CLASSY GAY STUFF

OUT ACTORS | Britain's 81% of artists

2012-01-26T23:02:00.000-05:00

UK Survey: 81% of Actors Open About Their Sexuality
---- brief excerpts from an article by Stephen Gray in Pink News (UK), 26 January 2012 :-

"In a new survey of the acting industry, eight in ten actors said they were ‘out’ professionally and three quarters of respondents said the decision to come out had not hindered their career. The poll of 326 actors was carried out by Equity, the union for actors, stage managers and models and published in The Stage today.
81% of respondents said they were openly gay in their professional life, and 94% were open to performers they are working with. But 43% said they would not be so open talking to their agent. ....
.... Rupert Everett, who starred in My Best Friend’s Wedding, has suggested that his career was damaged by coming out in the 1990s. In 2009, he told the Observer: “The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business. “It just doesn't work and you’re going to hit a brick wall at some point. .... "
.... Other stars, including Cutting It’s Ben Daniels, have rejected Everett’s comments. .... “There are actors I know who won’t come out, and I can see it crippling them as human beings. It’s a great shame that people can’t be who they are in the 21st century, and people won’t let them be who they are.”
---- see more of this candid article by Stephen Gray at pinknews.com at :-
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/01/26/uk-survey-81-of-gay-actors-open-about-sexuality/

"ZENNE DANCER" | Cool Gay Movie

2012-01-25T18:11:00.000-05:00

Turkish film highlights gay honor killing
---- excerpts from a news report by Susan Fraser (AP) at chron.com (Texas, US), 25 January 2012 :-

"ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Shortly after telling his parents he was gay, Ahmet Yildiz was gunned down inside his car by his father in Istanbul. It was Turkey's first officially recognized gay "honor killing."

An award-winning film partly inspired by Yildiz's story, which opened in dozens of cinemas across Turkey last week, is putting the spotlight on gays in a Muslim country that is seeking European Union membership but remains influenced by conservative and religious values.

The film "Zenne Dancer" — or male belly dancer — is not the nation's first gay-themed movie but is the first to explore the little-known phenomenon of men killed by family members for being gay. So-called honor killings in Turkey usually target women accused of disgracing the family. ....

.... "Zenne Dancer" won four awards at Turkey's coveted Antalya Golden Orange film festival this year, including best First Film and Best Cinematography. Erkan Avci, who plays Yildiz's character, won Best Supporting Actor. ....

.... Gay honor killings are believed to be common in Turkey's conservative heartland. But Yildiz's murder was the first in Turkey to be reported by authorities as a gay honor killing. .... Zenne dancing itself harks back to the Ottoman Empire, a time when there was a degree of tolerance toward gay sex among some sectors of the elite. .... "Zenne Dancer" is currently showing in 50 cinemas in 16 out of Turkey's 81 provinces. .... "

---- see more of Susan Fraser's disturbing insight into Turkish society at chron.com (The Houston Chronicle) at :-

http://www.chron.com/news/article/Turkish-film-highlights-gay-honor-killing-2681968.php
---- plus check the movie's English subtitled trailer in the sidebar & another news report at :-
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/watch-trailer-for-zenne-the-controversial-gay-honor-killing-film-thats-challenging-turkey.php

HEAVENLY MOZART with a gay twist ...

2012-01-24T21:14:00.000-05:00

Gay DON GIOVANNI To Premiere at Heaven (London)
Mozart's famous opera given a new lease of life for London gay audience
---- excerpts from a post by Callum Ross at Gay Star News (UK), 24 January 2012 :-

"A gay version of Mozart;s opera Don Giovanni will premier at London's Heaven nightclub this April.
Directed by Dominic Gray and produced by Richard Crichton, the new production sees Don Giovanni as a playboy nightclub owner in a setting inspired by New York's infamous Studio 54.
In an additional twist, the roles of all singers will be reversed: sopranos will become tenors while baritones will become mezzos in order to demonstrate 'the harmonic genius of Mozart'.
The creative team behind the production first brought their idea to life in 2009 when they performed the final scene of the opera's first act on the main stage at Trafalgar Square during London's Pride festival. They will now premier the full opera at Heaven, the British capital's most famous gay club, followed by six additional shows in June for World Pride 2012."
---- read the announcement by Callum Ross at the Gay Star News site at :-
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/gay-don-giovanni-premier-heaven
---- see the accompanying video clip in the right sidebar, & see the bookings & info details at the opera's official site at :-http://www.dongiovannitheopera.com/index.html

The Straight & Narrow ...

2012-01-22T16:34:00.000-05:00

The Invention of the Heterosexual

The history of straightness is much shorter than you think. An expert explains its origins.

---- very brief excerpts from a substantial article by Thomas Rogers, Salon's Deputy Arts Editor, at Salon.com (US), 23 January 2012 :-

" .... Hanne Blank’s partner is neither fully male, nor fully female; he was born with an unconventional set of chromosomes, XXY, that provide him with both male genitalia and feminine characteristics. As a result, Blank’s partner has been mistaken for a gay woman, a straight man, a transman — and their relationship has been classified as gay, straight and everything in between. Blank mentions her personal story at the beginning of her provocative new history of heterosexuality, “Straight,” as a way of illustrating just how artificial our notions of “straightness” really are. In her book, Blank, a writer and historian who has written extensively about sexuality and culture, looks at the ways in which social trends and the rise of psychiatry conspired to create this new category in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Along the way, she examines the changing definition of marriage, which evolved from a businesslike agreement into a romantic union centered around love, and how social Darwinist ideas shaped the divisions between gay and straight. With her eye-opening book, Blank tactfully deconstructs a facet of modern sexuality that most of us take for granted. ....
.... “Heterosexual” was actually coined in a letter at the same time as the word “homosexual,” [in the mid-19thcentury], by an Austro-Hungarian journalist named Károly Mária Kertbeny. He created these words as part of his response to a piece of Prussian legislation that made same-sex erotic behavior illegal, even in cases where the identical act performed by a man and a woman would be considered legal. And he was one of a couple of people who did a lot of writing and campaigning and pamphleteering to try to change legal opinion on that matter. He coined the words “heterosexual” and “homosexual” in a really very clever bid to try to equalize same-sex and different-sex. His intent was to suggest that there are these two categories in which human beings could be sexual, that they were not part of a hierarchy, that they were just two different flavors of the same thing. .... "
---- see more of this article's fascinating history of a phenomenon which contemporary culture is only beginning to properly understand and adapt to. The full Thomas Roger interview with Hanne Blank can be found at Salon.com at :-
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/22/the_invention_of_the_heterosexual/

TOLKIEN, DOYLE, HAGGARD, & the value of fantasy ...

2012-01-21T20:49:00.000-05:00

There And Back again ... how writer's fictional worlds have colonized real life

---- brief excerpts from a substantial essay by Tom Shippey at The Wall Street Journal, 21 January 2011 :- "In "As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality," a historical and cultural study of fiction fandom, Michael Saler counterpunches vigorously against the whole edifice of literary snobbery. What he has to say is so self-evidently right that the fact he has to say it makes one wonder how the critical profession has managed, for so long, to cultivate such a large blind spot. His book should be essential reading in every graduate school of the humanities. But it's much more fun than that recommendation suggests. Mr. Saler's contention is that, as the developed world has grown more rational, progressive, secular, and "disenchanted" since the Industrial Revolution, the dominant reaction, among the literary intelligentsia, has been to withdraw into "inner consciousness," to proclaim "art for art's sake," to scorn and reject mere shallow entertainment. .... Most readers, though, weren't fooled. They went along with the joke out of a sense of fun—and then they started to join in. The "first fictional creation that adults openly embraced as real," Mr. Saler argues, was Sherlock Holmes. By the 1930s people had produced biographies, chronologies of his adventures, speculations about his private life and Dr. Watson's and—continuing right up to now—many sequels and continuations. Conan Doyle had made it easy for them by leaving so many loose ends, and building in so many provocative allusions ....Tolkien, similarly, was an English "essentialist"—he believed that there were English qualities bred in the bone or rooted in the soil, which is unlikely, to say the least. This last belief, however, was no obstacle at all for millions of non-English readers world-wide. Mr. Saler notes that they were given a lead by Tolkien's own characters: Treebeard, Aragorn, Gandalf and even Shagrat the orc all accept that there may be different stories and different interpretations. "

---- see more of Tom Shippey's account of Michael Saler's literary critique of "AS IF" at The Wall Street Journal at :- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409004577156860068204638.html?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_8

EDMUND WHITE on sex & death ...

2012-01-17T20:15:00.001-05:00

Sex & Death Are Two Great Subjects for Literature
---- very brief excerpts from a revealing interview with US author Edmund White at Metro.co (UK), 17 January 2012 :-

  Edmund White has had 3,000 lovers and, at 72, shows no signs of slowing down. The author tells Metro about his latest, lusciously grubby, novel Jack Holmes And His Friend.
  Edmund White is not the thing to read on public transport. His new novel, Jack Holmes And His Friend, is about a platonic friendship between two men but it still has enough descriptions of the male anatomy, man-on-man sex and man-on-woman sex to make one blush like a rose. It’s embarrassing. It’s also amazing. White’s lusciously grubby prose takes your breath away. Of course, White – just turned 72 but as frisky as a man half his age – doesn’t do blushing. ....
.... Jack Holmes And His Friend begins in the early 1960s with young Jack arriving from the Midwest, as young White did, in a New York on the cusp of an explosive permissiveness .... As the dark, sexual furtiveness of that decade gives way to the ecstasy of the 1970s and the Aids terror of the 1980s, Jack has a fantastic number of lovers before eventually – like White – settling down.
  White writes frequently about his own life: with a luridly dysfunctional childhood and a lifetime spent ricocheting between the seedier bars of New York and Paris and their respective literary salons, he’s had plenty of material for two memoirs and the loosely autobiographical sequence of novels that began with A Boy’s Own Story in 1982. Yet, despite the similarities, he insists Jack isn’t based on him. ‘For a start, he’s much better looking than me. And, of course, he has this extraordinary endowment.’ That laugh again. Jack, you see, is hung like a horse. .... "

---- read more of this candid interview at the Metro.co site at :-
http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/887539-edmund-white-sex-and-death-are-two-great-subjects-for-literature

Fearful Faggots? ...

2012-01-17T00:48:00.001-05:00

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?
---- brief excerpts from an opinion piece at the ever-interesting & stylish Band Of Thebes (US) site, 16 January 2012 :-

"As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into 'straight-acting dudes hangin’ out,' what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?"
Who wouldn't want 232 pages exploring the downside of gay mainstreaming? The subject is so crucial I wish the entire book was written by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, but I'm still intrigued by the anthology she's pulled together. Reviewing Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform, PW said, "A distinctive collection of essays by gay and transgender activists, performance artists, and scholars embraces the subversive aspects of queer identity and rails against its “sanitized, straight-friendly version.”
.... Just as the battle for LGBTQ civil rights continues, these essays—alternately moving and sprightly, contemplative and outraged—display the power of presenting an alternative to the mainstream: a world of greater tolerance, acceptance, support, and creativity. .... "
---- see the entire essay commenting upon Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? at Band Of Thebes at :- http://bandofthebes.typepad.com/bandofthebes/2012/01/index.html

ROMAN HISTORY moves ahead ...

2012-01-15T20:36:00.000-05:00

(For this site's history aficionados ... )

Roman Helmet puts History on its Head
---- brief excerpts from a substantial archaeological news report by Ernest Gill at Archaeology Headlines, 16 January 2012 :-
"This amazing 2,000-year-old Roman helmet has been lovingly restored by experts at the British Museum who say that it could turn the history of Roman rule in Britain on its head, so to speak.
When archaeologists unearthed it in 2001, at a spot in Hallaton, England, where hundreds of Roman and Iron Age coins had been found the year before, they initially joked they had found a rusty bucket. But the discovery turned out to be one of the most significant Roman finds ever made in Britain.
Lifted out of the field in a mud block and pieced together from hundreds of fragments like the world's most expensive and delicate 3-D jigsaw puzzle, the helmet was painstakingly restored before finally being unveiled at a news conference at the British Museum.
It is the only Roman helmet found in Britain with the majority of the silver-gilt plating surviving, and one of only a handful ever discovered. It is also among the oldest Roman helmets ever found in Britain.
But the most extraordinary thing of all is the fact that the helmet was discovered at the burial site of a British tribal chieftain. The experts believe it could transform our understanding of the Roman conquest of Britannia.
.... It is difficult to put a price on the helmet, but in 2010 a bronze Roman helmet with face mask was sold for $3 million at Christie's.... "
---- see Ernest Gill's full report at his interesting Archaeology Headlines site at :-
http://www.antinopolis.org/hernestus/archaeologyheadlines.html

GAME OF THRONES continues from April ...

