In case you haven't noticed, Laurell K. Hamilton likes hair. Long hair. On men. Pretty men. Her idea of heaven is basically a world populated by clones of Michael Praed circa 1980s and early 90s, leather pants and all.
And you know, I don't have a problem with that in itself. I like long hair on men as long as it's well-maintained. You know, conditioned and trimmed, no split ends, nice texture. And they need a face and body that lend themselves well to it, just like women.
That said… Nathaniel. Just… Nathaniel.
One of the Devil’s Panties strips that Jennie did was this one.
I'm not including her original link, because I think the site has been rearranged, and it's now dead. So here's the updated one.
In case you haven't guessed, The Devil's Panties is an ongoing webcomic about its creator, Jennie Breeden. It's basically about Breedon's everyday life, her friends, and how they go to lots of conventions.
I… don't like it. It feels sort of insular and in-jokey to me, like only Breeden and a small circle of people really "get it." In-jokes don't always bother me (see Channel Awesome and many of THEIR hilarious in-jokes), but even in-jokey entertainment needs to be entertaining to people who AREN'T in on the joke. And the Devil's Panties doesn't. I read maybe six months worth of her strips, and laughed maybe twice.
This is because Breeden doesn't really seem to get how to write humor or punchlines. Just look at that comic up there… and yes, those people are supposed to be LKH and her husband Jon. I mean, okay, it has a decent set-up for a joke - guy mistakes other guy for a woman because he's wearing one of those crappy utilikilts and long hair. But the last two panels are just random lines, especially LKH's. What is supposed to be funny about saying, "I like watching the strait (?????) men question their sexuality"?
That's not funny. It's just confusing and kind of mean-spirited.
It's also kinda biased. If she were out and about with a boyish-looking woman who could be mistaken for a dude from the back, would she be snickering, "I like watching the gay men question their sexuality"? Of course not.
Oh, and I've seen quite a few pictures of LKH's husband. This is what he looks like.
And here's how he looks from the back:
Long hair or no, I am totally not going to mistake that for a girl. Even a crappy utilikilt won't make that look any more feminine.
When Jon and I first started dating, I would braid his hair while wet,
… so she would drench herself, then braid his hair?
so when it dried it was this amazing fall of strawberry-blonde waves around his shoulders like a soft, pettable foam.
Um… "foam"?
If your hair looks like foam… and it doesn't have shampoo… then you have some serious hair damage. But whatever "pettable foam" means, it seems to be another one of LKH's personal fetishes that nobody else has.
Picture all that lovely hair fanned out around his shoulders, with his back to a restaurant entrance, so that all you could see was the hair from the back.
I'm picturing one of those wig-holding heads made out of plastic.
The booth had to be tall enough to hide the width of his shoulders, but when the hair was all you’d see, the straight guys would hit the door and get that “look” in their eyes, some even had that cocky little smile.
How does she even know they were straight? For all she knows, they were gay men hoping for someone prettier.
Then they’d stride around where they could see his face, with the mustache and beard. Their reactions were everything from disappointment, to shock, to disgust, to anger.
You know, if random strangers came up to my date and looked disgusted or disappointed… I might assume that he wasn't the sexual catnip that LKH thinks he is.
They never talked to Jon, maybe because I was looking at them, watching them too closely, and with a woman looking up at them, they had to walk away.
- Or… maybe they were just embarrassed and wanted to end this awkward accidental interaction. Like a NORMAL person.
- What exactly is she implying? Is she suggesting that they would have tried to beat him up out of homophobic hatred if a woman wasn't watching?
- And what, does she think that they're afraid of offending her?
- I know LKH wants to believe that she has this super-intimidating presence, but the only way she would probably drive these guys away is by staring at them in a creepy "too closely" way.
- I mean, imagine this. You're a dude coming over to talk to a couple of women, only to discover that one of them is an average-looking man, and the actual woman is staring at you in this weird creepy way. I'd get the hell out of there!
- LKH seems to be stuck in the 1980s in a lot of ways…. but when it comes to hair, she seems to be stuck in the 1960s. All this scenario needs is "get a haircut, hippie!"
- Seriously, long hair on a man is not that unusual these days. Also, women can wear pants!
It took me awhile to figure out why they were so upset.
This in turn caused me to have another Deep Life Revelation, which I shall blog about at length as if I actually discovered something! HOT DAMN, I'M DEEP!
Some of them seemed to feel that being attracted to Jon, even thinking he was a girl, somehow threatened their sexual orientation.
You cannot threaten someone's sexual orientation. You can threaten their sexual IDENTITY, but not their orientation.
And ferfuksake, she never even SPOKE to these men. They never said a WORD in front of her. These people probably never even made eye contact, and yet she's assuming that she knows everything about their thoughts, sexuality, bigotry, personal attitudes and emotional responses. Da hell?
Somehow just being attracted to a man for any reason was a threat? I don’t really get that,
"I mean, like, yaoi is so hawt! Why aren't the men INTO that?"
but there’s a reason you’ll find a lot more women who will be a little opportunistically bisexual, and much fewer men.
