Pick a Number

[JesusA (imported)]

Pick a Number

by Paul Rudnick (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/ ... rName=paul rudnick)

The New Yorker

December 12, 2011

Alfred Kinsey believed that human sexuality could be charted on a scale of 0 to 6, with 0 being “Exclusively heterosexual” and 6 being “Exclusively homosexual.” Owing to changing cultural boundaries and advanced research, Kinsey’s scale has recently been expanded:

0. So heterosexual that you think all other heterosexuals should be shot, because they seem a little gay.

1. So heterosexual that when a tax return or a loan application asks your gender you reply, “Straight.”

2. So heterosexual that the thought of two people of the same sex having intercourse doesn’t disgust you; it confuses you—“Wait a minute, if they’re both girls, which one falls asleep immediately afterward while the other one keeps babbling about her day?”

3. So heterosexual that when you go to see “Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway” you can’t understand why he doesn’t just use his steel Wolverine claws to kill his backup dancers.

4. Heterosexual, yet still able to read the Times’ Arts & Leisure section without asking, “Who are Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin? School-board members from Staten Island?”

5. Heterosexual, but still willing to understand, at least theoretically, why two women having sex aren’t just practicing until their husbands get back from their golf date.

6. Heterosexual, yet still able to wear colors other than brown, olive green, and navy blue (but never pink or yellow, because you’re not some goddam circus clown).

7. Heterosexual, but sometimes fantasizes about bathing.

8. Heterosexual, but once, at college, glimpsed a roommate naked and thought, If everyone else in the world were dead, I would have sex with that person, as long as we both kept saying, “But everyone else is still dead, right?”

9. Heterosexual, but once, while serving in the military, made love with a same-sex partner, and afterward said either “I was so drunk,” “Wait—does that count as sex?,” or “Whoa. At least now I can check that off my bucket list, along with hot-air ballooning.”

10. Heterosexual, but during sex with one’s spouse often pictures the spouse with different genitalia sprouting from his or her forehead. This is not to be confused with imagining your spouse’s forehead as a place to hold keys, or to hang up your windbreaker.

11. Heterosexual, but while on business trips will frequently have intercourse with same-sex partners, primarily because they know the best local restaurants.

12. You identify as bisexual because you think it will double your chances of getting a date for Saturday night.

13. You identify as bisexual because you think it sounds French.

14. So bisexual that you fantasize not only about both Brad and Angelina but also about Regis and Kelly.

15. So bisexual that you get Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin confused.

16. Almost too bisexual, because you keep approaching straight married couples on the subway and murmuring, “The answer is yes.”

17. Homosexual, but occasionally attracted to the opposite gender, just to get your mom’s hopes up.

18. Homosexual, but willing to look at a member of the opposite sex without howling, “Dear God in Heaven, what is that?”

19. Homosexual, but sometimes still fantasizes about kissing someone of the opposite sex, as an item on a scavenger hunt.

20. Homosexual, but willing to speak to heterosexuals without muttering, under your breath, “Have you ever even been to a museum?”

21. So homosexual that both partners can achieve orgasm just by debating dream casting for the next revival of “Follies.”

22. So homosexual that you refer to you and your partner’s genitalia as “matchy-matchy.”

23. So exclusively homosexual that you made an “It Gets Better” video aimed at kids who were raised in homes without stacks of coffee-table books.

24. So overwhelmingly homosexual that you dream that Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin are your birth parents.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/12/ ... ts_rudnick

[punkypink (imported)]

This is gonna be so bad, but who's

Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin?

[tugon (imported)]

This is gonna be so bad, but who's

Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin?

I would tell you but then you would know my number.

[Slammr (imported)]

This is gonna be so bad, but who's

Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin?

Don't feel bad: I had to Google them. Both are singers and actors and are about the same age, the former born in 1949 and the latter born in 1952. Patti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patti_LuPone is female, and Mandy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_Patinkin is male.

[Dave (imported)]

This is gonna be so bad, but who's

Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin?

They were both big stars in big musicals in New York on Broadway.

LuPone in several and Patinkin in EVITA and SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE.

It's a little like saying Judy Garland and Liberace (please tell me you know them)

PS - I'm in the middle numbers

[Cainanite (imported)]

This shouldn't be a scale, it should be a grid.

There is also the level of sexuality.

As well as the line from flaming to straight as an arrow, there should be a vertical line from extremely sexual (nymphomaniac or sex addict) to extremely non-sexual (Cloistered monk with no balls.)

In my mind there is a lot more to explore than just the two polar ends of the limited spectrum. I know I fall somewhere in the middle of both lines on my grid. I'm asexual, with bisexual leanings. I certainly don't crave or need sex with either gender, but it's rather pleasant should it occur.

I wonder what Kinsey had to say on that?

[loveableleopardy (imported)]

I would tell you but then you would know my number.

LOL Tugon!

This thread is great! A lot of the comments with the numbers made me laugh. And I had never heard of those two singers either. And only heard of Judy Garland

I would probably put myself as a 7, or a 7.5, as I do more than just fantasise about bathing; I love baths! And I also can wear any colour without feeling like a clown (too self-conscious)

[Dave (imported)]

Here's Patti Lupone as EVITA and Pandy PAntimkin is the young Che Guevara who belts out "A New Argentina about halfway Through. This song usually ended in cheers unil the crowd realized they were cheering a dictator named Juan Peron. Then the crowd squirmed real bad.

Here's Liberace playing the piano for real and the second is Liberace being more flamboyant. If you go to the videos and take a tour of his house, you can see just how flamboyant he was. His bedroom had the Sistine Chapel's "Creation" on the ceiling. now that's gay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGAAyNsp ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xTLCcc9 ... re=related

And for those who might have lived in a cave -- Judy Garland singing GET HAPPY.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U-rBZREQMw

And for those who never saw her: For once in my life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzLUqIc2 ... re=related

on TV doing Mike Douglas Show in the afternoon. Who the hell does this performance when they could walk through a chirpy, happy song that requires no effort? Only Garland.

[Riverwind (imported)]

Speaking of Liberace, I lived in the Palm Springs area for several years and remembering him having a cat fight with a local TV cooking show host, the name calling, hissing and spitting, the whole works. That would have been late 60's early 70's. Deloris Hope was the mayor then, fun times.

Yes my number was in there, between and

River

[Dave (imported)]

If I would write this survey for today's youth rather than old queens who always lived in the closet, I think that I would change

Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin

to Hugh Jackman and Neil Patrick Harris...

Now I know they are both the same sex and I believe that Hugh Jackman is straight (not gay) but I can't name a female star on Broadway as popular those two. Not that there aren't really excellent females on Broadway and in musicals, they just aren't wildly famous gay icons.

I think I'm #18 but my orgasmic releases nowadays are involving the written word and not fleshy bodies with giant throbbing...

Sorry, got carried away there.