2012-01-14T19:03:00.003-05:00

GAME OF THRONES opens Season Two

---- excerpts from a media report by Pietro Filipponi at the Daily Blam site, 13 January 2012 :-

Popular HBO (USA) tv-series GAME OF THRONES kicks off its ten-episode second season Sunday, April 1 (9:00-10:00 p.m.) in the USA. [Season Two begins in other global markets soon after.]
Based on the popular book series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” by George R.R. Martin, this hit Emmy®-winning fantasy series chronicles an epic struggle for power in a vast and violent fantasy kingdom. Among the returning members of the ensemble cast are Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Emmy® winner Peter Dinklage, Michelle Fairley, Lena Headey and Kit Harington. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss executive produce.
New cast additions for season two include Stephen Dillane (John Adams, King Arthur) as Stannis Baratheon and Carice van Houten (Repo Men) as Melisandre. More additions include Liam Cunningham (Camelot) as the onion knight Davos, Natalie Dormer (The Tudors) as Margaery Tyrell, Gwendoline Christie as the knight Brienne, Nonso Anozie as a merchant prince, Tom Wlaschiha as the assassin Jaqen H'gar, Andy Beckwith as Rorge, Roy Dotrice as a pyromancer, Michael McElhatton as Roose, Robert Pugh as Craster, Hannah Murray as Gilly, Oona Chaplin as Jeyne, Patrick Malahide as Balon Greyjoy, Ian Hanmore as a Warlock, Daniel Portman as a squire and Gemma Whelan as the axe wielding Yara Greyjoy.
.... As the series opens, additional threats from the snow and ice covered region north of Westeros and from the eastern continent across a narrow sea are simultaneously beginning to rise.
---- this second series opens in other tv markets soon after. Check the original Daily Blam report at :-.
http://www.dailyblam.com/news/2012/01/13/hbo-sets-april-1st-premiere-for-game-of-thrones-
season-two
---- & view the series' teaser trailer & production doco in the right sidebar.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR on feminist approaches to history ...

2012-01-13T23:54:00.000-05:00

"We need to transcend our sex and station in life to evolve" - Simone De Beauvoir

---- the opening pars from a substantial interview about the publishing of a new translation of "The Second Sex" into English, posted at Tehelka.com (India), Saturday 14 January 2012 :-

Iconic feminist and existentialist philosopher Simone De Beauvoir's The Second Sex has been on the reading list or, at least, occupying aspirational space on many a humanities student’s bookshelf. Turns out that the version we know—the one that was translated in 1953 into English by Howard M Parshley, a male zoologist in his fifties, didn’t have 15% of the text. The American publisher Knopf told Parshley that the original was too “verbose”. After several decades in 2006, Knopf once again commissioned Sheila Malovany Chevallier and Constance Borde, American professors who have lived in France for 40 years, to put the ‘philosopher’ back into Beauvoir’s iconic contribution to feminist thought.

The new translation of The Second Sex, published in 2009, has thoughts about feminist history and additions in the chapter “The Married Woman” that were left out of the first translated edition. In conversation with Yamini Deenadayalan and Bhamati Sivapalan in Delhi, the duo spoke about the attempts to gender sensitize language, why Sarah Palin is allowed to call herself a feminist, and why Beauvoir is ever so relevant in 2012.

Q: The first translation in English was by Howard Parshley— a zoologist in his 50s. How much of its language was gendered, and what portions were edited?
"Ironically, it was the history chapter where the book was edited most. Beauvoir was looking at feminist ways to approach history. It is true that women were left out of history books. We’ve now discovered incredible women writers who wrote during the slavery era in the US, for example. It was so interesting to go back to the original texts De Beauvoir cited from. Historically, women played roles as generals of armies. They did so many amazing things in society. I don’t think that the publishers oversaw every single cut. However, the hypothesis looks to be that it was not only Parshley’s decision to cut out these parts but also the editors. Also, it was the intellectual parts that were cut out. There was too much philosophy and maybe the American public couldn’t deal with the complexities. There was a toning down and simplification. .... "
---- see the full interview at Tehelka.com at :-
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=Ws120112Books.asp

JAMES DEAN hots up the screen again ...

2012-01-13T00:35:00.000-05:00

James Dean's Sexuality Isn't Whitewashed: JOSHUA TREE 1951
---- a post at Queerty (USA), 13 January 2012 :-

"Matthew Mishory’s Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean presents the actor before he became the toast of Hollywood with films like Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. Focusing on Dean’s experiences as a rising star in Los Angeles, the film’s dreamlike vignettes blend real and fictional elements to get at the core of this brief but indelible icon. And it doesn’t shy away from Dean’s alleged bisexuality. Heck the thing looks like a mash-up between a Gus Van Sant movie and a Bruce Weber commercial!
Though a distribution deal hasn’t been announced, Joshua Tree has some good pedigree: James Preston (ABC’s The Gates) plays Dean, with The L Word‘s Erin Daniels and out Queer as Folk actor Robert Gant in supporting roles, costumes by Emmy nominee Rob Saduski and a musical score by Steven Severin (of Siouxsie and the Banshees fame). Look for it in theaters later this year."
---- see this & other gay-friendly items at Queerty.com's daily news & opinion site of :-
http://www.queerty.com/watch-joshua-tree-1951-doesnt-whitewash-james-deans-sexuality-20120112/
---- & check the trailer for Matthew Mishory's JOSHUA TREE 1951 in the right-sidebar. The movie will open in France in August, with other global markets to follow.

POPE BENEDICT SPEAKS ...

2012-01-11T23:49:00.001-05:00

Pope Benedict: Same-sex marriage 'threatens humanity'
---- brief extracts from a news report by Phil Reese at the Washington Blade (USA), 10 Janury 2012 :-

Pope Benedict XVI used his Monday ‘State of the World’ address to condemn efforts around the world to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples, calling same-sex marriage a threat to “human dignity and the future of humanity itself.’ .... “Pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and woman,” the leader of the 1.3-billion member Roman Catholic Church said.
“This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself,” he told the crowd of 180 diplomats gathered in the Vatican. ....
.... According to Reuters, Benedict has been effective in attracting dissatisfied conservatives from other denominations into the Catholic Church, including Anglicans and Episcopalians whose traditions, core beliefs, structure of worship service, and hierarchical leadership structure mirrors that of the Catholic Church. .... "
---- see Phil Reese's entire report at the Washington Blade site at :-
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/01/10/pope-benedict-same-sex-marriage-threatens-humanity/
---- and a similar report at the Irish Central (USA) site at :-
http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/catholics-bashing-gays-again--pope-says-they-threaten-the-future-of-humanity-137085143.html
---- check too the innovative, contradicting tv commercial for Renault cars USA in the right-sidebar.

FUTURE SEX - The forthcoming promise ...

2012-01-10T18:42:00.003-05:00

Future Sex - Beyond Gay & Straight
---- selected excerpts from an opinion-piece by activist Peter Tatchell (UK) in Pink News.com, 10 January 2010 :-

" .... As homophobia diminishes and as future societies eventually embrace a post-homophobic culture, how will this transition to equality, dignity, understanding and acceptance affect the expression of sexuality? .... We already know, thanks to a host of sex surveys, that bisexuality is a fact of life and that even in narrow-minded, homophobic cultures, many people have a sexuality that is, to varying degrees, capable of both heterosexual and homosexual attraction. It is also apparent that same-sex relations flourish, albeit often temporarily, in single-sex institutions like schools, prisons and the armed forces – which suggests that sexuality might be more flexible than many people assume. ....
.... Research by Dr Alfred Kinsey in the USA during the 1940s was the first major statistical evidence that gay and straight are not watertight, irreconcilable and mutually exclusive sexual orientations. He found that human sexuality is, in fact, a continuum of desires and behaviours, ranging from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. A substantial proportion of the population shares an amalgam of same-sex and opposite-sex feelings – even if they do not act on them. ....
.... A British sex survey, conducted by ICM for The Observer newspaper in 2008, found that 16% of women reported sexual contact with a woman, and 10% of men said they’d had sexual contact with another man. The survey revealed a trend to greater sexual experimentation, with 23% of 16 to 24 year olds indicating that they had a same-sex experience. All these figures are much higher than the number of people who are exclusively gay or lesbian and who define themselves as such. ....
.... In Patterns of Sexual Behaviour (1965), they noted that certain forms of homosexuality were considered normal and acceptable in 49 (nearly two-thirds) of 76 tribal societies surveyed from the 1920s to the 1950s.
.... As we evolve into a sexually enlightened and accepting society, homosexuality and heterosexuality will begin to fade as separate, exclusive orientations and identities. The vast majority of people will be open to the possibility of both opposite-sex and same-sex desires, regardless of whether they act upon them. .... "
---- see more of this well-argued opinion by Peter Tatchell at Pink News at :-
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/01/10/comment-future-sex-beyond-gay-and-straight/
---- see too the outcome of a "Sex Uncovered" poll among British readers of The Guardian in 2008 at :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/26/relationships

CARY GRANT ... a fond remembrance

2012-01-09T19:02:00.000-05:00

The Top Ten Cary Grant Movies, by Farr
---- introductory excerpts from a review of actor Cary Grant's prolific career, by John Farr, Editor at bestmoviesbyfarr.com, & HuffPost Entertainment, 9 January 2011 :-

Next week marks the 108th anniversary of Cary Grant's birth. Have people forgotten Cary Grant? He's been gone a quarter of a century now, and his last movie was made forty-five years ago. Personally, I don't believe so. He was too good, too much of an original to fade away from our collective consciousness. What made him so special?
For one thing, he managed to appeal in equal measure to both men and women: women for all the evident reasons, men because he flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Though possessed of an almost feminine beauty and grace, he still managed to project masculinity, brains, and most importantly, humor.
When an interviewer gushed to the star that everyone wanted to be Cary Grant, he famously replied, "So would I." ....
.... The following ten films represent my top ten "desert island" Cary Grant picks. In anticipation of sampling some of these ageless features, let's wish Archie Leach [his original name - GG] a happy birthday, and thank him profusely for giving us Cary Grant, a character who will remain forever young, vital and real. .... "
---- see John Car's choice of ten Cary Grant movies from 1937 to 1963 which display the smooth Cary Grant style to perfection at :-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-farr/for-his-upcoming-birthday_b_1194423.html

GAY SECRETS to arouse the masses ...

2012-01-07T22:37:00.000-05:00

The Secrets Gay Men Don't Want Straight People To Know
---- excerpts from the opening pars of a provocative, hilarious, terrifyingly-candid opinion piece likely to knock your socks off, by Brian Moylan at gawker.com, 6 January 2012. Even though this extract has been sanitized, don't say you weren't warned :-

"That's right, there are all sorts of secrets that Ted and Ned, the nice gay couple next door to you with the matching BMWs and the prim sweater sets aren't telling you, probably starting with the reason they have those bolts in the ceiling of the "den" (It's for the sling and "den" is gay for "sex room"). Now, it's time to let the straights in on some of our dirty little secrets. Let's see if you still like us after this. Yes, I don't speak for all of the homosexuals, but, come on, queen, try to tell me this isn't true! ....
Bottoming Is Fun
There, I said it. Bottoming is f-----g great. Yes, it hurts every time. Yes it is sometimes messy, but it is always f-----g worth it. There are lots of guys who only like to bottom. There are lots of couples that are both bottoms and they take turns begrudingly topping. There are also lots of tops who only like to top. Topping is fun too. But if topping is like a merry-go-round, then bottoming is like the best f-----g roller coaster you've ever been on in your life. The weird thing is "power bottom" isn't just some stupid straight boy insult, the gays use it too. There's some sort of shame about being a bottom, like it makes us less manly and that straight people won't take us seriously. That is probably true, but those feelings are wrapped in all this hetero-normative, patriarchal b/s that straight society has thrust upon us, and we hate you for making us feel bad about something that is better than chasing a million dragons. And, yes, straight guys, let your lady stick a finger up there sometime, and you'll know what I'm talking about. I promise not to make you feel like less of a man for it. .... "
---- Brian Moylan has another five-or-so pages of these eye-opener revelations at gawker.com, so click through - but make sure you come back here afterwards, even if shell-shocked :-
http://gawker.com/5873476/the-secrets-gay-men-dont-want-straight-people-to-know

"TWILIGHT's" secret messages? ...

2012-01-07T18:56:00.001-05:00

Tapping Unconscious Themes Underlies Twilight Popularity
---- brief excerpts from an extensive, informative article by Mark Moran at Psychiatric News (USA), 6 January 2012 :-
A prominent goal of Twilight seems to be promoting sex abstinence. The lead characters do not consummate their love out of fear of the deadly consequences of sex.
.... The book series, called Twilight, comprises four romance novels by American Stephanie Meyer about a teenage girl named Bella Swan who falls in love with a 104-year-old vampire named Edward Cullen. The books have sold over 100 million copies worldwide and have been turned into four movies grossing over $2 billion; the most recent, “Twilight: Breaking Dawn,” came to world theaters in November 2011. Anything that popular must be tapping into something really meaningful to the young people (or their parents) who are paying for it. ....

