People are missing the not-so-obvious heart of Lifetime’s latest dollop of TV goofiness, the twice-weekly show Gay, Straight Or Taken. Yes it’s a reality show. And yes it feels like the unfortunate offspring of the romance-driven Boy Meets Boy and Fox’s horrifyingly bad Playing It Straight.
But Gay, Straight or Taken is much more than its premise of a gal in a quandary — trying to date and mate whilst maintaining her dignity — suggests. As a cultural phenomenon the show continues to smudge the already blurry boundary that divides straight, gay, bi and try anything guys. A tide shift that started with the 90’s metrohetero and is looking to end with the 00’s uni-sexual Ubermensch.
Gay, Straight or Taken’s set-up is lame but beguiling (in a train wreck sort of way): Attractive gal must decide which of the three attractive guys she is scoping might be single, straight and not taken (I guess for Lifetime if you’re homosexual it’s not possible that you’d be dating or married — you’re simply a promiscuous slut). If Miss Gaydar Savvy chooses correctly she wins her hunk and a trip to some exotic location.
Choose wrongly and the married guy and the gay dude must wear nothing but chaps and wrestle together atop a rotating bed while millions of viewers watch. (Well, not really — but what a great concept for a spin-off hosted by Kelly Ripa and Rosie O’Donnell).
Jenner, the female contestant I caught during this week’s Gay, Straight or Taken is — like all the of the show’s other female contestants — just a token figure, a kind of prop.
She occupies space the same way the indefatigable hetero porn star Sharon Kane will show up for a cameo in a gay suck and fuck video. Kane’s usually playing the wife of the guy who’s about ready to take his first Gay Plunge. Her appearance is a fun plot device set up as a distraction before the guy-on-guy action begins.
Always the bridesmaid but never the groom.
Reviews of Gay, Straight or Taken are predictably snarky but only Slate zeros in on the show’s raison d’être:
“I work in real estate,” Jenner says, “and I’m also working on my dating life,” allowing us to admire the dreariness of that second phrase—to ponder the drudgery of the mating market and, having pondered it, feel either less lonely or more smug. The three suitors are Luciano, Mike, and Chris. The first works as a bartender, while the others say they’re employed, respectively, as “a painter, by trade, and also a club promoter” and “a trainer, among other things, freelance,” both of which sound less like jobs than bad alibis. Taking a cue from the producers, I will make no further effort to distinguish among the three of them. They’re sleek and gelled, strong of chin and hard of ab, hot and harmless. Not only can you picture them appearing together in an ad for boxer briefs, your imagining of such a tableau is the very point.
Oh wow, a new Abercrombie and Fitch advertisement. But what are we dreaming beyond the notion of three hunky guys lolling around together in boxer briefs for a photographer? Especially when the air is charged with secret gay endorphins? What happens after the photo shoot ends and the brewskies start popping and the dicks start swelling?
Of course Gay, Straight or Taken doesn’t answer that question, but it does provide the images, the symbolic tableau, the fodder for our dream machine.
Watch the show with the volume turned off and you’ll see what I mean: Gorgeous guys romping around — alone or with each other. A guy solo or talking intimately with another hunky guy. Two guys trying to teach each other how to tango.
There is the occasional appearance of the female contestant — but she always looks bewildered, forlorn. Ostensibly the show’s about her, but really Gay, Straight or Taken is a protracted survey of a stud farm.
More guys float around in the background. Shirts come off. Bathing suits. Bulges.
More guys walking in duo or trio. Fade to white. Get it?
For gay men following the show there’s not much of a leap involved. We’ve been watching pornified versions of the gay on straight narrative for years: Straight guys carefully seduced — often with a pizza or traffic citation as a prop — for maximum erotic suspense and satisfaction. Or straight guys pent-up to bursting, ready to relieve their itch with whatever, whomever. Gay administered blow jobs were designed to facilitate fully the act of hetero succumbing — there’s so little for the recipient to do.
