The short answer is NO…

Despite all his crazy, self centered, eccentric ways, I usually really like Kanye West and I usually defend the things he says. But I strongly disagree with a statement he recently made during a taping of VH1’s Storytellers.

Kanye asked the crowd, “Can’t we give Chris a break? I know I make mistakes in life.”

A mistake is one thing… battering someone is something else.

When I was growing up, my best friend’s father used to get drunk and beat his wife until she was bloodied and bruised. She was too scared to call the police, too afraid to tell anyone. My friend and I were young and vulnerable. We were scared too. Scared that if we told someone, he’d do the same things to us. So there we were, many nights, listening to the yelling and crying through the walls. We just tried to focus on our toys, or cartoons, or anything that would block it out.

I cannot even imagine beating someone, much less a woman. I’ve been violent only a few times in my life, and that was in high school when I was being beaten up by bullies for being gay. But that was self defense. I’ve never just went up to a person and attacked them. I’ve never even slapped someone. I can’t imagine how much anger it would take inside me to hit another human being.

I understand that people make mistakes. I understand that people can change… get counseling and overcome their violent ways. I’m well aware of the power of forgiveness. And perhaps I am punishing Chris Brown as a result of my childhood.

But I believe he belongs in jail so society can be safe from him. Beating a woman like that is just one step away from murdering her. And people can die from head injuries. There is just no way to sugarcoat such horrible behavior.

So no, Kanye West, I don’t think Chris Brown deserves a break.

Do you ever think you’re stuck in a bad dream, just waiting to wake up?

On March 5, the California Supreme Court will have a hearing to make a decision on Proposition 8. The hearing will determine the future of marriage equality in California, as well as the fate of the marriages that were considered legal before Prop 8 passed.

Deep down in my gut, I truly believe that Prop 8 will be thrown out. I believe that no state would allow a legal right to be revoked from its citizens after it has already been given to them. What would the world be if we took away women’s right to vote, or re-legalized slavery? We can’t go backwards with our laws.

I try not to think about it too much, because it just upsets me. I just hope that someday we can get past this and let all people have equal rights. There are many times when I just see life as black and white. You either give everyone the same rights, or nobody gets them at all. Call me crazy.

I’m also deeply disturbed by the way religious groups have behaved. You know you’re never too old for a slap on the hands with a ruler. I know a lot of people who need a good slap right now.

Religion is a troubling topic for me. I know a lot of my readers identify as atheist. I personally do believe there is a God, and I think that there is some beauty to the concept of spirituality.

I like the idea of people coming together to celebrate their faith. I like the concepts of love and peace, and concern for your neighbor. There are basic acts of human kindness that I think are very powerful in the teachings of religion.

We obviously can never prove whether or not there is a higher power. We have to make up our minds for ourselves and what we believe is our choice. But I do wish, and I mean this very sincerely, that religious leaders across the world would get back to the basics of what religion teaches. All this anger, hatred, and discrimination has no place in the church. I don’t know why churches hate gay people so much. We are just flesh and blood like anyone else.

Well those are my thoughts on that. I hope that justice wins in California and sends a strong message to the rest of the world.

Oh, my…

As many of you know, I’m in the process of foreskin restoration. The method I use is commonly referred to as “tugging,” pulling the skin of my penis forward to stimulate the production of new skin cells, which creates a sort of faux foreskin. It’s not a real foreskin, it’s just extra skin that will eventually roll over my penis.

With this process, there is always the warning to be very gentle. I say it all the time. Do it slowly, stop if there is any pain.

Well I made a mistake last night. I must have pulled too hard when I was tugging. I was stunned with a sharp pain, then I looked down and noticed I had burst a blood vessel. A purple spot formed underneath the skin.

There wasn’t any ongoing pain, and it hasn’t bruised or gotten worse. Apparently burst vessels are fairly common since everything is so delicate down there. There isn’t much a doctor can do unless it gets infected, which I don’t think it will. But I’m just so mad at myself for making the mistake in the first place.

Many of you have expressed an interest in restoring your foreskin, so please take this warning seriously. Be very, very careful! I was lucky that this was just a very mild injury.

Actor Jamie Bamber of Battlestar Galactica has joined Peta to help stop the killing of bears for fur. Click the image below for a closer look.

Conservative groups are passionately against abortion, yet they refuse to educate young women about sex.

It’s a very curious trend. When females are raised in a conservative environment where abstinence is considered their only option, the rate of pregnancies goes up, as well as the rate of abortions. So for all the preaching and judging parents do, they are actually failing to give these young girls the education they need to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

So exactly what kind of numbers are we talking about it here? According to a recent report, 2 million unplanned pregnancies and 800,000 abortions can be prevented with public funding each year! So how much does that save in taxpayer dollars? Well, for every $1 spent on these programs to prevent the pregnancies, you would have to spend $4 to support the pregnancy or abortion. It’s cheaper (and better) to prevent the pregnancies from ever happening.