The four novels and movies tell a classic fantasy romance story involving a more likable sort of vampire than older moviegoers may recall from the Bram Stoker days; vampires in Twilight have no fangs and drink animal blood as a substitute for killing humans (see Vampires 101 for a story synopsis). ....

In an article in Academic Psychiatry titled “Shedding Light on Women’s Response to Twilight,” Glen Gabbard, M.D., and Jennifer Milone, M.D., examined the psychodynamic themes that are attracting girls and women to the series and suggest that Twilight and other forms of popular culture can vividly illuminate the desires, hopes, and fears of patients in therapy. ....

Milone emphasized that in Twilight, Edward and other vampires lack fangs, which have been viewed as phallic symbols. “A lot of adolescents can identify with the conflict of wanting to be sexual and at the same time being afraid of its potentially deadly consequences,” she said.

The abstinence message may seem like a welcome anomaly to parents who assume that popular culture is ubiquitously telling their children something entirely different. .... "

---- see the entire provocative Mark Moran article at the Psychiatric News site at :-

http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsArticle.aspx?journalid=61&articleid=181249

The Gay Sex Embargo ...

2012-01-04T21:44:00.000-05:00

Why Does Hollywood Hate Gay Sex?
---- brief excerpts from a substantial report by Ramin Setoodeh at The Daily Beast, 4 January 2012 :-
If you’ve seen any of the high-profile gay-themed movies from 2011—from Beginners to J. Edgar—you may have noticed they have one thing in common: the gay sex takes place in the dark (or not at all). Ramin Setoodeh interviews actors, directors, and writers to find out why gay sex is the last taboo in Hollywood.
".... If you can’t name any great love scenes between two men in hit films or TV shows in 2011, it’s because there weren’t any. Last summer, Justin Timberlake experienced all the benefits in Friends With Benefits, while his gay pal (played by Woody Harrelson) was sidelined. On Glee, Kurt finally lost his virginity to his boyfriend—off camera, to the frustration of many of the show’s fans. When Christopher Plummer came out of the closet in Beginners, he signaled the occasion by wearing purple (his younger boyfriend hovered in the background). Leonardo DiCaprio’s J. Edgar had a hot male companion (Armie Hammer), but he exchanged only a single kiss with him.

The film’s screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for his Milk screenplay, says that a love scene would have been too revisionist historically. “I certainly didn’t want to see J. Edgar doing it,” says Black, who is gay. “In the 1930s, oftentimes, a loving relationship with gay men was never consummated.” .... Though gay marriage is now more accepted across the United States, the industry is driven by tickets sold to straight men. That’s why lesbian sex gets a pass: when Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis spend a steamy night together in Black Swan, it helps sell tickets. There’s no similar financial bump attached to gay male intercourse .... " (2 pages)
---- see more of this well-informed 2-page survey of the market mechanisms of sex in the cinema at :-

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/04/why-does-hollywood-hate-gay-sex.html

Elton John Chooses Justin ...

2012-01-03T01:32:00.001-05:00

Justin Timberlake is Elton John's No.1 Choice
---- a brief excerpt from a news report by Jethro Nededog in The Hollywood Reporter, 2 January 2012 :-
" .... Elton John says that a biopic based on his life is still in the works and fans should watch for an announcement “very soon.” But, when it comes to casting the most important role in the film, John knows exactly who should step into his bedazzled shoes.
"I've got a wish list of people,” the singer tells the L.A. Times after it asked who should play him in the planned film. “No. 1 on my wish list is Justin Timberlake, because he played me before in a David LaChapelle video of ‘Rocket Man’ and was superb.” John says the film will feature songs from his career and possibly a few new ones. .... "
---- see more of Jethro Nededog's report at The Hollywood Reporter at :-
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/elton-john-wants-justin-timberlake-for-biopic-277332?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thr%2Ffilm+%28The+Hollywood+Reporter+-+Movies%29
---- see too the classy video clip of Elton John's "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore" in the sidebar, where Justin Timberlake dons the Elton persona, to see if you agree Justin plays a 'good Elton'?
---- a further YouTube video of Elton's "Rocket Man" with Justin standing-in for Elton can be viewed at :-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKHzrpMYp-0

TONY AWARDS lead the way in 2011 ...

2012-01-01T21:21:00.000-05:00

Best Gay Cultural Moments of 2011
Tony Awards, Glee, Lady Gaga, Chaz Bono & More
---- the introduction to a 13-page slide-show at the innovative HuffPost Gay Voices section of The Huffington Post, 30 December 2011 :-

"Hit tv shows like "Glee" had us on the edge of our seats, while Lady Gaga kept us dancing until dawn, and the heartbreaking climax of the British dramedy "Weekend" made us reach for our handkerchiefs. And while not cultural moments per se, we were more than happy to welcome "Star Trek" hunk Zachary Quinto to our team this fall, and Chaz Bono helped make the transgender community more visible than ever with his "Dancing With The Stars" turn.
More:- it wasn't the first time the "How I Met Your Mother" actor Neil Patrick Harris hosted the Tony Awards -- he also emceed the show in 2009 -- but his show-stopping opening number, which reminds us that Broadway is "not just for gays anymore," was both breathtaking and laugh-out-loud funny.
---- Check it in the video in the opposite sidebar, & plus Lady Gaga's resounding solo anthem version of "Born This Way" at Rome's summertime EuroPride 2011. Then take a look at some of HuffPost Gay Voices' choices for the best gay cultural moments of 2011 at :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/30/best-gay-cultural-moments_n_1175804.html?ref=mostpopular

Tinsel Town Deceptions? ...

2012-01-01T01:04:00.000-05:00

Beware Hollywood Memoirs : They're Dull & Overated
Former publisher Michael Korda says that rarely does a movie star deliver a revealing, honest, or even readable memoir—and tells stories of trying to get Laurence Olivier, Glenn Ford, and others to write their tales.
---- the introductory pars from best-selling author Michael Korda's view of a popular genre - the Hollywood memoir - at The Daily Beast (US), 27 December 2011 :-
"Much of my publishing life was consumed by the memoirs of movie stars—or by attempts to get them to write a memoir. These days I wonder why. With rare exceptions, it was usually not a happy or rewarding experience. Being a movie star is a demanding and well-paid job, of course, but it does not necessarily mean that the person himself (or herself) is particularly interesting, or has any deep insight or gift for self-analysis. Book publishers are always asking, “Will he [or she] tell the truth?” as if that were a simple question, but when it comes to people who have spent their whole working lives creating images of themselves that can be sold to the public, often one which their private lives would contradict, the idea that they will suddenly put “the truth” about their lives, whatever it may be, onto paper, is unlikely. Surrounded by high-paid publicity people and professional ego massagers, movie stars, like politicians, almost invariably come to believe that they are nicer, more charming, and more beloved than they appear to be to a casual observer, and that their stories about their careers are universally fascinating. .... As Laurence Olivier once replied, when asked what the most important thing for an actor to know was, “Why, how to get off stage so they want to see you come back again, of course.” Baring one’s soul isn’t necessarily part of the job description.... "
---- see more of this extended & fascinating survey of the peccadilloes of Hollywood stars in 'telling all' about their feelings & experiences at The Daily Beast at :-
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/27/beware-hollywood-memoirs-they-re-dull-and-overrated.html

2011's Hottest TV Hottie? ...

2011-12-30T01:38:00.005-05:00

The Hottest Heroes of 2011
---- Classy Gay Stuff's end-of-the-year festive excerpt is taken from a perceptive summary of movie & tv hotties by Jase Peeples at Gay.Net.com, 29 December 2011. Among the eleven hotties identified by Jase Peeples is :-

Green Arrow (Justin Hartley) Smallville
"With eye candy like Justin Hartley as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow it isn’t hard to see why Smallville was the longest running superhero series of all time. Hartley was one of the main reasons Smallville’s gay fan base grew by leaps and single bounds in show’s later seasons. The creative forces behind this series (thankfully) didn’t have any problems exploiting Justin’s flawless physique. From being tied naked to a chair and tortured by villains, (seriously!), to sessions of shirtless yoga in Oliver’s office, Hartley was featured in so many scantily-clad scenes some episodes of Smallville border on the edge of soft-core porn. And with the full series now available as a single box set you can watch Hartley’s hottest moments any time you want."
---- Along with Tom Welling and others, the stars of Smallville have achieved a style of visual appeal rarely achieved in a tv series. Mr. Hartley here shows the smooth-toned physique many of his viewers would greatly wish to emulate or lustily pursue.
---- See a collage of clips in the sidebar video displaying Hartley's acting skills and richly-detailed characterization at :-
http://www.gay.net/movies/2011/12/29/hottest-heroes-2011 with many thanks to Jase Peeples at Gay.Net.com;
---- or read about the availability of the box set of the series at :-
http://www.gay.net/tv/2011/12/16/smallville-complete-series-packs-superpowered-punch

COOL LGBT MOVIE CHARACTERS IN 2011 ...

2011-12-27T23:52:00.000-05:00

In this final week of the year lists of favorites become popular media hole-fillers. Here is one from the excellent gay news site Towleroad ....

Best LGBT Characters of 2011
---- very brief excerpts from four choices in a Top Ten list at Towleroad (UK), 22 December 2011 :-
So herewith a list of the best LGBT movie characters of this past year in film. Tis the season of...list making. .... here are three of the ten ...
08. EVERYONE in X-Men: First Class
Mutants are... different, feared, ridiculed. It's a metaphor, see? Or at least it was a few films ago. Magneto (Michael Fassbender) may have bedded Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) in this reboot but it was his BFF Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) who he kept locking eyes with.
07. PETER GUILLAUME (Benedict Cumberbatch) in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Cumberbatch's nerve-wracked spy is not the only Gay in this ultra handsome espionage thriller but naming the others would give too much away. And the movie doesn't want to give anything away, with all the characters keeping their secrets close to the vest and the movie barely whispering them.
06. FRANCIS (Xavier Dolan) in Heartbeats aka Les Amours Imaginaires
The beautiful and talented French-Canadian Xavier Dolan wrote, directed and starred in his first two features and film number three is already on the way. Get in early since he'll only be collecting more fans. Heartbeats follows two best friends Francis and Marie (Monia Chakri) who war over the affections of Nicolas (Niels Schneider) who may be into one of them or both or neither. Some people find the film too slight but its so superbly stylish and the bitchy catfights feel human and aggrieved as opposed to performed in reality-tv ready way. See it! [Currently available on Netflix Instant Watch]

03. RUSSELL & GLENN (Tom Cullen and Chris New) in Weekend
Perhaps I should've given this duo the top spot, but they have an advantage as there's two of them. Rising actors Tom Cullen and Chris New work miracles together as a shy lifeguard and outspoken artist in this perfectly modest but transcendent romance. If you haven't seen it yet, you're crazy. If you have, see it again. It's currently available on Netflix Instant Watch.
---- read more of the remaining six Towsleroad choices at their site at :-http://www.towleroad.com/2011/12/movies-best-lgbt-characters-of-the-year.html
---- and refresh you memory of two in the sidebar videos.

'Twilight' hunk in "BEL AMI" ... 19th Century Paris thrives again

2011-12-26T22:45:00.001-05:00

Robert Pattinson Seduces Three Women in 'Bel Ami'
---- extracts from a media report at the Great New Movies site, 23 December 2011 :-

’Bel Ami’ has a new international trailer in which actor Robert Pattinson is portrayed seducing three Parisian women in this forthcoming period drama.

The new ‘Bel Ami’ trailer has been released through MSN, & features hot scenes of Robert Pattinson with the three leading ladies, Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci and Kristin Scott Thomas. The ‘Twilight’ hunk plays the character of George Duroy in the movie. It is directed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod.

In the newly released trailer Robert Pattinson is seen as Duroy, a penniless soldier who achieves social power by seducing the wives of French socialists while traveling through Paris in the 1890s. Using his wits and powers of seduction, he moves from a prostitute to new passionate engagements with rich beauties in a city where romancing offers a power and celebrity equal to obsessions with politics and media in vying for fame and influence.

The movie ‘Bel Ami’ has been adapted from an 1885 novel written by Guy de Maupassant (1850-93) with a screenplay provided by Rachel Bennette. The cast includes Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci, Kristin Scott Thomas, Colm Meaney, James Lance, Philip Glenister and Holliday Grainger. This upcoming period drama flick has been scheduled to hit theaters in the United States on March 2, 2012."

