Former Member

In the Bay Area, we are being encouraged to visit the states of Oregon, Utah, and strangely enough, California. Cities like San Diego, Bend (Oregon), Santa Cruz, and the East Bay communities of the Tri-Valley also want us to visit. Utah hopes that their ads will make us forget about the millions they poured into the hateful Prop 8 campaign. I suppose the California ads are part of a national campaign. And I guess the Tri-Valley thinks those of us on the Bay side of the Hayward Hills have forgotten about them. Tourism ads are odd…

I've noticed a couple of lovely ads recently. A medical group shows several young parents taking infants home for the first time and include a female set of parents. A cruise line shows a hot young male couple taking a romantic selfie

A grown brother and sister are at home ogling the pool man. They see he's sweating and both compete to get him a soft drink. When they get there, another young woman had already given the guy a Coke. ----- Ohhhh, correction: it's not another young woman; it's the mom! lol Good for you, Mom.

It's cute, except at the end you can see a wedding band on the boy's finger.... An oversight?

Many people realize that the content of most of those gossip magazines is exaggerated or even falsified (eg Elvis and Big Foot sightings or obese Hollywood actors). But some people believe them and the increasingly entertainment-oriented ‘serious’ news media spreads the information even further as if it were actual news. At the same time, revelations of well-known and much-loved celebrities are increasingly common and far less devastating to careers. The current wave of Out actors, musicians, athletes, and business people has been far larger and more sustained than the previous ‘bisexuality’ trend of the ‘70s where many later walked back on their claims (ie David Bowie in one direction, Elton John in the other). Inexorably, things are progressing in much of the English-speaking world and western Europe. Ben has had his hand forced and the best thing he can do is just gracefully confirm the rumors. Ideally his manager will quickly put him in contact with one or more of the major LGBTQ Rights organizations to avoid some of the more cringeworthy missteps and misinformation produced by other, less-than-informed newly-Out celebrities (eg Lance Bass). As Doug has proved, even in the less welcoming parts of the US, not everyone is going to panic and hyperventilate over the news. Even if Doug seems to have shared other aspects of Travis’ life… Hopefully, Ben won’t try to pass his relationship with Travis as just a close friendship.

Hear, hear

I tried posting a review this morning only to be told GA was going through maintenance! Aargh! Liam, Liam, Liam. Your apparent obsession for a man who is toxic for you is annoying to me. You obviously cannot be with him since you left him several times in the past, yet you can’t get him out of your mind. He may have Come Out, but his domineering father will always be there to cause more problems in the future. You need to get over him and be with a man who has been supportive from the first time he met you. I don’t think you’ve really given Nathan the opportunity to become more than an occasional companion. Whenever you start to really warm up to Nathan, Alek shows up like a James Cameron movie that just won’t end.

Interesting Information, this makes an ending only harder. I guess Liam has to talk to Alek. :-)

I have seen protests by Gay white men over relatively insignificant issues while they simultaneously ignore much larger concerns. In the ‘90s, Gay men from San Francisco were outraged when the East Bay suburban city of Concord recalled half its City Council and rescinded some Gay Rights legislation (probably Domestic Partners registration). They were ranting and raving about the injustice of the change. They never stopped to think about the fact that Concord was one of the very few Bay Area cities that ever attempted to do so at the time. Aside from Berkeley and Oakland, none of the other cities in the East Bay was ever going to do anything like that! Concord should have been praised for trying. A few years later, parents in a nearby small, very wealthy unincorporated town, Alamo, petitioned the county to change the name of ‘Gay Court’ because their kids were getting teased by homophobic classmates. Instead of pointing out that the schools should use this as a teaching example, a bunch of Gay men from The Castro went out to picket. Nobody learned anything and ‘Gay Court’ became ‘High Eagle Lane.’ During that time period Trans people were getting attacked and murdered. HIV/AIDS was still infecting new patients. Young LGBTQ students were being bullied and injured. People of Color were being harassed in The Castro, being asked for multiple pieces of ID in some bars. Gay white men are still white men with all the privileges that entails. White men do not have to dress up in an attempt to be seen as valued customers. White men are not usually complimented on their English unless they have an obvious accent. White men are not usually asked where they are from unless they have an accent – and people don’t usually continue to ask, ‘No, really, where are you from?’ when the answer is somewhere in the US while the questioner thinks that the answer should be somewhere foreign and exotic. White men do not usually have to deal with crude sexual harassment while walking down the street minding their own business. White men are seen as individuals and are not lumped into a single group based on the continent that their ancestors came from. The levels and kinds of stresses that Gay white men experience are not the same as for others living in the same society. Besides, who is it the came up with the whole concept of race? No one that I know of is attempting to tell you that you cannot be offended. I’m just trying to explain that what you are likely to feel pales in comparison with some of the people you are trying to equate yourself with.

