A New Way to Play With Old Dolls???

Just when you thought you'd seen everything, along comes something new. If you thought you were too old to play with all your old dolls, then guess again. I recently came across this totally cool web site where they take old G.I. Joe and Ken dolls and put them in sexually explicit positions. Hot! The site is called PoseableThumbs.com, and it's, like, one of the coolest things I've seen in ages. Why, you ask? Because, well, frankly, gay porn has gotten pretty frickin' boring, if you ask me. It's all posed posed posed for the cameras, the guys are far too muscle-pumped, and the sex is just way overchoreographed. On PoseableThumbs, the sex is definitely posed (an intentional jab at the inherent inauthenticity of the gay porn industry, perhaps?), but in this case, it's far too fun to be boring. And besides, the guys are HOT!

I mean, just look at these dudes. They're not all porn-star coiffed to the heavens, they don't need to spend too much time shaving or waxing their chests (in most cases, they ain't got any chest hair to wax, poor things), and well, they're surely not overly concerned with the size of their, er, packages, since, well, they just don't have any! (One wonders when the site might begin to incporporate the more than anatomically correct Billy dolls into the picture...) I wonder then, is this site making a statement about the ongoing emasculation and emotional detachment (and, indeed, the virtual plasticity) of the gay male community, or is it really just trying to point out how playful sex can be? Hmmmmm, maybe it's a bit of both???

Actually, I did an interview with the guy who created the site, Pete Handler (funny name, huh) for AVN Online, and during our little chat, Handler told me that his goal was to try a turn gay men on by using dolls and action figures and incporporating them into iconic scenarios that are very common in the gay community. You know, sex clubs, back alleys, locker rooms, play dungeons... all that hot 'n' nasty stuff we hedonist gay dudes seem to keep getting into all the time...

What I really like about this unique "outside-the-box" site is that it really does restore a certain playfulness back into sex. There's a very hot juxtaposition between the seriousness of the scenarios (in some cases, you can just hear the dominant daddies depicted in the photos barking, "Yeah, boy, get on your knees and service daddy's meat!") and the more kistch element of just having a bunch of dolls laid out in such serious sexual situations. According to Handler, it's just that mix of absurdity and eroticism that makes his site so much fun for him to put together. "I hope the uniqueness is the thing that makes it stand out from the rest," he tells me. "I didn't do this as a get-rich-quick scheme, but I did it to try and do something smart and hot and original."

I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I definitely think he's succeeded in his goal. I mean, to me, you gotta have a sense of humor about sex, and come on, sex is always a lot more fun when you're able to laugh at all the slip-ups and little moments that happen while you're rolling about in the throes of sexual passion. Come on, admit it, you've had some pretty hilarious things happen in the middle of sex sometimes, right? (When was the last time you had to say, "Um, buddy, that's totally the wrong hole!"). And by using the iconographic figures so prevalent in the childhoods of gay men (come on, boys, who among you didn't fantatsize about your G.I. Joe or Six Million Dollar Man doll?), Handler is doing more than just depicting the inherent silliness that often comes with such raw physical intimacy; he's also celebrating the icons of our sexual youth. And I like that.

By using dolls, though, Handler also makes a very interesting sociological statement about the gay community's frustratingly shallow obsession with physical perfection and mucles. Just as women have often been prone to the Barbie doll complex (does any woman have a waist that small, I ask?), gay men are now slaves to what I term the "Ken Doll Complex," in which our constant need for validation through physical attractiveness has forced us become a bunch of walking, talking, fresh-from-the-gym clones trying to out-stud each other with our perfect biceps and our perfect abs. Handler's use of plastic men literally reveals (and pokes fun at) the very plasticity of the "Ken Doll Complex."

The fact that these dolls are in most cases completely devoid of personality is also another wink-wink statement that I think speaks volumes--though, in some cases, it actually looks like these emotionally barren toys are mustering far more passion and intimacy toward each other than I've seen in the gay community in ages. And lastly, Handler's insistence on using dolls associated with the ideals of hyper-masculinity and heterosexuality sheds a much-needed light on the gay community's internalized homophobia and its desire to idolize so-called "straight-acting" men.

Though one may doubt that Handler intended to make such bold social commentary with the fancy-free pics when he set about putting this site togther (indeed, he tells me, he originally did it just so he could get a few hits off of his sex-site profile), he actually seems to be in on his own joke, which makes the site all the more cool in my view. "A lot of people just appreciate the site as humor, which is great," he says, "although I'm always a little disappointed when the bigger ideas are lost on them."

Personally, as much as I think Handler's come up with something miraculously clever and kitsch, I would like to see him take his idea even further and go totally serious with it. I think that, as gay men begin to become more and more desensitized to the increasingly lazy adult filmmaking going on in the adult entertainment industry (and, indeed, if all these new government-bred anti-porn laws keep popping up), sites like this one just might develop hot little cult followings--not to mention encourage gay guys to not take sex so seriously for a change. (And come on, boys, admit it: We could all afford to, er, "loosen up," as it were, when it comes to sex.)

Anyways, kiddies, that's it for this blog entry. I'll have more for you probably on Monday, after this weekend's Sunset Junction festivities, so stay tuned!!!

XOXO,
Hollywood Ken