methodwriter85

True, but right now I think it kind of works that Mark is painting JJ as the virginal counterpoint to Will.

I know you're doing examples...but I'm not sure I see Jeremy Schluter being a slut. He's already bucked the pothead tendencies of his family; he might just buck the slutty tendencies as well.

Yeah, I think it's easy to admit that Brad was a pretty shitty, inconsistent parent.

Will REALLY seems to have a problem with hypocrisy, and I can't see him as a parent ever trying to disparage his own teenage kid somewhere in the 2030's from doing the same kind of stuff he did. I think the scene would go pretty much as you described. I get what you're saying, Blue, but I don't think JJ will ever doing anything that would tarnish his image. Image is absolutely everything in that sport, and for him to pull any of the kind of shit that Will did to be "free" wouldn't be good for it. He'll just suck it up and be glad that he's only got another 16 months to go before his 18th birthday.

It seems like the "primary family consisting of the two gay men and their breeder" for each generation always has around 3/4 kids, so I figured the third kid here would be inevitable. I'll admit I want it to be Matt's, as well. He strikes me as someone who will make a great dad, when he puts the effort into it. Will is probably going to make a great father some day, Darius as well probably. JJ will probably have a vasectomy before he's 25. LOL. (Which will be a smart idea, considering that he's from a line of VERY fertile men.) In any event, I can see Matt, Wade, and Tiffany figuring out parenting pretty well, and avoiding the major mistakes that Brad/Robbie/Jeanine did with their kids. For example, there's no way in fucking hell Tiffany would have EVER put up with the kind of attitude that Will gave Jeanine from one of her kids. JJ won't try this again on family members again, probably. Instead, he'll save that for whatever entourage he sets up when he's in his 20's and living on his own.

I did not know a beard wife can father kids. The things you learn... In any event, Wade's right that it's pretty doomed, but I like that he wants to at least enjoy it for a few years instead of planning out the next twenty years of his life, which guys like him tend to do.

For Scott, I picture either a blond-haired Josh Holloway from Lost: Or Jason Lewis from Sex and the City. Both have that sleazy hot con artist vibe to them. Jason Lewis wouldn't be a bad Cody, either. His eyes have a freakishly beautiful shade of blue to them which would make sense with Cody and how he's described as being able to bore into people's souls by looking into their eyes. Thoughts, Mark?

I think what I was trying to say, and apparently didn't really do a good job of saying, was that Queer as Folk represented and reflected a certain reality and created a perception that this was the main way gay men conducted themselves, even if that wasn't true for everybody. You gotta remember that as an impressionable 16-year old gay kid, this image imprinted on me. It was reinforced by the fact that my sister promoted Philly raves back in the 2001-2003 era, and the whole gay circuit raver boy with frosted hair tips and glitter clothing was the type of gay guy she knew, and introduced me to. You made me think about why I perceived things that way, and I think that's why- I really did buy into the whole Queer as Folk image being what gay guys were like, and it wasn't helped by the fact that the older men I was trying to hook up with online as a 16-year old reinforced that image. I think I knew exactly two low-key gay guys at this period in my life. Everyone else I knew ranted and raved about going off to hit the Philly gay clubs and wore a shit ton of glitter. It's why seeing two normal-looking college guys on a casual pizza date was eye-opening for me, when I was 17. I actually wrote about that here if you're interested in reading it: I'm From Newark, DE Funny enough, the illustrator pictured me as blond, like my namesake JJ. LOL. Although JJ would NEVER wear a t-shirt, unless it cost like 500 dollars and was made by Dior. I also would probably bet he hasn't touched a slice of pizza in months. I do think what's beyond debate here is that the rise in gay marriage and gay adoptions HAVE changed perceptions, and that we're seeing more different types of GLBT narratives on our screens than what we saw back in 2001, when it was either Will and Grace or Queer as Folk. Over on the Fosters, which features a married lesbian couple who foster teenaged kids, they're having a storyline where a middle school-aged kid is questioning his feelings for his best friend. That would have NEVER been on American t.v. when I was in middle school. The closest we had was a 27-year old man playing a 17-year old boy who chastely pecked a boy on the lips once a year. (If that.) I think what that helps to do is allow for the 12-year old boy who's questioning his sexuality to maybe not feel so alone, and feel more normal. Which is great and why I'm glad there's a lot more windows these days, as you put it.

