Part 2 of Interview with Kenny Shults. Read part 1 here.
Gay men’s sex and sex lives have been fodder for the public for so long. HIV & AIDS made the kind of sex we have everybody’s fucking business. I remember leaving work one evening to go on a date and my co-workers reminded me to “use a condom!” They were partly joking, but also not really. On one of their faces I could see that she thought she had done her good deed for the day. I was like “fuck you—who says we’re even going to have sex? It’s a first date!” My date and I laughed about it (after we had sex). But gay men deserve some dignity, and to have their sex lives regarded with the same respect we afford straight people. I have a joke about how funny it is to me that straight people can say things like “we’re tying to get pregnant” and receive so many accolades. I have a joke I tell on stage about it: “so you guys are fucking a lot more? Fucking without condoms or birth control? And your husband is ejaculating inside of you, a lot more, lately…? MOZELTOV!!!!!” I sometimes hear straight people laughing in the audience while saying “oh God, it’s true, that is what we’re saying…” It’s a double standard. Whenever someone mentions gay sex everyone just instantly pictures the person bent over getting plowed. Butt sex is a staple in comedy that makes gay men the buttof the joke. But when straight people mention their sex lives, without even realizing it, we fall over ourselves to congratulate and validate them.
I have another joke I tell about this: “Why is pregnancy and child rearing still the holy grail of social acceptance anyway? Now you have the gays adding the over-population problem just to earn some long overdue societal respect? I mean, am I supposed to be in awe that you got fucked a buncha times? I get fucked constantly, where’s my parade? Oh that’s right, it’s in June…”
We also need progressive strategies that get younger people’s attention and communicate non-judgmental. Passing out condoms at gay bars is an old strategy that’s still somewhat decent, but passing out test kits at gay bars would be a real departure.
We also need progressive strategies that get younger people’s attention and communicate non-judgmental. Passing out condoms at gay bars is an old strategy that’s still somewhat decent, but passing out test kits at gay bars would be a real departure.
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I also think it’s important to give people a voice. We’re always talking at young people and gays, never with them. And we certainly never hear them. That’s why I created MyMediaLife, a short workshop series program that teaches participants how to make a PSA (a social commercial) about whatever plagues them. We have seen this result in dramatic catharsis as well as an increase in agency and autonomy surrounding whatever issue they choose. We just finished a MyMediaLife with a group of youth who were born with HIV. They chose to make a PSA that spoke to other positives about the importance of taking your meds. As a result, each of them has experienced a complete re-evaluation of their own relationship to the meds they have to take every day. This is the essence of behavior change. And what’s more, the PSAs they create inspire behavior change in the viewers, their peers.
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What is your problem with male circumcision?
It’s funny to answer a question like that. To me that’s like asking “what’s your problem with seal clubbing?” Or “What’s your problem with cutting off girls breasts just after puberty to prevent breast cancer?” I mean, you’ll never hear anyone ask, “what’s your problem with forced clitoral removal?” I hate making that comparison because female genital mutilation is profoundly awful and so much worse, but you can’t deny the similarities, though people certainly do.
This is a little embarrassing to discuss—but as I said I’m used to having my sex life on display—I have always really liked foreskin. Unlike most of my peers I always found an intact penis much sexier than one with a dark ring around the middle (or worse). To me this is how we are born, and I have always found it bizarre that the standard of penis beauty is determined by the absence of a pretty important and sensitive part of the penis.
The penis is meant to be a moving part. The foreskin that covers the glans (head of the penis) is designed to protect it from keratinization (the desensitization that occurs when the head of the penis rubs against clothing, etc.); produces anti-bacterial and anti-viral substances that protect the health of our penis and urethral opening; and acts as a sheath in which the penis can move so as to make intercourse more pleasurable and less abrasive (be it vaginal or anal, an intact penis causes much less trauma and cuts and micro-tears).
A more seasoned anti-circ activist quickly took over while I walked around that fair to calm down by getting a few free psychic readings.
