Kathy Ireland Sex Abuse
In a way, this piece about Kathy Ireland and the sex abuse she claims happened to her when she was in her late teens and modeling is indirectly related to a post I did the other day about a grown gay man who actively went out when he was fourteen years old and seduced men in their thirties for sex.
Here’s what Kathy Ireland says happened to her:
“There was an incident where a photographer crossed the line with me. He wanted me to pose topless,” she said. “I didn’t feel comfortable … he didn’t respect my ‘No.’ He was pushing, and he got a little physical with me and shoved me — so I decked him.” She was just 17 years old when the event happened.
You can read more about that here.
This is part of what Mark S. King posted in a piece titled Was I A Teenage Sex Predator? I posted my own thoughts here.
We were on a dirt road in the cotton fields, sitting in the back of his Plymouth. It had been my idea to stop and look at the sky, but it wasn’t coming off like a sneaky move now, because the moon was full and bright and gorgeous. I’d been playing along, but I wished he would make his move. This was the part that was always kind of boring. He was nice, though, and good-looking, maybe around 35.
It’s a balmy Louisiana night in 1975, and I’m 14 years old.
He also wrote this:
My strategy for getting laid worked with some regularity, and it never occurred to me that there might be something inappropriate or perverse or even criminal about it — at least, it never occurred to me.
I think it’s interesting that here we have two fully frown adults remembering sexual experiences in different ways. The biggest difference is that Ireland was not interested in posing topless or playing around with the photographer. She was making a clear conscious choice. Mark S. King wanted to have sex with men slightly older than he was and that was his choice.
And, at the time, Ireland was seventeen years old, straight, privileged, beautiful, and most likely had all the choices she wanted when it came to a social life and dating men her own age. When she decked the creepy photographer who was about to abuse her she knew she had choices and I would imagine she reacted on pure instinct at that time.
Where Mark S. King was gay, in the closet, and curious about his sexuality partly because there were NO choices for him at that time…except for what he did. He didn’t have the opportunity or the privilege to date young men his own age openly. I’m not saying King was a teenage sexual predator. I think he was a victim of his circumstances like most young gay men because he didn’t have choices and I would imagine he was acting on pure instinct, too. And that’s one part of gay culture I would like to see change in time.
When I was sixteen an older woman tried to get me to take my top off and go topless. When I refused, she tried to kiss me. I decked her. I’m not joking about this. It really did happen. I still find the thought of THAT disgusting and intrusive, and her presumptuous aggressive attitude revolting.
There was an incident in the Philadelphia area recently where a woman school teacher sexually abused a fourteen year old boy.
Anderson Cooper’s Birthday
Evidently, Anderson Cooper spent his 47th birthday having dinner alone in McDonald’s. He was working on something in Boston and drove five hours back to NY on his birthday. (I’ve done that drive…it’s boring and exhausting.)
He ordered a Big Mac meal and ‘I super-sized it because it was my birthday,’ the CNN anchor told David Letterman Wednesday (4 June).
Then things got a little sad. ‘I was there at the counter all by myself and the woman could not be any less interested in serving me.
I said to her, “It’s my birthday” and she looked at me like I was the loneliest, most pathetic person on the planet.’
I hope his husband/partner at least planned something later to put a great big smile on his face. But at least we know Anderson’s not a snob about fast food. Sometimes it just hits the spot…and I am a little bit of a snob about fast food. For the past few months Tony and I have been dealing with family health issues and driving between Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NY and New Hope. There were nights when it was so late and we were both so exhausted we just pulled into the only fast food restaurant in New Hope…McDonald’s…and ordered our own Big Mac meals. It’s actually not as bad as some make it out to be.
More here about Cooper’s birthday.
FREE Gay Excerpt
This excerpt is from a book I released a few years ago, Pretty Man. It’s gay parody on a straight story with a movie tie-in that is set in New York. It’s not fanfic. I’m not a huge fan of the film Pretty Woman. It’s an LGBTI take on a straight movie/story with a good deal of gay erotica that the straight film didn’t have.
