(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I answer questions about Wikipedia, roommates, and sugar daddies. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter.

Boxers or Briefs? from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I answer questions about vibrator sex, NYC, and shark sex. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter.

What's The Best Position For Using A Magic Wand During Sex? from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I answer questions about self-defense, moles, and Mexico. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter.

P.S. We are totally serious about the Tattoo Challenge. If someone gets a tattoo of us, we will fly them to NYC (within the continental U.S.) and put them up for two nights.

"Can I Use My Old Vibrator With My New Partner?" from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I answer questions about poop and butthole health. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter.

"I'm A Feminist Who Uses The Word 'Bitch'…" from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

[Bruno-Turany, Czech Republic; September 27. Image via Getty]

Lesbian girls protest for their free marriage during their silence demonstration as Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a Pontifical Mass at the local airport of Brno-Turany on September 27, 2009. Pope Benedict XVI called Sunday for hope and a renewal of faith in the former communist Czech Republic, as he served a large open-air mass in Brno, watched by some 120,000 faithful. The pope is paying his first visit to the Czech Republic ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution that toppled Communism in former Czechoslovakia in 1989. AFP PHOTO/ ATTILA KISBENEDEK (Photo credit should read ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images)

Jeffrey, who is only 16 years old, says that although the exorcism helped him to stop acting on his gay thoughts, he still has those thoughts, and he's working on ridding himself of those, too, because the head of his church, Patricial McKinney, says that otherwise, Jeffrey will still go to hell. Patricia is a self-proclaimed prophet who runs her church with her husband, Kelvin McKinney, whose title is "overseer." Confused on what a prophet is? According to Patricia a prophet is:
1.) A messenger from God
2.) A seer (so that makes her the seer and her husband the overseer?)
3.) Someone who can see into the future
4.) Someone who has open-eye visions
5.) Someone who has close-eye visions
6.) Traveler through the realm of the spirit
7.) Unpopular
8.) A very lonely person


8.) Someone who possesses gaydar.


Patricia and Kelvin put the video of the exorcism on YouTube.


But the video was taken down by the non-profit organization True Colors, a mentoring program for gay youth, with the help of the department of family services. Jeffrey was involved in True Colors and had a mentor, up until a few days before the exorcism. One of the women from the organization joined the panel, and Jeffrey was sent backstage. Seeing her interaction with the McKinneys was like watching water boil.


The McKinneys are absolutely infuriating, not only because they are so stupid that they made Tyra look like the smartest woman on television, but because they make no sense. However, when Patricia confessed that she, too, was "once gay," her interest in the matter suddenly clicked.

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I answer questions about vaginas, Skittles, and Glitter. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter.

"Do People Really Use Condoms For Blow Jobs?" from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

After a gruesome lead that covers the story of Hisham, an Iraqi refugee now living in Beirut, the article goes on to explain:

In Baghdad a new series of murders began early this year, perpetrated against men suspected of being gay. Often they are raped, their genitals cut off, and their anuses sealed with glue. Their bodies are left at landfills or dumped in the streets. The nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch, which has documented many of these crimes, has spoken of a systematic campaign of violence involving hundreds of murders.

Weaving the key aspects of the persecution with humanizing narratives, writers Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Daniel Steinvorth (originally writing for Der Speigel) produce a rich discussion of the current climate for homosexuals in increasingly theocratic areas. While their analysis revolves around same gender loving men, they do paint a detailed picture of the issues at play.

• There's something a wee bit familiar about these justifications for homophobia:

  Islamists are now a dominant cultural force in many of these countries. They include figures such as popular Egyptian television preacher Yussuf al-Qaradawi, who demonizes gays as perverse. Four years ago the Shiite grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa saying that gays are to be murdered in the most brutal way possible. These religious opinion leaders base their hatred for gays on the story of Lot in the Koran: "Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation [ever] committed before you? For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds." Lot's people suffered the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. The prophet Mohammed has a number of dicta in which he condemns these acts by Lot's people, and in one of them he even goes as far as to call for punishment by death.

