Archive for February, 2020

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A clean t-room is a *happy* t-room

February 28, 2020

(T-rooms, lots of men’s naughty bits and raunchy doings, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

From David Preston on Facebook, this public service ad from the US Centers for Disease Control, which David and I, and a number of others, chose to interpret as depicting a scene in an unusually clean and bright t-room / tearoom (from NOAD: “North American informal a public restroom used as a meeting place for homosexual encounters”; more in postings inventoried in the “Sex in public” Page on this blog):


(#1) One in a recent series of CDC Clean Hands ads. I have no idea what the CDC intended the heavy circle and 4-point starburst symbols to convey, or the color difference between yellow and blue (some of the ads have white symbols as well), though they do seem to associate that shade of blue with cleanliness (in a simple world of binary symbol distinctions, that would associate the bright yellow color with dirtiness — but for what purpose, I have no idea)

(more…)

Posted in Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language of sex, Music, Signs and symbols | 1 Comment »

Where your personalities go when you’re having sex

February 27, 2020

Will McPhail (in a New Yorker “Daily Shouts” piece on 7/1/18) thinks they socialize pleasantly with one another — have a coffee together, play pingpong, eat hot dogs, shoot some hoops — while speculating wryly about how you’re managing without them and fretting poignantly about when they can get back to helping you through your lives.

All about sex, but with two feet as the only bodyparts depicted and the verb bounce as the only sexually tinged vocabulary. Unfolding in a cartoon of ten gentle, unhurried panels featuring two wraith-like personalities, one blue-green, one red-purple.

(After the McPhail I’ll write a bit about sexual ecstasy as an altered state of consciousness, with a link to some decidedly hard-core writing about sex at the gay baths, but with no actual raunch here.)

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Language and medicine, Linguistics in the comics, Psychology | Leave a Comment »

A priest, a rabbit, and a minister

February 26, 2020

… walk into a bar. And into a Walk Into Bar joke, which then goes doubly meta. The rabbit brings a really big beer to the event. The joke has been around in print, in one form or another, for maybe 20 years. The image is a fantasist painting “Bunny with Beer” (from 2017) by the artist Omar Rayyan. The two joined in happy union by an unknown hand, during the past few days, in the form of a texty cartoon:

(#1)

(more…)

Posted in Art, Comic conventions, Formulaic language, Jokes, Linguistics in the comics, Words and things | 2 Comments »

Golden jubilee

February 26, 2020

For gay men of Gen X now achieving their Golden Year: Surfing for Ulysses:



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Posted in Holidays, Movies and tv, Shirtlessness | 1 Comment »

Timothy and Agrimony

February 25, 2020

(Plants, but also gay male life, with the latter focus leading to talk of mansex in street language (also with some deeply carnal (but fuzzed) photos of 69ing), so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

My morning names for 2/15: timothy and agrimony. A familiar crop grass (for grazing and hay) and a yellow-flowered bitter-tasting medicinal herb. Then these personified as two queer types: Timothy — called Timmy — the twink, a cute country boy, a hayseed, sometimes found with a stalk of grass between his teeth; and Agrimony — called Agro — the bitter old queen, jaded, sharp-tongued, largely disaffected with the queer community and feeling alienated from those in it.

The two men are of course unlikely to hook up, or even have anything to do with one another socially, but they share one bit of their sexual makeup: they both adore 69, find the exchange deeply satisfying. But characteristically, they prefer different positions for the act.

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Posted in Books, Gay porn, Homosexuality, Language and plants, Language of sex, Memory, Metaphor, Morning names, My life, Names, Phallicity, Stock expressions | 3 Comments »

Ho, ho, the three of clubs

February 24, 2020

It’s all ultimately about comedy duos. Two cartoons from today’s feed: a Zippy — Ho Hos in the forest primeval — that’s a reprise (with fresh variations) of an old strip; and a Wayno/Piraro Bizarro — show me the card, teller — that’s incomprehensible unless you have a piece of popular-culture knowledge:

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Posted in Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Puns, Understanding comics | Leave a Comment »

Eel-eater and his kind

February 24, 2020

From Facebook friends, hot herpetological news. From Reptiles magazine, the story “Rainbow Snake Seen In Florida’s Ocala National Forest For First Time Since 1969” by John Virata on 2/20/20:

quoting from a Fish and Wildlife Research Institute posting from 2/19:

A Rare Sighting! Tracey Cauthen recently reported stumbling upon a ~4 ft Rainbow Snake, Farancia erytrogramma, while hiking in the Ocala National Forest.

(more…)

Posted in Language and animals, Poetry, Rainbow | Leave a Comment »

While you’re up

February 22, 2020

The Wayno/Piraro Bizarro from yesterday, on running evolutionary errands:


(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page.)

Venture Fish crawls out onto land, no doubt to return after foraging there, then will venture onto land again, and in time its descendants will have become amphibians, and then, well, you know the story.

But why does Venture Fish go on land? It insists on doing this for some reason — the primary reason for the act —  that is inscrutable to its aquatic companion, but Home Fish asks that Venture Fish meanwhile run an errand: fetch some things on the trip, thus supplying an additional, secondary reason for the act.  Home Fish uses the format BACKGROUND CONDITION + REQUEST:

BACKGROUND CONDITION: If you’re going out / Since you’re already up / As long as you’re up / While you’re up / …

+ REQUEST: (could you / would you / why don’t you / please /…) VP-BSE

— made famous in the slogan for an early 1960s ad campaign:

as long as you’re up get me a Grant’s

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Posted in Art, Evolution, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Language and gender, Language in advertising, Linguistics in the comics, Memory | Leave a Comment »

Magical Mystery Crotch Rocketman

February 21, 2020

(Male body parts, vividly evoked though not pictured. Not for kids or the sexually modest.)

The spectre of the Daily Jocks Mystery Crotch, which materializes every so often, by commercial magic, to offer DJ’s bargain Mystery Underwear:

(#1)

Around this enigmatically seductive figure there has grown up a rich folk tradition of poetry, song, and visual art, the seminal work being the text Magical Mystery Crotch Rocketman, created by the appropriately mysterious queer cooperative Darts of Desire.

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Posted in ASL, Facial expression, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Warren swings (like a gecko tail do)

February 20, 2020

What I heard from an MSNBC announcer, about Elizabeth Warren at the 2/19/20 Democratic candidates’ debate:

She came out swinging from the gecko.

I had this moment of visualizing Warren, her hands firmly grasping the gecko’s tail above her, swinging vigorously from side to side, like a fiercely determined pendulum.

Then of course I realized that what the announcer had said was

She came out swinging from the get-go.

(more…)

Posted in Errors, Language and animals, Mishearings, Music | Leave a Comment »

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