Graeme

I believe that a lot of people wouldn't have a problem. Ollie certainly didn't. However, the other three guys are all eighteen-year-olds and haven't had much exposure (pardon the pun) to gays. Being uncomfortable around something strange/new isn't unreasonable, especially when it's of a potentially sexual nature.

Thank you! I thought people would like the shower scene. What's not to like -- five naked guys having a shower together....

Thank you! The answer to your question regarding sponsors will be answered later in the story so I won't comment now

I'm not a member of the 'like' generation I've only recently started using "like's" here at GA and I'm still not used to doing so. What I like about things here is that there are multiple ways to show appreciation for something that's posted. My preferred method is post something that shows my support for a point of view, but even quoting something and commenting on it shows that I care I may not agree, but unless I blast the person in my response, it shows that I appreciate their post and (hopefully) have offered a polite rebuttal.

Thank you! The shower scene took a lot of careful writing, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

His hands were trembling as he hit the button on his phone. He knew what he was about to do was dangerous – very dangerous. “G’day!” He swallowed once, but he couldn’t make himself speak. “Hello? Is there anyone there?” He tried again. “Hi, Tony. It’s...it’s Ken.” “What’s wrong, mate? You sound terrible.” “I’m falling apart, Tony. I don’t know what to do.” He felt his body start to tremble. “Calm down. What’s happening? Are you okay? Has someone found out?” “No...that’s not it. It’s...I

From the article: I know this isn't true for me. English was my worst subject (after I managed to get out of having to do Art, of course) and I hated it. I loved reading, but writing and analysis was a pain. I'm still a procrastinator, though. I'm supposed to be working on my new novel and I'm replying to this post instead.... I can appreciate the concern about not submitting something that's good, though. That's why there are so many writing projects that I haven't kicked off -- I'm concerned that it wouldn't be 'good enough'. I can relate to this. That's exactly how I felt when I left school and started work as a computer programmer, back in the mid 80s. I expected the work I'd be given and the work I would have to produce would be of a similar nature and quality to what I had to do in university. I quickly learnt otherwise. This is nothing new There may be a qualitative change, but I would hate to try to quantify it. The work environment today is in many ways different to the work environment from thirty years ago, so how do you compare in a manner that's fair? As an aside on the 'need for constant praise' that the author of the article refers to, could it be that they're just seeing more of a particular personality style because of the business they're in? I remember doing a management course many years ago and it was pointed out that some people need constant reassurance and encouragement and they thrive on that, while others get turned off by praise unless they think they've done something to really deserve it. They feel praise is devalued if it's given when not deserved. That was twenty-plus years ago. Could it be that the people interviewed for this article are in industries that attract people of the first type and not the second? As an aside, computer programmers often fit into the second category -- we're task oriented and tend to prefer praise when we finally get a problem solved. Hmm... I think that's enough procrastination for now. Time to get back and write a few more words on my novel....

Can I ask how much of this is perception and how much is reality? I'll accept that this current generation is more open online than older generations, but how much of the current generation is actively involved in social media to the extent of being labelled "narcissistic and self-obsessed"? Is it a case of a 'vocal minority' that's visible and becoming the stereotype for a more quiet majority?

LOL Thank you Don't feel you have to read chapters as soon as they're released. I always try to write stories so that they can be read right through once it's finished posting.

Thank you!

Actually, there's a big one that's missing from that list: houses. New houses are more expensive and more work to turn them into a home. I'm not adverse to building, but I'd prefer to buy an established home so I can see exactly what I'm getting.

Thank you I see the story having two parts -- the mystery as to the identity of 'Ken' and the internal dramas within the football club. Hopefully, the two will stay in balance. I will say that the story is 15 chapters in length, so we're two thirds of the way through the story at this point in time.

Thanks, Ricky! I personally don't get the attraction of surprise birthday parties. I've been to one (my brother-in-law's 50th) but I've never had one myself and I don't really want to have one.

Do you expect me to disagree with you? I don't expect gay characters to be perfect. Everyone has flaws and everyone makes mistakes. Alex is annoyed at Tony and he's saying some stupid things as a consequence. I know I've done that in the past, and probably will do so again in the future. It's part of being human On the other side of the coin, comments made in private between friends quite often don't obey the same rules as making comments in public. I've heard many guys comments about the appearance of a fellow (female) work colleague that they wouldn't make to the person themselves, or to management, because they know it'll be inappropriate. Private comments don't obey the same rules as public comments. Should they? That's a separate question....