• As is the case in many cultures, homosexuality was not always universally condemned:
  

  It looks as if a wave of homophobia has swept over the Islamic world, a place that was once widely known for its open-mindedness, where homoerotic literature was written and widely read, where gender roles were not so narrowly defined, and, as in the days of ancient Greece, where men often sought the companionship of youths[...]

  The story of Lot and related verses in the Koran were not interpreted as unambiguous references to homosexual sex until the 20th century, says Everett Rowson, professor of Islamic studies at New York University. This reinterpretation was the result of Western influences — its source was the prudery of European colonialists who introduced their conception of sexual morality to the newly conquered countries.

  The fact of the matter is that half of the laws across the world that prohibit homosexuality today are derived from a single law that the British enacted in India in 1860. "Many attitudes with regard to sexual morality that are thought to be identical to Islam owe a lot more to Queen Victoria than to the Koran," Rowson says.

• Often, intrusions of the state into the realm of the personal aren't as founded in religion as they appear:
  

  "The most repressive are secular regimes such as those in Egypt or Morocco, which are under pressure from Islamists and so try to outdo them with regard to morals," says Scott Long of Human Rights Watch. "In addition, the persecution of homosexuals shows that a regime has control over the private lives of its citizens — a sign of power and authority." For several years now, a sense of "moral panic" has been systematically fomented in many Muslim countries.

• What is moral and what is immoral? The lines, when examined, begin to blur:
  

  The persecution of gays has led to a boom in the demand for sex-change operations in Iran. More operations of this kind are carried out in the Islamic Republic than anywhere else in the world apart from Thailand. These procedures were approved by Ayatollah Khomeini himself in 1983. Khomeini defined transsexuality as a disease that can be healed by means of an operation. Since then thousands of people have requested this kind of treatment, and the Iranian government even covers part of the costs.

  "Family members and physicians urge homosexuals to have operations to normalize their sexual orientation," Parsi says. This way it was possible for a high-ranking Shiite religious scholar to finance his secretary's physical transformation into a woman and then to marry him.

• The reality on paper isn't always the reality on the ground:
  

  The archconservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country where sharia law is the sole legal code, under which homosexuals are flogged and executed. "Homosexuals are freer here than they are in Iran," says Afdhere Jama, who traveled through the Islamic world for seven years doing research for his book "Illegal Citizens."

  Gay men and women have a surprising amount of space in Saudi society. Newspapers print stories about lesbian sex in school lavatories, while it is an open secret that certain shopping centers, restaurants and bars in Jeddah and Riyadh are gay meeting points.

• And, as always, bigotry wilts in the face of common sense:
  

  [Openly gay imam Daayiee Abdullah] regularly receives death threats but now laughs them off, saying: "How can two loving men pose a threat to the foundations God has laid?

  "

  Homophobia on the rise in the Muslim world [Salon]

1.) Janice Dickinson
The Insider has a new format sort of based on The View's "Hot Topics," in which the "news" correspondents and a celebrity guest debate bullshit tabloid stuff. The show describes it as "entertainment news with opposing views." Janice Dickinson was the guest on Wednesday, and they really need to just give her the job permanently, because she has finally found her perfect calling.

On Jon Gosselin:

On Whitney Houston:

On confusing saying the word "jackass" and acting like one:

2.) Bobby Brown's body is "pure"

What does Janice think of him?

3.) New Judge Judy episodes!
It's been a cruel summer without some new JJ. Thankfully the new season has returned to dispense the most practical advice in the world.

4.) "Get off your period, dude."
On The Real World: Cancun reunion show, Emilee almost got all L7.

5.) Police work stinks for women

6.) Why did Kim look like Dracula's girlfriend?

Oh, and of course, this.

7.) "Get ready for the fashion show!"

8.) They're just not that into you.
On True Life: I'm Polyamorous, three gay men were in one relationship with each other, but one of them is totally the outcast.

The outcast's solution was to add one more guy into the mix, to a balance. Once he found a suitable candidate, he brought him home to meet his boyfriends, and it all worked out for the best.

9.) How not to raise children.

10.) Paula Abdul

She needs a pageant mom for some stability.

