Real love -- I'm, like, searchin' for that Queer Love -- LGBTQIA+ Love // A Thread for the Real Ones

🙃🙃🙃 wassup y'all? i'm so happy we're all here. lots of years between the lot of you. friends, lovers, cuties welcome. 🐙🐙🐙

Bump.

feeling mighty real tbh

great title swen, can i call you swenny henny?

y'all I just spent 4 days in Boston w my new "friend" and it was soooo nice, we seem to really enjoy each other's company and he was v cuddly and affectionate and it just felt v lovely to have like easy uncomplicated intimacy, also while I was there I bought a golden fork to keep in my office for work lunches and I am irrationally excited abt it, it is truly so cunt

this weekend I am performing in a Kate Bush revue thing called N1ght of 1000 K4tes, it is going to be v fun (it's in its 8th year and I have attended all but the v first one and this will be my 2nd time performing!!!), it is one of my v favorite things abt Philly, every year is like going to summer camp and seeing all your friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jK7dW8Jf74

lmao at having a golden fork, it's completely perfect and now i want one. kate bush community theater sounds lovely.

it's got like a sanded matte finish instead of a high-gloss sheen, I really love it

it's actually my friend's performance/idea and I'm just one of the performers, but it's like, about covid??? (which I'm not thrilled abt but I love my friend and am happy to contrib), it's like a sound collage based on "Aerial" (which I tbh am thrilled abt) and there's like, dancers in the audience, and mirrory things on the stage reflecting back on the audience, and there's like, contemplation and one-ness and survival and stuff I think

that's sooo cool and I'm jelly. I just listened to Aerial the other day. my introduction to ILX!

so I have had my own idea for YEARS that I have told several ppl abt and have gotten a good response to and I think I am going to finally finally try to pull it off next year, I think I have maybe even talked abt it on here somewhere, but the song is this v inexplicable house remix of "Rubberband Girl" and the performance is a complete ripoff of UNZIPPED (1995) where it will be a fashion show and there will be all sorts of zany chaos and hijinks backstage but w like perfect immaculate runway walks the second they come out from behind the curtain, the performance has nothing to do w the music but maybe I'll get some LIVESTRONG bracelets made and throw them into the crowd idk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KII-OXV86c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBc4rXKkTU

AERIAL is honestly the best Kate Bush album

also it is a bit $$$ (20 of them to be exact) but they are selling tickets for the livestream tomorrow night at 8:30! https://wl.seetickets.us/event/Night-of1000Kates/470113?afflky=UndergroundArts

stevie i still have that KB shirt you sent me! it's a lil snug on me atm but whenever i wear it ppl always ask about it

omg mine too is a lil snug, I forget which one I sent you but the one I have has her face on it and my belly makes it fold in half so that it makes her look like that one picture of Aphex Twin

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/da/Aphex_Twin_-_Syro_main_press_photo.jpg

you sent me the glow in the dark one (which amazingly still works after probably dozens of laundry cycles)

I just watched unzipped recently and it was so good. also did you know there's a sister documentary called catwalk that basically follows Christy Turlington all over the world?
pretty awful what's going on with Linda Evangelista. she just released the first body pics of her condition due to coolsculpting. unimaginable.

I was sad to miss Kates. Heard my friend Anna blew it outta the park, and saw the wacky inflatable Cathy and Heathcliff blow-up piece on film. Looked like a really fun time, but we had planned a dinner months ago with our gay friends, one of whom is going through a health scare...so it seemed more important to hang out with them.

I finished "Detransition, Baby," yesterday, and while I thought it ended much too quickly, I thought it had some really lovely moments.

hope your friend is hanging in there <3

xp y0ung?? she fuckin KILLED it (as per usual). I hope they post a recording of the livestream.

I've been listening to a lot of RuTH lately 🌄🌄🌄

yes Stevie, that Ann4

o boy what a life we lead really

so I'm not sure when the next time I'll "meet" someone is, let's call it, due to extenuating circumstances

do i care?

will i ever go out to a bar and pick someone up again? i had occasional game. all of a sudden I'd love to meet someone younger than me. i usually don't gravitate to that realm. i wonder what that's about

you will absolutely go out to a bar and pick someone up again, it is so inevitable

Date tonight. At a (rooftop) bar. I shoulda asked if he's jabbed.

first date? how did you meet? brown hair, big heart, bat eyelashes?

you know Stevie it's just at first it was pandemia, and then health stuff that's going to take another 6 months to settle. just didn't realize I'd be singing the same tune for the goddamn 3-year dark ages. but whatever i'm going to get so many beauty treatments when this is all through I plan on looking like Princess Jasmine meets Bella Hadid. mark my words.

also i quit smoking forever and it's truly something else. going on 6 months.

my new issue of BUTT just arrived!!!!!!!!!

omg i already read some of the poems
how is it at large?

is it large?

C'mon Simone, let's talk about your big "but."

I haven't read it yet bcz I got it at work and then *brag alert* went straight to my fuck buddy's house for a cute date and only just got home a few hours ago!!!

butts all around

butts rule everything around me

OK SO
I'm not a butt man and i keep feeling more and more alone
like American men are just obsessed with them
i feel like there's something wrong with me

Stevo you're killin it these days

don't care about the outside, it's what's inside that counts imo

like the way it feels?

yeah! i mean not to get too tmi or too cliche i guess but i just think anuses are this incredible part of us lol and i really like experiencing them.

So! My Saturday night date sold me out. I suspected trouble when I had to text him 15 mins before meeting: he was running late thanks to a "minor emergency" at his parents', whatever that means (what's a "minor" emergency?). Luckily a friend kept me company at the bar.

An hour later, date texts: "On my way, send location address plz?" That's the last I heard of him. For a while I thought he died -- until I saw a an Instagram post Sunday morning.

He's 24, a former student who emailed me four years after class to ask about getting a beer or coffee. On determining he was queer he gushed: he praised my self-assurance, brains, looks, etc. We might've met that night had I not plans already. It's worth noting I barely remember this kid in summer 2018.

I wonder if simply not showing up is a phenomenon of the young?

Anusii are a cliche?

that sucks. definitely hit next. it's been a phenomenon of the young and old as long as i've been dating tbh. xp

Yeah, I wanted to avoid generational generalization, but a few viejos noted The Vanishing has been more prevalent in the last four years.

I've ghosted more than my share, I should note.

I have never done this, to my knowledge?

me eiths it's dumb
I'm too polite though

wassup homieslice

good morning!

Mornin' sunshine!
What's on the platter?

I'm vegetarian tonight.

sexually or culinarily?

Lady Bracknell : Well, both, if necessary, I presume!

So, I’m in one of the only two gay bars in Marbella (southern coast of Spain) right now, and the thing here is that high heeled shoes are passed around, everyone tries them on, and then they take their turn swishing down what passes for a catwalk. Pleased to report that my boy got the loudest applause of the night. We make our own entertainment.

The bar is filling up because at 4am they close the doors, bring out the ashtrays, and everyone can smoke indoors.

We will be back tomorrow for drag queen bingo.

omgggggg jealous

Oh I forgot to mention the seventy something naked woman who did her catwalk turn clutching a large stuffed teddy bear.

stop

jealz to the max

Just ended a fabulous evening with j0rdan.

yesss. what did y'all do?

we went to a sports bar so i could watch basketball while we talked about madonna

...and Mariah Carey. And my terrible non-date last week.

ok well that sounds ideal (sorry for the delay how the hell do three days go by?!)

you know i saw Madonna's Mme X tour
she could still put on a show, i just wonder if it isn't time for her to maybe think about doing something else

we had dinner with Stevie last night!! and then he came back to our place and we plied him with amaro and we talked about sheryl crow and natalie merchant and celine dion and it was just a total delight <3

Amaro! Sheryl Crow! Sounds like my kind of night.

sounds like a blast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHxbxAQSQMM

uhhhhhh i had no idea wallace shawn was in a chaka khan video lol

he's in everything!
also I'm pretty sure I've had that night before lol so fun xp ❤️

wassup docs
it's eighty goddamn degrees here today
too soon yo

lovely haiku

it's only about 70 here. we've had some random bursts of heat over the past few weeks though.

next week i will be in seattle, where it's gonna be 50 and rainy no doubt. i forget, are any of y'all based there? would love recs on things and places to do/see/eat/drink there!

Wish I had more Recs than go to PONY and the gay Karaoke bar on Cap Hill, and also you simply must visit the main public library, it is everything a public library should be imho

85 degrees already

omg I've always wanted to go to Seattle

i used to love working in the library in college. I would sit in the stacks in the basement, or the art stacks which were the super cool ones. but I had no place there TBH

I miss my college library all the time.

The cops caught the arsonist of the queer bar in Bushwick. Scary story of what happened.

Not gonna lie, my queer friends, but I really am getting a lot more worried about some things, like whether my marriage will be recognized in a few years.

wait i didn't hear about the bar. deets? how did i miss that. was reading an article about a gay couple last night just filed a precedent setting suit RE being denied infertility coverage for IVF. glad for the action.

so just now i'm served an ad on facebook for customized wrestling singlets that's just an image of hairy pecs bulging out of spandex (the co is t4ked0wn sp0rtswe4r, in case you want to google it and have the ads follow you around everywhere). and i notice that it has likes and loves. so i click on the loves because i have a premonition. about ten gentlemen come up, and i open each in a new tab, and am beguiled by ten miniature portraits of gay american men.

wrestling fetishists have surprisingly good taste in memes

sorry busy week! how creepy! honestly the sanitary side of wrestling alone counteracts how hot it can be don't you think? u know how many skin infections those guys get? gross.

so I'm going to fire island in Aug and i have to figure out my look. last year was health goth. I'm kind of feeling club kid this year???

HI
wtf is up

hello gays

hiiii!

we spent nearly four hours trying to put up two bookshelves yesterday. stupid drywall!!

Got laid in New Orleans last week with a Napoleon House waiter.

i'm gay. not much else up tbh. hi kate!