Well, I'm not saying Queer as Folk was 100 percent accurate, but it did reflect something, as did the exchange between Andy and Kyle Kessler in Cross-Currents, which wasn't fictional. Anyway, I was actually trying to back up what you were saying about how it's more the reality for urban gay people to not be monogamous. I was agreeing with you there, man. Geez.

I found this Huffington Post article. It's by a guy who refuses to force his son to stop wearing dresses and bow down to societal norms, because in the end, he wants his son to be able to express who he is, whatever is it that he may be. My Son Wears Dresses, And That's OK With Me Pretty cool.I liked that Mr. Menachem wasn't all, "Yes, I put him in dresses to say fuck societal norms!" and it took him awhile to be okay with the judgemental comments he gets from people who think that he's going to raise a gay son because of this.

Isn't Canada generally ahead when it comes to gay rights? They had universal gay marriage in 2003. The U.S got it ONE state in 2004, and Massachusetts wasn't joined by other states until 2008-2009. We're in 2002, and the public image of gay life still resembles the go-go dancers and bed-hopping of Queer As Folk. (Which was ironically filmed in Canada but still set in the United States.) It wasn't until gay marriage and gay adoptions/surrogate pregnancies started happening in the U.S. with more frequency that I started hearing more about gay guys settling down in monogamous relationships and setting up family units. Before that, the only gay guys I knew who were settled tended to be the 40-something/50-something types who had adopted kids and were aged out of the club scene. 25-year old American gay guys announcing they were settling down for life with a partner was still pretty damn rare during this time period. I mean, in 2010, I had a straight friend joke to me that I might find a husband in grad school. I didn't, of course, but it really made me think about the fact that when I came out circa 2001, having a "husband" would've been a foreign concept to me. I could've had a "partner" that I had a Vermont civil union with, but it's still kinda different. A 15-year old gay boy growing up in 2014 America would have the concept that he could get married and could have a husband pretty much in his consciousness, especially if he's growing up in one of the 19 states that allow gay marriage now. Adam Phillip's wrote this autobiographical novel called Cross-Currents, and he had this scene with a bisexual narrator who talks to a gay person about what it means to be a gay guy who wants a committed relationship. I thought it was very true to the time period of the late 1990's/the very early 2000's- I thought it just kind of nailed that "circuit boi" era mindset of the Y2K years, when gay guys stopped being scared of AIDS but didn't really have a lot of examples showing off that settling down into a family as a monogamous gay couple was possible. Wade and Matt do have the example of settling down into family units, but neither Brad/Robbie nor Stefan/JP are examples of perfect monogamy. I missed that, but I have to really disagree with this. There's nothing similar in their dynamic- Robbie was the nouveau rich raised in the house of a man who had crawled his way to respectable middle class from serious white trash roots and Brad was the Golden Boy of an incredibly rich, old-money family. There was always this imbalance with them- Robbie was always this impulsive, insecure guy who needed to buy friends and show off his incredibly shaky wealth, and Brad could, in a sense, hold the card that he could've destroyed Robbie financially if he wanted to. Brad had all the control in the relationship and they were never really on equal footing. Matt, meanwhile, grew up in an affluent, well-respected family and has the confidence that went along with that. While the Carrswolds are nowhere near the wealth of the Danfields, Matt's never had "trying to prove himself" syndrome that nouveau-riche people like Robbie seem to get. I've never gotten the feeling that Wade and Matt weren't equals with each other. It's a very Southern thing, I think, of knowing "who your people are." Which is probably why Wade relates so much to Alex because Southern culture resembles English culture in that regard- the whole "cavalier gentry" thing. I think it's just a function of the whole affluent class that Matt comes from. I mean, you probably saw this with your son's friends because I figure you're somewhere close to Matt's socioeconomic class- parents expect very high achiever trophy kids, which is why they're under so much immense pressure. Which was an interesting contrast to someone like Will, who does well in school but isn't pressured to be a National Honor Society, varsity-sport letterman, valedictorian candidate like some of the kids I grew up with. He's not under expectations by his family to get a job that will help him move up a social class or at least maintain the one he's in, because Will's already at the top, and his family wealth pretty much guarantees that he doesn't have to worry about any real financial setbacks.

