Adam Levine, Chris Pine and Steve Grand

Adam Levine or Chris Pine could have been Steve Grand's All-American Boy

After catching the CBS Sunday Morning segment today on Adam Levine, I was inspired to write this post.  I’ve written about Chris Pine elsewhere in one of my blog posts here at Our Culture and Society.  I’ve followed Adam for a number of years.   I’ve grown to really respect him.  It was nice to see Adam be able to be so open and relaxed and honest here – much like how I saw Steve Grand be in Matt Rettenmund’s interview in the Boy Culture Blog.

I think Steve could have asked men like Adam and Chris to portray his supposedly straight male crush where Steve is pleased the straight man didn’t reject him if he made a pass at him.  You could possibly mistake both Adam and Chris as being men who are free enough in who they are that they might be interested in a gay man’s advances. 

I think both of these guys would have had the response that Matt mentioned in his recent comment  - "Not for me, but we're cool."

But I get it why Steve didn't ask one of these guys.  They would have been too expensive...

  
Adam's brother, Michael, is openly gay.  And as I said, I respect
Adam a lot.  But I still don't agree with Adam that people are born gay.  There is no support for that.  No science to back that up.  We are born with certain predispositions that are then impacted upon by a wide range of factors. 

I think what Adam is trying to say about his brother as early as age 2, is that Michael had certain characteristics, certain personality traits, certain predispositions that caused their family to suspect that he had genetically predetermined same-sex sexual attractions and only same-sex sexual attractions.  I understand how Adam wants to be very supportive of his brother, but I don't think Adam is being clear.  Get it, they knew that Michael wasn't even bisexual.  Of course this is when he was only 2 years old. 

I also disagree with Adam that you are certain to be more messed up if you explore the idea of not affirming a gay identity.  Or, if you explore if some shift in sexual attractions might happen for you.  But I understand why Adam feels the need to speak in this way. 

Just because Adam makes this type of statement in Queerty.com 

“I can single-handedly dispel any ideas that sexuality is acquired,” he says, laughing. “Trust me, you’re born with it. My brother [Michael, at right] is gay, and we knew when he was two. We all knew.”

I can't trust Adam on this one.  But I like Adam because he is clever, and funny and engaging.  I just don't think he is accurate, or especially that he is scientific in his appraisal of his brother's same-sex sexual attractions.  I could just as easily say that I can single-handedly discount any ideas that sexuality is acquired - that is if I first defined what I was meaning by sexuality, by homosexuality, by gay, by same-sex sexual attractions; by acquired.  If Adam is trying to say that a person's sexuality is not impacted by culture, society, family, peers, role models, faith, personal responses to life experiences, then I have to profoundly disagree with Adam.  But I don't think that is what he is actually trying to say.  I think he is speaking like a musician here.  Trying to capture the impression that he has. 

 

Think through what Adam is actually saying as you read the rest of this article:

Other useful tidbits Levine shares include:

1. “I just love being as naked as possible all the time — it feels really natural to me.”
2. “I’m extremely comfortable in my sexuality, so I can think, Oh, that’s a good-looking dude. Acknowledging that someone’s attractive and wanting to fuck a dude are two different things.”
3. “With a lot of guys who are hypersexual, it comes from some sort of disdain or dislike — they’re guys who love getting laid but don’t really respect women. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t been totally promiscuous and slutty in my lifetime, because I have.”

A slutty gay-positive exhibitionist with a great voice and a killer bod? What more could we ask for. Well, besides a weekend alone with Levine in a remote Tahitian bungalow.

So, Adam is trying to explain some things about attraction as opposed to behavior.  That's why I try to be sure I say same-sex sexual attractions instead of just saying same-sex attractions.  So, does Adam think that a hypersexual man's disdain or dislike is also something they are born with?  is a man's respect for women, or lack there of, also something that he is born with?

 

I hope that Adam doesn't want to continue to be slutty after he gets married to Behati Prinsloo.   But then, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore had an open marriage from the beginning of their marriage.  I hope that Adam thinks that he was genetically born with the ability to stop being slutty and totally promiscuous once he is married...  But again, I really like Adam and I wish him the best in his upcoming marriage.  We would just need to define exactly what the definition of marriage is for Adam.