Bookmarks: Katy Perry

I missed this when it was first published just after the Superbowl - Gabrielle Korn on how Katy Perry gets away with homophobia:

She gets away with an entitled, IDGAF-what-you-think brand of homophobia while also appointing herself a spokesperson for LGBTQ rights. It's like there's this pressure to laugh at her gay jokes because she insists she means well. If you take her homophobia too seriously, it's on you for being uptight: Kind of like how I wasn't allowed to be offended when men sang it to me on the street. It was just all in good fun.

Azealia Banks: Having a vagina makes it impossible to be a homophobe

The second story in a row about a straight person explaining why their apparent homophobia doesn't count. It is still 2015, right?

This time, its Azealia Banks - the most-successful pop star with a name that sounds like a dementia care home - who got caught in a Twitter row with a Vice writer. The whole thing is rather grim, but boils down to this:

You gay bloggers try waving the homophobia flag like at me like women are not the original source of all things fabulous feminine and clever. I own all this.

Hidden in there is an argument that suggests that it's alright to use "twink" as a term of abuse, if you're a woman, because they're feminized men and so that femininity belongs to women.

Yes, I know. I know. But here's where what is merely incoherent becomes quite incredible:

do you know that I am woman and I invented everything feminine? Including giving birth to gay men?

I've checked wikipedia twice now, and can't see the names of Azealia Banks' gay children, and I'm pretty certain her given age of 23 makes the invention of everything feminine unlikely.

Look, I don't think any of us have the energy to raise the questions about the confusion of gender, the stereotyping of gay sexuality, or even the suggestion that possession of a vagina makes it impossible for charges of homophobia to stick.

Anyway, Banks has now moved on to a spot of whiteface, and some more considered thoughts on modern queer politics:

Gay media has to stop using homophobia as a means to try and victimize itself and scar the names of its opponents… Phobia would imply that I am scared of gay men or dislike them because of what they choose to do sexually… I promise, no one gives a f*ck what u decide to do in your private lives. But I also promise, that no matter how bitchy and clever you think you are.. That I will out-bitch you… But I’m just going to ignore yall from here on out cause YALL are really just reaching and looking for any reason to insert ur selves In the Azealia Banks story.

No, Azealia. Nobody is trying to insert themselves into your narrative. They just wish it wasn't constantly entwining with their own.

All That Remains: There's no reason for anyone to worry about 'faggot'

All That Remains, very much the part of the late-era dwindling Limp Bizkit clone scene (now well into its Carry On Columbus years) is led by Phil Labonte. He doesn't understand why people have a problem with him chucking the word 'faggot' about:

Wiederhorn asked Labonte about his use of homophobic slurs, specifically, his use of the word “faggot” in 2011 and his 2005 declaration that PC, or political correctness, “is for faggots.”

“I have nothing against gay people,” Labonte said. Referring to the f word, he said, “It’s just a word.” The singer, who is white, said he believes no one besides African-Americans has a right to complain about slanderous language.

“Honestly, I think the only people that have a legit grievance when it comes to any racial slurs is the black community,” Labonte said. “I know the homosexual community has problems with it and I understand their hurt feelings. But homosexuals were never property. They’ve had a rough time and I’m not trying to minimize that, but I think the black community has a whole lot more room to be upset about a word than the LGBT community.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘This guy said something and it hurt my feelings and it bummed me out and it sucks.’ Okay, that’s a good perspective. But I don’t know that you need a whole social movement.

“When it comes to the shit that black people have gone through I think it’s okay to be like, ‘Well you know, that was seriously fucked up.’ We need to do something about this.”

It's always nice to hear a white, middle-class, straight man taking time out of his busy career to draw up a list of which marginalised groups have legitimate grievances and which don't.

A spokesperson for all the gays, lesbian, bi, pan and genderqueer people issued a statement in response: "It's obviously disappointing that centuries of violent repression isn't enough to get us approved as having a genuine grievance but obviously Labonte's opinion is compelling. If, for him, the extermination of gay people in Nazi death camps; incidents such as the beating to a slow death of gay men like Ritch Dowrey; 54 countries at the UN having officially signed up as being against LGBT rights; and the findings by Amnesty that lawyers and other supporters of equality are routinely hassled - if all that isn't enough for our grievances to be valid in his eyes, well, fair enough."

