After my shocking, racist anti-Anglo-American rant yesterday, a couple of Friends of the Blog with suspiciously Anglo-sounding names asked — demanded to know, really — exactly what kind of guy I go for.

First of all, let me just say: I certainly did not mean to imply that I'm picky.  But it's true what they say about taste — there's no accounting for it.  And there's really no way of knowing who's happier: the connoisseur, with his exquisitely refined tastes, or the slob with no taste at all. 

I also want to stress: I really am a devotee of inner beauty.  No, really.  Anyone who thinks a bold personality does not transform the physical has never fallen in love with someone ugly.  But then ugly is as ugly does.  Greed, hatred, envy, and the like rot a person from the inside-out.  It may take some time, but ugliness deep down eventually percolates to the surface.

Aside from inner beauty, I have to admit I do like a handsome member on a man.  Any gay guy (and there are some, believe it or not) who's like, "ooh, ick!  Penises are so ugly!" — well, all I can say is, I feel sorry for him, because he's obviously only getting to see the ugly ones (and there are plenty of those, too). 

Admittedly, penises don't really have an inner beauty.  Inner strength, yes, you could say that.  But despite the girlish habit of addressing them with honorifics or giving them pet names, personalitywise penises are, shall we say: limited.  Their moods, while sometimes baffling, are certainly not subtle.  Theyr'e sort of the cab drivers of human appendages.  And you'd never say of an ugly one: "It has a nice personality." 


To understand the appreciation of a phallus is to grasp a profound truth of aesthetics.  The phallus is "the thing itself".  And  to use legal slang: "res ipsa loquitur"  - the thing itself speaks for itself.  Which is precisely why we keep it under wraps. 

Now, some of my comments in the infamous post may have led readers to believe I reject circumcision.  I will say that I think it's a tad, I dunno, presumptuous on the part of parents, and that we're just lucky that G-d's contract with the Jews didn't require them to cut off their noses instead, or they'd never get a date.  There are all sorts of arguments, ex post facto, as to why it's such a great idea to snip it, but still.

I mean, it might have a little something to do with why so many Jews are neurotic and so many Muslims are angry, but maybe not.  It's worth pondering, though, that there has never been a Buddhist War, and is it it just a coincidence that circumcision is absent from Hindu-Buddhist and Confucian traditions?  I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

My point is: no, I don't discriminate wholesale based on circumcision, although you lose ten points in the Perfect Penis Pageant if you're missing your foreskin.  And I'll tell you why: because circumcision transforms the phallus from "the thing itself" to a symbol of affiliation.  It's great when you can use your penis like a pen to sign a contract with G-d.  But put the cap back on when you're done or it'll dry out.

Anyway, to prove I'm not prejudiced, I present Exhibit A: Andy Samberg:


I had never had a crush on an SNL cast member, almost on principle.  And then Andy Samberg came along.  Ever since I saw his brilliant takedown of  Ahmadinejad, "I Ran So Far", I have been nursing the hugest crush on him.  It's a little embarrassing.  He plays gay — not mincy/prancy gay, just straight-up gay (like the equally adorable Neil Patrick Harris, who I can't have a crush on because he actually is gay) — often enough to give me hope, even though I know he's a bromo, not a homo.   

I mean, take his character in I Love You, Man, a movie that turns gay/straight stereotypes on their heads.  It was the straight Paul Rudd that had man trouble that was making him a nervous wreck, not his gay brother, played by Samberg, who's the "normal" one.  That's what's so appealing about Samberg's on-air antics: when he plays gay he plays it straight. 

And by that I mean, without lazy reference to the hackneyed gay stereotypes of the past: the bitchy queen, the asexual best friend, the suicidal self-hater, the dying swan.  More recently the Stepford gays started making their appearance everywhere.  Gay personae have always been constructed as critique, and Samberg's gay characters still are, but what Samberg (and Seth Rogen — another adorable Jew — too, though in a different way) is playing on is the imagined marginalization of straight men where gay is the new normal. 

And it's not just the girls-like-sensitive-guys shtick.  The idea (or conceit — however you want to look at it) is that gay guys (in the imagined world of Samberg and Rogen we're talking about here) just have it all going on.  They're better-looking, more articulate and put-together, higher paid, and can dance.  And get way more booty.  In short: they're everything straight guys want to be, except, um, gay.

It's mostly a grass-is-always-greener scenario, but the proliferation of bromance-themed Hollywood fare does seem to suggest straight male identity is in crisis.  Samberg and Rogen suggest that it's gay men who are in command, poised, know exactly who they are, what they want, and how to get it, and can, perhaps most importantly, express themselves freely.  Gays (in the Hollywood version of life) have the best of both worlds: girls love 'em and they get oral sex whenever they want (just not from the girls who love 'em). 

Of course, it's a joke, but it's not a malicious one, and there's more than a grain of truth in it.  So when Samberg goes all fauxmo I take it as a tribute.  Still, there are reasons why actual man-on-man sex will never really go mainstream.  Namely: women.  But we don't want them all, girls.  Just the cute ones.  And we don't mind sharing.

But of course, the other side of Andy Samberg is the Semitic side.  I do like the young Semites.  My first boy-crush was on a hot little redheaded Jew in middle school.  While he was an athlete and I certainly found that attractive, I was drawn more than anything to his sensibility, his sense of humor, which is the very worthwhile flipside of that famous neuroticism.

I had other Jew-crushes through the years.  But my last Jewish boyfriend was just straight-up neurotic.  Adorable looks.  Great big beautiful schlong.  But a real shmendrik.  I couldn't cope.  I currently have an ex-Yeshiva boy I see on occasion, always a delight. 

I hope that clears things up.