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Circumcision, in varying forms, has been around for long time. But in America it was popularized in the 19th century as a means for preventing masturbation in young boys. At the time masturbation was thought to cause all sorts of ailments from blindness to diphtheria. Kellogg—as in frosted flakes—was instrumental in this campaign. A right wing religious nut, he poured tons of his own money into convincing scared parents to cut off the tip of boy’s penises moments after their birth. It’s truly amazing what you can convince people to do if you scare them enough. Obviously this not only failed to prevent boys from masturbating—we’ll always find a way—but had no basis in science. When medical science advanced and we understood more about the nature of disease, doctors found another excuse to keep the practice alive: hygiene.
“It’s cleaner!” people so often reflexively shout. As if soap and water weren’t effective enough at cleaning this particular nook and cranny of the male human body. I once staffed an anti-circ booth at a new age fair in San Francisco years ago and was confronted by a woman in a camouflage jacket who claimed to be a nurse. “I have had to care for men in comas and clean them, and I can tell you now that if I had a male child I would definitely remove his foreskin! It’s disgusting!” I got mad and screamed “did you also clean your patient’s ass while he was in a coma? Did you find that less disgusting for some reason?” A more seasoned anti-circ activist quickly took over while I walked around that fair to calm down by getting a few free psychic readings.
I’ve been working on a joke about it: I hear people say that removing a boy’s foreskin is cleaner—I agree! And that’s why I’m having my butthole removed. I just think it would be a lot cleaner…” But I don’t think that joke would work very well. I told it to a comic friend of mine and she just stared back at me like I had just called her mother a cunt.
It’s a frustrating movement to be a part of because people are so defensive about it. Mothers are defensive because they don’t want to be told that they brought harm to their child. Father’s are defensive because it was likely done to them and not doing it to their own son forces them to look at the issue and possibly come to terms with their own traumatic feelings about it. While men often cite reasons like “I don’t want my son to be made fun of in the locker room” as the ostensible reason for subjective their sons to the practice, the real reason is that people who suffer from trauma are often compelled to perpetrate it against others in an effort to normalize and rationalize it. I think men who are circumcised absolutely suffer from some level of PTSD relating to their circumcision. Most people find this idea laughable, but people thought the same thing about what we would now consider child abuse. People used to do all sort of things to their kids in the name of discipline or children’s well-being but we know better now, we know that beating children doesn’t “help them learn”, but somehow we still buy the idea that routinely cutting off the tips of young boys penises just moments after their birth male circumcision remains unquestioned. Sometimes guys will defensively say, “I prefer being cut!” All I can think (but try not to say) is “How would you know?
Another frustrating element of being a part of this movement is that it is largely comprised of gay men. There are a lot of mothers and nurses whose eyes have been opened and join the movement, but for the most part it’s mostly made up of the folks who see the most dicks—gay men. This allows people to write off the movement as a bunch of cock-obsessed perverts. What’s more, men are often drive to the cause by their own feelings or issues relating to their own circumcision. Many, many men have been mutilated, or worse, by a bad, or just careless, circumcisions. Some men even remember theirs, and their emotions about the issue make them overzealous “weirdo’s” who are easily ignored.
I was in my late 20s when I finally notice the scar that runs down the entire length of my penis. When I say notice, I mean finally saw it; it had obviously been there since my circumcision, but I somehow just looked past it. It’s barely visible, but clearly a scar from having to be stitched up along the side as a result of a botched circumcision. I asked my mother about it and she just went ballistic screaming, “It’s better! It’s cleaner!” but not really explaining. Clearly her guilt about whatever happened is too great to even have the conversation.
I never noticed the scar, the way that most men don’t notice the typical ring-around-the-dick scar that characterize most of their penises, because I never knew any different. But when I became sexually active, I finally had something to compare my penis to and the difference was stark. While I had never had any real (physical) problems result from whatever happened, my penis is slightly curved. And while a lot of guys are like “hot” when they see it (for whatever reason), it finally hit me one day—oh, it’s curved because they cut off too much skin on one side, and when they stitched me up from whatever else occurred it shaped the way my penis formed as I grew up. That was hard to get my head around. This is a hard realization for any man to come to—that they have been altered without their permission at birth; are likely less sensitive as a result; scarred in some way be it minimal or dramatic—because wtf are you supposed to do about it? Get mad? At whom? Your mom and dad? Their OBGYN? Society?