If anything, Matt would probably try and become the over-eager Little League dad-coach. I can tooootttalllllyyyy see Matt becoming the guy who becomes over-involved in their kid's sport lives, although not to unhealthy Jeanine or Wally levels. Although what about Maddy and her soccer games? Wouldn't Matt and Wade want to be involved with that as well? Girls play sports, too. Come on, don't be a sexist. In all seriousness though, Wade doesn't seem to relate to Maddy as a father figure. I think he consciously or sub-conciously avoids that in deference to Cody, although if Cody stays the long-distance dad through Maddy's childhood I think he'd eventually feel obligated to provide a father figure to Maddy.

To be fair with Wade on the Riley stuff...it's a soap. Little kids are pretty much seen but not heard, and if Mark put in parental moment after parental moment in the story, it'd get boring. And we've only followed Wade's POV for one chapter in this story- we can't even really judge what kind of parent Wade is. It's like what Sharon said to me one time where I said that I didn't think JP and JJ had a close relationship- she said something to the effect of, "How do you know that? For all we know, JP and JJ have weekly lunches where they discuss everything under the sun. We're not privy to every moment in these character's lives." Mark did say that he doesn't see Wade becoming the "at home at 5 p.m. and playing with the kids on their lawn" type because Wade's a bit too ambitious for that. I can clearly see that with Will, but Mark's got a point about it probably not being the type of parent that Wade will turn into.

Still, I'd be way more willing to ride a light rail than I would a subway in a very seismically active area. Portland seems like its benefitted a lot from its light rail system. Have you ever ridden the subway and felt it was okay, or does it kind of freak you out?

Hey, Blue, as a railroad guy, this should be fun for you: It's Now Legal to Build Light Rail in the San Fernando Valley It's off into the future probably, but it's nice to see that more and more suburban sprawl areas are embracing alternative transit methods. I mean really, what are they going to do? Create 20-lane highways? Not feasible. I wish I could've experienced 1980's Sherman Oaks Galleria. Just looks like a lot of fun. And the Valley Accent is such a hoot...do people still speak like that, or no?

Good points. I've been hoping that you'd have JJ in some Burberry now that he's going to live in a colder environment and will need a lot more jackets and the life. So far you've only really mentioned Dior with him, and he doesn't really strike me as a "one label" guy. Burberry seems like something JJ would rock the hell out of, and it was at its most popular during this time period.

Matt's never been that much of a clotheshorse. He knows when to dress up, but it's not really a focus with him. And with Will, Mark's been consistent with the fact that Will doesn't really give a damn about clothing. Wade and JJ are the clotheshorses for this generation.

I've been working as an intern in a museum with my supervisor, Katie, for the past couple of weeks. Today, we had a discussion that turned into the paranormal, and she told me about something that happened when she was a teenager. She tries to debunk crazy things that have happened, but this is one she hasn't been able to do. It was the summer after she graduated from high school, sometime in the second half of the 1990's. She was 18 at the time. Her friend Billy was a few years older, but still lived with his mother in their house. This was in a small town some distance away from Baltimore, and Billy's house had just enough land that he could throw raging, day-to-night summer parties complete with bonfires. At the same time, they weren't totally isolated, and random people from the surrounding neighborhoods would show up to his parties all the time. This kid named Nick started showing up every day at Billy's house, knocking on the door at 7 a.m. and engaging him in the morning-til-night drinking. He was about 16, seemed fairly normal and everything except for a couple of things. The first was that he always wore the same thing- for two weeks, he never changed clothes, and his clothes still looked clean. The second is that he was never seen eating or going to the bathroom, despite the fact that Nick was drinking heavily with Billy. Finally, oddly enough, no one remembers actually feeling Nick's skin- even my supervisor, who had sat next to him in a car. She hung out with Billy and Nick at Billy's house two times, and each time she and her friend felt like something was very "off" with Nick, especially when he would give off this laugh that just sounded very evil and maniacal. Finally, Billy's hospitality reached its limits- after two weeks of waking Billy up at 7 a.m. to go party, Billy snapped at Nick. He told Nick that he was waking up his mother trying to sleep, and that he's been hanging out at his house all day and night for two weeks straight and that he really just needs to come back later. Nick never showed up again. Billy came to Katie, a little bit later, with a newspaper article. It was about Nick, who had apparently killed himself. Billy was originally upset because he felt like he must've put Nick over-the-edge when he kicked him out, until he checked the dates. Nick had killed himself with his father's shotgun over two weeks ago. Katie has tried to come up with logical reasons for why this happened. The most logical one was that they screwed up the dates in the newspaper and Nick had indeed killed himself right after his talk with Billy, but two weeks? That's a huge discrepancy. What gets me about this is that I've never heard of a smart haunting that was apparently so strong that it could manifest itself as a solid human form, enough that it could fool people into thinking he was a person, for that long. I mean, I've hard of ghosts "saying goodbye" right after their death, but nothing that sounds like that. And there's the fact that he interacted with a a lot of people, not just my supervisor and her friend. He was acknowledged by other people who came into Billy's house, not just Billy and Katie. Have any of you, or people you know, had a long, sustained smart haunting like that? I'd love to hear any.