The adult film world, too, is clogged with “gay for pay” hetero actors who, when the last dribble of cum is swiped, push the border of their sexuality into the ever beckoning “sex as a continuum” condition that we’re told will one day free us all from our restrictive sexual identities.
Straight women watching Gay, Straight or Taken probably use fantasy to deflect against identifying too strongly with the female contestant’s vulnerable position — her possibile humiliation. They too abandon the female presence on the show and head straight for the cock.
I’d imagine that it’s more convenient for the female viewer to drift into a reverie that finds her involved in a wanton four-way. I mean, in the world of fantasy why should she have to choose just one guy? Mix it and fill it up. Or maybe she sees herself seducing each guy separately, to the heartbreak of the left-at-home wife or x-girlfriend/boyfriend. It’s an Oedipal arrangement run wild and the possibilities are limitless.
For straight men watching the show — well, I’ve got to ask: Would a bona fide straight guy even bother with Gay, Straight or Taken?
If they ever did a reverse-gender episode of the show, I wonder if a straight guy would be able to differentiate between a straight woman, a woman with a boyfriend, and a lesbian. For that matter, would a straight guy even care?
These questions force me to posit that if a straight guy is watching this show he really isn’t “straight.” The way your dad or my dad was “straight.” The kind of guy-guy that would watch Gay, Straight or Taken is open — perhaps secretly, put open nonetheless — to all the possible permutations: Guy/gal, guy/guy, guy/gal/guy, or in this show’s case: guy/guy/guy or guy/guy/gal/guy.
Oy, happy day!
My point is that Gay, Straight or Taken offers just enough (possibly disposable) estrogen within a thick ‘n’ bubbling testosterone stew to make the meal appealing to any guy who is open to pushing beyond boundaries — is open to being something other than gay, straight or “taken.”
Life is but a dream. Thank you Lifetime!
DavidK, this actually makes me think differently about this show. When I first heard the premise, my instinct was to scoff…and that’s still a possiblity, but I think your analysis is dead on. It makes me feel better about those faceless viewers out there who might use this show for babystep training wheels towards examining their own ideas on sexuality and openess.
I’ve struggled to figure out what is so unappealing to me about the show, and I think what it comes down to is that the girl gets in the way of my fantasy, and the guys aren’t fucking. In fact, the whole focus of the show is to eliminate the guy I’d be interested in.
I don’t find it offensive, but it does seem a bore.
I haven’t seen the show. But your analysis seems pretty thorough.
Anyway, looking at the photographs it’s difficult to see the power balance here. And since that factors into sex, it’s worth making note of. But she seems not a particularly powerful figure. Like you said, a prop. I think that works on several levels for the producers. For one, if she’s too distracting she’ll take away from the gay man’s fantasy, the bi man’s fantasy, or the curious man’s fantasy. Also, if she’s dominant she either intimidates and/or takes away from the straight man’s fantasy of getting a woman away from her whiny friends and into a controlled environment with a few of your trusted pals, to have a (consensual) gang bang. But while not dominant, the female can’t be too overwhelmed and vulnerable either, she has to hold her own and have a certain degree of (faux) control. Because if not, she’ll turn off the straight girl audience because it will seem too uncomfortably close to a victim scenerio instead of a straight girl fantasy of buff, tanned lovers who are unselfish and willing to please.
So cast the show right and the producers please lots of different segments of the audience.
no matter wat the show has 3 hunks… im not complaingbut it would be interestong to have a gay man try to figure out which of the three men were gay srait or taken….
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I wanted to ask you, how on earth can a guy be pointed out as gay or attracted to other men. Can Straight men be mixed up for a gay guy? Please also I will appreciate it if you have articles that deal with safe sex and keep the images flowing, and if you could include real stories of personal sexual experiences, ex sex jerk off or first time attractions.
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There was an earlier episode of this show where the three men were black, the gay one is actually a porn star. But not just a mainstream porn star mind you, he get’s face fucked, swallows cum and gets barebacked under the name Kamrun. I wonder if Lifetime knows???