All gay pride marches have been cancelled in favour of All That Remains gigs for the foreseeable future.

Jessie J resigns her bisexuality

Obviously, people's sexuality can change over their lifetime - both in terms of what they find attractive, and in how they choose to define themselves.

Having said that, Jessie J's sudden announcement that she isn't bisexual any more gives the impression of someone trying to distance themselves from a marketing campaign for a brand which has moved on.

She wrote: “Remember the thing that you tried/did back in the day. The phase you had? That is so not YOU anymore?! And you look back and think wow how I’ve changed.

Jessie, the idea that bisexuality or pansexuality is a "phase" tends to be a concept used by people who aren't bisexual or pansexual.

“Something that you don’t even talk about or want to talk about anymore. Because you’ve moved on? That was just part of you growing up? Discovering yourself and working out what you liked and disliked…. Remember?

“I have those too. Yet I’ve noticed some people hold onto mine because they were blogged and put into the media."

It wasn't "blogged and put into the media" - you chose to talk about in Cosmopolitan, it was you who chose to take bisexuality and try it on for a bit.

“I have felt under pressure since being famous to be what some people want me to be for them! I have learnt that the hard way. It’s too much!

“[People] can change. As they should. And I have changed and grown up ALOT, and that’s allowed. And I feel more comfortable in my own skin now than ever before. We all are on a journey and I refuse to feel boxed and judged because of how I felt once!”

Let's accept that this isn't just someone trying to disown a bandwagon they once jumped upon, and do J the courtesy of taking at her word the idea that she was bisexual, once, for just long enough to issue a press release and then it went away.

Instead, let's just look at the way she's chosen to de-announce her bisexuality.

There's a general sense that she finds the idea of being bisexual something of a teenage embarrassment - which is a chilli in the eye for those of us who remain as bi as they were yesterday morning.

There's the use of the word "judged". Surely the reaction to someone judging you because you are, or were, bi - especially if you elbowed your way into the community in the first place, and that community were nothing but welcoming and supportive - is to question why people think that's something on which a person should be judged at all.

You'd hope if someone came up to Jessie J and said "ewwww, you're bisexual and that's disgusting", her reaction would be "no it isn't" rather than "no I'm not."

You would hope that someone who had chosen to share the identity of a group which suffers from high levels of mental illness and stress might, at the very least, withdraw from that group without making it look like she was recoiling in horror from a terrible youthful indiscretion.

In an attempt to try and clear things up, she spoke to the Mirror to try and throw a blanket of platitude over the mess:

Brilliantly, she also joked online that “vegetarians eat meat ­sometimes”. When asked about the comment yesterday, she said: “I thought that was quite funny.”

Actually, Jessie, no; vegetarians don't "eat meat sometimes". You're getting confused with people who claim to be vegetarian but actually aren't.

Also, you're comparing standing up, publicly and painfully distancing yourself from bisexuality with a person on a largely meat-free diet having a sausage roll?

She says of her past revelations: “I did talk about it, and I was open about it, and I do support being lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender - love who you want.

“That’s what I’m doing."

I think that's great news there for the bi community - I think we'd all had a nervous 48 hours over whether we'd all have to stop it for good now Jessie's thrown it in. How generous of her to not only licence our sexual identities, but to support us, too. Even if we've chosen the one that is horrible to have blogged.

“I don’t regret anything I ever said."

It's not clear here if J is not regretting saying she was bisexual, or regretting that long series of Tweets where she spoke about how she regretted saying she was bisexual.

"I’m just so bored of it"

Oh, goodness. It turns out being thought bisexual is boring. How lucky to be able to slew it off when it become tiresome.

"I want to stop talking about it completely now and find myself a husband."

It might come as a shock to Jessie, but being bisexual doesn't actually prevent you from finding a husband if you're a woman. Hell, these days it doesn't prevent you from finding a husband if you're a man.

