Adam Lambert Fail

The new issue of Details magazine features on its cover American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert, who recently confirmed in a Rolling Stone interview what everyone already knew—that he's gay. So why is it that Details decided to promote its out gay cover star on its website with an image of him grabbing an almost-naked woman accompanied by the text: "Adam Lambert Gets Lucky: Why does every woman in America want to sleep with the American Idol?"

[Note: Image below fold is possibly NSFW.]


The story about Lambert (to which I won't link, for reasons that will shortly become evident) is accompanied by a slideshow of images (and video) from the photo shoot, in which Lambert was photographed in [images NSFW] sexually explicit positions with the model, who is naked. Which would almost make a sad sort of sense, given that nearly the entire article is about women wanting to have sex with Lambert, except for the fact that the images are not of a woman throwing her bra—or herself—at him; they're of him being sexual with a naked woman who's little more than a prop. You know, just like a straight boy would.

I may be queer, but I can objectify women as good as any other dude can!

I find it really problematic that an out gay man feels obliged to participate in a photo shoot like this for a whole lot of reasons, but mostly I am just deeply aggravated by the perpetuation of the narrative that it is demeaning women that proves one's manhood.

It's particularly disappointing coming from Lambert, who noted in his Rolling Stone interview that part of the reason he came out is so he could avoid "looking over my shoulder all the time, thinking I have to hide, being scared of being found out, putting on a front, having a beard, going down the red carpet with some chick who is posing as my girlfriend. That's not cool, that's not being a rock star. I can't do that."

But he can do letting "some chick" drape her naked self across him for a photo shoot, because that is cool, that is being a rock star.

Dude, that's not being a rock star, either. That's just being a misogynist asshole like every other misogynist asshole who thinks it's "edgy" to objectify women, even though that shit hasn't been cutting edge since fucking cave paintings.

[H/T to Shaker Rebecca.]