A Gay Fantasia

A magical combination, dear friends: Disneyland, Gay Day '09, a host of phallic edibles, and many neutered bears.

As you can tell, it's been a special kind of weekend. I went to Disneyland for my friend Willa's birthday, and BOY OH BOY, it was like Christmas in Anaheim! It was GAY DAY '09 and the magic kingdom was overflowing with the spirit and good will of many a red t-shirted man(apparently red is the official color of Gay Day '09.) Some shirts were political ("Marriage Is So Gay") while others embraced the spirit of the Mouse, reading "Tinkerbell" and "Woody". It was a conservative's nightmare (all those gays! around children! can you imagine!) but I was in hog's heaven. It was so refreshing, so sweetly subversive. Within the squeaky-clean confines of Disney, a gay fantasia emerged. It. Was. Fabulous. And just to put the cherry on my sundae, Kay and I coincidentally wore red t-shirts as well. I felt like an honorary member of Gay Day '09. What could be better! Anyway, it warmed the cockles of my old heart to see the (still vaguely of racist, sometimes culturally problematic) icons of Disney surrounded by all these gays, out and proud. And it made me think about sex (but really, what else is new?)

Disneyland is full of edible, phallic-shaped objects, some of which encourage licking up and down the...um, shaft. Case in point: those long, narrow, twisty lollipops sold abundantly in the sweet shops in both Disneyland and its neighbor, California Adventure (yes, we crossed the thresholds to both. Before 10am, I might add.) If licking one of those isn't practice for a certain activity, I'm losing my touch. Then there are the equally abundant churro stands, a smattering of shapely Mexican pastries. Though less conducive to licking, they are undeniably phallic as well. And then there's my favorite, the chocolate-and-peanut covered banana, curving beautifully, elegantly, arching just so...and prominently displayed on every roving ice cream cart in Fantasyland. Fantasy, indeed.

And then there are the hotdogs. The giant pixie sticks. The thick, chocolate covered giant pretzel rods. The list goes on and on. And the funny part is, while the food at Disney is hyper-sexual, pains have been taken to ensure the rest of the park is sex-free. Case in point: remember that old Coppertone ad with the little girl whose swimsuit bottom is being pulled down by a dog? A replication of that exists in California Adventure (en route to the ferris wheel) with one big difference: the formerly exposed tush of the little girl is now covered up entirely. The dog has no longer succeeding in exposing her. She has been Disney-fied and G-rated, buffed of any hint of impropriety.

Which brings me to the neutered bears. In Frontierland, there are bears everywhere: gigantic statues of standing bears, bears prominently featured in the Splash Mountain ride...and they are often in compromising positions. For instance, the gigantic statue of the bear in rafting gear is scaled such that the bear's crotch is not far from a short person's face. But never fear--the bear's been neutered. And those bent-over bears in vignettes along the river in Splash Mountain? Neutered too, thank goodness. Otherwise their 5-foot-high-ass-to-the-crowd poses would be...ummm, educational. And really, no one wants to have to explain bear junk to their kid.

So, sexy food, anatomically incorrect wildlife. That pretty much wraps it up, and since I don't know where one goes from neutered bears, I think that's all for now.