In the 2004 gay comedy Eating Out, a straight guy pretends to be gay to win his girlfriend — with the additional complication that his girlfriend then tries to fix him up with a gay boyfriend. Eating Out 2, billed as “the first American gay sequel ever,” also features masked identities and lots of gay/straight sexual interaction in its plot.

But Eating Out 2, like its predecessor, would be better suited as a TV sitcom. It's really just a soft-core gay porn Will & Grace clone. Its two lead females are combinations of Karen and Grace, and all the male characters are just horny Jacks running around.

As Eating Out 2 begins, openly gay boyfriends Kyle (American Idol's Jim Verraros) and Marc (Brett Chukerman) have split up over the issue of Marc's flirtatious behavior with other guys. (Ryan Carnes played Marc in the original before going on to bigger things with Desperate Housewives.) Enter Troy (Marco Dapper), the new hot stud and nude model on campus. Despite the ease with which he drops his pants in front of anyone that asks, drop-dead-handsome Troy is fresh-off-the-farm naïve and unsure of his own sexual orientation — which of course is a turn-on. The character of Troy functions as a gay male version of the classic dumb-blonde Marilyn Monroe type.

Kyle and Marc — who are now competing against each other as single guys — both fall for Troy, and Kyle thinks the best way to get into Troy's pants is to feign straightness. In his ruse as a heterosexual, Kyle joins the local campus ex-gay movement, which is headed by closet-case buff twink Jacob (Scott Vickaryous).

Meanwhile, in his own quest to bed Troy, Marc opts for the total out gay approach.

In their separate schemes, Kyle and Marc both enlist their trusty fag-hag girlfriends Gwen (Emily Brooke Hands) and Tiffani (Rebeka Kochan), who also appeared in Eating Out.

Eating Out 2 includes minor walk-on roles for a whole ensemble of trouser-dropping, Calvin Klein-type gay cuties. Comic relief is further attempted via the character roles of the portly, effeminate, ever-lisping art professor, Neil (Michael Serrato); Kyle's doting mom, Helen (veteran actress Mink Stole, who gained underground fame for her roles in the early John Waters films); Jacob's anti-gay, bigoted mom, Linda (Sarah Lilly); and token one-liner spewing lesbian, Violet (Jessie Gold).

Virtually every scene in Eating Out 2 opens with, gravitates toward or finishes with some kind of soft-core gay sex. Shirts (usually tank tops) and pants (usually gym shorts) come on or off approximately every two to three minutes during the 85-minute film. Much more directorial care, camera work, lighting, makeup and acting effort is put into the disrobing and “ain't my body hot” posing scenes than into any other dramatic or comedic aspect of the film.

Eating Out 2's director and writer, Phillip J. Bartel, previously directed two short films, Crush (2000) and L.T.R. (2003). Eating Out 2's co-writer and producer, Q. Allan Brocka, who wrote and directed the films Eating Out and Boy Culture, is also behind the popular short film Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World (1999).

Except for the above-mentioned comic-relief roles, every character in the film engages in sex at least once. Although the film is about college students and takes place on a university campus, the only nonsexual settings are an art class (oops — which quickly becomes sex-related via stripping nude models) and the meetings of the “Coming-In” ex-gay group (oops again — which quickly devolve into comic sex situations).

But though there is some brief, soft-core nudity and sex in this film, there is nothing that would be considered graphic. It's mostly just a lot of shirtless, gym-body guys posing … and posing again … and posing again, intermingled with a stream of sexual sight-gags.

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