That's because drunken chicks making out for male attention get more results than drunken men making out for female attention.
Seriously, "opportunistically bisexual"? That is just offensive. It certainly suggests that LKH thinks bisexuality is at least partly an act to get what you want, like the aforementioned drunken chicks. And of course, those scheming bitchy women are much more likely to "go bi" in order to get what they want, unlike the manly straight men (who, of course, will hate and fear gay people)!
Then again, does this surprise anyone? This is the woman who apparently thinks that bisexuality also means that you're unable to have a monogamous relationship, cuz you just GOTTA shag both sexes.
Women just don’t have the hang up about “seeing” another woman as attractive. Okay, some women do, but most are much more comfortable with it, men not so much.
- And how would you know?
- Despite LKH's vaunted Manly Manliness of Masculinity, straight men are probably not going to talk to a woman the same way they talk to a man. So really, she can only know how much attractiveness women "see," not men.
- Personally, I have heard men express their appreciation for some dudes. But they're not the sort that immediately ring LKH's bells - it's usually guys like Viggo Mortensen, Cary Grant and Sean Connery.
- Also, men sometimes express it in different ways. Usually they're not talking about a person's specific physical attributes or whatever, but acknowledging another man's attractiveness just by saying that a guy is cool or something like that.
Shame really I like an open-minded man,
Why should they care what YOU like? They saw you at the table, but clearly were not interested.
but there is something deeply cultural about straight men being attracted to another man, and their reaction to it.
They WEREN'T attracted to him. They were attracted to what they THOUGHT he might look like. When they actually SAW him, they couldn't get the hell out of there fast enough.
Jon doesn’t have the hang-up, me either.
"My husband's okay with guys hitting on him, and as a yaoi fangirl, I'm fine with it too! As long as they don't touch or anything gross!"
Some people are just pretty no matter what’s under the pants.
Yes, like the aforementioned Michael Praed circa 1990. Or Cillian Murphy. Jon, not so much.
This is one of the things that bugs me when LKH talks about her marriage. It's normal and healthy for a couple to find each other very attractive, even devastatingly so. It can be cute.
But LKH doesn't seem satisfied with that. Whenever she talks about her husband being attractive, it's like she not only has to find him attractive, but everyone else has to find him dazzlingly hot as well. The entire message of this blog is, "My husband is SOOOOOOO hot he makes straight guys run away, because they're afraid his dazzling sexiness will make them gay! HE'S SOOOOO HAWT EVERYBODY WANTS HIM! BE JEALOUS OF ME!"
And no, I do not find Jon attractive. At all. I find him completely average-looking. The same goes for his completely average hair.
We did the whole hair down to there scenario by accident the first two times, but I admit to doing it on purpose a couple of times after that, because I just found the men’s reactions fascinating.
Lady, that is NASTY. I don't know if you realize this, since you spend most of your time playing with your imaginary friends, but deliberately making other people upset and embarrassed for your own amusement... is Bella Swan nasty. I don't care what biases or bigotries you THINK these men MIGHT have, or how they MIGHT react. Deliberately arranging matters so they'll be embarrassed is just cruel.
And given that this is a writer who expects us to care about the feelings of fictional vampires, it says a lot that she doesn't give a crap about the feelings of ACTUAL PEOPLE.
Some of them were really bothered by the whole situation. I accept the fact that it bothers them, but I honestly don’t understand why,
Maybe it's because they were embarrassed?
Or maybe it's because we live in what is still at least partly a patriarchal society (get back to me when we have a female president), and in such societies men's sexuality tends to be taken much more seriously than women's. Therefore, women displaying attraction to other women is ingrained in the society as being no impediment to men, because it's just the li'l wimmenz playin' around. Men's sexuality is depicted as serious business, and gay/bi men are not looked on as fondly as lesbians/bi women because the male-dominated perspective prefers to watch hot women snogging.
There. I solved your little riddle. Now shut up.
and there’s just a little too much of the scientist in me, I have to see if the experiment can be duplicated, and the results the same.
Apparently there's too much of the Dr. Insano scientist in her.
As in, a REAL scientist who isn't a total sociopath gets CONSENT from his subjects before performing any kind of social experiment on them.
Empirically proven that my husband’s hair is a guy attractant. Interesting.
- Yeah, it's a guy attractant… until they find out it's attached to an average-looking man. Then it somehow loses its magic mojo.
- Empirical my butt.
- And it's not PROVEN, you dim broad. How many men came in the door and DIDN'T react to
Nathaniel'sJon's flowing locks? You only acknowledge the ones who DID... - … presumably because it's an ego stroke for you to have a guy that you think other people lust after your husband, and therefore want what you have.
- Here's an alternate scenario: it is empirically proven that LKH lives in an area with lots of people who associate long hair with feminity, and will therefore assume that long hair is always attached to a woman. I guess she considers that much less likely.
That said, this ode to how Mr. LKH is so hawt he can upset straight men only reminds me of this shampoo commercial.
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