Happy Sunday Funday! My dog and I went so hard at the puppy park meetup we had in DC yesterday that we’re still cuddling right now. Next weekend Eli and I will gather ’round the cider at the DC pumpkin painting and carving meetup and I’m already oozing pumpkin-induced euphoria. So are these 16 animals in and around pumpkins.

This week everyone is atwitter about gay marriage and Madonna’s sexiest material turns 20. Also, Pink takes her clothing off and video footage was released with her consent! What more coud I ever offer you?

Maine is Coming Around

Voters in Maine are finally coming around to gay marriage:

Recent polls show that in Maine, more than half of voters now support same-sex marriage, a reversal since the state voted against it in 2009.

The turnaround can partly be attributed to an in-depth grass-roots campaign employing a tactic not often used with issues: approaching voters and trying to change their minds on their doorsteps. […]

A young man knocked on Linda Michaud’s door in a rural neighborhood outside Bangor and talked about why he hoped his brother would be able to get married. For half an hour, the two chatted, said Michaud — about his brother, her lesbian cousins, and her Catholic faith, which she said prohibited her from endorsing same-sex marriage.

“I was against it at first because I was a Catholic, but then they sat down with me and we talked,” said Michaud, 64, who lives in an area where mailboxes line the streets and the trees are already starting to lose their leaves. “I’m going to vote yes.”

Orlando Cruz Is Still A Winner

Orlando Cruz just participated in his first boxing match since coming out 2 weeks ago.

He won.

Cruz stands in the middle of the ring. There are no more tears.

“I can breathe,” he says, smiling, taking in a deep breath and exhaling to prove his point. “I can breathe.”

Carmen’s Team Pick: This Minister

Wait for it.

P!nk Isn’t Wearing A Lot of Clothes Right Now

I found out that all of you special unicorns really love Pink, mostly because I wrote a thing with one sentence about Pink in it and most of you started to melt. So why stop there? This week the “honorary lesbian” who loves penis took her clothes off for Shape magazine, recorded a video with them about it, then jumped on a trampoline to signify the flips happening in your stomach as you press “play.”

And now, without further ado:

It Got Better for Uncle Poodle

I can’t believe I even typed that. But on Spirit Day, while you all were looking at hot babes in purple, Honey Boo Boo’s Uncle Poodle shared his story about gay bullying. Spoiler alert: there’s a happy ending.

JWoww Uses Foul Language to Defend Gay People, I Sort of Love Her For It

I refuse to provide any context for what you are about to see, except for the background: former Jersey Shore castmate Angelina Pivarnick tweeted moronically about gay marriage (“You want to have your little flings with your gay partner when you’re younger and see how it is or whatever, that’s fine …but if you’re male, marry a female; if you’re a female, marry a male.”), and JWoww reality checked her. Hard.

Pivarnick has since revoked her sentiments, and apologized; that decision came after some good time with her gay friends, who hopefully hate her deeply in their hearts.

Madonna Is Still Sexy 20 Years Later

I’mma interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for reading “Madonna’s Pussy is the Temple of Learning.”

Today, Erotica turns 20 (tomorrow Sex will do the same), but only now has S&M really broken the mainstream pop culture to the level of a phenomenon (courtesy of 50 Shades of Grey). Only now are we accustomed to having a pack of female pop icons who sing about being excited by whips and chains, who snarl, “I’m a slut like you!,” who espouse the virtues of “pussy power” on talk shows. Only now are we used to the kind of content onslaught that Madonna delivered in 1992, not only via (almost) simultaneous multiple media but by having those songs and images and words that made up said media hit multiple buttons at once, themselves. It may not seem like it, but as an audience, our appreciation of things has only gotten more nuanced as time has gone on. We like levels. We are in a time when a song can become a pop cultural force by being awful, when the repellant attracts reality TV viewers, when mocking is a form of appreciation.

If Erotica wasn’t responsible for these developments, it certainly predicted them. The album was more ahead of its time than any pop record released that year.

A Baby Lion

 YOU GUYS.

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