Homosexuality and Hollywood have always had a tumultuous relationship, from '50s stars like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter to Ellen's "Yep I'm Gay" Time magazine cover and the trend for certain websites to attempt to out celebrities. And as Salon's Heather Havrilesky notes, while there are more gay characters on TV these days, they are the Token Gays: "Just like straight people, only smarter and funnier and more interesting." Clichés abound. Yet despite hosting the Tonys, NPH manages to avoid most gay stereotypes.

When talking about his sexuality, NPH says that for years, "I wasn't thought of in a sexual way, which is easy when you have big ears and are called Doogie all the time." For a time, NPH was in the "glass closet": Friends and family knew he was gay; he had no fake girlfriends, and he answered a People magazine question about his "dream date" by leaving out the pronoun.

When he heard about the Harold &Kumar script — in which the character of "Neil Patrick Harris" snorts coke and talks about "fur burgers," he wasn't sure if they were mocking his gayness. Turns out the writers just didn't know he was gay.

Writes New York's Emily Nussbaum:

He also wasn't precisely out when he was cast as Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother in 2005, although he brought Burtka to the first cast barbecue. But as Harris's star rose, it became inevitable that his life-however open to those who knew him-might become a tabloid story. The blogger Perez Hilton was on the attack. And Harris and his team met to strategize, striving to make their statement succinct and positive. "No one was ever old-school Hollywood, with a cigar in their mouth, saying ‘You can't do this, see! It'll ruin your career, kid.' " With his mild New Age streak, Harris expresses faith that intentions are what matter: "So long as you're representing yourself well, you're making good choices for good reasons, all of the circumstantial things will vanish."

(By the by: NPH and his partner, David Burtka, would love to have a kid: "We'd make very good parents," NPH says. When they spend time with Burtka's twins — from a previous relationship, NPH says he gets to "be the fun guy who takes them to Disneyland.")

There's certainly no right or wrong way to be gay in Hollywood, but NPH seems to have a found a way that works for him. He's signed on to play a married father in a flick called The Best and the Brightest, which is a comedy about New York private school admissions. Will audiences buy him as a straight dad? Director Josh Shelov tells New York: "There was a four-second conversation about sexuality. But our team were big How I Met Your Mother fans. And we basically felt like the audience has spoken already, they've said they find him acceptable in a straight role. There's no stigma here, it's a pure talent issue at this point."

High-Wire Act [New York]
Fear Of A Gay Planet [Salon]

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I take a trip down memory lane, and show you all the stuff we didn't want to show you before. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter. As always, we like pictures.

My gaydar went off when I first saw JR and heard him speak; my suspicions were confirmed when gay roommate Derek said that he thought that JR was gay, too, although he cited JR's manicured nails as the reason.

In other news, Jonna continues to be the ultimate violator of "girl code" when she bedded Jasmine's crush Pat (aka JR's cousin), despite the fact that she has a boyfriend, whose photos wallpaper her room.

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I answer questions about our jobs, buttholes, and incest. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter. If we remember to check it, we'll answer those, too.

P.S. For reference on the turtle question, view here.

1.) Adderall!

2.) The Stanky Leg

3.) Lil' Monkey

4.) Big Brother's Impeccable Montage Editing

5.) NYC Prep Schadenfreude

6.) Fox News' "Liberal" Views On Pole Dancing
(It doesn't count as "pole dancing" if you're using the pole for balance. Fair and balanced.)

7.) Good News for Gays
They have your kind in Wasilla, and Levi doesn't mind 'em.

8.) Gay Bitch

9.) La Toya: "There's Not Enough Aid For AIDS."
She is manic!

10.) A Hooker/Pimp Relationship Gone Awry?

[Modiin, Israel; August 2. Image via Getty]

Relatives of Israeli Nir Katz, who was killed in an attack on a gay club, grieve during his funeral in the Israeli city of Modiin near Tel Aviv on August 2, 2009. Katz was killed on August 1 when a man opened fire in a gay youth club in Tel Aviv, killing him and a teenage girl, in an attack that struck fear among the liberal city's homosexual community. Israeli police have launched a manhunt for the assailant. AFP PHOTO/DAVID FURST (Photo credit should read DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images)

The book went to press within 48 hours after the King of Pop's death, and rocketed to number one on the New York Times bestseller list last week. Hastily thrown together, Unmasked is rife with typos and questionable "anonymous sources." Shoddy, shady, and sleazy, I think I read it almost as quickly as author Ian Halperin typed it up.