A few of my favorite shorts are: 41 Sekunden (41 Seconds) – a German language short where two friends discuss who the better kisser is. (S is for Sexy DVD collection) Boychick – a Jewish young man’s overly intrusive mother embarrasses him while his fantasies morph into a music video. (Boxer Shorts DVD collection) Skallamann (Bald Guy) – a Norwegian musical short about a young man’s first kiss (with the titular bald guy). (Fun in Boys Shorts DVD collection) Crush – a young man is exiled to a sleepy town to stay with his grandmother for the summer. (2000, Dir Phillip J Bartell, stars Brett Chuckerman; Boys to Men DVD collection) Spooners – a Gay couple decides to replace their worn-out futon with a brand new bed. (Fun in Boys Shorts DVD collection) I originally saw all of them at various Frameline festivals. They should all be fairly easy to find. Links are to IMDB, not the videos.

Cheater! ;-) Everything they are feeling is so intense! And it’s so different from the way things were in the past. He clearly isn’t TP anymore. Wally was merely a chrysalis form that the real Scott has emerged from. Scott had to go through that painful transformation to become available for Graham. If I weren’t an Agnostic, I might be tempted to refer to a baptism… ;-)

It always seemed to me that athletes (and cheerleaders) were kind of isolated in their own world. I had a foreign language class where I inadvertently sat between two cheerleaders. When I was willing to switch seats, we became friendly (in that class) – the only time in my life that I had conversations with cheerleaders! ;-)

Thinking about a certain someone. ...et lux pertetua, dear friend...

It sounds more like he eats his microwave. ;-)

So Eric, Seth and the others get to be incubators too! ;-) And now we know that those sons of Eve who are blessed with extraordinarily prodigious ‘endowments’ did not receive their ‘gift’ by descending from the children of Lilith. At least via Demetrius in any case. ;-)

There are plenty of alternatives out there. I’ve reviewed some of them from Frameline40. The hope is that some of that straight, suburban family audience will discover that we are more alike than dissimilar and might think twice before voting against us. This is ABC, after all, owned by the very family-friendly Disney!

I'm struck by the images of flawed perfection - does this relate directly to the warm hand melting the snowflake. If so, then the hand is human, and thereby flawed, destroying the perfectly constructed structure given to us by nature. Lots to think about here. Thanks for posting

So. Still calculating? Or still going ‘round in circles? ;-)

How will Drew celebrate? Will he go ‘round in circles? Is he still calculating the possibilities? Has he been busy baking?

Great chapter! :)

“Don’t tell me you having missed love making.” Haven’t? “Every doctor, nurse, lawyer and neuvo riche wants to live there!” Nouveau riche. But the way you are using it here seems more like an adjective needing a noun like ‘fool.’ Tony should preface his response with ‘the.’ “Those grand peaks, the open are…” The open are what? And thank you for using the typographically correct ellipsis rather than an annoying series of three periods. So everyone’s home now! Alik should feel much happier with all of his family back. Will Tony build a castle for Mitch? ;-)

I am a fan of LGBTQ short films, especially at LGBTQ film festivals. Even at the best curated festivals, movies can be uneven in quality with some questionable product being included (do they have a quota for some obscure category that I don’t know about?). So short film programs are great – if one is bad, the next one is probably better! Some of my favorite shorts over the years have had a very simple premise, while others have packed in so much you don’t realize how short it was until it’s over! One of the best things has been the proliferation of online venues for shorts. In the past, many very good shorts were only shown at festivals and then promptly disappeared. Now they can be sold on iTunes or Amazon, or posted on YouTube or Vimeo. They can potentially reach a much wider audience. But if you attend a film festival, there’s a chance that the director will be there to provide additional insight and context which can be important if the director comes from a different culture (like the opposite US coast or something). ;-)

How far along are we in IVF of Southern White Rhinos and other critically endangered species?

I haven't gotten so far...read 5, I think, but need to leave a couple more reviews. The other stories I've yet to read

A very sensual sex scene! Very well done! I like how they communicate. Being best friends can be a very good basis for love. :-)