Gay meter low thank christ for this thread

There is one (1) gay bar in town and it is a municipal landmark for being the first local gay watering hole

See? They don't need anymore!

wait hoos i thought you were in dc?

shockingly slc will have TWO new gay bars this year!

bringing the total to 5 afaict

one of the new ones is called MILK, they have 9-12$ drinks, a security checkpoint and a $10 cover, feels like a high school gymnasium inside. they called the cops on the taco truck in their parking lot when they were opening. serving us corporate asshole realness 😎

the one that will be opening in the next few months is called CLUB VERSE (???), they do a lot of posts about "community" and so forth even though they are a bar, it looks like they might have a nice rooftop patio, and i think i have an in to dj there.

Remind me where you live, map?

wait hoos i thought you were in dc?

― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map), Sunday, May 1, 2022 3:58 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not no more, moved to Delaware a year ago and am about half an hour outside Philly by SEPTA

Hoos, let's hang! You and me and Stevie!

Also hi, all. I am still gay.

I inadvisedly spent a lot of money on a rare Dennis Cooper chapbook this weekend, but I'm so anxious/excited that my review of his latest book comes out on Tuesday that I am just allowing myself the indulgence of spending my fee on more of the same author's work.

Remind me where you live, map?

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, May 1, 2022 5:10 PM (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i am in salt lake city

hi Kate!!! Kate - only if you want to share - where are you located?

also hey hoos!!!! I'm happy to see you here (formerly surm btw). jealous of the potential hang.

T where can we read your review?

Hello gays

I stopped being gay over the winter and started a relationship with my Playstation but I finally ended all that and I'm dating my boyfriend again

o snap what have u been playing?

Please don't make me say my ex's name out loud, the breakup is still recent

(I logged over 200 hours into Elden Ring, like every other nerd)

haha I SEE. hey I just got my gameboy advance back up and running! do I get any props??? I'm racing pixelated cars and shit

Awwwww I miss my GBA. I had one of those SPs for a while, cute lil clamshell

I think I've seen like three hours of elden ring clips, I don't game but I can't stop looking at it

I hope you got WarioWare for the GBA that is such good fun

Wario is the horniest bottom in gaming

omg lol
one of my best girlfriends does that thing where she watches like hours of other people playing, it relaxes her

it makes for great white noise as long as its not one of those people who constantly screams into the mic

who is Sven -- Ramz?

Named after what Blanche called Rose's cousin in that one episode of The Golden Girls too, if I'm not mistaken.

more champagne!

hahahaha yes and yes

THE WAY HE'S
BEEN REJECTING YOU.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN REJECTING ME?

WELL, CANCELING
TWICE IN TWO DAYS.

THEN HE SHOWS UP WITH
THAT GIRL TODAY. WOO!
HOW OLD COULD SHE HAVE BEEN?

NOT VERY.

YOU'RE NOT LIKE MOST WOMEN,
BLANCHE, I'LL TELL YOU THAT.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

WOULDN'T MOST WOMEN LET A
THING LIKE THIS MAKE THEM FEEL OLD?

YES.

AND UNATTRACTIVE?

YES.

WORN OUT?

YES.

USELESS?

WHAT'S YOUR POINT, SWEN?!

Fuh-loyd!

"In die-ah-pers, Rose!"

lololol
def with my people here

Wow, I love you homos

❤️💚💙💜💘🤍💋💋💋

And he’d bend over backwards for me

🤣🤣🤣 that guy was in four Murder She Wrote episodes and later wound up on Melrose Place as Alison's father. he's also been in like 500 other things.

rambling gender stuff

so i really don't know to what extend it's "me" or some kind of deeply embedded reactive strategy but i've always been drawn to very masc presentations since i first started discovering my own sexuality. it's part of the reason i lift weights and eat a lot of meat. i'm kind of done second guessing it because it brings me pleasure even if it also feels like an "alien" pleasure that is disorienting and alienating and kind of silly sometimes and seems to confuse people who have progressive attitudes or creative dispositions (which i share). and there's the rub, people want to socialize with someone who feels safe to them, and i probably present a certain amount of toxic masc vibes, and i internalize the conflict between my presentation and a part of myself that isn't visible, that i almost wish wasn't a part of me sometimes. on the other hand i can't fully embrace masc presentation as reflective of who i really am. i think part of my difficulty with being social is related to this conflict.

anyway, i'm trying to relax as much as i can around it but it's hard. lately i've felt the outlines of my female persona, all i think i know about it is that it's a "tom girl." i always identified with those types of characters growing up. i don't know. is looking butch a safety blanket that is holding me back? maybe. this has been a big thing for me for as long as i can remember and i don't feel like i've ever made much progress on it, it's just there more or less all the time. sorry, just typing all this out somewhere since it's been on my mind lately and i don't have a therapist.

well, there's definitely a lot of gray area there, and there isn't one answer or the other. like it's certainly not just a safety blanket - a natural preference in large part, seems to me. i'm also attracted to masc presenting folk, amongst many other things. and i totally hear you regarding the conflict on 2 levels - "presenting", in so many ways (not just gender), is so different from who one really is. as a gay Lebanese immigrant with all kinds of gender wack in his head but light skin and a penis, i think i'm often perceived as having a certain sort of privilege that i don't really relate to. also, the masc v femme part is one of the biggest struggles in my life for sure. i don't want to feel at odds with my femininity, but i can't say i don't feel that pressure sometimes. so, you're not alone, and it's complex af.

hey, thanks for sharing swen. :)

back atcha

how's the gym these days mappy?

it's ok. i'm very antisocial at the gym lol. generally speaking i resent that it's a social experience foisted upon me when all i want to do is relax and get in my body. i avoid eye contact like the plague.

on the other hand, sometimes i find myself enjoying the bro-y aspect of it. there is a fun borderline erotic male energy sometimes. the area with the dumbbells and bench presses and mirrors is usually where i feel it. someone gave me a wave hi the other day, which was nice.

i had this gym crush for a while, very untended macho dad look. i followed him into the dry sauna once but any acknowledgment was avoided so i didn't get any creepier.

i don't mean to brag but i'm good and comfortable lifting, i've been regularly doing it at least 6 days a week now for a couple of years. at this point it's just what i do. i spend a fair amount of money on supplements and all that. it's an enthusiasm, a reason, an excitement. i try not to make it a topic of conversation, unless someone wants to talk about it, and i try to be as kind as possible, gay men have so much anxiety about it. i never do gym selfies except i broke down and did one the other day because i was out of town in a small gym and maybe i wanted some likes haha.

I'm glad you brought it up, map, because for many years I've wondered at the image I project. No observant person who meets me is under no illusions, but enough are that I sometimes freeze.

For example: at a birthday two weekends ago, a woman hit on me for the first time in decades. I found it flattering! But I kept thinking, do I camp it up so she doesn't get the wrong idea? In the end I just let it go, chalking it up on her part to a couple glasses of wine too many.

We know masculinity is a performance. When and how and where to perform remains the mystery/delight for me.

interesting comments, map. your posts have stimulated a lot of thoughts for me, but they are hard to articulate

Yeah. I'm regretting my post out of fear I didn't address his points.

would like to say a lot, just not sure of the words.

I’ve always been attracted to masculine guys. I’ve wondered if it is internalized homophobia - it probably is - but at this point in my life I don’t really care

I don’t think I ever stepped into a male world quite as much as when I started working out in gyms in SF in my late 20s and 30s. Every type of man was there, straight and gay. I met a lot guys I ended up dating or having sex with, some I just had crushes on, a straight guy I met in the sauna and became best friends with, many gay friends who’ve dispersed throughout the world but who've remained in touch, a macho man who challenged me about domain over the squats rack, and a masculine guy I was really attracted to and entered into a relationship with but who in the end had his own issues

nice to hear everyone's thoughts about this stuff tbh.

a fb friend posted the other day "testosterone is hot but also gross" and as much as it's inaccurate, like a single hormone doesn't add up to gender, it kind of encapsulates my experience in a way.

a macho man who challenged me about domain over the squats rack

i'm having trouble imagining this tbh. i've heard of similar stories, big dudes chasing smaller dudes away, but it's such a ridiculous thing to do i just can't imagine how it goes.

the last time i witnessed awful noxious masc weirdness in the gym was at fuckin 6:30 on a sunday morning. i walk in the gym, it's super quiet, i walk over to what i call the "man cave" where all the dumbbells are and there is a group of 7-8 dudes who are like SCREAMINGLY loud, just hooting and hollering at each other, giving each other bro slaps and all this shit - they were seriously like a pack of baboons. i turned my headphones all the way up and i could still hear them. they were there for an hour and they did not calm down the entire time. it was super weird, annoying and gross.

like, i hadn't witnessed loud attention-seeking group behavior in a pack of males since maybe high school and it was a little unbelievable to be watching late-20s early-30s guys go all out with it.

also i have weird feelings when other gay men tell me "you wouldn't know that you're gay" or "you don't look gay". it's just, idk, it's complicated, you know? i present as masc and my style is generally conservative but that doesn't mean i'm not a burning queer ember from the rainbow sky of feelings. sure i have settled on masc presentation as something that feels authentic to me in some way but it's always just one step away from the male supremacy tradition of making another group or identity seem weaker and i will never, can never take that step, i try really hard to untake it, i know in my heart it's disgusting bullshit, it would not honor me as a whole person, let alone anyone else.

another random thought is that objectification of masc types is real. maybe this sounds like crying from the side of the more powerfully-coded, because a lot of masc types play it up and enjoy the attention, but there's a gross and alienating aspect to it too.

great posts map, they express a lot of what I have felt

not to chain post too much but i have also had the experience of being hit on by attractive women and it is flattering. to what degree that's internalized homophobia idk but i enjoy it when it happens.

xp thanks dan, good posts from you too

Hi guys. I doubt anyone remember me from 10 years ago. Just wanted to pop in. *Goes back to lurking.*

Interesting posts, map and all.

I present as pretty masc but then I begin talking and it seems to quickly take the sails out of any theories that I might be straight. I also keep in shape but am not musclebound— I’m a tiny guy, and find too-large muscles really unattractive on myself and others, sorry to say. I’d say that there are times when I am “skinny jacked,” if that makes sense.

I am mostly interested in dismantling systems of masculine power, so my presentation and way in the world is sometimes at odds with my desires and people are confused by me, but really it just comes down to the fact that I am most comfortable in clothes that are coded as masculine. I’ve never liked dressing up, and while I have a sense of style, it is mostly along the “aging punk guy” lines, with a dash of queer short shorts energy thrown in during the summer.