---- see the original report at Great New Movies at :- http://www.greatnewmovies.com/2011/12/23/bel-ami-new-trailer-robert-pattinson-seduces-three-women/

Hillary Clinton's Amazing Speech | GAY HISTORY

2011-12-09T21:35:00.001-05:00

A Speech Worth Waiting For ..
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s address before the United Nations in Geneva will be remembered by history, with the Secretary of State unabashedly arguing to the world that LGBT rights are human rights.
See the powerful video or read the Complete Transcript of the Speech, as Provided By the US State Department, published at The Advocate, 6 December 2011. Some very brief extracts :-
" .... In the 63 years since the declaration was adopted, many nations have made great progress in making human rights a human reality. Step by step, barriers that once prevented people from enjoying the full measure of liberty, the full experience of dignity, and the full benefits of humanity have fallen away. In many places, racist laws have been repealed, legal and social practices that relegated women to second-class status have been abolished, the ability of religious minorities to practice their faith freely has been secured. ....
.... Today, I want to talk about the work we have left to do to protect one group of people whose human rights are still denied in too many parts of the world today. In many ways, they are an invisible minority. They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, even executed. Many are treated with contempt and violence by their fellow citizens while authorities empowered to protect them look the other way or, too often, even join in the abuse. They are denied opportunities to work and learn, driven from their homes and countries, and forced to suppress or deny who they are to protect themselves from harm.
I am talking about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, human beings born free and given bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time. .... So we, like all nations, have more work to do to protect human rights at home. .... "
---- see all of US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's address transcript, or view a video, at The Advocate site at :- http://news.advocate.com/post/13844217337/watch-the-speech-youve-been-waiting-for
---- and see a separate article about her speech at dallasvoice.com, a Texas media voice for LGBT people, at :- http://www.dallasvoice.com/clinton-history-speech-u-n-1096370.html

A Sexy Male | Salon.com's debate ...

2011-11-18T22:46:00.001-05:00

Gay vs. Straight : What's a Sexy Man?
---- brief excerpts from the opening of an extended article by By Tracy Clark-Flory and Thomas Rogers, plus readers' comments, at Salon.com (USA), 19 November 2011 :-
The man and woman behind Salon's annual countdown debate the true meaning of attractiveness.

"Thomas Rogers, Salon editor: Over the last few weeks, you and I have spent a lot of time discussing the meaning of male sexiness as we’ve put together our annual Sexiest Man list. .... We’re looking for men that aren’t just physically attractive, but actually have other sexy qualities — that are interesting and smart or edgy, and this year in particular, politically aware — and as a result, people’s suggestions tend to offer a lot of insight into their own preferences and personalities. But this year especially, the differences between gay men’s and straight women’s notions of attractiveness have become a talking point since, as you’re probably aware, you are a straight woman and I am a gay man. ....
.... Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon sex writer: You know, I’m dying to know your thoughts on Ryan Gosling’s sex appeal. Before our list turned toward a more earnest vision of sexiness, he was the subject of much debate: He seemed too obvious to include on the list but too obvious to not include on the list. I’ve made my feelings on this topic well-known – although even I am experiencing fatigue at this point — but it’s always seemed that you have a lack of libidinous feeling for Gosling. Somehow, I just don’t see you getting hot and bothered over the sex scene in “The Notebook.” Am I right? And does he fit a “type” in the gay universe?
.... Thomas Rogers: It’s funny because there’s this cliche about gay male attraction, that we’re more interested in muscle-y, well-groomed men — partly because we’re more visually oriented — while straight women are more likely to be attracted to the “regular guy.” The gay male obsession with the muscle queen has a curious history that goes back to the years immediately following Stonewall, when something called the “clone” aesthetic appeared. The clone was a man who was muscular, and manly, and generally wore jeans and work boots and tight T-shirts. It was a hyper-masculine look, a way of compensating for the perceived effeminacy of gay men. ,,,, Of all the people we’ve discussed, Ryan Gosling is the closest to that gay aesthetic. He’s definitely buff and handsome in all the traditional ways, and he’s definitely very Manly (with a capital “M”) .... That said, I’d love to hear what you think distinguishes the kinds of men gay guys are attracted to compared to straight women. What do you think is the overriding distinction?
.... Tracy Clark-Flory: It’s funny, because when I’ve been in gay bars, I’ve thought: This is my own personal heaven — until I remember that none of the men are straight. Then it seems more like hell. .... "
---- see more of this fascinating conversation, plus its readers opinions, at Salon.com at :-
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/18/gay_vs_straight_whats_a_sexy_man/singleton/
and check its Sexiest Man slide-show too, none of whom is Bradley Cooper..

Meeting GERTRUDE STEIN & ALICE B. TOKLAS ...

2011-11-17T23:18:00.001-05:00

GERTRUDE STEIN 1934: "We are surrounded by homosexuals"
---- excerpts from a post at the Band of Thebes site about the National Portrait Gallery's (Washington DC) exhibition on Gertrude Stein & her life :-

.... "We are surrounded by homosexuals, they do all the good things in all the arts." So wrote Gertrude Stein in a 1934 letter to Samuel Steward, and co-curators Wanda Corn and Tirza True Latimer have created their marvelous show about Gertrude & Alice with major emphasis on queerness. ....
.... Corn and Latimer restore Alice as the essential figure she was in that sphere, and they deconstruct how both women dressed to announce and highlight their lesbianism and coupledom to the public. The curators also emphasize nine gay men in their circle: Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Carl Van Vechten, Virgil Thomson, Pavel Tchelitchew, George Platt Lynes, Francis Rose, Frederick Ashton, and Kristians Tonny. Forty years before Mapplethorpe, Lynes photographed white Frederick Ashton standing clothed amid three reclining nude black male dancers from Four Saints in Three Acts. .... "
---- USA readers :- see more about the Seeing Gertrude Stein exhibition, which closes on 22 January 2012, at the very erudite Band of Thebes site at :-
http://bandofthebes.typepad.com/bandofthebes/2011/11/index.html
---- USA & global readers may be interested in The Culture Wars: Redux by Michael B. Keegan at The Huff Post, 17 November 2011 :-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-b-keegan/the-culture-wars-redux_b_1100327.html

ROMAN HISTORY | Hadrian's Villa under threat ...

2011-11-12T20:59:00.001-05:00

A Roman Nobleman Fights for Hadrian's Villa (Italy)
---- opening pars from a news report highlighted at Archaeology Headlines, 11 November 2011 :-

When he decided to build his palace in the fields outside Rome in the 2nd Century AD, the Emperor Hadrian wanted to escape the sounds and the smells of the capital. Little did he imagine that 18 centuries later the stench of the city would follow him there thanks to plans to build an emergency garbage dump near the villa, as Rome runs out of space to bury its trash.
But now, another Roman noble has stepped in to defend Hadrian's villa near Tivoli from the garbage trucks, which are expected in the new year. Prince Urbano Barberini, an actor, farmer and descendant of a 17th Century pope, is mustering local farmers for a fightback against a scheme he claims will ruin the UNESCO-listed ruins.
"This is like dumping rubbish next to the pyramids — what if tourists have to time their visits according to which way the wind is blowing?" said Barberini, who produces olive oil locally. "And should people attending the concerts held at the ruins bring gas masks?"
The decision to dump rubbish in an old quarry near the villa, after Rome's main garbage dump at Malagrotta was filled to capacity, involved using emergency powers to overrule bans on developing the virgin countryside. ....
.... A 250-acre complex of 30 buildings including palaces, baths, a theater, temples and libraries built in Greek and Egyptian styles, Hadrian's villa centers around a small house sitting in the middle of a pool, accessed only by drawbridges, where the emperor could seek refuge from his court."You can't bury 2,000 years of history under tons of rubbish," wrote actor and campaigner Franca Valeri in a full-page appeal to Italian president Giorgio Napolitano taken out in Italian daily Corriere della Sera. .... "
---- see more about this challenging attack on one of history's most extraordinary surviving collections of imperial era ruins, Hadrian's Villa, at Tivoli, 20 miles from Rome, at Ernest Gill's topical Archaeology Headlines site at :-

http://www.antinopolis.org/hernestus/archaeologyheadlines.html

GAY LIFE | Some same-sex marriage stats ...

2011-11-10T22:37:00.001-05:00

Divorce & Marriage Rates for Same-sex Couples
---- very brief excerpts from a post by Californian lawyer & author Frederick Hertz at The Huff Post Divorce pages, 10 November 2011 :-

"The Williams Institute, a prestigious gay-legal think tank located at the University of California Los Angeles, has just released some fascinating statistics. In a comprehensive study, researchers Lee Badgett and Jody Herman surveyed the number of same-sex couples that married or state-registered in civil unions or domestic partnerships. They also looked at the gender and age of those who did so. And most interestingly to me, they also looked at the number of couples that are formally ending their relationships, in comparison to the divorce rate for straight couples. The study can be found on Williams Institute website ....
.... What do these statistics tells us about what is happening with gay marriage and divorce?
First, marriage is much more attractive to same-sex couples than a legally equivalent registration as civil union or domestic partners ....
.... Second, marriage is more appealing to women than to men. ....
.... Third, the divorce rate is lower for same-sex couples than straight couples. ....
.... the trends uncovered by this report tell us a lot about the new world of same-sex marriage. The Williams Institute should be commended for their excellent work in documenting these fascinating social trends. .... "
---- see the fuller, more reasoned account by Frederick Hertz at the Huff Post at :-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frederick-hertz/divorce-marriage-rates-fo_b_1085024.html
---- and check both The Williams Institute's site (link above) plus lawyer Hertz's details at :-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frederick-hertz

OPERA NEWS | Angela Gheorghiu meets Maria Callas ...

2011-11-02T18:28:00.001-04:00

Angela sings the 'Habanera' (Bizet's CARMEN) in duet with Maria! ...
Angela Gheorghiu born September 7, 1965) ^[1] is a Romanian soprano opera singer. Since her professional debut in 1990, she has sung as soprano leading roles at New York's Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala, and many other opera houses in Europe and the United States. She has a substantial discography primarily with EMI Classics and Decca.
Gheorghiu made her international debut in 1992 at the Royal Opera House as Zerlina in Don Giovanni.^[4] She debuted at the Vienna State Opera as Adina in L'elisir d'amore and at the Metropolitan Opera as Mimì in La bohème.^[5] In 1994, she was auditioned by the conductor Sir Georg Solti for a new production of La traviata at the Royal Opera House. Her debut as Violetta led her to international stardom.
EMI have recently announced an album of Angela Gheorghiu singing Maria Callas opera favorites. One track will be sopranos Gheorghiu and Callas (deceased 1977!) singing a duet, by grace of the gifts of today's media technology. Not having access to this video, we present here a previous video of Gheorghiu singing the Habanera (L'amour est un oiseaux rebelle) from Bizet's opera 'Carmen' at the "Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands Silver Jubilee Concert" in Amsterdam, April 29th, 2005. Yes, turn-up the audio, she's terrific! ...

---- see more of Angela Gheorghiu's work at YouTube, or access EMI's download of her popular album at :-
http://widgets.platform.emi.com/landing/98431c480a9c4bbdb22bd2f068b62c3d.html

GAY WRITING | A major gay writer shifts focus ...

2011-10-31T22:29:00.000-04:00

For a Basso Profundo, A New Literary Tune
Alan Hollinghurst's new novel is “The Stranger's Child.”

---- brief excerpts from an extended article by Charles McGrath at The New York Times Books pages, 31 October 2011 :-

"Alan Hollinghurst, whose new book, “The Stranger’s Child,” is just out, does not immediately seem like the kind of writer whose first novel included what amounts to a field guide to the variety of male genitalia. “There are only so many ways one can describe a penis,” he told British Esquire not long ago, “and I think I’ve covered most of them.” Mr. Hollinghurst, 57, is courteous, dignified, a little formal. He has a voice so deep and rumbling that at The Times Literary Supplement, where he was an editor for many years, he was nicknamed Basso Profundo. .... The profundo part may also have been a tribute to Mr. Hollinghurst’s formidable erudition. He’s known in literary circles for compiling something called Nemo’s Almanac, a demonically difficult quiz that requires participants to identify obscure quotations from obscure writers. Yet “of all my writer friends,” said Edward St. Aubyn, a fellow novelist, “he’s the one who knows the most about the other arts — music, painting, architecture.” ....

.... In 1988, while still working at the Literary Supplement (he left in 1990 and worked part time for a few years afterward), Mr. Hollinghurst published “The Swimming Pool Library,” a novel that did for gay sex and desire more or less what John Updike’s “Couples” did for the heterosexual kind: described it in prose that was lush, finely wrought and unusually explicit. In New York last week Mr. Hollinghurst said that his intention had been to take gay life as much for granted as most novels take life among heterosexuals. ....