I gave a presentation on the issue once in college as my anatomy final. After the presentation a guy and his girlfriend—both of whom were in the class—came up to me crying (both of them) because they had never understood why his penis was so insensitive. The girlfriend told me that he didn’t enjoy any kind of oral sex, even though she did, and that they had to fuck very forcefully for long periods of time in order for him to climax. His tears were the result of a sadness that engulfed him, but also joyful as he finally had a context in which to understand his sexual struggle. Unfortunately, this particular fellow had had the kind of circumcision (there are few different kinds) that removed the frenulum—a piece of webbing on the underside of the glans that connects the foreskin to the head (not unlike the frenulum found under the tongue). The frenulum is incredibly sensitive, as you know if you are lucky enough to have yours (thankfully I am), so when it’s removed men have to find a way around this lack of sensitivity.
The latest Republican talking point on abortion is about how babies in the womb experience pain, and that abortion is cruel because a fetus can feel it. If they give two shits about how babies feel then why aren’t they trying to stop circumcision?
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You’ve joked before about being chronically attracted to straight men. Why do you think that is?
I think this is unfortunately quite common for gay men. Although all of us, straight and gay alike, know how to find
If you put me in a room full of 999 gay men, and one straight guy, I will invariably find myself attracted to the disheveled guy in the corner looking deeply uncomfortable.
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ourselves attracted to people who aren’t available. Straight men just make it much easier for us gays. But I know plenty of women who are obsessed with the understanding and warm gay male friends they can never have. It’s a lot easier than exposing yourself to rejection. I mean, it’s one thing to be spurned because the object of your affection isn’t attracted to your gender; it’s quite another to be rejected because someone isn’t attracted TO YOU!
It’s just low self-esteem. If you put me in a room full of 999 gay men, and one straight guy, I will invariably find myself attracted to the disheveled guy in the corner looking deeply uncomfortable. It’s funny, I sometime feel a deep sense of relief when I find out a hot guy I like is straight. Then I can relax and be myself. But sometimes I find out that a guy I would swoon over is gay and I lose it. I still can’t watch Magic Mike because the unbelievably beautiful Matt Bomer is rumored to be gay. The other reason I can’t watch it is also related to self esteem; looking at guys with ultra hot bodies is not enjoyable to me. I feel like a 14-year-old girl thumbing through Vogue—compare and despair. I sometimes catch myself thinking “when I have a better body I’ll watch Magic Mike.”
Follow Kenny on Twitter @kennyneal72
I’m straight as the night is long, and just to help a little with the knocking down the gay/hetero border boundary tip (circumsiZe it or not):
I also can’t bring myself to watch Magic Mike, because I know from the promos that the parade of hot bod boys are gonna wreck my delusional, inflated sense of how rad ‘n fab I think I am for/to/with the ladies… which is such a delicately balanced, daily deception and oh so fragile glass menagerie, just begging to be shamefully shattered!
Even though I am intact myself, most of what I have learned about how the intact penis enhances sex, I have learned thanks to the boldness of gay men and straight women. It appears that to appreciate the value of the foreskin and frenulum, one has to be an end user of the penis. Merely owning a penis doesn’t do the trick. Look at the tens of millions of str8 American men who are so clueless about how circumcision detracts from sex. I’ve been married for 24 years, and am 100% str8 lifelong. Yet I too have noticed that male… Read more »
Like his views on MGM, but really, female circumcision isn’t that much different. In fact, some circumcised women are happy about it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu1gmUuDniU
Jokes surrounding circumcision can seem awkward and even offensive, but that seems to be the style of comedians these days who want to use their routines to bring up uncomfortable subject matter. With regard to circumcision, specifically, you can find examples from radio shows to even stand-up acts. As an example, Joe Rogan worked it into one of his shows earlier this year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQyLOiwZawA