The Awkward Issue

 

The Details March 2011 issue has become The Awkward Issue in my house ever since it surfaced in the mailbox. My father nearly choked when he saw it and my mother is avoiding it like it's the Antichrist. It's become the pink elephant in the room. The pink elephant that I feed peanuts and bathe and take on walks so that it gets bigger and stronger. 

I love it. I love the tension it's creating. To me, it's just a magazine (a magazine with fine specimens of man meat that I would love to just tear into. I mean, I look at the cover and I think THIS is why I'm gay, but I digress). To them, it's homosexuality incarnate. 

I love that it's bringing the gay issue to the forefront. My dad is fine with my being gay, a little too fine sometimes. I think the magazine just confuses him. He doesn't know whether to acknowledge it or just pretend like it's nothing out of the ordinary, like it's a part of our home decor. I'd rather he just ignore it because acknowledgment would inevitably lead to questions like "So, which one's your favorite?" followed by "So he's the type you like?" and those aren't questions I'm prepared to answer for my father. Regardless of his comfort level, I could never bring myself to answer "The one standing on the left. Sean O'pry. I love his lips, his eyes, his arms, the vein in his arms, pretty much everything he has to offer". 

My mother, on the other hand, still clings to her delusions of grandeur. In conversation, she describes hypothetical situations where she meets my wife-to-be (my wife-to-be named Sean O'pry). She tends to dip in and out of reality and as a result her acceptance comes and goes. Just when I think she's ready to join PFLAG with statements like "You know, I'm really trying to except the gay thing" and "I want you to know I love you and that I just want you to be happy and for you to find a partner that makes you happy, she'll inevitably follow it up weeks later with "You need to learn how to treat a woman" or describing to me what women like in a man, which coincidentally is usually what I like in a man.

We could spend days dissecting my relationship with my parents, but frankly that's not what this post is about. Back to Details...

This issue marks the introduction of a new section entitled The Body, a thirteen page section on health and fitness, which I'm definitely against. I'm not against heath and fitness (entirely),  I just think such knowledge is better suited for a macho publication like Men's Health not Details, which is supposed to be a fashion magazine. And thirteen straight pages, that's a little excessive. I don't think they even devote thirteen straight pages to fashion. Unless by the word "body" they mean fold out posters of the cover model's bodies, I'm so not interested.

I haven't really read this issue yet. I have a stack of magazines to read through before I get to Details. Until then, please enjoy a behind the scenes video of the cover shoot (I know I did):