.... Over the next 15 years Mr. Hollinghurst published three more novels: “The Folding Star” (1994), “The Spell” (1998) and “The Line of Beauty” (2004). Each was well received (“The Line of Beauty” won the Booker Prize); and even as his prose grew more elegant, Jamesian even, each in one way or another continued his project of chronicling gay life in Britain in the second half of the 20th century.

“When I started out, I did think of myself as a gay writer, though not only as a gay writer,” he said. “I wanted to write for a readership outside the ghetto and suggest that gays didn’t spend all their time being madly gay.” ....
.... But lately, with all the social and legal changes, and the way the perception of gay people has changed, I feel that gay writing is already dissolving into the main body of writing. I sort of feel we’ve moved on.” ....
---- see more of Charles McGrath's perceptions of Alan Hollinghurst at The NY Times at :-
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/books/alan-hollinghursts-strangers-child-is-a-departure.html?_r=2

ROME'S HISTORY | Robert Hughes' personal vision ...

2011-10-31T00:10:00.000-04:00

Robert Hughes Reimagines a Glorious Rome
Robert Hughes's exhilarating new history gives us an Eternal City steeped in more than the legends of Caesar.
---- brief excerpts from a substantial review of Robert Hughes' ROME by senior British historian Simon Schama in Newsweek's The Daily Beast, 30 October 2011 :-

"Ever since Livy dipped his quill and Gibbon marked his proofs, histories of Rome have been a dime a dozen. But there is only one Robert Hughes—only one writer, it’s safe to say, who would describe the ancient city as “Calcutta on the Mediterranean” and then convince you of the rightness of that vision. .... This is vintage Hughes, and reading his strenuous, argumentative, vitally impassioned prose, you are reminded just how insipid, prim, and nervously conventional most history and art-history writing is. ....
.... So although the ostensible subject of his book is the Eternal City, the real tour d’horizon it offers is a walking tour of the hard-structured, brightly lit, and capacious expanse that is the Hughes brain. It’s an organ that is Olympian—in that it can survey, in a unified vision, the rolling sweep of the centuries—but without any other sort of lofty detachment. .... Over and over in ROME: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History, Hughes, sometimes sounding like Tacitus after a bad night, makes inspired connections between the follies of Now and the excesses of Then. The garden of the Pompeian house of Marcus Lucretius Fronto reminds him of “the terrace of Luigi’s Pasta Palace in coastal New Jersey.” The self-consciousness of 16th-century Mannerist painting, all “arty metaphors and elaborate concetti,” is the ancestor of the “fatuous” stuff “that would come to be praised as ‘postmodernism’ four centuries later: pedantic, clever-clever, garrulous, and full of weightless quotation.” ....
.... Don’t go to Hughes’s ROME expecting sustained inquiries into long-term historical change. .... Hughes barely touches on the great issue that consumed Edward Gibbon’s life and gave him the title for his multivolume masterpiece. Unlike the 18th-century historian, Hughes implies rather than asserts that Christianity had much to do with ancient Rome’s decline. .... Without laboring the point, Hughes catches in this exhilarating, rambunctious book something that has eluded more solemnly exhaustive accounts: the attraction of Romans to the mastery of mass and volume. It was that feeling for engineering space and spectacle that distinguished them from the Greek passion for refinement, or Florence’s narcissistic addiction to the graceful .... "
.... see more of Simon Schama's avid review at Newsweek's The Daily Beast at :-
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/30/robert-hughes-reimagines-a-glorious-rome-in-new-book-review.html
---- & see another review by Suzanne Muchnic at The Los Angeles Times at :-
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-rome-20111106,0,1225625.story
---- or see the substantial 21 November review in The New York Times at:-
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/books/rome-a-personal-history-by-robert-hughes-review.html?_r=2

Comics enter a new dimension ...

2011-10-27T01:41:00.000-04:00

Gay comics that anyone can read
---- brief excerpts from an intriguing article by Annette Smith at ScreenJunkies.com, 26 October 2011 :-

"These days, most gay comics fall into one of three general categories: real-life stories (biographies and autobiographies), superheroes, and erotic stories (pornography). Sometimes they fit into more than one category, or even all three. Here is a list and overview of five gay comics that are top-rated by readers of the genre.
1. “Bludgeon.” “Bludgeon” is a promising new superhero comic created by artist Jeremy Owen. It features illustrations of bearish, burly guys–one of Owen’s interests–with thick lines drawn around the characters. The story centers on Mike MacKay, a gay man in Albuquerque looking for a place to call home. ....
2. “Gaylord Phoenix.” “Gaylord Phoenix” is a gay comic created by artist Edie Fake, whose cave-like drawings and complex symbols illustrate an unusual story. It begins with a masculine, feature-less creature who is wounded by a crystal. His wounds result in the growth of tubular extremities. When he makes love with a young man, the crystal wound transforms Gaylord Phoenix into a monster. Thus begins a series of adventures through strange lands that lead Gaylord and his boyfriend to know each other better. ....
3. “Junkyard Angels.” “Junkyard Angels” is another unusual, disturbing series with artwork reminiscent of anime or manga. Created by P. K. Eiselt and Zachary Enea, the gripping, creepy story features characters trapped in a technological nightmare. .... The comic book revolves around the world of Bobby and Jason, two young boys in love.
4. “The Legend Of Hedgehog Boy” is the complete story of Hedgehog Boy, his boyfriend, and his wounded teddy bear, Frank — all in one volume. Illustrated by Rene Capone, this popular gay comic is something of a fairy tale .... the book has something to offer for young people and older adults alike"
---- see Annette Smith's full report & a fifth comic summary at Screen Junkies at :-.
http://www.screenjunkies.com/movies/actors-directors/gay-comics-that-anyone-can-read/

JERUSALEM, fresh perspectives for history aficionados

2011-10-25T00:56:00.000-04:00

Blood In The Holy City
---- brief excerpts from a review of Simon Sebag Montefiore's JERUSALEM: The Biography at Newsweek's The Daily Beast written by Dan Ephron, 17 October 2011. Dan Ephron is Newsweek's Jerusalem bureau chief :-

" .... Even the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, couldn’t wait to leave the city and return to Vienna. After a visit in 1898, he wrote: “The musty deposits of 2,000 years of inhumanity, intolerance and foulness lie in your reeking alleys.” Such impressions are included in a new book by the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore that traces the 3,000-year history of the city and tries to answer a question that even today, with all the news coverage, can seem vexing: Why Jerusalem? Why has it been so coveted, so revered, so fiercely fought over for so long? In unraveling that mystery, Jerusalem: The Biography reads like a richly drawn novel, with complex characters—kings, priests, philo-Semites, and anti-Semites—and riveting anecdotes. It also puts the region’s contemporary conflict in perspective.....
.... Already in the book’s preface, Roman soldiers are disemboweling insurgents in the first of three major Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire, “driving stakes up their victims’ rectums to force them to reveal their caches of grain.” A millennium later, Crusaders are killing “anyone they encountered in the streets and alleyways,” cutting off “not only heads but hands and feet, glorying in the spurting fountains of cleansing infidel blood.” ....
.... Montefiore, who at 45 has already authored bestsellers on Joseph Stalin and Catherine the Great, says he decided to write the Jerusalem book after finding no equivalent in print. Other histories tend to focus on particular episodes in Jerusalem’s past—usually the reign of King David, Jesus’ time, the Crusader period, or the modern Israeli-Arab conflict. Montefiore wanted to fill in the gaps, which he says are no less interesting. ....
.... As for the question, why Jerusalem?, the answer is the Jewish Bible. By recording the early story of Jerusalem and acclaiming its holiness in a text that became the touchstone of the world’s main religions, authors of the Old Testament virtually guaranteed the city would be a focal point throughout history. .... "
---- see more of Dan Ephron's review at The Daily Beast at :-
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/16/books-jerusalem-the-biography.html
---- or see a more fully-fleshed summary of the work, era by era, at The Guardian (UK) from earlier this year at :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/29/jerusalem-biography-simon-sebag-montefiore-review
---- & check a new review b y Jonathan Rosen at The New York Times, 28 October 2011 :-
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/books/review/jerusalem-by-simon-sebag-montefiore-book-review.html?_r=2

THE SPORTS CLOSET | The reality of homophobia ...

2011-10-24T02:11:00.000-04:00

A Silence So Loud It Screams
---- brief excerpts from an extensive cover story by Nicole Brady in The Sun-Herald (Sydney), 23 October 2011 :-

After many years of competing in hockey at an elite level, Gus Johnston decided to share his story and experience with homophobia in sport .... Gus Johnston was a champion hockey goalkeeper. A gutsy player who regularly put his body on the line for his team, Johnston represented [Australian State] Victoria for 12 years. While his striking red hair and natural ability made him a big identity in his sport, he was little known outside hockey circles. Until last month, that is, when he posted an emotional video on YouTube in which he outed himself as gay.
In the 12-minute film, which he called The Reality of Homophobia in Sport, Johnston looks the viewer in the eye as he says: ''I'm a writer, art director, filmmaker and a hockey goalkeeper. I'm also a gay man - and that's something I never thought I would say in such a public forum …. so 10 months after retiring to let young gay athletes know they are not alone and to alert the broader sporting community that gossip and ''jokes'' peddled in locker rooms are homophobic and hurtful. ....
.... In coming out he joins an exclusive club of elite Australian athletes. Only three other men have come out: Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham, Olympic swimmer Daniel Kowalski and rugby league player Ian Roberts.
For lesbians the landscape is different. Only former Olympic cyclist Michelle Ferris has publicly spoken about being gay. .... Sport is the last bastion of public life in Australia in which same sex attraction is kept under wraps. The last closet in which it is safer to stay silent than speak up. Elite Australian athletes who are gay or lesbian mostly play it straight. It is, as academic Mariah Nelson put it, ''a silence so loud it screams'' ....
---- see more of Nicole Brady's Sun-Herald report at :-
http://www.smh.com.au/national/a-silence-so-loud-it-screams-20111022-1mdac.html
---- see also Gus Johnston's 12-minute video announcing his coming-out at the same site.

GAY LIFE | Breaking stereotypes ....

2011-10-18T21:47:00.000-04:00

New study finds gay and bisexual men have varied sexual repertoires

One of the first studies of its kind breaks down MSM sex stereotypes
---- brief excerpts from a report from the Indiana University News Room, 18 October 2011 :-
"Bloomington, Ind. -- A new study by researchers at Indiana University and George Mason University found the sexual repertoire of gay men surprisingly diverse, suggesting that a broader, less disease-focused perspective might be warranted by public health and medical practitioners .... [It] tapped the largest sample of its kind in the United States to examine the sexual behaviors of gay and bisexual men. In collaboration with the OLB Research Institute at Online Buddies, Inc., researchers were able to include feedback from nearly 25,000 men. While gay study participants reported 1,308 unique combinations of behaviors, the most commonly reported behavior was kissing a partner on the mouth. ....
.... Lead author Joshua G. Rosenberger, professor in the Department of Global and Community Health in the College of Health and Human Services at Mason, said the study is one of the first to explore sexual behavior at the event level among a national sample of gay and bisexually identified men. .... Consistent with other recent studies that have examined similar issues among heterosexual men and women, the study findings demonstrate that gay and bisexual men have very diverse sexual repertoires. The data revealed some interesting information on the types of sexual behavior that MSM reported, including that less than 40 percent of men engaged in anal intercourse during their most recent sexual event. ....

More than 40 percent of the study's participants reported that their most recent sexual partner was someone they were dating, their boyfriend or their spouse/partner. In comparison, an earlier study of predominantly heterosexual participants found that rate to be just over half.

There is immense variability in the sexual repertoires of gay and bisexual men, with more than 1,300 combinations of activities during their most recent sexual events .... "

---- see more of this report & its findings at the Indiana University website at :- http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/19977.html or check a further report at The Huffington Post at :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/18/george-mason-gay-sex-study_n_1017958.html#s417386&title=Home_Is_Where

---- a racier summary of the report is found at Queerty.com at :- http://www.queerty.com/study-young-men-suck-at-sex-bottoming-doesnt-hurt-and-1-in-2-guys-bareback-20111018/

GAY HISTORY | The queering of the USA ...

2011-10-14T22:42:00.000-04:00

America Only Gets Queerer
Michael Bronski's sweeping, nuanced historical investigation yields striking new insights

---- brief excerpts from a fully-fleshed article by Doug Ireland at Gay City News (US) on 13 October 2011 :- "If you’re one of those people who think history is dull, boring, and irrelevant to your life today, Michael Bronski’s brilliant new “Queer History of the United States,” just published by Beacon Press, should disabuse you of such blinkered notions. Bronski has been one of our most articulate and original gay liberationist writers and journalists for decades. His roots are in the feisty, radical Boston collective that produced Fag Rag, one of the seminal liberation publications that flowered in the early ‘70s, and he made his bones as a gay theorist with his important 1984 book “Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility,” and cemented his reputation as a creative thinker with “The Pleasure Principle” (1998), which remains a must-read for every sentient queer. ....