If you’re truly “pro-life”, you should support President Obama’s plans for this. It was initially shot down by Republicans, and Obama dropped the topic since he was more concerned about other details of the stimulus package. But this issue is already rearing its head again, and Obama’s next focus is on healthcare, where this subject will undoubtedly come up. Unsurprisingly, Republicans are crying foul, saying it’s “immoral” to provide contraceptives, claiming it promotes a promiscuous lifestyle.

Paaa-leeease. Who do they think they’re kidding? Teens are going to have sex. I know it’s difficult to think of your little princess engaging in sexual activity, but it’s just part of life. Abstinence-only programs rarely work out. The statistics overwhelmingly show that teens will lose their virginity before they are 18, and many are 16 or younger. And I don’t see sex going out of style any time soon.

It’s better to face this issue honestly and boldly, and we can actually prevent a significant number of unplanned pregnancies. If you really want to prevent abortions, you should favor the distribution of condoms and safe sex education.

Intersexuality is being born with the genitalia and/or chromosomes of both male and female.

Due to social stigmas, most intersex babies undergo surgery to correct the genital ambiguity. However, this does not change the way the children grow up to feel internally about their gender. In fact, this usually causes more problems later in life.

Gender identity is not exclusive to a person’s external organs. The child will either identify as a man or a woman, and if they have been modified through surgery, this can only complicate the process.

Unfortunately many people still react cruelly to intersexuality. But progress is being made to educate people about it, therefore creating a culture of more open mindedness.

Most recently, an episode of ABC’s drama Private Practice dealt with an intersex baby. The episode, which was seen by 11.2 Million viewers, started out with a couple rejecting their baby for being intersex, demanding that surgery be done to make the child “normal”.

But as the storyline evolves, the parents come to love and accept the baby, understanding that the child deserves to choose his or her own gender identity when they are older. After that point, corrective surgery will be appropriate, if the child does choose to undergo it.

I was happy to see a mainstream TV show deal openly with it. The storyline explored the full range of emotions, from fearing that the child would be outcast to finally realizing that love and acceptance starts inside the home. And the show was accurate in the depiction, as many doctors are now refusing to operate on intersex babies to modify their genitalia.

To learn more, visit the ISNA (Intersex Society of North America).

Intersex illustration by Robert Neubecker, borrowed from this Slate article.

Four straight firefighters in San Diego sued the city for sexual harassment at a gay pride parade… and won.

In 2007, the four men were ordered to ride in a gay pride parade. During the parade, they claim to have been sexually harassed and traumatized by the events. They decided to sue the city since they were forced to participate, and the jury favored them, awarding them a total sum of $34,300.

But the gay community is protesting, say the firemen are being awarded for homophobia. Many are quick to point out that if the firemen were sexually harassed by women, they wouldn’t be suing, and they’d probably enjoy it.

My 2 cents on it…

Sexual harassment is a very real and very upsetting crime. Unfortunately men are not taken seriously when they report it. While I do agree that the men probably wouldn’t have complained if they were harassed by women, the fact remains that all humans have the right to be protected from any type of harassment.

I do suspect that there is a little bit of homophobia at play here. But nonetheless, these men should have never been forced to participate. Gay pride events are very sexually charged and some kinky things go on during them. I don’t feel that anybody (gay or straight) should be required to attend one as part of their job.

I agree with the verdict. We have to keep in mind that homophobia is secondary in this case. It doesn’t really matter if the firefighters were homophobic or not. Either way, they were sexually harassed, and sexual harassment is against the law.

Taken out of context…

If you remove all the labels from this case, it’s really pretty simple. 4 adults were required as part of their job to attend an event in which they were sexually harassed. Remove the fact that they were men and remove any conflict of gay vs. straight. What you have is a group of adults that were harassed on the job. If you look at it that way, it makes perfect sense that the 4 adults won the case.

I just seem to have that effect on the men.

A friend e-mailed me yesterday to tell me that he’d walked in to find his husband in the tub, pulling on the skin of his dick. His husband explained, “Just like Nathan told me to.”

Yes, it’s true. I’ve started a new trend.

What he was doing was working on restoring his foreskin. I’d instructed him that just pulling the skin forward as far as it will go on a daily basis will help encourage new skin cells to multiply. This process helps create a faux foreskin for men who have been circumcised.

I started doing it last fall, and so far I have about 60% coverage on my penis. If I wanted to cheat, I could say I now have 100% coverage. I can pull the skin completely forward and cover my entire penis head. So for what it’s worth, I now experience the feeling of having a foreskin.

However, I don’t consider it 100% since I have to pull to achieve that effect. If I just let the skin hang naturally, it is 60%, covering more than half the head.

If you’d like to try it yourself, this is a photo to demonstrate what I’m doing…

NOTE: This is not me:

Be gentle when you do it, and listen to your body. If you feel pain, stop. Be sure to not damage any nerves or burst any veins. Slow and steady has given me great results.