Although I'm not into muscle queens per se, I can find certain other gay performances of masc sexier than actual hetero masc. With hetero masc, you're sneaking glances while politely concealing your desire, whereas performative gay masc is more "it's alright to look - actually, please look". So slutty looking gays often do it for me; I vibe off the narcissism and appreciate the generosity!

i relate to that - it's nice to hear that thought articulated. hetero masc is so constraining. i also love to see other queers who are embracing it all. sorry to share a facebook meme here but "if gender is a performance, i want to star in a cult classic that bombs at the box office."

I'm in an odd position. I'd say 98% of my interactions, intimate or brief, take place with straight people. My three closest friends are straight dudes, one of whom is happily married with kids (his kid is my godson). In an example of how context matters, I come off and purposely present myself as more femme than usual in their company, whereas with my gay friends (not many in town, alas) I'm butch.

don't mean to derail the thread but I'm wondering if other gay guys here shave their balls

maybe that is too personal

It's not and I do

Honestly it should be on one's state-issued ID

lol

fwiw I think every guy straight or gay should shave their balls and the base of their penis, and trim the surrounding pubes, it is just a requirement if you want good oral sex

nothing makes me sadder than shaved balls. nothing

I know people have different preferences and don't think I will understand why that's sad to you

so i really don't know to what extend it's "me" or some kind of deeply embedded reactive strategy but i've always been drawn to very masc presentations since i first started discovering my own sexuality. it's part of the reason i lift weights and eat a lot of meat. i'm kind of done second guessing it because it brings me pleasure even if it also feels like an "alien" pleasure that is disorienting and alienating and kind of silly sometimes and seems to confuse people who have progressive attitudes or creative dispositions (which i share). and there's the rub, people want to socialize with someone who feels safe to them, and i probably present a certain amount of toxic masc vibes, and i internalize the conflict between my presentation and a part of myself that isn't visible, that i almost wish wasn't a part of me sometimes. on the other hand i can't fully embrace masc presentation as reflective of who i really am.

I have the same experience (well, I don't lift weights or eat meat but y'know) and this is something I've also been wrestling with for years and think about probably every day.

One thought is, as someone who fetishizes buzz cuts and workout shorts and etc, I don't wear these things with the same casual air as a het dude who does not fetishize them, even though there are gonna be days when it's a very subtle or imperceptible difference.

I regard it as an indulgence, ultimately. It brings me a lot of pleasure but I can't help also feeling ashamed and there's a constant dissatisfaction with "presenting" in a way that doesn't reflect my character at all apart from one aspect of my sexuality.

My female persona def plays Disney princess tea party, like the goal for me is to get over the dissatisfaction of it and become one with that duality. I need both things and both are "me".

I enjoy to be femme in the summer with dresses and legs and masc in the winter with a beard and jeans

My preferred hair removal method is (was) Nair, specifically in the crevasses (I prefer a clipped pubis) but yes, I Nair my balls

A couple of summers ago I planned a beachy weekend and prepped for a smooth and delightful sundress situation on a Thursday, applied the poison ointment and set the timer

When it came time for the terrible shower, I stepped in and realized that the water had been shut off for the day

I frantically called my boyfriend while scooping water from the toilet reservoir to rinse my oddities as best as I could with whatever water was available, then put on some loose flannel and sprinted the ten blocks over to his place

By the time I arrived, Nair has been sitting around my butthole for some 45 minutes. I ducked into the shower near tears and turned the water on. I have never felt such pain

feel like i might have said this in a previous gay thread but: i don’t shave or trim anything below my neck, i just like being a furball

I had to shave my pubes when I had radiation, as they needed a clear shot of a tattoo right above my dick to aim the radiation lasers, and now I just do it as a matter of habit, tho I get lazy about it sometimes. I don’t have much preference but do admit that I tend to be more attracted to less hair… which perhaps explains the string of boyfriends prior to my husband, and now my husband, who got the best parts of Chinese and southern Italian ancestry— namely, a virtually hairless body (except pubes and pits) but a not insignificant endowment in other areas.

:-)

By which you mean 'they had full healthy heads of hair' I assume?

Lol, no, I am talking about the salami

I admire this thread's movement from muscles to salami.

most forms of hair removal strike me as an arduous and painful scam. shaving my face is enough for most of the year

that good oral sex requires shaved balls is news to me

Removing the hair makes the balls more sensitive to sexy sensations. It’s just science

This is the most ghoulish conversation!

Ghoulish? Hmm.

I guess I’ve been thinking about this sort of thing for years, seems pretty normal to me…but I mean I also used to work in porn where it was a regular thing to talk about all the time lmfao

I don’t know why I read that as “goulash”

I do love to goulash some balls in my mouth.

shaved balls, hairy balls, trimmed pubes, bushy pubes, honestly it doesn't matter to me. bodies are different and i love that

There’s a gentle Macbethish air in these balls

"A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more"? Ghoulish indeed.

What kind of gays are you who don't recognize All About Eve?

And you call yourself a playwright!

Aha. Back to the Copacabana.

You sly puss

Campy film references are usually lost on me, just not that kind of gay

… campy?!

shaved balls, hairy balls, trimmed pubes, bushy pubes, honestly it doesn't matter to me. bodies are different and i love that

― marcos, Friday, May 13, 2022 11:49 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This.

all genitals matter

folks are we feeling like summer?

personally i just want a few weeks of jumping in lakes and stuff, i can pretty much leave the rest.

thank you map for your thoughtful posts and to others for sharing their insights. some random thoughts:

I’ve questioned my gender enough over the past five years to feel like i don’t have a firm grounding in “cisness” – words like genderfluid, genderqueer, nonbinary, or even just queer sometimes resonate more – but i think i also feel okay being a man, with being masculine sometimes. other times i do not. It is hard to describe, too, how my experience of gender correlates, or not, with my sexuality. I’m bisexual, but my attraction to men is very different from my attraction to women and so are the ways in which I relate to them sexually. I feel romantic and sexual attraction to both (my partner is a woman), and it’s not as simple as “with men, i bottom and with women, i top” but in terms of sexual styles, acts, roles, etc. i desire very different things with women than i do with men.

not that these correlate with gender in general or even my own internal experience of gender, but generally i’d rather look “cute” or “beautiful” than “tough” or “strong.” it is weird though. i have always been quite slight and thin, was called scrawny by my bulkier peers growing up, but now in my late 30s after a few decades of yoga and cycling i am in the best physical shape i have ever been in, strong even! I am still very small and thin but also wiry and a little muscular now. I love being in good shape, but i feel ambivalent about being more muscular. maybe i want to be more graceful and elegant. my mom commented on my “muscles” recently when looking at my arms and it felt super fucking weird to be perceived that way.

with men, i am much more attracted to “masculine,” “strong,” or “big” men than i am to “cute” or “beautiful” men. i want a daddy, lol. I want to be the pretty one. but gay sex for me is not just about wanting to femme out a little for a strong daddy, the whole idea of gay sex for me also feels super masculine in a sweaty and hot way that is very appealing and sexy to me. when i watch porn, though, i tend not to really watch gay porn. i usually watch bi or hetero porn (though how “hetero” is hetero porn really, what with all these big cocks these days lol) and fantasize about being both the men and the women. i watch the women and want to be desirable in the same feminine way they are. It’s that familiar “am i attracted to this person or do i want to be this person?” question that i actually ask myself seeing attractive people of all genders. sometimes i fantasize about being a woman, but i also love being a gay man. And i love being a gay man but i also really love being bisexual and having sex with women. I want it all, lol, a true greedy bisexual. overall though i feel like my having sex with any gender would still feel “queer” to me because i am queer.

It just hit the 80s here, so I’m already grumpy.

sorry for the long posts! just a lotta thoughts

we’ve all heard the “button question” on gender, which I don’t think is a particularly helpful or revealing thought experiment, but is still one i’ve considered numerous times – if i could push a button and immediately become and be seen as woman without having to take any steps to transition medically, socially, etc. would i? my answer has always been an immediate and resounding “yes, of course!” who wouldn’t? i would love to have that experience – both in relation to my own body/being as well as others.’ A lot of this is also mixed up with my mood disorder. I’m bipiolar ii and i’ve noticed my experience of gender and sexuality fluctuates depending on my mood. I’ve been reflecting over the past few years – how do i feel when i’m hypomanic? when i’m depressed? when i’m stable? When i’m manic i fantasize about getting gangbanged by a room full of ten dudes and i feel super gay. I feel hypersexual and desirable in ways that also feel both masculine and feminine, though. In one manic episode last year, i felt almost conclusive that i should transition. I eventually returned to stability and felt the opposite. when i’m stable i feel solidly comfortable in my body, in my bisexuality and the different ways my gender is manifested in it, and overall probably lean masc. But even if i did transition, ultimately i kinda think i would still hover around in that space where i am now, where masc and femme coexist and fluctuate in different ways internally, sexually, socially, phenomenologically. one might outweigh the other in my presentation or in my mind depending on my mood, company, music, environment. the blurry dyke/fag boundary, sometimes butch sometimes femme.

A lot of this of course is mixed up with my experience of having a particular body. I have olive/brown skin, black hair, a lot of very dark hair on my body – chest hair, leg hair, dark thick stubble covering much of my face, permanent shadow when i shave. I am in a comfortable place now, but over my life I’ve had a difficult relationship with my body hair. During my first gay sexual experience as a teenager – three of us at a sleepover – i was told by one of the guys that i had “too much hair,” and suddenly i felt very self-conscious and withdrew, while the other two white hairless guys proceeded to mess around in front of me. I felt rejected, but it was also hard to reckon that with the eroticism of watching them in front of me, and eventually the guy must have gotten over whatever aversion to body hair he had because we continued to mess around for years throughout high school. I did trim, however, whenever i knew we would be hanging out.

When I was manic and considering transition steps, I researched hair removal. But based on my early experience of rejection, i wrestled with the question – is this gender dysphoria or is this internalized white supremacy / western beauty standards? Do i actually hate my body hair, or was i made to feel as if i wasn’t desirable with it? As I returned to stability, I was able to acknowledge that usually I love my body hair and sometimes I don’t, but ultimately that i would rather keep it than go through any steps to permanently remove it. I keep my body hair now, lightly trimmed, but on my head and face I buzz it all off now. when i look at myself with a shaved head, i feel like i look both masculine and androgynous, which I like.

also like none of this makes any sense to me. gender is really confusing imo

amazing posts marcos, thank you!

