Hunkamania Mario Lopez on his attitude about being hit on by gay men (and these days adored by them) told People magazine (June 18, 2008) in their annual most eligible bachelor issue, "Single & Sexy Men of 2008":

"I'm very flattered being popular in the gay community because they are a hip, cool community. They're very cutting-edge, so they like me, and I think that's great."

Though various media outlets and bloggers on the Internet have raised the question of the star's sexual orientation, all indications are that Lopez is a raging heterosexual.  (Much of the speculation might all be just too much wishful thinking by the queer gossip mongers.)

Lopez has had a series of women in his life and just as many breakups. It seems that the sexy Lopez isn't particularly faithful to his designated girlfriend. His brief marriage to Ali Landry was annulled over his alleged infidelities and his recent romantic ending with Karina Smirnoff was reported by Metro (June 19, 2008) due to his alleged cheating with singer Meaghan Cooper.

So, our Latin lover evidently has a hard time keeping "it" in his pants.

Describing his dream mate to the editors of People, Lopez said that she should come "from a modest sort of upbringing, because it's more relatable."

Lopez was exposed in the now-collectible issue of People in his homage to Hollywood male sex symbols, Burt Reynolds, bare on a bear skin rug (though Lopez informed morning viewers on the Today show that Reynolds was more hirsute than he), Richard Gere of  "American Gigolo," Christopher Atkins of  "Blue Lagoon" (yes, Lopez in a loin cloth) and Mark Wahlberg back in the days when he was Marky Mark in his Calvins (but there's no crotch-grabbing but Lopez is definitely sporting a big package in HIS boxer briefs).

Meanwhile the fans growing at breakneck speed for the chiseled Lopez can catch him on stage in the revival of "A Chorus Line" currently on Broadway. Or they (and you) can pick up his workout book, "Mario Lopez Knockout Fitness" that the 34-year-old actor who first appeared on the screen in Speedos in the queer biopic, "Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story" is--literally--turning into his own industry.

Let's admit it--we all can't get enough these days of the adorable Lopez--those darling dimples AND abs. Ah, Mario!  Can you remind me--what's so bad about a little cheating?

Switching from body to mind, queer literary lion (and never cowardly) Gore Vidal, 82, was raging about all kinds of things--from gay marriage to John McCain in an interview by Deborah Solomon in The New York Times (June 15, 2008).

The author of more than 20 novels, from the gender-bending cult classic "Myra Breckinridge" and "Burr" (among his several masterful historical novels) and a number of volumes of essays (he released his latest collection of essays last month to critical acclaim) admitted that on the subject of gay marriage that he doesn't follow the debate and hence knows nothing about it.

But Vidal also pointed out that he not interested, in the least, with heterosexual marriage either.

On McCain, he commented, "Disaster. Who started this rumor that he was a war hero?"

On same-sex, long term relationships, Gore was asked, "As someone who lived with a male companion for 50-plus years, do you see this as a victory for equality?" 

"People would ask, how could you live with someone for so long without any problems of any kind? I said, there was no sex," explained Gore.

Frank O'Hara, queer poet extraordinaire and the darling of the Museum of Modern Art where he served as an associate curator and befriended the who's who of the writers and painters, from Kenneth Koch to Jackson Pollock, and died an untimely death at 40 in a jeep accident that literally ran over him on a beach at Fire Island, two years prior to the publication of his first volume of poetry, "Lunch Poems," to critical acclaim in 1964.

Interest in O'Hara has recently been resurrected as an "Urban Poet," on the occasion last month of the publication of the latest volume of "Selected Poems" (Edited by Mark Ford, Alfred A. Knopf) reviewed in The New York Times (June 29, 2008) by William Logan who, attempting to set O'Hara's literary record straight, wrote "As a poet he wrote too much--it has been difficult to reach a just estimate of his wayward, influential talent."

Though it's definitely curious in this day and age that there's not one mention of O'Hara's "gay (or queer) sensibility (what about poems like "Thinking of James Dean" for starters), Logan concludes, near the end of his dense but thoughtful appraisal of the native Baltimorean, Harvard graduate, who roomed with queer illustrator Edward Gorey and was friends with fellow poet John Ashberry," that "the style, though at time foolish and self-parodic, remains fresh 50 years later."