Attention, ladies! Apparently openly-gay American Idol alumnus Adam Lambert is “curious” about sex with women:
I have this curiosity at the back of my mind. I’ve never had sex with a woman and I’m a little bit curious about it.
So, get in line and take a number, or whatever! Just thought y’all should know. Teehee.
Seriously, though … I am continuously befuddled at the media’s hysteria surrounding Mr. Lambert’s sexuality. Remember when he performed a racy number at the 2009 American Music Awards, complete with a guy-on-guy kiss? Immediately after the November 22nd broadcast, there was a period of several weeks where virtually every video clip on the Interweb was scoured away by the powers that be — as if it never happened. Creepy, right?
For male performers — at least in the pop-music industry — it’s apparently okay to be gay, just so long as you don’t, y’know, do anything gay. And you definitely shouldn’t do anything gay on TV, where people might actually see it.
As Lambert himself once stated in a Rolling Stone interview:
Female performers have been doing this for years — pushing the envelope about sexuality — and the minute a man does it, everybody freaks out.
Oh, unless you’re a pop star who happens to be an attractive woman [see: Britney, Madonna, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga]. Then it’s cool. So long as you have a committed boyfriend waiting in the wings. Gotta tilt the scales from “totally lesbo” back to “pleasantly bi,” after all.
So many overlapping double-standards — it’s all rather “curious,” isn’t it?
(Photos via Adam Lambert’s Official Site)
Nice arguments. I wrote many papers in college on this same theory. If you’re interested, Deborah Tannen has several amazing books outlining Gender Binary and Sexuality in American Culture. It’s fascinating.
“Oh, unless you’re a pop star who happens to be an attractive woman [see: Britney, Madonna, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga]. Then it’s cool. So long as you have a committed boyfriend waiting in the wings. Gotta tilt the scales from “totally lesbo” back to “pleasantly bi,” after all.”
Word. Also, preach it. I also think this touches on the obsession with the overly-sexualized pretty girl (that of course, sleeps with men). The pretty girl can get away with a whole lot more than her less attractive peers. For example, if Ellen made out with her wife on TV, there’d be an uproar (because people have accepted that Ellen is gay, as long as she doesn’t talk about it or flaunt it too much). Not that Ellen isn’t a pretty lady…but she’s not a “pretty girl” (who sleeps with men).
Interesting stuff, for sure.
Hold this space! Hold this space! Rant forthcoming! I am just dashing off at the moment, but have a whoooooole long diatribe at the ready, which I will spew here soon!
Oooooh I can’t wait for Master Orchard’s imminent rant!!!
Sigh. I don’t think I can do it. I have had a bout of ennui that has lasted longer than necessary, and all things unfair in the world of sexuality and gender makes me want to crawl up into a hole and sob. The short rant goes – society says anyone who doesn’t fit in with proper sexual practices is a deviant and should be feared/cast out UNLESS they’re super consumers and conform to idealised presentations of their assigned gender (i.e. the lovely ladies on the L word are forgiven for their tendency to sleep with women because they’re super rich and wear dresses all the time – Shane being the exception of course). Sigh. *Whimper*.
{ Slow, somber applause for S. Orchard’s mini-rant. }
thanks for this alex, i had no idea adam lambert was gay and that he has pushed at the boundaries. which shows how out of touch i am with popular music. i have been planning to write an article about recent representations of queer femininity in popular music, for some time. i’ll let you know when i finally get it together.
i sympathise with and appreciate the frustration that lesbians feel over the limited range of queer female icons in the popular media: there is still a looooong way to go til lesbians are represented in all their diversity. but its not all great news for bisexual women either! if katy perry, who has never kissed a girl, and madonna, who is avowedly heterosexual, are our icons, then there is a real problem. bisexuality is typically represented as whimsical, a phase, not to be taken seriously. most bisexual imagery is as homogeneous as lesbian imagery.
i’m uncomfortable with the notion of applying a ‘pretty girl’ (who sleeps with men) theory to popular culture woman-on-woman imagery. it seems to imply there is something wrong with sleeping with men, and therefore that there is something wrong with being bisexual. and, lets be honest, some self-identified lesbians sleep with men too! in any case, if we are going to apply this schema, lady gaga doesn’t quite fit into it. her shock tactics and appearance have been the focus of a hell of a lot of gender-hatred.
um, this is ranty and incoherent and i have a lot to say and not enough time to say it.