Campy film references are usually lost on me, just not that kind of gay

― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table),

lol weird that this Hollywood film is camp after this discussion

Hollywood can’t be camp?

And Last I heard, making references to films that are 70+ years old and expecting everyone to know them is either the height of camp or the height of snobbery

oh cool! I was waiting for you to fight me!

to be not camp enough or too camp is just fine, hon

Truly don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve your constant desire to provoke me, Alfred, but I don’t appreciate it.

map to answer your question I'm really not sure what this summer is going to be like for me - all I know is I'm going to order some ACs like nobody's business STAT
seriously considering making this - the summer of 2 ACs . . . . . . . . . . .
bye bye heat, hello electric bill!!

sounds like a good idea

I'm also going to be spending a good amount of time with my dermatologist this summer
just got done dealing with a thing that left me a bit worse for wear so it's the summer of the glow-up for me
watch out it's about to get all Judy Greer up in here

talk to me about your look this summer map. any new pieces? or tried and true?

so buzzing about Jake Daniels - 17 years old, professional footballer, looking a lifetime of being closeted and miserable, and saying "no thanks" - he's going to have such a terrible time on the pitch with the abuse but he must have figured that it couldn't be any worse than what he was facing already.

y'all with the balls talk, lol, i'm, like, in kind of a different place testicles-wise, i'm just gonna put it that way. marcos it's great seeing you talk about your experiences, hearing you talking about the place you're coming from.

your understanding of the "button question" is a really good one. it's not meant... i mean it's a bullshit question, yes? there is no button. it's a koan, it's there to break people's assumed thought patterns, and it sounds like you're past a place where you have those ingrained prejudices, like you're dealing with these things without the cisnormative bullshit a lot of people deal with. you're finding a way of doing things that's working for _you_, and i just wanna say you're fucking killing it. you're killing it, fgti is killing it, gender is lots of things and it's confusing and the way we learn is by _doing_.

when people think about gender diverse people, there's so much of the binary there, and when i talk to cishet people i deliberately avoid saying, like, that i'm a non-binary trans woman, that _most_ of us... lily alexandre did a video and it's a good video but you know, The Algorithms, it has this clickbaity title, "Do Binary Trans People Even Exist?". every once in a while someone comes into a particular trans group i'm in and says "i feel kind of non-binary, can i be non-binary and still be trans" and the facilitator does a show of hands and more than 50% of us at any given time are non-binary trans.

presentation is part of gender, it's important to gender, but you know, when someone says "wearing a dress doesn't make you a woman", yeah i fucking _agree_ with that. it's important and meaningful in ways that i don't... i don't fucking _need_ to describe, i don't need to _justify_ to anybody. getting to present femme helps me feel good about myself as a woman, but most women aren't high femme, and i'm not high femme either. some trans women are in fact butch, and with me, i don't think of myself as butch or femme or even futch, i just present different ways depending on the situation, and i have that _freedom_ as a woman and i never felt i had that freedom as a "man". for me a lot of my early tendency towards presenting femme was more not wanting to be misgendered; as soon as i could feasibly pass wearing a t-shirt and jeans i started wearing t-shirts and jeans again when appropriate. i don't think of t-shirts and jeans as being particularly male-coded, though different people have different takes on it. i have friends who are dogmatic about never wearing pants ever, and friends who won't wear dresses because they're terrified of being seen as a "man in a dress" (which is kind of a shame given how jealous in general cis women often are of how fabulous trans women's legs are; it's often one of our best features).

i think hormones do play a role in it too. i was never into guys until i transitioned and now i am, i _appreciate_ them in a way that i didn't pre-estrogen. i still identify as a lesbian and people argue about that, of course, because people argue about everything, "gold star" lesbians vs. "bi/pan" lesbians, and for me queer labels aren't a thing that are there to tell me what i'm _not allowed_ to do, they're there to help me understand and accept myself, whatever that happens to be. i do recommend, again, lily alexandre on this, the video of hers that went viral and got me to start following her was the one on MOGAI, which is a really good breakdown of the tumblr "microgender" thing and how it got made fun of but also what it contributed, where it came from, what its failures and successes were.

putting too strict a label on things can be limiting. experimental gender, like, using aspects of the scientific method, try things, record your observations, draw conclusions, repeat, i am a strong supporter of that. that was my process. being open to things, open to changes. it helped me a lot in my transition when someone who used to post here talked about how when she'd started, she was pretty sure she was non-op but that changed. it meant that when that changed for me, too, i was ready, it saved me a lot of time and bullshit self-doubt. and that's not the perspective you're coming from, but the same principle, i think, of openness and non-judgement, applies.

which isn't exactly the vibe of the dan s/jordan s exchange upthread, i know, but i also recognize that they're both trying to be non-judgemental and i do want to celebrate that!

---

when it comes to masc/femme stuff, i come at it from a kind of different place than you, marcos - i've found, through that process of non-judgemental observation, that i really like topping guys and bottoming to women. that's something that's been a challenge to me because there is a lot of... the normative thing is that masc = top and femme = bottom and for me going against that is challenging, on top of the, what i'm gonna say, i feel like there's a lot of ingrained versphobia or switchphobia kind of like there used to be biphobia.

(i guess i should also make it clear that i'm... ambiguously ace. i don't think of myself as asexual but "getting railed in a sundress"/"railing someone in a sundress" is more of a joke meme for me. sundress, yes, weather permitting. "railed", idgaf; there's other shit that is way more interesting to me that i won't get into here; idk why but ilx in general has always come off to me as being really vanilla, sometimes aggressively so, and i don't really want to challenge that!)

sort of the same with body hair, at least coming at it as a trans woman. i do epilate, pretty thoroughly, and it's pretty fucking important to me to not have body hair. at the same time i've not felt the need to have permanent hair removal of any sort. i shave my face (if anybody ever is considering epilating their face, just fucking don't, ok? people of my acquaintance keep trying it and it's a bad idea) and some people have huge dysphoria over it but me not so much. i don't have heavy beard shadow, it's light hair, and i don't really feel like electro. plus epilation to me is very centering in a sort of "girls rituals" sense and i don't want to give it up. i find that as a woman, the social expectations are different, very often the only "downtime" i get in my life is bodily self-care/grooming, which is... not without its advantages, because it feels intentional and productive in a way that the canonical "relaxing in a la-z-boy with a drink in one's hand" experience doesn't.

i haven't - this is personal stuff here, but i've become more open about talking about volunteering this stuff unasked just because if i don't people have a tendency to make dumb fucking assumptions - i haven't had genital hair removal, either. the bottom surgery i've had doesn't require it. i like the flexibility of it. anywhere else i'm pretty dogmatic about no hair, but sometimes i like growing things out a little bit, having a hairy bush. one of the effects of not having had hair removal... the particular surgery is called "zero depth" or "minimal depth", vulvoplasty without creation of a neovaginal canal, which is why hair removal isn't necessary. but it does mean i can get pretty damn hairy down there! i find that having a more closely trimmed bush or shaved cunt helps keep things from getting too terribly pungent down there, particularly since i don't need to shower every day now.

i can't relate at _all_ to the ball talk. most of the dicks i encounter in everyday life are girl dicks, and while trans women can often have complicated and nuanced feelings about our dicks, when it comes to our balls, most of the trans women i know feel as negatively towards them as i did (which is to say _very_ negatively). since orchi is the least invasive version of bottom surgery, it's pretty common for us to have had them yeeted.

Truly don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve your constant desire to provoke me, Alfred, but I don’t appreciate it.

― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table),

I'm sorry I missed this last Friday. I'm sorry for provoking you -- I like to prick people's self-importance, especially in a gay thread, and certainly I can use ahem pricking too. In other cases sometimes you're quick to jump on other posters, and, to your credit, you recognize it; but then I'm no one to judge either. Hugs. You're one of my favorite posters -- it's been more than a dozen years, no?

I just thought it was well known that Alfred and I communicate in All About Eve lines roughly 75% of the time.

Enchantez to you too!

Thank you Mr. Fabian!

see, that made me laugh, even tho i don’t know the film.

Alfred, I think we first really interacted on here in 2007, since the “I have, like, no gay friends in town” era. I obviously have much fondness for you and your posts, too— many hugs.

talk to me about your look this summer map. any new pieces? or tried and true?

― Swen, Saturday, May 14, 2022 3:08 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i don't know, it's a bit of a mess. i've been vacillating between feeble attempts at "hip dance music guy" and "embracing power daddydom". both feeble because i'm short on time and money.

i have a lot of short mesh gym shorts and crossfit tees so i'll be defaulting to that a lot of the time when i don't feel like i have to look a certain way.

anyone else have exciting look developments?

i'm going to a secondhand clothing store this afternoon, first time in years. i need a "retro" costume for a pride party.

I’ve started wearing more color, but summer on the east coast for me just usually means tight shorts with baggy top or the opposite, depending on mood and activity

I also am trying to not buy new clothes any longer, only goodwill or thrift shops

anyone else have exciting look developments?

― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map),

Me! Me! Haircut:

https://i.imgur.com/d0BagVD.jpg

hi alfred :) nice haircut

Thanks!

handsome!

haha, has _anyone_ here actually seen a picture of me? i have a billion but, like. trans woman. public internets. nope.

please!!!

I have seen a pic of you, Kate! I think you might have posted one a few years ago. You were wearing a cute top.

she has a _name_

sorry i know that's a corny one

lmfao Kate, i kinda knew i was setting myself up there

Hey y’all, I didn’t think I’d still be saying this at my age, but I am horny on fucking main right now and have been for the past month. Just uh, putting it out there. Husband has been not as horny but accommodating.

how is everyone else doing?

One husband is always more horny than the other, as we've sadly learned these recent years.

But that's. Fucking. Awesome.