I looked at some of the comments at the article linked and part of it was a debate as to whether this is muzzling free speech. The response in those comments was that the CEO is free to make whatever speech he wants, but that does not grant him the right to be free of the consequences of that speech. I'm happy with that. Wildone's point as to whether the speech that caused the outrage is still the CEO's view is, however, important. Prop 8 was a number of years ago -- does he still hold those views? Indeed, did he ever hold those views? It's plausible (I'm not saying it's the case) that the donation was made for political/commercial reasons and doesn't reflect the CEO's personal opinions. As an example, it's not unusual for business to donate to both major political parties. The donations are not an endorsement -- they're a commercial decision to say to both parties that the company doesn't want to be seen as being partisan. The counter to that would be for the CEO to articulate his reasons, but that hasn't happened. Based on known actions, we have to deduce a probable degree of intolerance. As the public face of the company, that gives the general public the view that the company would share that probable degree of intolerance. The combination of internal disagreements with that view and the external customer who decided to take their business away from Mozilla was enough to result in his departure. Are we intolerant of people we believe are intolerant, as Wildone asked? My opinion is that the question is too simplistic. We are entitled to express our disapproval of things that we don't like, just like others are entitled to express their disapproval of us if there are things about us that we don't like. The limits are on how that disapproval can be expressed. Some forms of disapproval are over-the-top and should not be used. The forms used in this example, however, were, in my opinion, acceptable. The company employees expressed their disapproval to management and directors resigned. Neither imposed their views on others -- they made their views known and then moved on (in the case of the directors, literally). One 'customer' expressed their disapproval by taking their business elsewhere. Indeed, that customer could be seen as arguably taking a business hit with what they did -- they lost any customers that exclusively used Firefox as their web browser. That business decision arguably affected them more than it affected Mozilla. In both cases, actions taken to express disapproval arguably hurt the person expressing the disapproval more than it did the target (resigning their job or dropping customers who used Firefox). I would find it hard to argue that is inappropriate behaviour. An (extreme) example of what I would consider to be inappropriate disapproval would be for an employee to sabotage the company's product in some way. That's just plain wrong as it hurts people who are not involved (as well as many other reasons). So, in my opinion, the question should not be about being tolerant-vs-intolerant, but whether the forms of disapproval used are appropriate. In this case, I believe they were.

He had to throw himself into his football. It was the only way he could think of to avoid the turmoil that was churning through his mind. Ignore everything else. That’s what he told himself. The only thing that mattered was football. It didn’t help that Tony would be with the team in the club room after each training session. It didn’t help that he seemed to run into Tony whenever he was at the club for any other reason. It didn’t help that his dreams were dominated by one person. He tried to

Well...at least that gives us a reason why Phillip is interested in and sort-of protective of Josh. He clearly suspects that Josh is gay, and that's why he reacted the way he did to Josh's father's homophobic comments in an earlier chapter. I wonder when Jacob will tell Josh, and when the two realise that they've got counter-blackmail, if needed, against Phillip. After all, Phillip would lose his job if Josh's father knew.... I agree with Stephen, though. While it's been set up to look like under-age prostitution, it may be something completely different. There wasn't enough description to know if Seth and Phillip are related (Phillip may be helping out a cousin in trouble, for example). There's a lot of innocent possibilities, especially given that it appears to have been a planned encounter. If the park had a reputation as a gay pick-up place, I would've expected Jacob to have known that. Assuming it's not, Seth and Phillip had arranged to meet each other there, and that opens up a lot of other options as to what is going on. I had to smile at the conversation between Jacob and Cody in the park. I had a similar conversation with my wife when I came out, with a similar first reaction to the question 'What does it mean to be gay?'. Well done! Another great chapter

Before I had my writing hiatus, my editors were Rain and Aaron from the Mail Crew, and my beta-readers were Kel, Ray (yaalc) and C James. Sadly, I've lost contact with all of them apart from C James, so I have a new team who helped me with my latest story. A big thank you to rec for editing, and MikeL, Trebs and C James for beta-reading. Also a special thank you to ricky, for doing a final run through on the latter chapters to eliminate those last annoying typos.

It was set-up well I suspect the first page of comments were all written by staff members, since none of them acknowledge the satirical nature of the website. I didn't look at the later comments to see if anyone picked up on that fact. Oh, and for record, it's now April 1 here in Australia. Just saying....

Thank you. The non-discrimination details are taken directly from the real AFL and VFL policies on the subject. As far as I can tell, it's also not lip-service -- the policy is enforced, though to varying degrees. Most of the enforcement recently has been on racial and gender vilification, but there are certainly enough hints from senior AFL officials that the same level of enforcement would apply for sexual orientation vilification.

Thank you! Coming out is never easy, even if it's not your traditional coming out....

LOL -- sorry. I tend to write on the basis that a story will (eventually) be read right through. Posting it serially gives me time to work on my next project, but it can disrupt the continuity from a reader's perspective.

This was written for the Deceptions anthology, so I wrote layers of deception into the story. Carl is really the only one who wasn't in the act of deception, unless you count self-deception. It's a situation where there's no 'good' solution. Ben is dying, and in a way that drags out the suffering. He wants to spare Carl that. He doesn't believe he can tell Carl the truth because Carl is the sort of person who will stay loyal, even past the point of death. The entire problem gets down to 'what's best for Carl?'. Letting him live life with a lost love, or forcing him away to try to give him another chance at love? If it's the latter, how do you do it? I'm sorry, I can't accept your dare because I really don't know how to make things better for Carl. Everyone has Carl's best interests at heart -- but no one knows how Carl will react. All they can do is hope....

He told himself it was just infatuation. He told himself he was sexually frustrated and the whole situation was messing with his mind. He told himself he didn’t want Tony. All the time, he knew he was lying to himself. It didn’t stop him. He had been lying to others and playing games with his mind for so long that this was just more of the same. He tried to concentrate on other things. To focus on his football. To focus on treating Tony like his teammates did – as someone who was just one of t

I'm not sure if it's real either. I've found it at a few places, with some expanded details: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/grandfather-viral-letter-daughter-disowning-kicking-gay-grandson-article-1.1476437 http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/03/heartless-b-word-of-a-daughter-grandpa-pens-viral-letter-disowning-his-daughter-for-kicking-her-gay-son-out-of-the-house/ It originally appeared at a clothing store facebook page, apparently sent in by the grandson in question. If it's real, his grandfather showed it to him and he took a picture of it, and then sent it in. Plausible, and I'd like to think it's a true story.