This particular scene really garnered a lot of comments about the setting description and I’ve never been sure why. This time I did base it on personal experience. If anything, I thought there might have been too much detail. Here’s the raw unedited version…there might be a few errors because I don’t like trying to convert PDF to Google’s HTML.
There were so many people walking through The Village that night it looked as if there were a street festival going on somewhere. Groups of college kids from New Jersey stippled the sidewalks, young girls wearing tube tops and low rise jeans giggled and chirped about offensive prices as they passed trendy little boutiques, and young couples walking hand in hand searched for outdoor cafes where they could sit and talk. The locals, dressed mostly in black, weaved in and out of the crowd as they crossed from one side of the street to the other. Their eyebrows were lowered and they turned their shoulders quickly so they wouldn’t have to make physical contact with the tourists. A tall guy with salt and pepper hair was walking two enormous Afghan Hounds near a shop with an obnoxious zebra skin chair in the front window. His snake skin boots were outrageously long, and so pointy the toes curled up. He wore tight, low-rise jeans with a wide, white leather belt, and a tight black shirt that rose above his thin waist about an inch.
Roland wore tan slacks, a white polo shirt and brown loafers; he walked slowly and his hands were tucked so far into his pockets you couldn’t see his Rolex. This was the first time he’d actually walked through his own neighborhood in years, and he felt like a tourist. When he passed a new designer boutique where everything in the window was bright orange, he smiled and shook his head. Though he’d owned his brownstone on West Eleventh Street for almost twenty-five years, it hadn’t consciously occurred to him how much things had changed. While he’d been building that family skin care business, The West Village had become something else. Twenty-five years earlier grim-faced artists with wild hair would have been carrying frayed portfolios down the street, and rough looking men with exaggerated mustaches, wearing black leather chaps, would have been cruising for sex. At one time the most popular bakery in The Village had been The Erotic Bakery on Christopher Street, where they sold cakes shaped like breasts and dicks. And now it was Magnolia’s, where (of all things) they sold adorable little cupcakes.
He was about to cross Bleecker to buy a few cupcakes, but he stopped short in front of a used book store and tightened his fists. When he looked across the street at the long line of people waiting for cupcakes, he saw his ex-lover standing there, Kenneth Rhodes. But more than that, Kenneth had already spotted him and there was no place to run; he was smiling and waving his arms back and forth. And Kenneth’s new lover was leaning forward and rubbing his jaw to see why he was waving his arms.
Roland smiled and waved back; he hadn’t seen him since he’d left New York to live on a yacht he’d purchased from a famous dictator. When Kenneth motioned for him to cross the street, he raised one arm and pointed his index finger. Then he ducked into the used book store and took a deep breath. His heart began to beat faster and his mouth felt dry. He knew he’d have to see Kenneth at the charity events that week, but he hadn’t expected to run into him that night in The Village. Kenneth now lived full time in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he owned and operated a trendy floral shop in New Hope. He called the flower shop, “Apro-Posie.” After their twenty-three year relationship ended (because Kenneth fell in love with a twenty-five year old), Kenneth got the house in Bucks County and opened the flower shop. Roland had always been the major bread-winner and he could have just kicked him out on the street. But he didn’t.
When he leaned to the right to look out the window to see if Kenneth was still standing in line, his elbow accidentally bumped into someone and a pile of old books fell to the floor. He turned and said, “Excuse me, I’m so sorry.” And then he bent down to pick up the books.
“Ah well,” a young guy said, “I guess it’s not safe anywhere these days.” He placed his hands on his slim hips and shook his head; and he was smiling. His voice was deep and strong, but friendly, too.
Roland stood up and placed a pile of books neatly on the shelf. He pressed the corners together and lined them up perfectly. When he looked up, the good looking young guy, with sandy blond hair and pale blue eyes, was still smiling at him. “Sorry about that,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
The guy laughed. “Don’t worry about it, man. The guys that usually bump into me are over seventy and have false teeth. You can bump into me anytime, baby-boy.” He was wearing tight jeans that made his crotch bulge forward. The jeans were torn and there was a large section of his hairy thigh exposed up near his groin. All you had to do was reach up there and you’d touch his balls. His white cotton shirt was tight and his chest muscles popped like halved grapefruits. And, he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was openly gay.