You're in a national newspaper suggesting that bisexual people have to renounce their sexuality if they want to have a permanent relationship. Did you even think how that looks?

It's hard to see how anyone could make this worse, but then she manages it:

She adds: “It’s a true struggle. All the chick flicks that didn’t make sense to me, I now understand – Sex and the City is real!”

Bisexual people don't understand chick flicks. It's true; if you fill a cinema with bisexuals and show them When Harry Met Sally, they literally cannot see anything happening on the screen. There's something about our retinas which means the minute 27 Dresses comes on, we're rendered functionally blind.

That's how you can tell if you've been cured of bisexuality - you suddenly start seeing Richard Gere and Julia Roberts on the Pretty Woman DVD box.

Do you want to just pat us on the head before you leave, Jessie?

“For me, it was a phase,” she says. “But I’m not saying bisexuality is a phase for everybody."

Oh, how very, very generous of you. How very kind.

Banks attempts to use bisexuality as shield from asshattery

A spat between Azealia Banks and Perez Hilton normally need not detain us, but given that it has now managed to generate one of the weakest defences of bad behaviour since "it was different in the 1970s", let's bring ourselves up to speed.

It all started when Banks recorded a song "dissing" Angel Haze. Perez Hilton - who apparently is still going - upbraided Banks for doing this.

Banks then reacted by going onto Twitter:

‘Omg u should just kill yourself… Like for real… lol what a messy faggot you are.’

Even before you get to the homophobic bit, she's gone too far with telling Perez to kill himself. Seriously, who types that into a Twitter box and doesn't then realise they've gone too far?

But rather than review the idea that she was telling someone to "really" kill themselves, Banks was gearing up to call Hilton a faggot.

The backblow was predictable. But Banks wasn't going to back down. No, it turns out that Banks wasn't being homophobic at all:

‘A faggot is not a homosexual male,’ she said. ‘A faggot is any male who acts like a female. There’s a BIG difference.’

Let's just accept the first half for a moment and poke the idea that "a male who acts like a female" is a bad thing. Or a thing at all. What does that mean? Is it about having lactating nipples or pissing sitting down? What on earth was that supposed to be as a justification?

But let's not worry too much about that second half, because it comes after the first half.

A faggot is not a homosexual male.

Not quite, Azealia. It's not a thing you should call a homosexual male, but it definitely is a slur against them. True, it was originally thrown at old women in the 16th Century, but for the last hundred years it's pretty much been an exclusive insult for gay men.

Azealia hadn't quite finished, though. She went off and had another little think.

‘Really not as moved by this f word thing as u all want me to be. As a bisexual person I knew what I meant when I used that word.

‘And I meant what I meant when I used that word.’

No, Banks. Being bisexual doesn't mean you can slag off gay men with impunity. It just makes it worse when you do.

Still, I suppose we should extend a grudging respect for this inventive updating of 'how can I hate women, my Mum was one' for 2013.

Woot-ton: Doesn't Amy go bi every three months or so?

Even the News Of The World's Dan Wootton can't really work up any surprise over Amy Winehouse muttering that she sometimes likes girls:

I think we all had our suspicions

Actually, Dan, I'm pretty sure I've read this story about sixteen times before anyway.

Still, Dan runs it like we're going to grab the arms of our chairs and shriek 'never! never!' but, really, it's a bit like holding space over to reveal that Brett Anderson needs a belt to keep his trousers up.

Gordon in the morning: Oh, look, it's women kissing

Someone - Gordon says "a movie website" but it sounds more like two blokes who don't get out much down the pub - has come up with a list of "top lesbian kisses". Obviously not actual lesbians actually kissing, but people pretending to be lesbians pretending to kiss.

Buffy top girlie kiss

Since Buffy doesn't actually develop an interest in women until season eight, a comic book embrace coming at the top of the poll might seem a little surprising. But it turns out Gordon doesn't mean Buffy - as usual, he's confusing the actor and the character:

BUFFY star SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR's snog with SELMA BLAIR has been voted the hottest ever lesbian kiss on film.

And that would be bisexuals kissing, if you wanted to get technical.

