In my own defense of masculine gays, there is an embedded injunction: “Leave No Drag Queen Behind.” Playing favorites with the majority culture is both demeaning in a way, and misleading. Everyone is a shade or two away from normal; and the pied beauty of humanity should not be carved into acceptable and unacceptable based on things that simply make us who we are.

But, enough with the serious talk. I’m not really a deep person and should stop pretending.

Obviously the real purpose of this post is far more silly and shallow. I mean, don’t you think the motto “No Drag Queen Left Behind” could make a really good premise for a fierce cinematic experience? I sure do.

Rich over at fourfour just posted this clip from Sesame Street of kids shouting their favorite phrases to describe going to the bathroom, and I just shat my pants (pun very much intended!). And he’s right, this needs to go viral, so I’m going to repost with minimal commentary. I just love how ecstatic these kids are

Thank you Rich, for this gift to the digital online world.

Please accept this formal apology for a lack of updates. I’ve been on vacation and despite his valient attempts fellow author Vagenius just hasn’t been able to finish writing anything. Before that I was frantically trying to update our blog software due to spam filter malfunctions (booooooring!!)

But you know what I have been doing while not online?

I watched a marathon of Bridezillas that re-introduced me to the darkness of humanity!

I failed at playing the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps” maps on the medium difficulty level!

I had a picnic with a cat on a leash!

Oh, and I also went to Provincetown and got some much needed relaxation and sun. I got enough sun that my buddy Marlon told me I look latino. That must be why they call me El Papi Barracho at the deli down the street.

But most importantly, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at other people’s sites and blogs instead of updating my own. One site in particular has hypnotized me this entire summer and deserves a fierce shout out. A fierce shout out set to a mash-up of Ru-Paul’s “Cover Girl” and the theme song from “Chips” and it goes something like this:

I can’t get enough of CTRL + W33D. Srsly, guys, don’t be mad because they’re rad. I’ve been into these guys for about 6 months and am happy to finally have a reason to write them up.

These guys are probably the best bunch of geniuses since the folks at Everything is Terrible. I mean…. they posted this which has been stuck in my brain and keeping me awake at night for the last two weeks and also sparked a sudden interest in the hilarity that is the Pomeranian breed.

Another ongoing meme they recently started that has me hot and bothered? Screenshots of Grindr. What happens when you combine desperation, constructed online personas, and Guys with iPhones? Really embarrassing Grindr conversations and pix. It almost makes me wish I had an iPhone so I could play along. It’s a source of endless hilarity and these guys totally nailed it.

BUTT magazine wrote them up on their blog a while ago, and east village DJ and nightlife personality Michael Magnan offers a nice succinct explanation to help better understand the site and how it’s a signifier of the apocalypse.

Since February 2009, anonymous Tumblr’s D.R., I.L., B.A., K.K., and J.G. have been collectively assembling a seemingly endless archive of hilarious, perverted and inebriated found images and video under the pseudonym CTRL + W33D. A mission statement addressed to one of the later-joining members classified its intentions as being a “totally NSFW…experiment in Anarchy and AIDS and Being High.”  For those of you growing up gay 3.0 on the internet, this visual morgue should help satiate your constant jones for getting lost in a matrix of google image search depravity.’ – Michael Magnan

I have my own way of explaining this blog that involves this recent conversation with a friend that I can only loosely transcribe from memory.

Friend: I was in this art history class, and the teacher was all “If Andy Warhole was alove today would he blog? And what would he blog about?
Me: He wouldn’t blog. He’d have a Tumblr.
Friend: Duhz. Teachers are such squares.

Basically CTRL+W33D feels like the ghost The Factory using the internet to digitally whisper into our present.

So, I suggest all of you take their big, hard RSS feed and stick it in your Google Reader. Once you learn to relax a little, there’s no way you’ll be dissapointed with how it makes you feel.

P.S. The guys at CTRL+W33D are also frequent contributors to Bears I’m Jealous Of which has me suspicious that I might only be a degree or two removed from their real life socializing. This has led to countless hours of recent internet stalking trying to figure out who they are. I’d appreciate any real clues or funny misinformation in the comments.