in case you missed it | Ode to the cassette

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Ode to the cassette

It was with great sadness that those of us who grew up with cassettes in the ’70s and ’80s learned that the Boulder Public Library will be phasing out its adult tape collection by mid-July.

Of course, our first reaction upon reading the press release was, “Wow, the library has a collection of adult tapes? Damn, wish I’d taken advantage of that for some background music between the sheets.”

Turns out that what they mean is that they will still have children’s books on cassette, since they remain popular. Books on tape for grown-ups, not so much.

Getting rid of them will free up more space for “higher-circulating CDs, DVDs and other media,” according to the release. They phased out music cassettes about 10 years ago. They’ll be selling what’s left of the “adult tapes” June 17-18 for a buck each at the main and Meadows branches.

Ah, it seems like just yesterday we were recording “One Night in Bangkok” onto cassette from our favorite FM radio station, then using a pencil to spool that thin film back into the cassette case when it got eaten by the player. The best was when we had to use Scotch tape to splice that thin, brown ribbon when it got mangled.

Once, we saved up for a dual-cassette player so that we could — gasp — record from tape to tape and make our own mixes from record or cassette.

Yeah, playlists are fine and all, and you can still make a mix on CD, but we wish someone would make us a tape mix again. Some of us still have cassette players in our cars to accommodate our iPod converter, dammit.

Maybe, someday, there will be a resurgence of the cassette tape, just like there has been with vinyl.

And, by God, we’re saving our boxes of eight-tracks and VHS tapes as well.

Homophobes turned on by gay sex

Sigmund Freud was dead wrong about penis envy, but it seems he was right on when he suggested that men who hate gays might actually be gay themselves.

A recent study from the Department of Psychology at University of Georgia at Athens found that homophobic men are aroused by watching gay porn, while non-homophobic men are not. The study quizzed men about their attitudes toward homosexuality. Based on those answers, the men were divided into two groups — those who were homophobic and those who were not.

The men then had their penises fixed with a device that measures sexual arousal — specifically penis circumference — and were shown short clips of people having sex. One video clip showed a heterosexual couple having sex, another a lesbian pair. Not surprisingly, all of the men in the study demonstrated sexual arousal while watching those clips. But when they were shown a short clip of two men having sex, only the homophobic men demonstrated sexual arousal.

Does that mean all homophobes are gay? Probably not. Human sexuality is too complex for sweeping generalizations.

However, it does seem to prove that homophobic men do experience homosexual arousal.

Apparently, their homophobia stems from their response to the little secret they’re carrying inside — that a little man-on-man action turns them on.

Too bad they waste their energy on fear and self-loathing rather than fighting for same-sex equality. The very movement they fight is the one that has the potential to set them free.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com