Never mind, because the whole article is really building up to the photo caption:

Lez be friends ... Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions

Lez be friends? Does Gordon realise that's one of the phrases which Alan Partridge throws at his lady lesbian guests in Knowing Me, Knowing You, as a demonstration of how cruel and ignorant he is?

Oh... and you remember Gordon tutting at people who take their clothes off in order to buttress their fame? Apparently it's not bad when Victoria Beckham does it for a pants advert, either

Gordon in the morning: A sudden moment of clarity

Bad news for the cleaners at Wapping; it sounds like there might be a lot of eye-scales to clear up around Gordon's desk this morning:

Allen is just a Lil bit predictable

LILY Allen flouts ban on smoking, boasts about getting drunk & swears like trooper at T In Park

To be fair to Lily, though, there isn't any real indication why the latest swearing and drinking and smoking is "predictable" and dull, rather than getting Gordon to stand on his hindlegs applauding this behaviour. Isn't this sort of thing usually given the pubescent "caner of the year" award?

Elsewhere, the not-actually-surprising news that Duncan James from Blue likes boys as well as girls seems to surprise Gordon:

FANS were reeling yesterday after pop heart-throb DUNCAN JAMES admitted: "I'm bisexual."

Actually, that is surprising - Blue still have fans?

Why, though, does Gordon insist that your sexuality is something you "admit", like a murder or illegal phone-tapping? Perhaps James could have come out earlier if the tabloids didn't treat love like it was seedy.

Kanye West won't do porn. Not bisexual porn, anyway.

Whoever hacked into Kanye West's accounts did a nice job, planting a public seed that West was, well, willing to plant a public seed:

“I know that people will find this as another thing to hate on, but f--- it. I’m open to doing porn. Hell, I’ll even do bisexual scenes - myself, another man, and a woman, or just me and two women. I know people will find that as some weird sh--, but I am who I am.”

Of course, there wasn't a word of truth in it. Well, probably. The real Kanye popped up - sorry, ill-advised choice of phrase - and put everyone straight:

"Yoooo, why won't you let me be great!!!" West wrote. "I had the two greatest days of my life, and when I get back from the Louie [sic] show, I read some sh-- claiming I said I'm down to do porn and some bisexual porn!!!! I can't believe the AVN [Adult Video News] would post [that story]."

He seems especially upset that he was supposedly going to do bisexual porn, doesn't he?

Assuming, of course, that this message was the real Kanye. There are a lot of impersonators - haters, if you will; impersonhaters, presumably - pretending to be Kanye:

"First people believed the Twitter/ Stephen Colbert thing, Rolling Stone even printed it!!!!" he said. "Now somebody has been hacking into my MySpace and somebody's actually hacked into my personal GMail account and has been e-mailing people from it. ... Hey, world, I no longer have GMail! I found out I had twelve unauthorized Skype accounts under my name!!! This [is] all in the past four days. Welcome to Kanye West World!"

Surely, though, someone as supposedly cool as Kanye wouldn't start a message with something so cringe-inducing as "why won't you let me be great", or sprinkle his public utterances with so many exclamation marks he makes himself read like a twelve year-old. The only logical explanation is that there is no real Kanye West any more.

Darkness at 3AM: From the party frontline

The 3AM Girls seem more surprised that Pete Doherty didn't go to Carl Barat's birthday party than he blew out his own solo gig. Mind you, nobody would be surprised that Doherty was a no-show for a gig these days, would they?

They're also surprised at Peaches Geldof kissing a girl, seeing this as something interesting rather than a slightly desperate attempt to generate column inches:

It's bad news for Peaches Geldof's bloke, The Horrors star Farris Rotter.

She's been getting off with someone else - and it's another woman.

It might be bad news. On the other hand, Rotter has always struck us as the sort of bloke who probably thinks that might be his fantasy.

It turns out, by the way, that bisexuality has only just been invented. It's not anything to do with physical desire or ages-old sexuality, it's:

taking a leaf out of Lindsay Lohan's book

Which does make it sound a lot less sexy.