Roland raised one eyebrow and smiled. The new generation of gay men certainly was bold. When he was in his early twenties, he never would have called a middle aged guy “baby-boy” in a public place. But it was endearing and flattering, and he said, “I’ll have to remember that.”
“You do that, baby,” the guy said, still unashamedly flirting with him.
Then Roland had a brilliant idea. “How would you like to make five hundred dollars in cash for only a few minutes worth of work?”
“Ah well,” the guy said, “I usually only make two hundred an hour. What do I have to do? I’m not into any weird, kinky shit, man. And I only top.”
Roland blinked, and then stared at him. “You only top?”
“Yeah, man,” he said, “I’m not into being a bottom, no matter how much the guy wants to pay. It’s just not my thing.” He stepped back and raised his hands; they were large and wide like dinner plates.
Roland blinked again, and then it occurred to him that this guy was a male hustler. He laughed and said, “You’ve got it all wrong. I don’t want to pay you for that sort of thing; I don’t want sex from you. I just want you to stand across the street with me for a while and pretend to be my new boyfriend. You see, my ex-lover is over there with his new boyfriend, and I don’t want him to see me all alone on a Friday night.” He didn’t beg and his voice wasn’t desperate. He’d never had to pay for sex, and he wasn’t going to start now.
“Sure,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Why not. Just let me tell my friend what I’m doing. She’s over there, at the back of the store. She works part time here.” He pointed toward an attractive young woman with long brown hair and large dark eyes that was standing under a black and white sign the read “Biographies.” From a distance, she could have doubled for Angelina Jolie.
“I’ll wait here,” Roland said.
When the guy crossed the store, Roland couldn’t help noticing how wide his shoulders were and how muscular his legs looked in the tight jeans. He had a small waist and a tiny ass, too: the perfect v-shape for a real man. He strongly resembled a guy Roland had known in college, a soccer player who had liked to tag Roland when his girlfriend went out of town for the weekend. Then Roland watched him say something to his friend; she looked back at Roland and frowned as the guy walked back to the front of the store.
“Your friend looks upset,” Roland said.
“Ah, don’t worry about Hillary,” he said, “She’s fine.” He looked back at her, smiled and waved.
“Okay,” Roland said, “What’s your name?” He spoke quickly, with determination.
“Josh.”
“Okay, Josh,” Roland said, “All you have to do is walk across the street with me, let me introduce you as my new boyfriend, and then we get lost as fast as we can. I don’t want to stand there and talk all day.”
“And I get five hundred bucks for doing this?” Josh asked.
“That’s right,” Roland said, “I live on West Eleventh, not far from here, and we’ll go back and I’ll get you the money.”
“Cool.”
When they crossed toward Magnolia’s, Kenneth and his new partner had advanced in line and they were now near the entrance. Kenneth lifted his arms in the air and shouted, “Well, I thought you were trying to avoid me, Roland.” Then he stepped out of line and gave Roland a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek. He was an extremely tall man, and when he leaned forward and pressed his knees together it looked as if he were about to curtsy.
Roland stood back and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I had to get Josh. He was in the bookstore.” He noticed that Kenneth had gained a few pounds around the middle, and he was wearing loose, baggy jeans that were too young for him. But nothing else about him had changed. His hair was still dyed jet black, it was still puffy and stiff, and he was still getting a permanent. The back was frizzy and long-ish; just a fraction of an inch away from being a full mullet. His eyebrows were still tweezed and he wore a hint of eyeliner. Kenneth had never been able to lose the look and style of the l980’s.
“You already know Marty,” Kenneth said. His voice went high and his gestures were overly animated. He didn’t seem to be ashamed in the least that Marty was the reason they had ended a long term relationship.
