Meanwhile in straight… Drowning in sperm! Manland! Evangelical meth-head wifeswapping!

BY ROB SALERNO – Straight people do some truly queer things, from the way they propagate the species, to the way they monopolize power in virtually every major government and corporation, to the way they claim to be “masc” while saying they love wearing panties in their headless torso profiles on Grindr. Here in the Roundup’s semi-regular feature Meanwhile, in Straight… we collect the silliest and strangest news from our heterosexual friends.

There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark. Well, not rotten. It’s kind of bitter, really, and a little nutty. But definitely not gingery.

A sperm bank in Denmark has announced that it’s no longer accepting contributions from redheaded donors because so few people want redheaded children.

It’s left the sperm bank with an overstock of pasty, redheaded semen. Or, as the director of the international sperm bank Cryos put it, “Our stock is about to explode! We are drowning in semen!”

Virtually every line of the Star’s report on the glut of carrot-topped spunk is comedy gold, including a random insertion that ginger baby juice “goes like hotcakes” in Ireland. Surely they could have found a more apt comparison for Ireland, no? “Like potatoes and Guinness!”

Well, I guess Lucky was right all those years. They are after his lucky charms!

They’re magically delicious.

In other Scandinavian news, the incredibly gay disposable furniture store IKEA has pioneered the idea of a man playpen where exasperated wives can leave their bored husbands while they shop for throw pillows and contemplate when the love left their marriages.

An IKEA store in Sydney, Australia, created Manland, a playroom with pinball, foosball, hot dogs, video games and TVs that play nothing but sports as a way of celebrating Australian Father’s Day, which happens in September. Because the best way to tell your father/husband you love him is to drag him to a place that he hates so much you’ve got to leave him in an adult nursery so he won’t sulk the whole way through.

Oh, heterosexual marriage, the things you’ll come up with to shore up your flailing institutions.

Speaking of: ABC has announced that its latest celebration of traditional marriage, Celebrity Wife Swap, will feature an upcoming episode where Gary Busey trades partners with disgraced former evangelical leader Ted Haggard.

 

Haggard is, of course, best remembered for his 2006 admission to frequent meth use and visiting male prostitutes while he was the president of the gay-hating National Association of Evangelicals. Since he resigned in shame, he’s traded on the scandal in numerous reality TV appearances.

The episode will be filmed at the Colorado Springs GLBT Pride Center, because what better way to illustrate the sanctity of marriage to gays than to bring an episode of Celebrity Wife Swap featuring two erratic drug abusers directly to them?

Rob Salerno is a playwright and journalist whose writing has appeared in such publications as Vice, Advocate, NOW and OutTraveler.

Keep Reading

Job discrimination against trans and non-binary people is alive and well

OPINION: A study reveals that we have a long way to go to reach workplace equality for trans and non-binary people

The new generation of gay Conservative sellouts

OPINION: Melissa Lantsman’s and Eric Duncan’s refusals to call out their party’s transphobia is a betrayal of the LGBTQ2S+ community

Over 300 anti-LGBTQ2S+ bills have been introduced this year. This doesn’t mean we should panic

OPINION: While it’s important to watch out for threats, not all threats are created equally. Some of these bills will die a natural death

Xtra’s top LGBTQ2S+ stories of the year

The best and brightest—even most bewildering—stories from a back catalogue brimming with insight