F*** You Facebook

This morning, for the third and final time, Facebook has banned me for ridiculous reasons.

The first time was after I posted, “I wish Sarah Palin would disappear.” That punishment lasted until I agreed to a policy prohibiting threats. Really, a threat? A threat would have been, “I wish I had a canon, so I could blow up Sarah Palin’s house, and she could no longer see Russia from her bedroom while riding her idiot husband’s tiny penis in attempt to make more babies and name them after mathematical theorems.” Now, that is a threat. And, the world doesn’t need another Pythagoras Palin. Can you imagine him on Dancing with the Stars? And what makes Boom Boom Bristol Palin a star? I wish someone would knock me up, so I could get on a reality competition show.

The second time was because I either sent a friend request to someone I did not know outside of Facebook or someone I didn’t know outside of Facebook sent me a request and I accepted it. That punishment lasted until I agree to a policy only to friend people I knew outside of Facebook. Seriously? So you are telling me that all these other people with 2,000 and 3,000 and even 5,000 friends know all those people outside of Facebook? My favorites are the suggested friends on the right-hand column. I would send a friend request and get a note telling me they have too many friends, yet some had 1,500 friends. Who makes these determinations?

Isn’t the purpose of Facebook so you can connect with people all over the world and make new friends? Apparently not. If I see someone in France with shared interests, I need to book a flight, visit him, fly home, and send him a friend request, hoping he doesn’t forget who I was and report me for requesting a friendship with a stranger. I guess that meeting better be memorable with a happy ending.

I signed the agreement, but then I was not allowed to send requests for fourteen days or message anyone. What was more frustrating was they went through my friend list and unfriended about twenty percent of my friends, so then I received messages accusing me of unfriending people. Who decided which friends I was allowed to keep?

Today was the icing on the cake. I work for a publisher of gay erotica, so we arrange for and have a lot of images that are not for everyone’s eyes; however, some are harmless enough not to offend, or so I thought. We had a picture of a naked mechanic working on a car. All you saw was full backal. The caption was, “My new mechanic.” The comments and likes were many and positive, but then, someone from Facebook removed the picture.

My Facebook friends, whom I know personally and have touched in many ways, were appalled. One even sent me a dozen photos he found on Facebook, which depicted sex acts by any number of combinations of genders and species – all of them posted on people’s pages. There is a page called “Gay Porn.” Literally! You should check it out. I can’t.

In order to log back on to Facebook and reactivate my profile, I was asked to sign an agreement not to post any pictures that I did not own the rights to and that all my pictures were of people I know and contained a date and time stamp.

My reply to Facebook?

FUCK YOU!

They claimed I did not have the rights and permissions to post that picture. What a bunch of dicks. I was at the photo shoot. I know the model. I know the photographer. I drew up their contracts. I received permission to use the image.

By the way, I love my job. It doesn’t pay much, but for some reason, I don’t care.

So was it banned because they thought I didn’t own it? Or was it offensive? Or ….

Does someone on Zuckerberg’s team have something against me? Did I piss off someone years ago, and that person works for him and has nothing better to do than watch my profile? Is Cynarra, my stalker from college, the vice president of morality and standards at Facebook? Do they have morality and standards at Facebook? 

I have the most honest profile – or at least I did until this morning . My pictures include my face. I use my real name. I post pictures I took with my own camera and phone or ones I witnessed being taken. Do they know how many of those Craig’s List headless profiles are fake?

I had a guy contact me last week with the last name Stern. He had a headless shot for a profile picture. It turns out after telling me we were related that Stern wasn’t even his name. I had already figured that out, but I wanted to see how far he would go. And have mercy, did he go far. You can’t catfish me!

This isn’t the first time they have removed images from my page. You know those Blunt Cards that people post constantly? I apparently am not allowed to post them. Every time I did, they removed it. Literally. A friend made one his cover photo. I told him what happened to me, and he said they never questioned him.

Our publishing company has run into the same problem on Amazon. For the last four years, Amazon Kindle has randomly banned books for questionable content, and the reasons never make sense. We have a book called Muscle Worshipers, which was published so many years ago that it was the first Gay erotic book ever on Amazon Kindle. It is also the tamest erotic book ever. It is nothing but stories about guys admiring each other’s bodies. There are no anal sex scenes in it, and everyone is of age. This book is so tame that it was panned by hard core fans and reviewers of erotica for being too vanilla and boring. Two weeks ago, we got a notice that it was banned. We were stunned. There are books on Kindle that are downright disgusting but still available.

We are convinced that the Church Lady is one of their reviewers, and every once in a while, she picks up one of our books and decides to ban it. We would fight it, but then we risk having all of our books banned. The books are all in the erotica category, and one must be eighteen to order them. All the characters in the books are eighteen. Who determines what is questionable or not? And if erotica is not allowable, why is it one of the categories? This makes no sense.