I'm older but continue to be horny, don't count out older people

I kicked off this year's "no really we're back to normal" Pride Month by testing positive for COVID, but I'm boosted and, tbh, this is the shortest window of sickness I've ever experienced, so if I get lucky this month with or without my husband, I'll be humping one out for science.

xp it’s not just you, T. i actually just rejoined ~the apps~ this week after a three-year hiatus and hooooo boy. (my partner is currently out of town for about a month - he’s back on them too)

tabes and kate’s most recent exchange reminded me: watched the pirate yesterday and i giggled at the scene early on where judy garland snaps at gene kelly: “will you stop walking in circles around me? it’s like trying to talk to a top!” internet has broken me etc

Quite horny now that this tropical storm's a bust. Come at me.

At least buy me a drink first

Avec plaisir.

Hey y’all, I didn’t think I’d still be saying this at my age, but I am horny on fucking main right now and have been for the past month. Just uh, putting it out there. Husband has been not as horny but accommodating.

how is everyone else doing?

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table)

Just re-started progesterone and uh whew. It's been pretty frustrating because I've been meaning to see people but somebody always gets COVID and it winds up being cancelled.

This is my first Pride since coming out, and I'm really frustrated about the whole thing already this year. Gone straight from "ally" to burnout, this damn quickly. Not just COVID spiking again, but the whole thing. It's not just the corporatism, it's the growing sense I have that the whole thing seems to be centered around cisgender gay men, with the rest of us just an afterthought along for the ride. Trans people are viciously and brutally under attack everywhere but when I talk to people who've been to Pride before, it's mostly by and for gay men. Gay men are centered. Particularly, in PDX, _white_ gay men, to the extent that Pride NW decided to hold Portland pride on fucking _Juneteenth_, and politely declined requests to, you know, move it. And where I'm at is, you know, boycotting would be the right thing to do but damn I need something to celebrate right now.

That's what so much queer life is, compromising with people who have the economic resources to make things happen. Which is cis gay men, particularly cis _white_ gay men. There's this idea of "rainbow capitalism" and I'm not opposed to it, but it never seems to have trickled down to anybody but cis white gay men, and I'm not sure a lot of cis white gay men seem to necessarily understand this. For the rest of us, it's the same old precarity. For us trans folks, the extreme public transphobia on display is causing us ludicrous levels of trauma, and we're just trying to be here for each other as best we can, despite none of us being at our best.

What does Pride look like in Portland? Drag shows. Lots and lots and _lots_ of drag shows. That's the public face of Pride. Look, I like drag, I think drag is fine, but just like a lot of trans women, I have a complicated relationship with drag. Quite honestly, a lot of people don't understand the _difference_ between drag queens and trans women. I've got a number of friends who, it's well-intentioned, but when they come out drag queens they know are like "Oh girl I'll help you with your makeup" and look, personally, I want to look as _little_ like a drag queen as possible.

Of course, lots of trans people do drag, there's a lot of overlap there, but the two experiences are _so_ linked in the public mind and just personally, it fucked me up for a long time. A long time. I had a lot of misconceptions about what it was to be trans, and a lot of people still have those misconceptions, and I feel like there's a lot at Pride that perpetuates those misconceptions, rather than correcting them. People can say "trans rights" all they want but a lot of people still don't understand who we are, what we are, and that's frustrating as hell to me. I'm tired of having my identity constructed in someone else's image. I want people to know me for who I am, I want to be _visible_, and Pride, well, Pride just isn't making me feel that way right now.

Pride has nothing to do with me afaic— being a target for vodka advertisements and Andrew Christian jocks isn’t my idea of liberation.

I am going to point out, tho, that I regular get called a faggot and intimidated, and I live in the most progressive voting congressional district in the US. While I am well aware of how fucked up and violent the world is for non- cis queer people and particularly trans women, I’m also getting a little ticked off when I read stuff that’s like “you aren’t oppressed.” Both can be true, particularly since like many things in the US, class is handily elided by solidarity formations that rely on identity formations. I don’t think identity formations need to be thrown to the side, obviously, but I resent being grouped in with rich white fags who have nothing to do with me except sharing a love of dicks and buttholes.

I'm 100% with you, table. Anybody saying cis gay men aren't oppressed is full of shit. I also don't at all like this hierarchical understanding of oppression where subaltern groups have these endless fights about who's more oppressed. That's certainly not the angle I'm wanting to come at this from, and I can definitely see how someone could get that from my post.

I would say that what I'm trying to do more is... express my personal frustrations, things I've talked with other trans women about, to people who aren't trans women, necessarily. We've had to fight really hard to be recognized for who we are, and still have to fight really hard. PDX is absolutely one of the transest cities in the world, but I'm not really seeing that so far reflected in the Pride events scheduled here, and that's frustrating me.

I don’t argue personally that cis white gay men are not oppressed, I argue that it is incumbent upon cis white gay men to acknowledge their cis white male privilege and not use their gayness/queerness as misdirection from that privilege. This is almost always an internal directive more than an external one. Portland Pride should have moved the date imo

Totally, and I should have mentioned in my post that I wasn’t trying to diminish yr problems with Pride in PDX— your frustrations and mine intersect in many ways, because they’re about who holds power, and who is the arbiter of what Pride looks like. That is, I’m with you all the way regarding more trans (and specifically trans fem) representation and power in Pride proceedings. Perhaps if there were more trans and radical queer representation in Pride orgs, the whole event wouldn’t resemble another fucking shopping mall. I’ve understood for years why Pride is such a powerful and important time, particularly for young people and trans people, but for years I’ve felt nothing about Pride except the same alienation I feel about almost everything else in this country.

i mean honestly you make a really good point, it's not white cis gay men, that's a classic bit of misdirection of the sort that capital loves and i'm a sucker for falling for it again. me, of all people, a white professional trans woman, someone who people keep treating as "respectable". "respectable". i'm in the process of losing my house, i'm desperately trying to hold on to a job for a company i hate, bosses i hate, a job i stopped being able to do years ago. and i'm saying "burn it all down" to anybody who will listen, which turns out to be the choir.

i can go into target and buy a t-shirt that says "the first pride was a riot" and it was _wrong_ to stop celebrating pride like that. the people who buy these t-shirts, the people who _sell_ these t-shirts, are they priming themselves for the revival of that tradition, or are they trying to console themselves, tell themselves that we fought and won and we are "enjoying" the fruits of our victory?

Totally, and I should have mentioned in my post that I wasn’t trying to diminish yr problems with Pride in PDX— your frustrations and mine intersect in many ways, because they’re about who holds power, and who is the arbiter of what Pride looks like. That is, I’m with you all the way regarding more trans (and specifically trans fem) representation and power in Pride proceedings. Perhaps if there were more trans and radical queer representation in Pride orgs, the whole event wouldn’t resemble another fucking shopping mall. I’ve understood for years why Pride is such a powerful and important time, particularly for young people and trans people, but for years I’ve felt nothing about Pride except the same alienation I feel about almost everything else in this country.

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table)

you're right, of course, that there should be more transfem and radical participation in planning, in organization. in an ideal world, absolutely, but none of the people i know have the spoons. we're tired, we're hurting, we're exhausted, and like i've said elsewhere, most of us couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. it does occur to me that one of the great advantages of a riot over other forms of pride is that it doesn't require extensive committee meetings to plan.

I recognize that there is a conflict between two factions of queers, those who desire queerness to become more "mainstream acceptable" and those who desire queerness to remain linked with upheaval and separation from what is "mainstream acceptable". My stance on this changes, depending on the context. Sometimes I feel that the corporatization of Pride is inherently a net positive thing for creating a safer environment for (broadly) queers, sometimes I feel the opposite, that it is stratifying, depending on the gesture. The public transit system have elected to promote Pride by hashtag-rebranding certain subway stations in a yassifying way; Queen becomes Qween, Wellesley becomes Welleslay. I don't know how I feel about this politically, but aesthetically it is really ugly

Some friends and I the other night started joke-naming the remaining subway stations. Islington became Jizzlington, Eglinton became Peglinton, Pape became Gape, Laurence became Clitaurence, Coxwell became Cock Swell, and so on

I recognize that there is a conflict between two factions of queers, those who desire queerness to become more "mainstream acceptable" and those who desire queerness to remain linked with upheaval and separation from what is "mainstream acceptable". My stance on this changes, depending on the context.

― a legible shriek (flamboyant goon tie included)

I feel like I kind of split the difference between these factions - I want revolutionary queer anticapitalism to become mainstream acceptable!

Somewhere I read a tweet in the last week saying, in effect, this year -- the year of "don't say gay," the proliferation of anti-trans legislation and sentiment, and sudden existential doubt about the future of marriage equality, etc. -- the corporatization of pride feels a lot less disturbing.

I, on the other hand, find no genuine comfort in the idea that "the people" are, statistically, below corporations in anyone's eyes in terms of humanism. However true it might feel.

i'm having two friends stay over with us for pride weekend here and it has been an amazing treat. one of them is ex military and trans, lives on a paiute reservation in southern utah. she is quite skilled in both engineering stuff and food / chef stuff. it's felt so good to listen to her stories. i do envy the aspect of having pay and health care taken care of for the remainder of one's life, but not the trauma and physical sacrifice of being in the military.

i've had a real busy dj weekend and while the feeling i've been having is mostly "overwhelmed' it has also been mostly bright, fun and positive. i need to remember that.

Somewhere I read a tweet in the last week saying, in effect, this year -- the year of "don't say gay," the proliferation of anti-trans legislation and sentiment, and sudden existential doubt about the future of marriage equality, etc. -- the corporatization of pride feels a lot less disturbing.

― Eggs Benedick (Eric H.)

i'm the absolute opposite! corporations aren't working for _us_. they're not doing anything for _us_. corporations run america, fucking own america. they have the power here. they're getting the politicians elected. they provide the lobbyists, write the bills, fund the advertising. if corporations actually _supported_ queer and trans people the shit that's happening now _wouldn't be happening_.

I mean, yeah, that’s the obvious takeaway. The question is once corporations start quieting their support down over the next decade, then what?

Kate, thank you for sharing your thoughts on Pride. as a gender fluid middle eastern immigrant, I sometimes feel the same way you do about the celebration's demographic, and feel fortunate to be in the company of queer people of color in the midst of all that. I've been doing some thinking about what it means to be "foreign" within a queer community, and while I'm trying to keep in mind that I don't need to be critical of something just because I am foreign to it, I think you're right to say what you say.