.... “America is queer,” writes Bronski, “and only gets queerer.” This sweeping synthesis of 500 years of American history as seen through a myriad of queer eyes –– building on the last four decades of groundbreaking gay historiography that began recovering our hidden history as a crucial part of the early liberation struggles –– contains many eye-opening anecdotes and portraits that illustrate this ringing assertion.

Bronski shows how same-sex affinities were practiced and, indeed, often honored by Native Americans even before the first European colonists arrived with their censorious and repressive religions. ....
.... Bronski’s examination of five centuries ends in 1990, but his impeccable scholarship and pungent, often witty narrative is as relevant as today’s headlines. One has to know where one’s been to be able to chart a meaningful course to where one would like to be. From literature to fashion to relationships with other social movements, the queer story as told by Bronski will open your eyes.
---- see the entire Doug Ireland review of Bronski's book at Gay City News at :-
http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2011/10/12/gay_city_news/community/doc4e95cc1f64f44960834861.txt

GAY CHARACTERS in comic books .. is it time?

2011-10-08T00:04:00.000-04:00

Gay Character on the Rise in Comic Books
---- excerpts from a recent 2-page essay by Tracey Sinclair in So So Gay :-

"I’ve been a fan of American superhero comics since I was a child, but while comics are great at many things, diversity isn’t one of them. .... For a long time, female characters tended to exist fairly strictly in the ‘girlfriends’ or ‘damsels in distress’ categories, while characters of colour – if they appeared at all – were either criminals or, in those comics with a more progressive outlook, noble best friends or colleagues. As for LGBT characters – well, they simply didn’t exist. ....
.... The most popular superheroes in the canon of DC and Marvel – the two titans that bestride superhero publishing – remain those that were established decades ago. DC’s Batman and Superman are children of the 1930s, while the ‘golden age’ of Marvel, which saw Stan Lee and his collaborators create the raft of titles that still dominate the publisher’s output (including Spider-Man, the X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, and The Fantastic Four), was in the 1960s. So it has always been a problem to keep giving the paying fans the characters they love, while changing the books to reflect the world the readers live in. ....
.... For LGBT characters .... the superhero universe was almost exclusively straight. As comics entered a post-Stonewall era writers started to touch on the occasional gay theme, but these were always secondary or marginal figures (definitely non-‘super’) .... But in the late 1980s the world of comics and its coverage of diversity changed forever; perhaps ironically due to the influence of two white, straight guys. American Frank Miller’s take on Batman, The Dark Knight Returns, might not seem overly shocking to those familiar with the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan films – partly because his work inspired them – but at the time it was seismic to those for whom Batman had become a figure of 1960s camp. Around the same time, English eccentric and creative genius Alan Moore published Watchmen, a bleak re-imagining of the superhero genre, and suddenly comics weren’t just for kids: actual grownups could go into a bookshop (not a comic shop!) and buy a newfangled ‘graphic novel’ and have it considered perfectly acceptable adult reading. .... "
---- see the remainder of Tracey Sinclair's well-informed excursion into the world of evolving gay characters in comics & graphic novels at So So Gay at :-
http://sosogay.org/2011/an-alternative-universe-gay-characters-on-the-rise-in-comic-books/

GAY LOVE, Trojan War-style ...

2011-09-30T20:17:00.001-04:00

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller – a review

The Greek demi-god Achilles emerges for the first time as a lover as well as a fighter in this beautifully written novel

---- excerpts from an extensive review by Natalie Haynes in The Guardian/Observer (UK), 29 September 2011 :-

If you were looking to retell the story of one of the great lovers in Greek myth, you could choose Paris, whose love (or lust) for Helen launched a thousand ships against his city of Troy, and wiped it from the map. Or Orpheus, whose devotion to Eurydice led him down into the depths of hell to try to reclaim her. Or even Alcestis, who loved her husband, Admetus, so much that she was willing to die in his stead. The last mythical figure you might try to rework as a romantic hero would be Achilles, a one-man genocide whose defining characteristic was his unquenchable anger. Achilles withdrew from fighting at Troy because Agamemnon had slighted his honour, and watched his fellow Greeks being slaughtered by the Trojans; he only returned to battle when his friend Patroclus had been killed.

But in her novel, The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller has found the lover beneath the bloodshed and fury. The story is told from the perspective of Patroclus who, exiled by his father to live in the court of Peleus, soon falls in love with his host's son, the superhuman Achilles .... Astonishingly to Patroclus's eyes, Achilles returns his love, and the two boys grow into adulthood and a love affair. ....

.... The sense of impending tragedy is never far away from these lovers. Achilles has long known that he must choose between a short, glorious life, and a long one lived in obscurity. Miller ramps up the dramatic irony inherent in their story. .... We know Patroclus must die before Achilles. And only once he is dead, does the truly terrifying aspect of Achilles's nature come to the fore. ....

.... Miller spent 10 years writing this book, yet her smooth prose conceals the painstaking research she has clearly put into it. This is a deeply affecting version of the Achilles story: a fully three-dimensional man – a son, a father, husband and lover – now exists where a superhero previously stood and fought."

---- see more of Natalie Hayes' review at The Guardian at :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/29/song-of-achilles-miller-review
---- The Song of Achilles is currently available in most global English-language book markets.

COOL GAY MOVIES : "Victim" (UK 1961)

2011-09-27T23:37:00.001-04:00

Shifting Attitudes on Homosexuality

---- excerpts from a lengthy article by Andrew Roberts | Published in History Today Volume: 61 Issue: 10 2011 :-

"Fifty years ago a British film challenged widespread views on homosexuality and helped to change the law. In late 1960, what appeared to be a run-of-the-mill British crime film, complete with trilby-hatted detectives in their bell-clanging Wolseley police cars roaming a bomb-scarred London, went into production. The casting seemed notably deluxe for such a seemingly mainstream enterprise, but on its release in 1961 Victim became one of the few pictures to genuinely shift social attitudes. ....

.... In 1861 Parliament had passed The Offences Against the Person Act, section 61 of which removed the death penalty as the punishment for ’buggery’ and replaced it with a minimum period of penal servitude. Almost a century later, after the Second World War, Sir Theobald Matthew, the Director for Public Prosecutions, embarked on his long campaign against homosexuals .... [so] the Home Secretary agreed to the appointment of a departmental committee to examine and report on the laws relating to homosexuality, chaired by Sir John Wolfenden .... The committee deliberated over a period of three years and in the Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution [the Wolfenden Report], published on September 3rd, 1957, concluded that ‘homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease .... It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behaviour’.

In short the committee considered that homosexuality should be treated on a par with other forms of sexual behaviour that, although viewed as repugnant by some, were not proscribed by law. ....
.... These developments inspired the film producer Michael Relph’s plans for a picture with ‘... the same point of view as the Wolfenden Report, that the law should be changed ... The film [Victim] shows that homosexuality may be found in otherwise completely responsible citizens in every strata of society’. ....
.... Victim was released in the UK in autumn 1961 to critical plaudits. As with most of Dearden’s films it is a polished production with some of Britain’s finest character actors – Nigel Stock and Norman Bird in particular – conveying a real sense of pervading fear .... "
---- see more of Andrew Robert's informed article about this pivotal moment in cinema history at History Today (UK) at :-
http://www.historytoday.com/andrew-roberts/shifting-attitudes-homosexuality
and check the movie's 1961 trailer in the sidebar, starring Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Sims, Peter McEnery, & Dennis Price.

GAY BEARS | Cuddly, furry, fulsome guys ...

2011-09-03T23:58:00.001-04:00

Bear Necessities : An insider's look at an atypical culture & community
---- brief excerpts from an extended article by Bo Shell at The Gay Voice (Atlanta, US), 2 September, 2011 :-

      "It’s 7 p.m. on Friday at a strip mall Starbucks in Tucker, Ga. There are eight men gathered around a table wearing an eclectic mix of standard wardrobe choices. Several look like they could be on their way to a golf course, others are more casual in jeans. One looks like he might be headed to a cruise ship after finishing his iced coffee.
      The youngest is in his 20s, the oldest in his 50s, and though they’re all what you might call “stout,” their builds vary from husky to just plain big. They gather three or four times a month, and tonight happens to be coffee talk and dinner. You can tell they’re close, quickly playing off each other’s jokes and poking fun in ways only friends can.
      There’s an insurance fraud investigator, a retired engineer, a retail manager, a proud convenience store worker and they all say the know tons of folks in IT. They’re sipping their drinks and chatting about the benefits of keyboards to touch screen cell phones.
      They’re all sweating and they certainly don’t look stereotypically gay. “I don’t think there’s anyone in this group at the moment that cares what someone looks like,” one suggests. “It’s more of a personality. The only rule I’ve had lately is if there’s drama, I’m going to bitch slap you.”
     Oh, but they’re definitely gay, just not the kind you’re likely to see on television or in most magazines.
      They’re called bears, rightfully so for their size, fur patterns and usually gentle disposition. And whether they know it or not, they’re carrying a unique culture on their broad, hairy shoulders. ....
.... In 1987, Richard Bulger and Chris Nelson launched Bear Magazine in San Francisco. It as the first periodical dedicated to husky, hairy men and their admirers. Two years later, Rick Redewill opened the Lone Star Saloon just down the street. It’s still considered the country’s first bear bar.
      None of them, or their like-minded drinking buddies, could have predicted that they were on the cusp of a new culture. .... "
---- see more of Bo Shell's insightful, extensive article about bears at The Gay Voice at :-
http://www.thegavoice.com/index.php/community/features/3183-bear-necessities-an-insiders-look-at-an-atypical-gay-culture-and-community

Twink Generation Leads Social Change on LGBTQ Issues ...

2011-09-01T02:09:00.002-04:00

Millenials Lead Change in Attitude Towards Gays, survey says
The Millennial generation (age 18 to 29) is transforming the landscape on gay and lesbian issues in American religion, politics and society, a new survey finds
---- brief excerpts from a substantial news report by Jeff Kunerth at the Orlando Sentinel (US), on 31 August, 2011 :-

The Millennials, Religion & Gay and Lesbian Issues Survey, conducted by Public Religion Research Institute, found that large large generational differences on gay and lesbian issues persist even among conservative political and religious groups such as Republicans and white evangelical Protestants.
“This is the first year that support for allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry is not a minority position,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute. “Overall trends and the strongly supportive attitudes of the Millennial generation suggest that we will look back on 2011 as the year marking a sea change in American attitudes on gay and lesbian issues.” ....
.... said Daniel Cox, research director. “Seven-in-ten Millennials say that churches are alienating younger Americans by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues.” ....
.... Among the Findings:

•Public support for allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry has registered double-digit increases over the last 5 years. In PRRI’s current July survey, views of same-sex marriage evenly divided; 47% of Americans favor it and 47% oppose it. ....
•A majority (51%) of Americans currently say supporting same-sex marriage is the more socially acceptable position to hold. ....
•Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) Millennials agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues. Among seniors, only 37% agree. ....
.... To read the full report, questionnaire and methodology, click here: http://www.publicreligion.org/research/?id=677
---- see Jeff Kunerth's entire Orlando Sentinel news summary at :-
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/features-the-religion-world/2011/08/31/millennials-lead-change-in-attitudes-toward-gays-survey-finds/
---- and see another well-researched commentary at Autostraddle.com :-
http://www.autostraddle.com/research-institute-has-new-findings-on-generation-gap-of-doom-for-gays-108692/

HISTORICAL FICTION | Guilty pleasures ...

2011-08-30T16:53:00.001-04:00

Historical fiction: Our new literary guilty pleasure when buying books

We can't get enough of historical fiction, for besides self-improvement, it’s wonderfully exotic and comfortingly predictable
----- excerpts from a news report by Sarah Gristwood at The Telegraph UK, 30 August 2011 :-

They’re piled high in every bookshop. The jacket hints of passion and betrayal; of dark threats and the fight to survive. The woman on the cover turns away suggestively, her low-cut, highly embroidered gown providing the first clue to the plot. This is no fairytale, no Mills and Boon, but it is the latest literary guilty pleasure. ....
.... Princesses, queens, kings and courtly intrigues have become a highly lucrative publishing phenomenon. Philippa Gregory, perhaps the most successful of historical novelists, has sold tens of thousands of books. So why have we fallen in love with historical fiction – and why are more authors writing it? ....
.... we read historical fiction because it’s wonderfully exotic and simultaneously comfortingly predictable. .... Exotica comes in the fact that the past is another country: they did things differently there. And there isn’t much they didn’t do, from incest to mass murder: check out the television series The Tudors or The Borgias for the racy proof. But perhaps the thing our forebears did best was romance – or so the novels would have us believe – the thing we find it hardest to do, the sensation we long for most. ....
.... Historical novels also provoke heated debate between those who champion the contrasting virtues of fact and fiction .... I heard Philippa Gregory tell an applauding audience that she wasn’t writing fiction because she couldn’t get a job as a historian. She said in some ways the novelist’s task is more demanding – that in a case like that of the Princes in the Tower, the novelist has to be sure of what she or he believes happened ....
---- see more of Sarah Gristwood's perceptive views at The Telegraph UK at :-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8729397/Historical-fiction-Our-new-literary-guilty-pleasure-when-buying-books.html

Anti-Feminism as Erotic Capital ...