Cover your cocks

Pete Wentz might enjoy the odd hint that he's slightly more-than-straight, but it sounds more like a sales pitch than an actual statement on his sexuality. The problem seems to be that he has cock squeamishness:

The rocker recently thrilled his homosexual and bisexual fans by boasting he was the "make out king" and often kisses boys because "everything above the waist is fair game"

"I'm not a real big fan of penises. Like my own, whenever I look at it, I just don't find anything attractive about it.

I can't believe girls are into it. It blows my mind a little bit... I just can't get past that thing. It's weird looking."

Unfortunately, it's not clear if Pete means that his dick is weird looking compared to all others, or he just thinks they're odd generally. Or if he's hoping to try and seem to be ever so slightly counter-culture but is desperate to make it clear there's no way he'd actually do anything with a boy.

Here's some advice, Pete: keep your eyes closed. That'll not only save you having to look at 'em; it'll stop them from stinging if you get a hit on your face.

Tony Snow prepares a "takes one to know one" response

Only a sister paper of Fox News like The Sun could think that calling George Bush an "arsehole and a cunt" could harm Lily Allen's chances of selling records in the US. Her target market, surely, is vaguely young, not-quite-sure-why-they're-disaffected young folk who will lap this sort of thing up mistaking it's political satire of some sort. It's not like she's going to be selling to the Texan country market anyway.

An eyewitness did see this assault on Bush:

“George Bush is an arsehole and a cunt.” She also called Tony Blair a “cunt’s bitch”.

Londoner Lily — who is dating DJ Seb Chew — went on to announce she was “probably bisexual” because she was tired of men with “little dicks”. One fan at the concert in San Diego, California, said: “Lily got really drunk on stage.

“She then started calling Bush names and the audience went a bit quiet.

“She also said that San Diego has the best crack whores she’d ever seen, and that she was thinking of becoming a lesbian.

“And she moaned she was tired of her own songs so did covers of Keane, Kaiser Chiefs and Blondie.”

We're a little lost as to what "probably bisexual" is - you dont know what you find sexually attractive by your age, Lily? Still, we're glad you're as bored of your songs as the rest of us.

Spears on Sunday: Tabloid round-up

Having been fairly humiliated by Britney during their ill-advised marriage, we wonder why Kevin Federline is offering to stand by her?

Look, we can hear you shouting "right of attorney", and that's just unfair, alright?

The reconciliation might be a bit shaky, though, as the News of the World reckons Brit might have put Kev on some sort of superpowered shitlist, along with other unhappy behaviour:

# THREATENED to commit suicide by gulping down TWO family-size bottles of painkillers.
# WAS STRIPPED and searched after medics feared she'd smuggled a stash of cocaine into the rehab clinic.
# CONCEALED a "Death List" of people she wishes would die— including her husband.
# OFFERED Kevin £100,000 to drop a custody hearing over their two sons.
# BELIEVES she is being bugged as she sleeps and checks every morning for listening devices.

It's good to see the doctor-patient confidentiality clause is as strong in rehab clinics as it is in proper hospitals - although, frankly, it sounds like Britney probably needs something more than a showbiz detox unit right now.

Curiously, the Sunday Mirror suggests in its interview with Jason Alexander that he is "her first husband", although - since the marriage was annulled - he isn't. But then the Smirror has never let a few facts frustrate a good story.

Jason has "broken his silence" out of concern. Not for cash, it's worry:

BRITNEY Spears' first husband has broken his silence about her long-term use of cocaine, ecstasy and "downer" drugs - because he fears she could end up dead like tragic model Anna Nicole Smith.

Surely, Jason, if you've been that worried, it might have been more use to mention this before she shaved her head off and succumbed to cocaine psychosis - otherwise, your intervention looks even less "I told you so" than "yeah, I could have told you that would happen."

Recalling the wildest few days of his own life with the troubled star, Jason says she stayed up for three days and three nights, high on Class-A drugs

He confessed: "We used ecstasy at night to party and cocaine during the day to stay awake. Then we would take downers like Valium or Vicodin to come down and rest. Britney stayed up three days straight over New Year. I couldn't keep up.

"She definitely had a problem with drugs when we were together - and that was three years ago.