I also strongly agree with the sentiment that the key is conversation and not a competition for most marginalized, but it's an easy line to blur and I've been there recently myself. I was lucky enough to be in a conversation with friends who I trust and were quick to point out to me that I was completely missing the point.

ps Alfred your haircut is sickkkkkk

Reading this thread makes it clear to me that I'm an assimilationist. Older gay men and women have been accepted into the mainstream for the most part, which after a half a lifetime of arguing for gay marriage really gratifies me.

I know younger people don't necessarily feel the same.

I mean, yeah, that’s the obvious takeaway. The question is once corporations start quieting their support down over the next decade, then what?

― Eggs Benedick (Eric H.)

i'm afraid i don't understand the question :(

Reading this thread makes it clear to me that I'm an assimilationist. Older gay men and women have been accepted into the mainstream for the most part, which after a half a lifetime of arguing for gay marriage really gratifies me.

I know younger people don't necessarily feel the same.

― Dan S

lol, how old do you think i _am_ dan?

:) I assumed younger than me, since I'm like almost the oldest peron on this board

Corporations move slowly but I think they lead politicians in social acceptance. I want to see acceptance for younger queers, non-binary people and trans women and men

Thanks, Swen!

This thread has been life for me today

:) I assumed younger than me, since I'm like almost the oldest peron on this board

Corporations move slowly but I think they lead politicians in social acceptance. I want to see acceptance for younger queers, non-binary people and trans women and men

― Dan S

well i probably _am_ younger than you but in trans terms i'm positively methuselan

i mean, these ideas, "mainstream", "acceptance", they used to be really important to me, like, seven years ago, and it's really different now. my transness in some sense relates to a fundamental crack in the way i understood reality, the liberal norms i had internalized, and it was only that crack that made way for my existence.

i don't like that it's _up_ to them to accept or reject me, i don't like that they have that _choice_, knowing that damn near everyone chose "reject" for the first 30+ years of my life, knowing that i was coerced into rejecting myself, that generations of queer people fought for decades just so i had the ability to even _know_ who i was, to _understand_ myself

and part of that fight, maybe, part of that fight is that there _is_ no mainstream, no grand governing body that can say "trans people are OK" or "trans people are not OK", the old order, the "mainstream" i grew up under, was one where the overt _goal_ was for us to be invisible. if people now want to erase me, well, sure, they can do it, but no _longer_ can they coerce me into erasing myself. all the trust i placed in the "mainstream" was badly misplaced. it hurt me a lot to do that. i don't want to be "accepted", i want to be _celebrated_ and _loved_ for who i am.

trans assimilationism has been tried, and failed. maybe it can work for us, but i'm not aware of any particular evidence in favor of that hypothesis.

so many important ideas in there. the being coerced into rejecting yourself thing is an especially fresh bit of hell. I'll tell you one thing i know is not for me is marriage, I think because of a lot of the issues you allude to here. it's a real Stockholm Syndrome issue for me.

so many important ideas in there. the being coerced into rejecting yourself thing is an especially fresh bit of hell.

― Swen

it really is! one of the quotes that really resonates with me is a quote by andre malraux, a french writer who's perhaps best-known these days for his uncredited contribution to the "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" script:

"The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves… is what I call hell."

i mean, by that definition, i guess i literally went through hell for decades. that people hate me for who i am, particularly with the frequency and vehemence that they do lately, is fucking terrifying, to be certain. i used to feel that way about _myself_, though. i'm happy to pass on that burden to them. it's their hatred, not mine. let them live with it. i don't believe they'll find it any easier than i did.

Oo I didn’t realize that line was a quote

Wonder which French philosopher contributed “what is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!”

Count Dracula iirc

Wonder which French philosopher contributed “what is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!”

― a legible shriek (flamboyant goon tie included)

that was the reference i was making, that was literally andre malraux, that other quote isn't in SOTN afaik

mood

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FUfNJhnWYAAINzK?format=jpg&name=large

i'm less grumpy about pride but more convinced than ever that, for me personally but also maybe more than personally, while affirming gender and sex identity is very important, it has to work within a larger ethos, way of life, level of engagement for it to "do something". that way of life, for a number of reasons, is one that resists relations that are highly capital-structured and looks for relations that are more gentle and attuned to a larger range of human needs, in another word that are more loving.

omg Kate is back???!! 😍

that was the reference i was making, that was literally andre malraux, that other quote isn't in SOTN afaik

Too bad, it's a good quote

i definitely think there should be an anniversary remaster of SOTN where all of dracula's dialogue is andre malraux quotes. in the meantime i do all i can by quoting that line all the time, along with that hillel the elder thing

btw I see this thread title and think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-FUquLYdxQ

(time to re-inject levity)

See, I immediately go to this one in my brain, even though it's not "Real Love" but "Free Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3zvAYng7dc

I think it's because I used to play an edit of it out quite a lot, so it sort of rides in my brain.

I remember Free Love predating my coming out slightly. I was really into Cheryl Lynn's Got To Be Real, Blondie's Heart of Glass, Donna Summer's I Feel Love and Stephanie Mills' Never Knew Love Like This Before

I remember feeling that the world was finally opening up to me listening to those songs

Nice. I love that Stephanie Mills track, it is sublime. I mean I love all of them, but I like that one best.

This Mills track (among many) kills me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNNaQlgCSss

I was 4 or so when I sat next to my very old German grandpa and watched him swallow a raw egg for breakfast. It repulsed me and I recoiled. He was fearsome and totally straight and I knew in that moment I was different from him. I thought my cringing at the time disappointed him.

He knew even that early in my life that I was gay though. And this is someone born in 1874! We had a contentious relationship for the next several years, but we bonded and he is the person I most admire and in whose footsteps I've followed

I've only been to one relatively recent pride parade. I wore lots of eye glitter, which I love but I don't usually feel safe wearing it in public.

Probably most of us are living with a fear of persecution, to different degrees. I know for me and others there are lots of things feeding into that besides sexuality, and it's complicated. But it's shaped my life in ways I'm only beginning to understand.

One of the important aspects of pride, and a big part its appeal for me, is its ability to function as an excorcism of those fears and that repression. The extensive corporate branding and presence feels co-opting in the moment and its effect has been to pull me out of that space, ultimately.

It's also a problem because to the extent that pride functions as this kind of exorcism, it centers the cis gay male experience of disclosure in degrees, or weaving in and out of the shadows.

I honestly think pride celebrations probably need to take a completely new shape in order to be more inclusive of, in particular, trans women and men. So the LGBTQIA+ community should want to retain control of the form our celebrations take, we shouldn't cede that influence to massive corporations who are only invested in pride as an opportunity to push their brands.

My yearly bump to say that while I am totally in favour of Pride, I avoid it like I avoid any activity that takes place outdoors during the summer.

So after all these years interacting with y'all in person or on these threads, I've an idea about your milieus -- generally, I suppose. Who forms part of your circle? Me, my group comprises cis straight males and their spouses, straight women and their spouses, some gays who flit in and out of the main group, and sundry acquaintances whom I hang out with less often.

Really fun to see this year's Pride month being met with an even higher level of anti-LGBTQ culture war hysteria.

Our small circle of good friends are all cis, mostly hetero, mostly female (plus, in some cases, their male spouses), diverse only in terms of racial makeup. Historically, the few close friendships I've had have all been with hetero men.

We've lived in our current city since 2015, during which we have only managed to make one really close new(ish) friend, another hetero male. Our social circle seemed to be expanding for a while, but the pandemic killed that, and we still haven't really managed to readjust to social life.

It is worth mentioning that I am just not a terribly social person; to paraphrase Fiona Apple: my dogs, my man, and my writing are my holy trinity.

I'd say my truly core group of friends is roughly 30-40% gay men. The rest is basically a straight mix, even split. My married lesbian couple moved to L.A.

my core friend group where i live consists of mostly straight couples (ie men and women in LTRs with each other, some of whom now have kids), one other gay couple, one lesbian, and us. i have maybe one or two close gay friends who i'm still in touch with from college, all my other good college pals are heteros. beyond this close circle, it's pretty mixed, some queers of all types that i'm on friendly terms with but not close to, and a good deal of str8s too. i’d say my husband's situation is pretty similar to mine.

i love my hetero friends dearly but i'm not gonna lie, when i see photos of groups of gay men who are all good friends hanging out with each other on socmed, having dinner or going on trips together and whatnot, i get a little jealous because i've never really had that in my life. i can count my close gay male friends on one hand and still have fingers left over. there's reasons for this i'm sure but i don't want to bore the thread with self-analysis.

I feel you, donna.

i'm an introvert i.e. it takes energy i don't always have to socialize, especially with people who have any kind of social status from my pov, which just adds feeling intimidated to the mix of social anxiety i experience. that being said when i'm relatively relaxed my social skills aren't bad.

djing again has forced me to be social and i'm surprised to find we're going to dinner with another gay couple regularly and there are two or three new gay men i'm friendly with.

we also had two guests stay with us over pride weekend, a longtime fb friend (gay man) and his friend (queer trans woman). they spoke a fair amount about being involved with a group here that provides queer people with community and often family substitute type relationships. it really piqued my interest and i can see myself becoming more involved with something like that. you could tell the trans woman was offering the gay man a bit of motherly protection and guidance. said gay man is suffering the trauma anyone raised in a conservative religious environment suffers and has been struggling the past few years. struggling financially but doesn't talk about it and creates abundance through their outfits etc which they jokingly called a "tr*** tornado". i have a hunch they might be on a trans journey but it isn't my place to say.

i can see myself being more motivated to be social with queer people who need family, because that's also me. i'm realizing that type of relationship is a very serious undertaking and not something that happens overnight, it also doesn't have to be "all in" every time with every person - you can offer smaller amounts of yourself that you feel able to offer when and how you can.

I've followed your last-paragraph advice when I deal with family. Conserving psychic energy is healthy!

Can I just say how baffled my teenage self would be by my life at 44: married (to a man!) but still existing with an overwhelmingly hetero social circle.

*within

I wrote my question btw because I've hit middle age and am surrounded by the most intelligent and loving str8 friends in the world in whose presence I often have to assert a queerness I don't often explore on my own other than in the form of hookups.

i have to say it's so nice to "girl out" with another gay man over dumb stuff, i don't need it all the time but god it's refreshing every once in a while.