Halperin claims that he started the project a while back because he was out to prove, once and for all, that Michael Jackson was a pedophile, but in his research, discovered that he was not. (The resulting work is pretty biased, but some evidence presented makes for some decent-albeit comparatively crude-rebuttals to Maureen Orth's thorough and persuasive reporting on Michael Jackson for Vanity Fair.)

Much has been made of Jackson's infamous sleepovers with young boys at his Neverland Ranch, and Mark Ronson, along with his friend Sean Lennon, participated in some of them. One anecdote of Ronson's - which he originally told on a British TV show - appears in the book:

We used to watch the porn channel because we were like, ten, and, 'Oh my God, tits!' So Michael was in bed. And me and Sean said, 'Michael, do you want to see something cool?' We turned the dial to the porn channel and there were strippers shaking their tits around. We were like, 'Michael, Michael, how cool is this?' We turned around and he was cringing, saying, 'Ooh, stop it, stop it, ooh, it's so silly.' We were like, 'Michael, you have to look, maybe you're not seeing it right, it's naked girls!' He was not down with the program whatsoever! I think he had really strong feminist views on porn.

He's cute. Anyway, while the story doesn't prove that Michael always behaved appropriately around his young guests, it does kind of point to something that I always thought: He was probably gay. Halperin thinks so, too. In fact, in his book, Halperin actually claims that Michael hit on him at a pizza parlor (more on that in sec).

Halperin claimed to have spoken to two of Michael's "gay lovers." (Redundant term!) One was a "Hollywood waiter, the other an aspiring actor." He claims to have seen photos "corroborating" the relationships. The best bit comes from "Lawrence," the actor:

He was very shy, but when he started to have sex, he was insatiable. He was a bottom, but he was so thin, I worried that I would break him. The very first time he blew me, he said, 'The King of Pop's going to lick your lollipop.' I still laugh thinking about that.

Me too.

One of Halperin's sources was supposedly someone who worked in Jackson's camp. The source tipped him off that Jackson and his children were going to a Hollywood pizza parlor, so Halperin "got in [his] hairdresser's disguise" and sped over there. Of the encounter Halperin said:

We talked about old Hollywood movies and hairstyles, which I had researched for months before I took on this undercover persona. Michael went on and on about the Hollywood hairstyles of the silver screen during the forties and fifties. 'No one has come along with such class and style since Deborah Kerr, Dorothy Lamour, and Susan Hayward,' he said…At one point during our conversation at the pizza joint, Jackson put his hand over mine. I then wondered if the singer was hitting on me. After staring at me for over a minute in complete silence, he told me my blue eyes reminded him of Frank Sinatra…It was one of the most intense moments I have ever experienced looking into another man's eyes.

This was also good:

I had been trying to persuade [Jackson] to change his look to a platinum blond wig with a streak of ocean-blue down the middle.

But my absolute favorite passage was in regards to Liza Minnelli. After failing to score an interview with Jackson's best friend Elizabeth Taylor, Halperin, again, went undercover as a gay hairdresser, and hung out at a dance rehearsal studio he knew Liza frequented, cornered her, and told her he had been Ava Gardner's hair and makeup artist before she died. That was the clincher, and Liza invited him to hang out with her in the back room of the studio, where she shared a joint with him and some other dancers. Despite the fact that she was stoned, Liza didn't really give up any of the goods on Jackson, but she still sounds like a fun hang:

I told her that Ava was a huge fan of Jackson and used to practice some of his dance moves. At that, she let out a trademark Liza Minnelli laugh. It proved to be infectious…especially after Liza stood up and did an impression of Ava Gardner attempting to moonwalk.

Interestingly, later in the episode, when Kathy was "canvassing" — going out in the community and talking to people about how they voted — she learned that many voters were confused over the wording of Prop 8, thinking that voting "yes" on it was a vote for agreeing with gay marriage.

Earlier: Etheridge Calls Elisabeth Out For Her Support Of Prop 8