Funny, we never had these problems when a Republican was in the White House. Go figure.

As I learned during my decision to go on weekend Facebook hiatus, this social media site does little for book sales and only drives about five percent of the traffic to this blog.

I can live without it on Saturdays and Sundays, so how hard will it be to live without seeing pictures of cats and knowing someone woke up with a headache on any given Tuesday or drove in traffic on a Thursday evening?

So long Facebook and your fascist, nonsensical policies. As far as I am concerned. You are so last year.  

If you find me offensive and don’t know me outside this blog, join me, get on my email list, or buy my books at www.miltonstern.com.

Everyone Is a Drag Queen

When you really think about it, all of us are drag queens, especially the recently retired Pope. Seriously, big gold hat, flowing white dress, red shoes? Who the hell are you fooling? And your home! How many illegal immigrants does it take to clean all those stained glass windows, not to mention all the paintings of bodybuilders touching each other on the ceiling and walls? Where do illegal immigrants to Vatican City come from? Armenia?

Pope Hitler being no exception, all of us are drag queens. You may not wear a dress (although you may be wearing your wife’s panties right now), but whatever uniform you are wearing is your drag.

By the way, DRAG means Dude Resembles A Girl. It is from Shakespeare, and I learned that on Rupaul’s Drag Race, and if Jujubee said it, it has to be true. But for our purposes, Drag represents any costume you wear for a specific occasion.

There is painter drag. Nicely fitting, white painter’s pants that hug your butt just so with all those fabulous hoops and pockets, white T-shirt, and white hat.

I have often wondered why painters wear white. If I were a painter, I would wear rainbow colors in a psychedelic pattern, so when the paint splattered on my clothes, no one would know. I am the world’s worst painter. You wouldn’t believe I have OCD and put everything in its place and keep a spotless home by the way I paint. When I paint a room, it looks as if a blind man with Parkinson’s disease completed the job. I paint over outlets, light switches, windows, small dogs. I once painted a kitchen orange, including the ceiling, and when a neighbor walked by and peaked into my window, she called the fire department. They kept telling me the shade would get darker with each coat of paint, but it just got flamier and flamier after five coats. The room kept getting smaller, too.

There is corporate drag. Dark suit, blue shirt, print tie. You don’t think it is drag? Take the print on that tie, and make a shirt out of it. Would you wear that? Did you know a necktie is just an evolution of what was once a napkin meant to catch the food that fell from your mouth? That is why my best linen napkins are actually silk neckties. Remember in the 1970s when men wore scarves? Neither do I – it was before my time. I saw it on a retrospective of the Tonight Show on PBS. Now there is a style I would like to see return. The question is do you knot it on the right or left, and what is the significance?

Construction drag is among my favorites. Cut off shorts, suede boots, no shirt, and a hard hat. Need I say more? Find yourself an Indian and a cop, and you have a nice boy band.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. No matter what you do for a living, you are in drag. Get over it, especially if you are a drag queen.

Being in drag carries into your social life as well. You have club drag, bridge game drag, Mah Jongg drag. What is Mah Jongg drag? Big Aquanet hair, theatrical make-up with lipstick on your teeth, a black top with gold lame and applique, more gold jewelry than Mr. T, stretch pants, and rhinestone encrusted reading glasses. Not unlike how I dress for the grocery store.

And all you straight daddies out there, you have golf drag! Oh my God, the most dreaded drag of all. Curiously, the most macho heterosexual on the planet, who wouldn’t be caught dead in any color but blue or black during the week, will spend five hours on a Saturday, driving a subcompact, electric convertible with a striped canvas top, chasing a little white ball, wearing pink and yellow plaid pants, a pink shirt, a yellow hat, and adorable two-tone yellow and white golf shoes with tassels. For them, Hartmarx still makes Sansabelt slacks – those beltless wonders of polyester, which show too much bulge, sit too high on the waist, and give every man who wears them a wedgie.

Your social life morphs into your sex life, and then you have a whole new world of drag, especially if you are into leather. I have never understood leather drag, especially the ubiquitous harness. What exactly does the harness do? Esmeralda, may she rest in peace, wore a canvas harness when I walked her, but she wanted nothing to do with BDSM. While I have seen my fair share of leathermen in harnesses, I have never seen one with a leash attached. Anytime one had a leash, it was attached to a collar.

Another thing I don’t understand is why the leather is necessary. I am perfectly happy being handcuffed to a bed in a nice cotton-poly blend. It’s wrinkle resistant and machine washable. I don’t need a collar to eat out of a dog dish. The food tastes the same without the drag.

