"Wow," replied Phillippe, 33. "That is so something I don't want to do."

Leno apologized after the uproar online: "In talking about Ryan's first role, I realize that what I said came out wrong," he said. "I certainly didn't mean any malice. I agree it was a dumb thing to say, and I apologize."

Sex educator Violet Blue has a message for Leno: homophobic tendencies are linked with homoerotic ones, according to a 1996 study by the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

"The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals ... The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire ... Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies."

The website "My Gayest Look," now hosts the video, and provides contact information at MSNBC. People "all over the world" are taking pictures of themselves posting their "gayest look" for Leno, Blue writes.

"I'm not saying that Leno's in the closet, but I will point out that there's 'something about Mary' that gives Leno enough of a woody to spout jokes that are insensitive, beyond poor taste, and just make him look out of step with the rest of culture, and applicable to an ever-thinning audience," Blue writes. "An audience that even at its most conservative, has a gay family member somewhere, and likely has more tolerance than he does.

"On the other hand," she continues, "if people like Leno want to cling to their ridiculing and homophobes want to imagine that Caligula lives down the street from me, that's kind of OK with me. I put Leno in the same category as the San Francisco cab driver who picked me up and started going off about the "filthy" homosexuals in the Castro; I asked him to pull over and, when safely out of his cab, I told him to never pick me up again. And the same category as those few people who, when I travel and I tell them I'm from San Francisco, express pity, or crack jokes, or ask if it's hard to find guys to date. Because of all the gays."

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, where her op-ed appeared, "Violet Blue is author and editor of nearly two dozen sexual health books and erotica collections. She is a professional sex educator, lecturer, podcaster, blogger, vlogger, porn/erotica reviewer and machine artist. She has written for outlets ranging from Forbes.com to O, The Oprah Magazine."