2011-08-29T19:59:00.002-04:00

This “erotic” book is about as seductive as a balance sheet
An anti-feminist book so bad it's good for the cause
---- brief excerpts from an extended, robustly-opinionated article by Laurie Penny at New Statesman, 27 August 2011 :-

      Catherine Hakim, senior research fellow at the London School of Economics and staunch anti-feminist, is my new hero. With one book, she has done more to advance the cause of women's liberation than months of worthy campaigning could achieve.
      It's not that Honey Money: the Power of Erotic Capital - in which Hakim argues that women should be taught to use their sex appeal to exploit men - is a bad book. It's that it's such a bad book, so poorly researched, so woodenly ill-written, so crassly offensive in its argument that all men are randy beasts and more women should become prostitutes, and so drearily hateful in its conclusions about human nature, that it's a highly effective advert for feminist revolution.
      Using sex surveys 20 years out of date, Hakim explains to the unfortunate reader that "erotic capital", like social or financial capital, has "six elements" and can be used to "bargain" and "negotiate" at work, at play and - most tragically - in relationships.
.... The worst thing about Honey Money and the notion that female sexuality is just another resource to be flogged off to drooling men is not that it's demeaning to both genders. It's that it is a horribly cynical way of understanding relationships, and one that currently rings true for too many people. .... "
---- read more of Laurie Penny's devastating (but highly entertaining) review of Catherine Hakim's book at New Statesman at :-
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/08/erotic-capital-book-women-sex

SAME-SEX COUPLES in the US - the US Census speaks

2011-08-26T01:51:00.004-04:00

Census Bureau: 150,000 Same-Sex Couples Report as Married in 2008
---- a news report at Towleroad.com , 1st September 2011 :-
      "About 27 percent of the estimated 564,743 total gay couples in the United States said they were in a relationship akin to 'husband' and 'wife,' according to the Census Bureau tally provided to The Associated Press. That's compared with 91 percent of the 61.3 million total opposite-sex couples who reported being married. A consultant to the Census Bureau estimated there were roughly 100,000 official same-sex weddings, civil unions and domestic partnerships in 2008. Analysts said the disparities are probably a reflection of same-sex couples in committed relationships who would get married if they could in their states."
Read more at :-
http://www.towleroad.com/2009/09/census-bureau-150000-samesex-couples-report-as-married-in-2008.html
---- also :-
Provincetown, Mass.: Most Gay Couples in America
---- a summarising post by: Brodie Scott at Gay.net USA, 25 August 2011 :-
      As the release of U.S. Census data for 2010 ends, the city with the highest proportion of same-sex couples is none other than favorite gay hotspot, Provincetown, Mass.
      Provincetown has 163 same-sex couples per 1,000 households, topping Wilton Manors, Fla., a Fort Lauderdale suburb, according to an analysis of census information by the Williams Institute.
      Palm Springs, California, another gay mecca popular for decades, previously held the prestigious title.
      Interestingly, according to Advocate.com’s Trudy Ring, “if D.C. is counted as a state rather than a city, it’s the nation’s gayest state, with 19 gay couples per 1,000 households. Among actual states, though, the top one is Vermont, with 10.9 per 1,000, followed by Massachusetts with 10.2 and California with 9.9.”
---- see this report at gay.net at :-
http://www.gay.net/gay-away/2011/08/25/provincetown-mass-most-gay-couples-america
---- For a complete analysis of the gayest cites, check out the full article on Advocate.com now at :-
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/08/22/And_the_Gayest_U_S__City_Is/
---- or check the original documents at The Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law at :-
http://www3.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/pdf/PressAdvisory-Census2010.pdf

Bisexuals Exist - Science about faces ...

2011-08-23T16:43:00.003-04:00

A Validation for Bisexual Men
----   a commentary by Toby Bilanow at The New York Times USA, 22 August 2011 :-

      A group of researchers at Northwestern University is reporting that men who identify themselves as bisexual are indeed sexually aroused by both women and men. The new report is notable, in part, because the same research group had earlier challenged the very existence of male bisexuality, reporting in 2005 that many men who said they were bisexual had arousal patterns more typical of homosexual men.
      The researchers essentially repeated the earlier experiment, this time using different criteria to select self-identified bisexuals, and found they had a pattern of sexual responsiveness that differed from homosexual or heterosexual men. As David Tuller reports in today’s Science Times:
      “Someone who is bisexual might say, ‘Well, duh!’” said Allen Rosenthal, the lead author of the new Northwestern study and a graduate student in psychology at the university. “But this will be validating to a lot of bisexual men who had heard about the earlier work and felt that scientists weren’t getting them.”
      The findings are consistent with another recent report, from researchers at Indiana State University and the Kinsey Institute, that also found a distinctive pattern of arousal, as well as subjective response, among bisexual men. To learn more, read the full article, “No Surprise for Bisexual Men: Report Indicates They Exist,” and please join the discussion [at the NY Times comments site - Ed.]
---- see this opinion piece at :-
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/a-validation-for-bisexual-men/
---- or read the NY Times news report at :-
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/health/23bisexual.html?_r=4&hp

Greek Love isn't Platonic, folks ...

2011-08-21T18:16:00.002-04:00

More sex please, we're Greek: exposing the myth of Platonic love
Plato lent his name to Platonic love but a new book reveals that the ancient Greek philosopher never advocated love without sex.
---- brief excerpts from an illuminating article in the Physorg.com online journal, 19 August, 2011
[The works of Plato (Athens, c424BCE), the ancient classical Greek philosopher, appear to contain a hidden musical code, a British academic has claimed.]
       University of Manchester science historian Dr Jay Kennedy, who hit the headlines last year after revealing he had cracked the code in the great thinker’s writings, has now published a decoder’s manual that lays bare the secret content of Plato’s ancient works.
      “Plato – the Einstein of Greece’s Golden Age – was long thought to favour love without sex, or ‘Platonic love’, but this new research reveals Plato was far from being a prude,” says Dr Kennedy ....
      “Before Plato, sex was about rutting and producing heirs. Plato marks a shift in the history of Western sexuality and some say he invented romance, but, for him, erotic passion was a spiritual force that helps us find our true selves within the deepest, human bond. Eros, or love, was a creative force that inspired art, literature, and the sciences.”
      “Plato’s teacher Socrates famously spent the night alone with the leading sex-symbol of ancient Athens [Alcibiades, a youth - Ed.] but resisted temptation,” says Dr Kennedy. “Plato tells the story to show that true love aims at the soul and not the body, so many thought he was anti-sex and the myth of Platonic love spread far and wide. But Plato also celebrated eroticism and homosexuality, and shared the Greek view that naked bodies were beautiful, so historians have long debated his views.” ....
       The term ‘Platonic love’ originated only 500 years ago. In the Renaissance, postponing sex was an important step toward the equality of women; the Queen of England even commissioned plays to spread the idea. At a time when women were treated as slaves or baby-machines, Platonic love meant longer courtships and delaying the dangers of childbirth. .... "
---- see more of the informative Physorg article at :-
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-sex-greek-exposing-myth-platonic.html
---- & check Dr. Kennedy's own site at :-
http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/jay.kennedy/

MAGIC MIKE | Three movie hunks make magic together ...

2011-08-19T02:37:00.004-04:00

McConaughey joins Tatum in stripper pic
Thesp will play a strip club owner in Steven Soderbergh's 'Magic Mike'
---- a front page post in Variety (US) by Jeff Sneider, 16 August 2011 :-

      EXCLUSIVE: Matthew McConaughey is set to join Channing Tatum and Alex Pettyfer in Steven Soderbergh's indie drama "Magic Mike."
      Tatum stars as the title character, a stripper and dancer who takes Pettyfer's character under his wing and mentors him on how to hustle both on and off the stage.
      McConaughey will play Dallas, a former exotic dancer who now owns and operates Xquisite, the club where "Magic Mike" works.
      Pic draws on Tatum's experiences working as a teen stripper in Tampa.
      Nick Wechsler and Gregory Jacobs are producing with Tatum and his 33andOut Prods. partner Reid Carolin, who's also writing the script.
      "Magic Mike" marks the fifth straight indie McConaughey has done since wrapping Lionsgate's "The Lincoln Lawyer." He's currently filming Lee Daniels' thriller "The Paperboy" and recently signed on to play the title character in Jeff Nichols' drama "Mud." Thesp next stars in Richard Linklater's "Bernie" and William Friedkin's "Killer Joe."
---- see Jeff Sneider's report, with thanks to Variety at :-
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118041403
---- or check a separate UK report about the movie at Film News UK at :-
http://www.film-news.co.uk/show-news.asp?H=McConaughey-joins-Magic-Mike&nItemID=6670

HYSTERIA | A cool new movie with a comforting feel ...

2011-08-17T02:47:00.001-04:00

HYSTERIA: Maggie Gyllenhaal hopes to hit the spot with vibrator love story -

Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy co-star alongside Jonathan Pryce and Rupert Everett in Hysteria, a Victorian-era romcom about the invention of the vibrator
---- an excerpt from a film report by Russ Fischer at SlashFilm.com, 16 August 2011, with accompanying trailer :-

      "This is quite possibly the most absurd thing I’ve seen today, but also fairly cute and just a bit charming. The trailer for Hysteria shows the work of Jonathan Pryce, Hugh Dancy, Rupert Everett and Maggie Gyllenhaal in a period sex comedy about the invention of the vibrator. Or, to borrow a line from the trailer, “we are NOT going to take a dangerous electrical device and press it against a lady’s most gentle areas.” Actually, yes. You are. Many, many times. ....
      This is theoretically not safe for work, if you work in a place where the idea of watching the orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally wouldn’t go over so well."

      See the trailer in the side bar, & visit Russ Fischer's post to add comments, at :-
http://www.slashfilm.com/hysteria-trailer-maggie-gyllenhaal-vibrator-invention/#more-109979
      [Yes, it's about the invention of the vibrator, folks - GG, ed.]

CHARLES DARWIN receives a kick in the privates ...

2011-08-16T00:47:00.001-04:00

Kicking Darwin to the Curb

---- Joan Roughgarden's research takes on none other than Charles Darwin, and for that she is one of eight LGBT innovators highlighted in The Advocate's September issue. In this online extra, she talks about the surprising homophobia her work on gender diversity faced from the science world. Excerpts from an interview by Diane Anderson-Minshall at Advocate.com USA, 15 August 2011 :-

      " .... evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden doesn’t hold back. Spurred in part by the stunning diversity of people she saw at an LGBT Pride parade in the ‘90s, Roughgarden spent years debunking Darwin’s theories. Her audacious attack became the groundbreaking and brilliant tome, Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People, in which the scientist argued that the diversity of gender and sexuality found in many species suggests that Darwin was wrong about sexual selection and the gender binary.
      Roughgarden, a Professor Emerita at Stanford University, has authored five books and over 120 articles, including her critically acclaimed The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness. The Harvard-trained Roughgarden, who taught at Stanford for nearly 40 years, didn’t come out as transgender until she was well into her career. ....
    Evolution’s Rainbow was so groundbreaking and definitely controversial. Did you expect the criticism you got? Is Darwin above reproach in scientific circles?
      I did not expect the homophobic and personally disrespectful comments from professional biologists. And yes, Darwin is beyond reproach in scientific circles.

Is it possible to comprehend the diversity of sexuality without disowning Darwin?
      No, it is not possible to avoid disowning Darwin, because Darwin focused on sexuality solely in terms of fertilizations. His emphasis was overwhelmingly on mating rather than offspring production, which is what natural selection ultimately depends on. Mating is only one component of the process of generating the offspring that take their place in the next generation. Darwin's emphasis on procreative mating rules out thinking of sexuality as serving social purposes. The social setting established through sexuality, as well as other forms of physical and verbal intimacy, lead to the production of offspring even if many particular acts do not directly produce offspring.