"She has got herself in a cycle which is hard to break."

You think, Jason, she still might have the problem?

It's only out of concern that Jason tells the story of the time she necked too much E and needed rapid treatment. And, of course, you can't appeal for your first love to sort herself out without selling some mildly salacious low-level bisexual flirting tale to the papers, can you?

The next day was New Year's Day 2004 and after they went shopping at a mall, Jason saw Britney's wilder sexual side - when she started getting frisky with some of her backing dancers - both male and female.

He continued: "We wore out everybody with us and they went back to the hotel. Soon it was just me, Britney and some of her back-up dancers who were with her.

"Eventually we ended up back in the room where the party continued. Britney stripped down and was dancing naked on the table with a bunch of her dancers.

"They were squeezing her tits and ass. I was sitting off to the side, buzzed and watching it all go down.

"But later on I saw Britney walk back to one of the bedrooms with one of the female dancers.

"When she didn't come out in about five minutes, I got up to investigate. The door was unlocked so, of course, I had to open it.

"Every guy I know would love to see some buck-naked bitches going at it and that is exactly what was behind door number one.

"It was like winning the sex lotto. Britney and this girl were having some lesbian fun, so I did what every other straight guy would do - I dropped my pants and hopped right into the middle of it and enjoyed every second. It was definitely a New Year's Day to remember."

Of course, without Jason sharing that story with the press, there's every chance Britney could end up like Anna Nicole Smith.

Amusingly, it's the Smirror's sister paper, The People which puts Jason's concern into a bit more context. It seems, luckily, he's had a book just about to roll, and knowing about that hasn't exactly had the positive effect he'd been promising:

A source close to the singer said: "Jason had mentioned his plan to write a book on his time with Britney before.

"But she didn't believe he would actually go through with it. Now she knows what's in the book she is devastated.

"She never thought he'd discuss the sex they had together and her problem with drugs."

Jason, 25, admitted: "There are things that will upset her, things she will be mad at. The book focuses on stuff no one knows - our sex life, everything. There's no holding back."

Jason is so clear in the Mirror that he's afraid of Britney ending up "like Anna Nicole-Smith", but presumably only because of the guilt, then.

But "lesbian" isn't a bad word, Britney

Upset and alarms ringing over claims made by Omar Iceman Sharif in the current issue of Touch, where the friend of Federline mutters how he bets that Britney Spears is, you know, like, gay:

He went on to claim he and Kevin watched as Britney and her female pals romped together at their Malibu home.

Omar claimed: “They were friends of hers who she would invite to her house and they would drink and party.

“They had their hands all over each other.”

Actually, that's not really lesbianism, is it? That's just touching. Doubtless Iceman and Kevin would sometimes party, drink and - yes - even touch each other.

As if aware that Sharif sounds less like an eyewitness than someone talking about something he once imagined while knocking out a single shandy, Touch drags up an unnamed "insider":

The magazine, released in the US yesterday, also quoted “insiders” who told how Britney would often disappear with girls during her two-year marriage to Kevin, which ended in November.

One told In Touch: “Sometimes it was three girls, and sometimes there were more like six.

“I heard about her being with girls at least 20 times while they were married.”

Didn't we also hear about Federline being with girls at least 20 times while they were married, too?

The curiosity is that at least twenty occasions with as many as six girls - that's a bare minimum of 120 women, and yet none of them have popped up selling "I done it with Miss Britney" stories. Curious, huh?

Gina Orr, spokesman for Britney’s record label Jive, last night denied the star had ever indulged in lesbian romps.

She said in a terse statement: “It’s not true.”

There's some suggestion that this has all been cooked up to help Federline win custody of the children. But at times like this, you really need some cool-headed analysis. So, let's turn to Victoria Newton, shall we?

I knew the singer was up for a snog with a woman when she kissed MADONNA live on stage at the 2003 MTV awards. But these latest claims are quite shocking.

Shocking? Lesbianism and bisexuality shocks you, Victoria? Where did you go to school - 1845?

Still, well done you for spotting that Britney didn't mind kissing women by reading the subtle sign of her kissing a woman on television. Nothing gets past you, does it?