I will never forget my last trip to the Eagle to see their Halloween costume contest. There were at least twenty men wearing harnesses and dress pants. So, you came directly from the office. While you remembered to pack your harness, you somehow forgot your jeans or leather pants? I work in a government building, so my first thought was what happens when that thing you are wearing under your suit beeps? This being DC, I am sure this happens at least a dozen times a day in any given federal building.

That evening, the costume contest was called off because they couldn’t figure out who was in costume and who was dressed for a typical night at the Eagle. Another thing about leather drag I don’t understand is that most if not all of it is intended for the bedroom, so why are you wearing it to a bar? That would be the equivalent of my wearing a black lace Teddy to Ruby Tuesdays.

Did you just get a visual?

One of the hats I wear is editor of Gay erotica – a job I have been doing for almost eight years. During that time, I have done my share of research. I either consult an expert, or if I can’t find one, I do my research hands on, and I really enjoy my job. For example, for my military BDSM collection, I consulted with a friend who was former military and a Dungeon Master. The things I learned just from interviewing him were enough to fill two volumes.

For the book on prison love, I spoke to several friends; apparently, I need a better class of friends. For the book about cowboys, I attended a few rodeos, and I studied up on Cowboy drag. The team sports book was the easiest since I attempted to play team sports all my life, and I have worn my share of pads, helmets, and cups and sometimes actually on a playing field. Also, there isn’t a Gay man on the planet who doesn’t own a jock strap.

I need to pause for a second. To all my Gay friends of a certain age: if you put on a jock strap, and you can no longer see the straps as they are hidden under the folds of your ass, that means you can no longer wear a jock strap. For me that moment arrived on August 21, 2009, at approximately 2:53 pm. That is why my friend Charles still has not received a picture of me in a jock strap.

The next book we are compiling is a collection of short stories on wrestling fantasies. I have quite a few friends who are into wrestling, so I thought this would be easy, but wrestling is something you have to do in order to describe the action – much like Mah Jongg, which can be just as competitive. There is a scene in On Tuesdays, They Played Mah Jongg, where they are talking to each other while tossing and picking up tiles and playing an actual hand. Since I know how to play Mah Jongg (my friend Marlene would argue otherwise), I was able to map out the game, seat the girls correctly around the table, and write the scene accurately.

Wrestling is one of those Gay fetishes that is extremely butch. Guys all sweaty, grappling and choking and punching. There is a lot of grunting and body slamming. They yell at each other and call each other names just to make their opponents more aggressive. There is no equipment in wrestling. Just muscle and skill. Nothing is more masculine and testosterone filled than wrestling.

I need a cigarette … where was I?

I started to go down my list of wrestling friends, which is much larger than I realized and found one who actually performs as a professional wrestler as well as wrestles men in his basement for fun. I asked him if he could show me some wrestling moves, so I could properly write a wrestling fantasy story as well as edit those that are submitted.

He asked me if I had any gear. For those who don’t know, gear is what you wear when you wrestle. It usually consists of a singlet or a Speedo. Some wear boots, but that is only if you are into the professional wrestling fantasy. I told him I didn’t have any gear.

I was starting to feel like a drag queen with no red pumps. Funny how when I did drag, I had plenty of gear. Now I just wanted someone to wrestle with me, and I needed gear.

He then asked if I had a Speedo, Lycra, spandex, or a singlet. Spandex and Lyra are a privilege not a right, and I never earned that privilege; I doubt if I could find a singlet in my size in the ready-to-wear section at Lane Bryant; and the last time I wore a Speedo, I was a member of the Jewish Community Center swim team – the Stingrays – and I had no right to wear it then, not to mention now!

So I informed him that I had no gear, and his answer was, “This won’t work.” That was it. No lesson.

Oh my God! How Gay is that? I can’t even take a wrestling lesson unless I show up in drag? These guys may be the most macho of all the Gay men, but they are also the biggest queens of all! I forgot to mention that all of these guys have a singlet or Speedo fetish. They are more excited about the gear than the match.

Before you ask, he wouldn’t even entertain the notion of naked wrestling. What would the ancient Greeks think of him? They would be proud of me because I even offered to provide the olive oil.

If you require drag to achieve an orgasm, join me, follow me, get on my email list and buy my books: www.miltonstern.com.

Gay Men Can’t Read

If Joan Rivers were working the red carpet at the annual M4M parade of profiles, she would stop every guy and ask, “What are you into?”

You will get that joke if you have ever posted an online profile on a pick-up site. Notice I did not say dating site because when was the last time two Gay men met online, went to dinner and a movie, kissed good night on the porch, and went their separate ways?

Tuesday in a trailer park.