.... Is it surprising to you that scientific circles would still be arguing whether homosexuality is an essential part of biology in this day and age?
      Well, not surprising, but disappointing. What is happening in evolutionary biology today parallels the struggles we have had with medicine. Stage 1 is denying that gender and sexuality variation is common. Stage 2 is claiming that such variation is a defect. Stage 3 is rethinking scientific theory to accommodate the reality of non-pathological variation in gender expression and sexuality. Medicine in beginning to enter Stage 3. Evolutionary biology is just starting Stage 2. When Evolution's Rainbow appeared, evolutionary biology was in Stage 1, in denial. Now, most researchers grudgingly acknowledge the ubiquity of non-procreative sex including, but not limited to homosexuality, and of evolutionarily-fluid gender manifestations. But they are just entering Stage 2 and are trying to concoct reasons why the variation is somehow special .... "
---- read more of Professor Roughgarden's provocative views in the September issue of Advocate, or visit the Advocate.com site at :-
http://www.advocate.com/News/News_Features/Gender_Diversity,_Evolution_and_Kicking_Darwin_to_the_Curb/

GAY MARRIAGE | Science endorses unequivocally ...

2011-08-14T16:42:00.001-04:00

Scientists Endorse Full Marriage Equality Rights
---- excerpts from a report by Christopher Don at Gay.net, 7 August 2011 :-

      "The world’s largest organization of psychologists, the American Psychological Association (APA), voted unanimously this past Tuesday on a resolution to support full marriage equality rights. Citing an increasing body of research, all 157 governing APA members are calling state and federal officials to stop anti-gay legislation and to legalize same-sex marriage.
      CNN reports: The resolution "clarifies the Association's support for same-sex marriage" in light of new research, the group said. A similar resolution in 2004 opposed discrimination against same-sex relationships, but refrained from a more formal policy recommendation.
      Dr. Clinton Anderson, APA associate executive director, said that the timing of the resolution is an indirect result of several states' legalization of marriage. "We knew that marriage benefits heterosexual people in very significant ways, but we didn't know if that would be true for same-sex couples," said Anderson, who is also director of the APA's Office on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns.
      Now that six U.S. states permit same-sex marriage, researchers have been able to conduct studies with those couples. The research, Anderson said, indicates that marriage "does confer the same sense of security, support, and validation" to same-sex couples as to heterosexual ones. The resolution also points to evidence that ongoing political debate about marriage creates stress for gay men and lesbians and perpetuates stigmas and prejudice about their communities. This stress can make people physically and psychologically sick, the APA says, calling the link between stress and illness "well established."
      The APA also feels that civil unions miss the mark. "Anything other than marriage is, in essence, a stigmatization of same-sex couples. Stigma does have negative impacts on people," Anderson said. "That's the analysis that we've come to and why we've decided to support full marriage equality -- because domestic partnership or civil union will still convey the message that same-sex couples are not as good."
---- see the original report & its readers' comments at Gay.net at :-
http://www.gay.net/news/2011/08/07/scientists-endorse-full-marriage-equality-rights
or see the b rief report at CNN at :-
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-04/us/psychologists.gay.marriage_1_gay-marriage-marriage-amendment-full-marriage-equality?_s=PM:US

Lesbian Koalas, Penis Size, & Same-Sex Hets, etc ...

2011-08-13T01:32:00.003-04:00

Weird Science : Recent studies in sexual habits

From the lesbian sex lives of koala bears to the tendencies of — ahem — less endowed men, we take a look at some of the research in recent years with LGBT implications ---- Page 6 from a 13-page slideshow set of recent sex science news, compiled by Michelle Garcia at Advocate.com, 11 August 2011 :-

"STUDY: People have sex to feel good - How's this for shocking? After exhaustively compiling a list of the 237 reasons people have sex, researchers found that young men and women get intimate for mostly the same motivations. It's more about lust in the body than a love connection in the heart. College-age men and women agree on their top reasons for having sex: They were attracted to the person, they wanted to experience physical pleasure, and ''it feels good,'' according to a peer-reviewed study in the August edition of Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Twenty of the top 25 reasons given for having sex were the same for men and women. Expressing love and showing affection were in the top 10 for both men and women, but they did take a backseat to the clear number 1: ''I was attracted to the person.''

---- see the remaining 12 pages of Advocate.com's slide-show of science news on LGBTQ issues, plus some intelligent readers' comments, at :-
http://www.advocate.com/News/Analysis/Weird_Science/
or see the original Advocate article on feel-good sex in their archive at :-
http://www.advocate.com/article.aspx?id=39638

Last Nazi gay prisoner dies at 98 | GAY HISTORY

2011-08-07T00:36:00.001-04:00

Rudolf Brazda, believed last surviving gay concentration camp prisoner, dies at 98
---- brief excerpts from a news report posted at the Another Country site from The New York Times, 6 August 2011 :-

      "BERLIN (AP) — Rudolf Brazda, believed to be the last surviving person who was sent to a Nazi concentration camp because of his homosexuality, has died, a German gay rights group said Thursday. He was 98.
      Brazda was sent to the Nazis' Buchenwald concentration camp in August 1942 and held there until its liberation by U.S. forces in 1945.
      Nazi Germany declared homosexuality an aberration that threatened the German race, and convicted some 50,000 homosexuals as criminals. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gay men were deported to concentration camps, where few survived.
      Brazda was born in 1913. He grew up in the eastern German town of Meuselwitz and repeatedly ran into trouble with Nazi authorities over his homosexuality before being sent to Buchenwald. ....
.... During the 12-year Nazi regime, he said, up to 100,000 men were identified in police records as homosexuals, with about 50,000 convicted of violating Paragraph 175, a section of the German criminal code that outlawed male homosexual acts. There was no law outlawing female homosexual acts, he said. Citing research by Rüdiger Lautmann, a German sociologist, Mr. Koskovich said that 5,000 to 15,000 gay men were interned in the camps and that about 60 percent of them died there, most within a year. .... "
---- see more of this report at Another Country after scrolling down a page on its site at :-
http://2anothercountry.blogspot.com/?zx=b37ac0d0a9564808

OSCAR WILDE Unexpurgated ...

2011-08-05T01:05:00.001-04:00

Deceptive Picture
How Oscar Wilde painted over “Dorian Gray.”by Alex Ross
---- very brief excerpts from a lengthy & informative essay at The New Yorker, 8 August, 2011 :-

".... The Daily Chronicle of London called the tale “unclean,” “poisonous,” and “heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction.” The St. James Gazette deemed it “nasty” and “nauseous,” and suggested that the Treasury or the Vigilance Society might wish to prosecute the author. Most ominous was a short notice in the Scots Observer stating that although “Dorian Gray” was a work of literary quality, it dealt in “matters only fitted for the Criminal Investigation Department or a hearing in camera” and would be of interest mainly to “outlawed noblemen and perverted telegraph-boys” — ....
.... The furor was unsurprising: no work of mainstream English-language fiction had come so close to spelling out homosexual desire. The opening pages leave little doubt that Basil Hallward, the painter of Dorian’s portrait, is in love with his subject. Once Dorian discovers his godlike powers, he carries out various heinous acts, including murder; but to the Victorian sensibility his most unspeakable deed would have been his corruption of a series of young men. ....
.... At the Wilde trials of 1895, the opposing attorneys read aloud from “Dorian Gray,” calling it a “sodomitical book.” Wilde went to prison not because he loved young men but because he flaunted that love, and “Dorian Gray” became the chief exhibit of his shamelessness.
Wilde died in 1900, in a run-down Paris hotel, at the age of forty-six. Almost overnight, a legend was born: Wilde the homosexual martyr, Wilde the moral rebel. A nascent gay-rights movement embraced him as a hero of defiance .... "

---- see more of Alex Ross's grand, substantial, insightful essay at August's The New Yorker site at :-
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/08/08/110808crat_atlarge_ross?currentPage=all
and/or buy the hard-copy edition of the magazine at your local supplier.

GAY LIFE | Inaccuracies in reporting "ex-gay" propaganda ...

2011-08-04T00:39:00.003-04:00

NPR Should Apologize for Parroting “Ex-Gay” Propaganda

The founder of the gay rights group that recently put “reparative therapy” in the headlines, with its hidden-camera investigation of Marcus Bachmann's clinics, calls on National Public Radio (NPR, US) to apologize for a story it did reacting to the controversy.
---- selective excerpts from a substantial opinion piece by Wayne Besen, op-ed contributor, at The Advocate (USA) :-
      "In a recent television show discussing “ex-gay” therapy, renowned author and psychiatrist Jack Drescher put the discredited practice in its proper perspective: “This is so far outside the mainstream it's practically on Mars.”
      Unfortunately, the media keeps putting on its space suit and blasting off with “ex-gay” propaganda that places its debunked theories on par with legitimate therapy backed by the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics. ....
.... For example, NPR aired a segment this week that inexplicably claimed, “The debate about the value of conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy, has been raging in psychological circles for more than a decade.”
      In reality, the debate began to ebb in 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. In 2009 the American Psychological Association conducted an exhaustive study on the efficacy of “ex-gay” therapy. The press release said it all: “No evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work, says APA,” and “Practitioners should avoid telling clients that they can change from gay to straight.”
      What about this vivid APA statement isn’t clear to media outlets like NPR? ....
.... The erosion of good journalism has much to do with the “Foxification” of news — where the ethos of accuracy is superseded by the corrosive value of balance. In this culture of news corruption, extremists with viewpoints from Mars are placed side by side with experts from Earth. ....
.... To the casual viewer, the media platform given to the inane creates a false equivalency with the respected ideas of the sane. This pollutes the mainstream and weakens our national identity, which relies on a general consensus regarding agreed-upon, scientifically valid facts. The “science” used to bolster the “ex-gay” myth has always been weak, but in recent years the entire house of cards has collapsed.
      First, there is the aforementioned 2009 APA study, which placed the entire weight of the mental health community squarely against “ex-gay” therapy.
      Second, the revelation that the infamous Masters and Johnson’s 1979 book Homosexuality in Perspective was a hoax badly undermined “ex-gay” efforts. ....
.... A third blow came with the findings in June by researcher Jim Burroway and CNN’s AC 360 that undermined one of the most significant “ex-gay” studies. Prior to getting caught with an escort from RentBoy.com, George Rekers was the “ex-gay” industry’s most prominent therapist. Even after this tawdry scandal, Rekers's research touting the alleged sexual conversion of a boy named “Kraig” was still widely cited by “ex-gay” therapists. ....
.... It is incredibly disappointing that NPR exacerbated the situation by allowing falsehoods to flower and fiction to obscure fact. It owes LGBT people an apology for not adhering to its usually rigorous standards."
       Wayne Besen is the founder of Truth Wins Out, which fights the notion of conversion therapy.
---- see more of Wayne Besen's challenging op-ed piece at The Advocate at :-http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Commentary/Op-ed__NPR_Should_Apologize_for_Parroting_Ex-Gay_Propaganda/
---- see too New England's Bay Windows LGBTQ site :-
http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=opinion&sc=guest_opinions&sc2=news&sc3=&id=122961

ROMAN HISTORY | Hadrian's remarkable design skills ...

2011-08-01T18:16:00.002-04:00

Rome's Pantheon may have been built as a massive sundial researchers reveal

It is one of the best preserved buildings from the Roman world, a 2,000-year-old testament to the immense power and wealth of the empire ....
---- excerpts from a news report by Nick Squires, Rome Correspondent, for The Telegraph (London) at :-

      ".... But mystery has always surrounded what lies behind the unusual design of the Pantheon, a giant temple in the heart of Rome that was built by the Emperor Hadrian.
     Now experts have come up with an intriguing theory – that the temple acted as a colossal sun dial, with a beam of light illuminating its enormous entrance at the precise moment that the emperor entered the building.
      Constructed on Hadrian's orders and completed in AD128, the Pantheon's hemispherical dome is punctured by a 30ft-wide circular hole known as the 'oculus'. It provides the interior of the building with its only source of natural light and allows in rain and – on rare occasions – snow.
       Giulio Magli, a historian of ancient architecture from Milan Polytechnic, Italy, and Robert Hannah, a classics scholar from the University of Otago in New Zealand, have discovered that at precisely midday during the March equinox, a circular shaft of light shines through the oculus and illuminates the Pantheon's imposing entrance. The precise calculations made in the positioning and construction of the Pantheon mean that the size and shape of the beam perfectly matches, down to the last inch, a semicircular stone arch above the doorway. ....
      .... "The emperor would have been illuminated as if by film studio lights," said Professor Magli. "The Romans believed the relationship between the emperor and the heavens was at its closest during the equinoxes. It would have been a glorification of the power of the emperor, and of Rome itself."
---- see more of Nick Squires' Telegraph report at :-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8673508/Romes-Pantheon-may-have-been-built-as-a-massive-sundial-researchers-reveal.html
---- or check the original research paper at the historical journal Numen at :-
http://www.brill.nl/numen
---- or see the report at Archaeology Headlines at :-
http://www.antinopolis.org/hernestus/archaeologyheadlines.html