Yes, outside of my husband, my two closest friends (a committed, non-married couple) are precisely for girling out, going dancing, etc. It's nice to have that on the outside.

Most of the people I hang out with regularly are straight. That said, I work behind a bar with a lesbian and a pansexual, mostly serving straight people, although we do have some LGBTQ customers. I know three non binary people locally, and a friend here has recently come out as trans. We do have a group of gay friends, but most of them are more casual buddies than inner circle. In my thirties and forties, I spent a lot more time with gay men, mainly because we were all going out regularly to gay venues, but that dissolved over time.

In my thirties and forties, I spent a lot more time with gay men, mainly because we were all going out regularly to gay venues, but that dissolved over time.

― mike t-diva, Wednesday, June 8, 2022

same for me

I love the lot of you.

Friends, what movie should I show this year for my Pride movie morning. I've done this for like 7 years running, inviting friends late Saturday morning (the highest non-drunk energy of the weekend in my experience) and shown a movie and given a nourishing brunch. Previous years' attractions included:

PARIS IS BURNING
DEATH BECOMES HER
TO WONG FOO
BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER
TOP GUN

... and a couple more I'm spacing on. The point is to find a movie everyone can talk through even if they haven't seen it before. Here's my current shortlist:

SERIAL MOM
CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC
THE WIZ
DRESSED TO KILL
CLUE

A milkshake?

Friedkin’s The Boys In the Band, as overwrought as it was, still feels fresh and is a film I think can be watched in a glancing manner

It's older than the ones on your list, though. Also, I haven't seen the recent version and don't know if that negates it for people today

The recent Boys in the Band is grotesque.

I don’t remember much about Parting Glances (1986) except that I really liked watching it at the time. I have been meaning to see it again. It is probably really dated. Does anyone else remember it?

Not dated at all except for the grotty budget. Buscemi is warm and cute and queer in a way he wasn't again.

I have issues with both versions of TBitB, but the original at least has Leonard Frey in one of the all time great queer roles

Parting Glances is lovely. It totally holds up.

Frey is terrific in the original Boys, which only makes Zachary Quinto's unconvincing take on the character all the more ludicrous.

We have a few gay friends— three fag couples, two dyke couples, and about five straight couples that we see on a regular basis. The fag couples are the ones we see the most, no surprise there.

I have no RL friends. Not sure if I want any until I get into a place and a life where I can be openly trans and queer. As for my online acquaintances...it's been a bizarre situation, at least to me. It's something I'd like to write about eventually, but if I write about it here it will be on 77.

Friedkin’s The Boys In the Band, as overwrought as it was, still feels fresh and is a film I think can be watched in a glancing manner

― Dan S.

I gotta say my recent experiences have given me a lot more understanding of the whole "Boys in the Band" thing, the whole "self-loathing gays" thing seemed so weird and overwrought until I transitioned. Now it's more like "Oh, yeah, shit-tons of trauma, we're all gay disasters. Got it."

Almost all the people I hang out, aside from co-workers, are trans, gender-diverse, genderqueer, something along those lines, these days. I'm not consciously doing the "trans separatist" T4T thing Torrey Peters critiques in "Infect Your Friends And Loved Ones". It is still a thing, in that people still do it, but I'm really skeptical that a community made up entirely of severely trauma-damaged people is going to be anywhere near utopian. There's just a shit-ton of us around where I live, and a lot of them are people I wind up liking. There's also just like a lot of misconceptions about trans folks in general and it's nice to hang out with people who I know won't be weird about it when, for instance, I say I'm a non-binary trans woman.

It's also only been about three years for me, and I'm not going to say for sure my social circle might not change in another few years. Honestly I'm still going through some pretty intense personal changes that make hanging out with cishets not terribly practical a lot of the time.

I am schizoid and have gradually withdrawn from social situations starting in my mid 20's, reaching the point of 'social isolation' probably in the last 4 or 5 years. I keep in contact with a few close friends who I occasionally see, almost always one-on-one at this point. But I can quite happily go months without speaking to anyone.

Previously my main friend groups had been "diverse only in terms of racial makeup". And I remain on friendly terms with most of the guys I've dated but I've really only had one close platonic friend who is a gay man. He is very involved in his local bear scene and his main social group consists entirely of gay couples (all male).

When I was a witch's apprentice there were a lot of gay men around, and I received a lot of unwanted attention. One former apprentice in particular was relentless. Either I'm really bad at making it clear when I'm not interested or idk. I spent the day with them once and unwanted attention was a problem. And actually, it was a problem too when I was a witch's apprentice. One former apprentice in particular was so relentless that I stopped going. Either I'm really bad at making it clear I'm not interested or idk.

I was also friendly with a younger (by 8-10 years) gay couple in my neighborhood in my early 30's, very soft boys who were really the most fun, even though there were tensions in their relationship. Hanging around with them was just like an hours-long giggle session every time.

sorry, that's a mess.

(It's probably in part b/c i'm very bad at reading social cues in general, and tend to be totally oblivious unless somebody is really forward and unambiguous)

Following up on the social circles convo from yesterday, I just realized, having watched both Fire Island and the first season of Somebody Somewhere in the past week, that my own queer existence is much more like the latter than the former.

Most people’s is I bet

Depends on age range. From 25-27 or so, my life was much more Fire Island, but yknow

I had a memorable week on Fire Island in the 90s - White Party, drugs, beautiful vistas, deer on the beach, an anonymous blowjob in the meat rack, and a sexy guy I got to spend the night naked with, without having sex, which made it all the better. I met David Geffen and thought he was kind of creepy

I'm sure I will never go there again

good story.

gay youth is so idealized, i wish we had a more fulfilling place for queer elders in society other than homeownership, interiority and fleeting connections with nephews and nieces. what i've seen of palm springs does not appeal tbh.

"i wish we had a more fulfilling place for queer elders in society other than homeownership, interiority and fleeting connections with nephews and nieces."

yes

i think about that old dead fingers talk song a lot.

ok wait the band is named "dead fingers talk"

I read that as Dead Ringers.

I’m not sure I get yr drift— like of course there should me more representation of older queer people, but what do you have in mind?

Also not really sure what the hell is wrong with homeownership or doting on ny friends’ kids. Not everyone wants to party and have anonymous hookups until they die.

good story.

gay youth is so idealized, i wish we had a more fulfilling place for queer elders in society other than homeownership, interiority and fleeting connections with nephews and nieces. what i've seen of palm springs does not appeal tbh.

The thing is that there are fulfilling roles, it’s just that they’re invisibilized— so the problem seems more about representation than about what actually happens in queer circles.

Finally just to say that I’ve been with my husband for 11 years, and in the circles that we run in, our relationship is seen as a model, not as some sort of decline into normativity. And our circles are radical circles.

I had a moment around age 35 where a subplot involving “my then-boyfriend’s affair” was causing me gay confusion, like, existential stuff. Feeling like every other family member was speeding toward grandparenthood, second home ownership. Was confused about the long-term implications of queerness, not of “dick in bum” forever, but more like, “what is the meaning of queerness when the basic features of it dry up and/or become less important?”

Like, are you queer if you’re not having sex? (Conversely, are you queer even if you embrace a capitalist life trajectory?)

I invited a dignified actor friend over for dinner, guy is in his 80s and if I told you his name you’d be like “ohhh HIM?” (Google Sissy Boy Slap Party). I wanted to pick his brain about “growing old gracefully as a gay” and see what he had to say. I didn’t preemptively let him know I desires to discuss this as a topic.

The entire dinner, he was loudly reminiscing about dicks and asses and Fire Island— it was a bawdy summation. His term for a penis was “a pee-pee”, and he’d bark it loudly at the end of a punch line. “And when I turned around… he had pulled out his PEE-PEE!!!”

I remembered a little later about Gore Vidal in his dotage sadly saying to a friend, “hey, why don’t we invite [x] over? Remember, he had a dick as big as a baby’s arm” and the interviewer noted that [x] had been dead for years

Anyway, all this is to say that there hasn’t been much luck in the “devising a long term model for gay men’s psychological retirement plans” over here. I definitely think turning to writing seems to be a recurring thing though

“Gay men’s psychological retirement plans”?!?

Please elaborate, because I am absolutely lost.

Honestly this has been a major factor in my depression adventures— feeling like most of the gay dudes I know have just grown MORE depressed and MORE alone as they age and age. The “well, what the fuck do I have to look forward to?” question definitely informs my own periods or lethargy and wantingtodie-ness

I'm having less sex but my friendships are growing profounder. Maybe that's queerness at its best.

tabes idk if it’s deliberate but I always feel as if you respond in such confrontational ways toward my posts and it’s been going on for years. If it’s unintentional then I guess there’s nothing really to say about it. I’ve had side convos with other boarders like “am I crazy? Is his tone always so hostile toward me?” and I’ve been agreed with, idk. I know we never had a bad hookup because I can count the names and faces of every dude I’ve hooked up with, all twenty-five of them

Anyway

I’ll explain what I meant by what I typed later I want coffees first

I’m truly not trying to be an asshole, but I have to say that if your gay male friends are getting more depressed and alone as they get older, there is the distinct possibility that you need to find new friends.

My best gay friend is a trans faggot who is ten years younger than me. These are the kinds of queer friendships that are sustaining and bring me hope, because he has friends who are a few years younger and I meet them, too, and know that there are plenty of weird queer young folks running around.

If this is about not being able to run with the young folks anymore, then it seems more about gay mens’ hangups about youth.

fgti, I just think our experiences are so diametrically opposed that I have a hard time understanding where you’re coming from a lot of the time.

But truly, it’s nothing personal— I’m just often baffled by the things that you post, particularly in the queer threads.

That said, I’m sorry and I’ll be more mindful of how I interact with you here. I like many things you write on other threads and admire your art.

Thanks for that, and I mean it. Sorry if I come off as baffling.. I feel somewhat invested in this topic and wanna type more when I’m not on my phone

No need to apologize— your experience and how you make sense of it is your own!! I think that one of my biggest faults is that my own bafflement comes across as aggro and investigatory, like I’m cross-examining or something. It’s not a good look and I appreciate being called out on it.

I’m also deeply interested in this topic, happy to continue conversation whenever.

Nooooo it's actually kind of part of the "table" package, don't consider it a fault, I just hoped to clarify.