Let’s face it. If you have a profile on any of the available sites and apps out there, you are not just on there to look at the pretty pictures. You are looking to find someone to help you relieve yourself of all that built-up tension from a hard week at work, or you are just looking to spray your load on someone’s back. The reason you want to spray it on his back is that after you go back and forth chatting for an hour and examine his pictures, he will show up at your door fifteen years and fifteen pounds later. By that point, you have already committed yourself to having relations, so you decide the only way to achieve a climax is to avoid looking at his face and to keep the lights as low as possible. There is a reason old couples get cataracts.

There are times when you realize there aren’t enough light blocking curtains at Bed, Bath & Beyond to go from flaccid to turgid. That is when the little blue pill comes in handy. Just be sure you haven’t accidentally taken an Aleve, or you will be doing your Bonobo monkey face as you try to beat your little friend into something everyone can enjoy.

Closing the deal, engaging in man-on-man action within the hour, changing the sheets, showering and peeing, and trying to forget what just happened are not the only parts of online hook-up sites that are time consuming and a pain in the ass.

Getting through the initial bull shit is a large part of what makes the difference between a solo appearance and a group effort.

While online hook-up sites enable you to have a more elaborate profile with more pictures of yourself than your parents took during your first year of life – and you thought they took a lot of pictures of your naked ass in a bathtub – the app sites like Scruff and Grindr provide you with a more concise way of making your presentation and highlighting the benefits of twenty-three minutes of passion in your boudoir.

Or so I thought …

All of us have a fetish. Don’t tell me you don’t. You may say you are vanilla, but there are many different types of vanilla, and the most popular is French. In addition, all of us have at least one thing we won’t do.

I have thirty-seven.

Thanks to the internet, some of us with weird fetishes have found each other, and we no longer feel alone. Remember when you thought you were the only Gay man in the world? Now you feel as if you are the only man who wants to get pounded into next week by a man dressed like Joan Crawford who quotes lines from Mommie Dearest.

I know one guy who has just experienced a tightening in his pants.

I used to have three things I wouldn’t do, but every week, something new comes along, and I have to clarify that I have no interest in covering myself in cookie dough and saying, “Have you been a good boy?” to a guy wearing a diaper and lying in an oversized bassinet.

All seriousness aside, the profiles that fascinate me the most are the ones that read like a manifesto. There are profiles online that are at least seven-hundred words – or that many paragraphs. These guys list their philosophy on life and what they prefer in the bedroom and where they see themselves in five years and what music they prefer and what inspires them the most and where they have traveled. Funny thing is these are the ones who tell you they are not looking for a hook-up but turn out to be the biggest sluts in town. Which begs the question: When do they find the time between tricks to write all this crap?

You would think with the apps like Scruff and Grindr, they wouldn’t go to the trouble of writing an essay, especially since you have to use a virtual keyboard, but that doesn’t stop them! How blistered are their thumbs? I can’t reply to a text without misspelling every other word. Granted I have big hands – oh, I need to mention that in my profile.

More importantly, don’t these self-absorbed, narcissistic whores know that Gay men can’t read?

All Gay men can do is spot a hot picture, click on the “woof” icon and hope for a response. Also, why woof? I thought the prominent mammal in the Gay community was a bear? Not dogs. Bears growl. Shouldn’t it be the “grrr” icon?

Do straight people go through all this?

My profile is clear and concise, and it is only two sentences. “I have a fetish, and I would love to find someone who would engage in it with me. I do not engage in this, that or the other thing, so don’t ask if I will.” As a matter of fact, my fetish is in my profile name so as not to confuse anyone.

With two sentences, you would think I am able to cut through all the bull shit. Well, you are most definitely wrong. At least ninety percent of the guys who contact me ask me if I will engage in this, that or the other thing. I always respond, “Read my profile.” Then they respond, “Oh.” Then, they ask me why I won’t engage in this that or the other thing. That is when I ignore them.

I am fifty-fucking years old. If I don’t want to engage in this, that, or the other thing, I won’t.

There are the ones who don’t ask you anything but send you pictures of various body parts, some of them actually theirs. Just when I thought I had seen everything, the other day I was sent a bunch of pictures from someone I know who has a high-level job in a certain country’s government. In every picture, he was engaged in a sex act. Of course, I looked at the pictures and marveled at how flexible he was for a fifty-year-old with a big belly. But, doesn’t this idiot know that I can save every one of those pictures on my phone? When I sell them to the Enquirer, he will claim someone spammed his account. Yeah right.

My favorite is when they ask me, “What are you into?” Seriously? It is in my profile name.

Lately, I have been answering the “what are you into” question with, “Marchesa, Spring 2013.”

I don’t watch Fashion Police for nothing.

Am I worried about someone looking for my profile and figuring out my fetish. No because Gay men can’t read! And apparently, they don’t have boundaries either.

Anyone want to see those pictures? Give me your PayPal ID, and I will invoice you. Hey, a girl has to make a buck.

If you are illiterate, buy my book, you can look at the pretty pictures. Go to www.miltonstern.com.