Flat-fronts are this: They're all the rage right now with the young people. The shorts create a flat front, and kinda taper in at the knees or go above the knees.

Seriously though. Who hasn't had a crush? Who hasn't felt all logic and reasoning leave you in regards to that person when that crush was in full-bloom? There's a rush, and it's only afterwards when you really get to know the person that you start to think rationally and logically again.

I learned this lesson today when I tried to buy flat-front khaki shorts, which is all the rage with the kids these days. It just doesn't look good on a guy with short stumpy legs with massive thighs and calves- it's a look clearly made for guys with long and slender legs. So instead I went with hiking shorts, which are basically cargo shorts that go above the knee. It's funny though- I went to Aeropostale, and they were advertising long-length flat-fronts with 11.5 inch inseams, which...doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of flat-fronts? I thought the point as that they tapered in and ended at about the knee. You might as well just go ahead and wear cargo shorts or skateboard shorts at that point. I came thisclose to buying a neon-green tank top, as neon tank tops also seem to be the rage with the kids these days, but I kind of resisted. Weirdly enough, I like NOTICING trends, but I generally don't engage in them myself because I like being able to wear clothes over multiple years. Though I think I actually could pull off neon very well with my dark Pacific Islander tan. I don't know, though. I feel like if I wore stuff like that, I'd be like the 35-year olds wearing Abercrombie that I used to make fun of when I was 19. Do you wear flat-fronts, Blue? I think you'd rock the hell out of that look with those skinny legs of yours. I'm not sure I can see you in those funky neon tank tops, though.

Wade's usually calm and collected, but right now he's a giddy guy in the middle of a new massive crush. The only other time we saw Wade in that status was when he was falling in love with Matt, but we didn't really know Wade all that well then. Wade was more of an enigma until Matt saw Wade with his family during the Holidays. It's been a long and enduring theme in CAP that love (either falling in or falling out) causes our characters to act in ways that kinda baffle and confound us readers.

My sister used to promote raves, and I remember Shampoo was the big gay party club in Philly at the time. There's no real gay life in northern Delaware...you have to go to Rehomo Beach, and there it tends to be more focused on middle-aged gay men and lesbians who have families.

I'd say it was the bridge- somewhere around the mid-2000's. I definitely noticed them and the tribal tats on the guys I was checking out in college in 2005-2007, but I feel like the tribal tats came in earlier(with my sister's friends who are about Matt and Wade's age) and just stayed around for a while. I think they're pretty dated, like how a barbed wire tattoo just SCREAMS 90's. If I see a guy with a tribal tat I'll assume he has to be at least in his late 20's but is probably in his early/mid-30's, while those chest and rib "deep poignant message" tats seem more the domain of guys in their early 20's. If I see a guy with a barbed wire tattoo, I'd probably peg him as being about Private Tim's age, born somewhere in the mid/late 1970's and getting his tat somewhere in the mid/late 90's. I really think Tony SCREAMS a Celtic Cross tat, but I don't think those are quite as dated.

Every time I see a guy with a tribal tattoo around his arm, I just think, "Yup, you were college-aged circa 1998 to 2005 and got this tat." It was either the tribal tattoo, or the Celtic cross. Then somewhere in the late '00s to early '10's, it switched over to letter-writing tattoos either on the chest or around a rib, or just the general Ed Hardy sleeve.