Yokai: The Gay Goblins of Japan

Japanese movies and tv series often depict the hero fighting off a weird gibbering monster called a yokai.

The humans of Japan share their islands with hundreds of species of yokai, paranormal beings variously described as goblins, demons, and monsters.

Most yokai are indifferent to humans.

Like the gigantic terai oni, who stands upside down to wash his hands in rivers, and is only dangerous if he happens to step on you, or if you're caught in the stream when he takes out his giant penis to urinate.

But a few yokai hunt humans with nefarious, often erotic intent.

Multiple-tentacled yokai are eager to invade every orifice of any woman or man who falls into their grasp.

Every orifice.

There's a whole genre of pornography, shokushu goukan, dedicated to depicting the disgust, pain, and pleasure of the victim.

Turtle-shelled kappa lurk by the riverside to grab swimmers and invade orifices of their own, in the process pulling their victims to their deaths.

They probably believe that humans can breathe underwater.

Shiri me look like people bent over, except for the gigantic eye in their buttocks.  You think they're running away, but they're actually running toward you.

Some Japanese authors even make up their own yokai.  GeGeGe no Kitaro, a manga and anime series by Shigeru Mizuki, stars Kitaro, a yokai boy, son of a living eyeball, who is working for peace between the yokai and human tribes.

A 2007 film adaptation starred Eiji Wentz, who is the subject of gay rumors.

See also: Gay Manga of Japan; Japanese Tentacle Porn

Dude Looks Like a Lady: Not as Homophobic as You Think

The hard-rock band Aerosmith, consisting of the extraordinarily ugly but extremely bulgeworthy Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, and Joey Kramer, had a string of hits when I was in high school and college.  Mostly about heterosexual sex,  with slang, innuendo,  double-entendres, and obfuscation to keep the censors away:

She just loves my big 10 inch...record of her favorite blues.

Goin' downtown, goin' down, goin' down, neath the city, eatin' ground round

Their most famous song, "Walk This Way" (1975) is surprisingly explicit, to those familiar with 1970s slang:

You ain't seen nothin' till you're down on a muffin, then you're sure to be a-changin' your ways


"Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" (1987)  is often cited as the epitome of hard rock homophobia, a viciously anti-gay diatribe.

Except when I heard the song and watched the music video, it wasn't anti-gay or anti-transgender at all.  Steven Tyler meets a woman, goes into an alley to have sex with her, and is surprised when: "She whipped out her gun and tried to blow me away."  

But after his initial surprise, he doesn't attack, lash into a diatribe, or run away screaming.  He decides to go through with it anyway: "Baby, let me follow you down  -- do me, do me, do me, do me.  What a foxy lady!"

Even with the "gun," the lady turned out to be "foxy."

I would not be so accommodating to a Lady who Looks Like a Dude.

Songwriter Desmond Child describes working on the song with Aerosmith.  Joe Perry was worried that gay people would find it offensive, but Child said "I'm gay, and I'm not offended."

In fact, it was very accepting, especially during the conservative retrenchment of the 1980s:

Don't judge a book by its cover, or who you're going to love by your lover. 

See also: My Girl Bill; and Subtext Songs of the 1980s.

Guys Who Didn't Need to Come Out 1: Joel Grey

In this week's People magazine, Broadway, movie, and tv legend Joel Grey has come out (with the proviso that he disapproves of labels, but if you must, call him "gay").

Why now, at the age of 82?

He began his Broadway career in 1951, with Borscht Capades.  A string of stage successes followed, notably the decadent, epicene Master of Ceremonies in the original Broadway version of Cabaret (1966-1969) and its revival (1987-88), but also George M. Cohan in George M., Amos Hart in Chicago, the Wizard in Wicked, and Moonface Martin in Anything Goes.  A string of characters with no or minimal heterosexual interests.

Plus he starred in the AIDS drama The Normal Heart, and directed the Broadway version.

His  tv career has been even more prolific, spanning 62 years form December Bride to CSI, and on the way Maverick, Ironside, Dallas, Matlock, Oz, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Grey's Anatomy, More Tales of the City, The Muppet Show, and Phineas and Ferb.

Again, a string of characters with no or minimal heterosexual interests.

His movies: Man on a Swing, The Seven Percent Solution, Marilyn and Me, Kafka, Dancer in the Dark, and of course the 1972 film version of Cabaret.

And again....

When I lived in West Hollywood, he was a staunch gay ally, a fixture at AIDS Walks and benefits.

He has released 9 albums, including show tunes and covers of the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, and Donovan.  On the cover of  Black Sheep Boy (1969), he is presented as a 1960s flower child (who happens to be in the process of ripping his sweater off, to give nature boys a glimpse of his rather slim, androgynous physique.

So, after such a long, illustrious, and gay-friendly career, who was mistaking him for straight?

See also: Gomer Pyle, Out at 82.

Franco Columbu: Arnold's Other Half

Sardinian-born Franco Columbu is a long-time work-out buddy and friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  In 1968, they came to American together.  Joe Weider, my first boss in L.A., paid for their shared apartment while they were struggling.

But soon Arnold commenced a movie career, and he introduced Franco into some of the first movies to bring bodybuilding to a mainstream audience: Stay Hungry (1976), Pumping Iron (1977), and The Hustler of Muscle Beach (1980), which wasn't about that kind of hustler.

Their closeness elicited the usual gay rumors, which neither seemed to mind.

When Arnold became a star, he continued to help out his pal, giving him screen time in Conan the Barbarian (1982), The Terminator (1984), and Running Man (1987).

In the 1990s Franco, still in top shape, produced a series of man-mountain actioners set in Sardinia: Desperate Crimes (1993), Taken Alive (1995), Doublecross on Costa's Island (1997).

Like most movies in the man-mountain genre, there was usually a girl, but the buddy-bonding took precedence.  Beretta's Island (1994) was about a retired Interpol agent trying to find out who murdered his friend.

Ancient Warriors (2003) paired Franco with Daniel Baldwin as special agent buddies eliciting supernatural assistance to defeat a crime lord in Sardinia.

In 2011 Franco starred in the Italian movie  La terra dei sogni (Dreamland), about boxer Frank Graziani (Franco), who mentors the young James De Cristoforo (Ivano De Cristoforo).  I haven't seen it, but according to the Italian synopsis, there are "stunning scenes" in which the relationship between the two becomes "vivid and full of emotions."

Sounds good.