I keep starting to type and it turns into a life story kinda post. Trying to condense things rn

Essentially, I'm trying to figure out, on a psychological level, what my desired pattern of behaviour looks like as I approach my 50s and 60s

One of my defining acquaintanceships in my adult life involved a sexual assault that occurred in 2009; this assault was not an expression of horniness, or a by-product of my assaulter's alcoholism, so much as it was an expression of social dominance.

My continued friendship with my assaulter, writing off what had happened as having been "a drunken mistake", was itself a mistake, and a learning experience. I realized just the extent of how gay men weaponize their sexuality to "feel big" and "feel powerful". Me, sex is something that I associate only with love and comfort and care, I don't go to bathhouses, I don't hook up with strangers, I like dating men and falling in love with them and having loving sex with them.

Another of my defining acquaintanceships was a relationship that followed many of the same archetypes as my relationship with my assaulter. My then-boyfriend used sexuality as a method of belittlement and power-assertion. (Among a plethora of abusive behaviours he engaged with toward me, he spent a week sending dick pics to my assaulter, tittering "omg fgti would be devastated if they knew were were sexting like this".)

When I was in a thirteen year relationship, I felt at times like I was with my boyfriend in a bathysphere. We were descending slowly, beautifully, through the ocean, and things were getting darker and colder and eventually we'd die. But we were together. I do not have that feeling any more, I feel confused.

I wish I could echo Alfred and say that my friendships are growing more profound. It is somewhat the case in certain circumstances-- my current friendship with my now ex 13-year boyfriend is deeper and more profound than any friendship I've ever had. But generally I feel as if I'm losing friends, they're becoming exhausted with me, or I with them, or they're settling into suburban coupledom/families/polycules and being less present.

I feel like so much of life is geared towards heteronormativity. You want to do well at school so you can go off to uni so you can get a good job so you can save money so you can buy a home so you can raise a family. But my end goal isn't to raise a family, and there's essentially a non-existent chance of it happening accidentally, so suddenly all these markers of achievement and success don't make sense to actively pursue.

I'm settled with my boyfriend of a decade but that doesn't mean I want to live in idyllic domestic bliss, I want to keep going out and do all kinds of fun things and be as free from responsibility and obligation as I can be. What will that look like when I'm in my 60s and 70s - will I still be trying to go to gigs and clubs, will I still be having big weekends in my pals' homes drinking and dancing? Will they all have settled down and will we be forced to join in, or will we make new pals and who would those new pals be? I don't know, and I think I'm quite happy to just keep postponing the thought and enjoying myself just now. I'm really lucky, in that a lot of my pals are straight people who are firmly committed to not having kids, settling down etc. But I do worry that it will change.

I'm also lucky in having str8 pals who have remained single well into their 40s. Even the ones w/families have promised me a room when their kids move out; they're not kidding either.

I have several great friendships with people over 60– oldest is 88– but they’re most-of-them divorced (or widowed) heterosexual grandparents

I think that I’ve been lucky in this regard, in that my grandparents on one side were getting arrested at street protests well into their 80s, and I know a lot of older queer people through writing community— I mean, as much as someone like Dennis Cooper could be my dad, he is also my friend and colleague, and I know plenty of other queer people around his age who are living fulfilling, interesting lives well past their 60s.

For me, much of this is related to the heteronormativity that creeps into the consciousness of even the most strident among us— that’s not a knock, just a reality that needs to be acknowledged. Lord knows I feel it sometimes.

Part of this, too, especially for men who love men, is that so many people who could have been examples of alternative ways to live were killed for being who they were. With fewer living elders to look up to and learn from, it becomes more difficult to find examples that might work as guides for our own lives as we age.

thanks everyone for sharing where they're at, much food for thought.

i guess i've just been reflecting lately about what's important to me. which makes me think of ways i may not be living up to that. i still have internalized hetero desire like boxedjoy was describing on the one hand, on the other hand, what does thriving look like? how much do i really need? where can i scale back? things like that. balance is probably the main thing i've been leaning into lately. sometimes i feel like i need to shift my balance? maybe i don't need to do anything, and i'm just growing as a person.

to be clear, i'd love to own a home, the security of that sounds amazing, but i'd be terrible at it! because how my parents did it sucked ass. i'd have to learn so much. learning for me is .. a little goes a long way, haha, it's often overwhelming and exhausting.

I love that, table

I think I have had more "almost" elders in my proximity, people who do function as legitimate people to whom I look up, but haven't wholly taken on a "role model" place in my life. Most of the happiest queer elders individuals who I've met have had the advantage of a steady long-term rental or an early property purchase... they've been living in the same place for decades. Wish I could say the same! although my ex-partner has held on to our formerly co-habited unit for almost ten years now and I love to see that. Me, I can't even decide what city to put down roots

Also not really sure what the hell is wrong with homeownership or doting on ny friends’ kids. Not everyone wants to party and have anonymous hookups until they die.

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table)

i don't see that anyone's saying anything is _wrong_ with those things, look, i don't want to do the diversity lecture but we are, like, all different. what works for you may not necessarily work for all of us!

Like, are you queer if you’re not having sex? (Conversely, are you queer even if you embrace a capitalist life trajectory?)

― flamboyant goon tie included

hi, phoning in from the Lesbian Brigade here! as far as i'm concerned, the answer to your first question is "yes". i mean i'm much more "on our backs" than "off our backs", don't get me wrong. i also want to tread gingerly here because i know there has been some... disagreement in the past as to what extent asexuality is a queer identity, and my experience is that it very much is for me, in... a particular sense.

one will see in some cases feminizing HRT called "chemical castration", which is in a technical sense correct, but the _desexualization_ or even _unsexing_ inherent in that is something i really disagree with. estrogen and (particularly) progesterone horny is a beautiful thing in and of itself, for me it's a classic example of "quality over quantity", just going into this _space_ where _everything_ is charged with the quality of the erotic in some sense. being, like, a blackpilled incel isn't queer, but i do some _extremely gay shit_ even if i don't find penetrative sex to be particularly worth the time and effort involved. hell, even that... i mean look one of the major reasons i had the sort of genital reconstructive surgery i did was because the idea of being someone for whom PIV intercourse in _any_ fashion was biologically impossible was _very appealing_ to me. to me, that's pretty fucking queer.

as to your second question, being on a capitalist life trajectory i don't think has much bearing one one's individual queerness, but in terms of existing in solidarity with queer comunity it can cause certain problems in practice. like, caitlyn jenner is a trans woman but i don't really think of her as part of the Trans Community.

I'm having less sex but my friendships are growing profounder. Maybe that's queerness at its best.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

to me there's like this aspect of _homosociality_ that a lot of guys don't have, and i don't think homosociality is _queer_, normative womanhood is hugely homosocial to the point where it causes genuine problems for those of us who are also homosexual (the "sappho and her friend" thing), but as a queer person i find that homosociality is... i mean being trans i don't have a "retirement plan", psychological or otherwise, it doesn't seem particularly viable to me right now, but if i had the luxury i think homosociality would be a big part of it.

Also not really sure what the hell is wrong with homeownership or doting on ny friends’ kids. Not everyone wants to party and have anonymous hookups until they die.

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table)

i don't see that anyone's saying anything is _wrong_ with those things, look, i don't want to do the diversity lecture but we are, like, all different. what works for you may not necessarily work for all of us!

you do a lot of reacting on here. just an observation.

growing a little tired of the shouting in a box mode a lot of people seem to be locked in lately, i do it a lot too. the thing that rubs is when i express interest in what someone else is saying and it isn't reciprocated. (probably not going to try again with that person.)

Well, it's a little hard to not be reactive or defensive when your post implies negative judgment on some elements of my own existence— like, sorry we own a house, I guess those years of being homeless and living on scraps don't matter much.

I also don't really understand the lecturing tone from kate— part of what I was getting at in my original post was that not everyone wants the same things, so merely repeating that back to me as if I don't already know is a bit, well, insulting?

fwiw it doesn't look like lecturing to me; she's in a sense reassuring you and her and the rest of us.

We all need to take a deep breath in this thread. The last 48 hours have been bizarre, certainly the surliest it's ever been. I'm not sure why we're assuming the worst from posters who've been on ILX in some form for almost two decades. We should start with the assumption that "no one here tries to be an asshole."

xp i think it's awesome that you own a home. i want to own a home.

realizing my post was the problem, it wasn't clear. i was trying to point to the kind of suburban homeownership lifestyle that boxedjoy articulated much better.

You want to do well at school so you can go off to uni so you can get a good job so you can save money so you can buy a home so you can raise a family.

that being said, it feels like with being sheltered in the us you're either on the losing side (renters) or the winning side (owners). of course i want to be on the winning side, i want that for people i care about. but it seems that being on the winning side means you're participating in that game in some unavoidable ways. i mean maybe you make up for that by being a yimby or w/e.

xp thanks alfred

Of course renters are on the losing side, but I want to make it clear that in the city that I live in, one year of rent on a decent 1br is the equivalent of a down payment on a house— neither me nor my partner are rolling in cash, but we had a modicum of savings and the time seemed right a few years back. What I'm trying to get at is that like the diversity of desires and needs among all of us, we're also very geographically spread out, and so the path to homeownership and etc in a place like Portland or Miami or New York or Salt Lake City is not remotely similar to the path it is in a place like Philly or Pittsburgh or hell, Cleveland.

I also want to apologize for being so reactive and perhaps stirring the pot a bit much on here. I genuinely like all of you, and know that if I ever act like an asshole, I really don't mean it personally.

xp huh, i hope that's true. it kinda seems like everywhere is expensive now, but maybe that isn't as true in other cities. are you referring to still 'undesirable' urban areas that are still affordable? i was under the impression that you had to start considering somewhere like omaha nebraska to find them, but i'm not basing that on anything. it's worth a look, rather than starting with a baseline 'i'll never be able to have price-stable housing' assumption.

just a little about where we're at - my parents stepped in and bought us a trailer, but the land is rented to us by the property management co. for about 75% of what a 1 bd apt costs to rent here. significantly less per month for the space, but still a fair amount.

i really like everyone in here too, i'm sorry for starting with hostile assumptions about people's motives far too often.

It depends on what undesirable means! Can I buy crack cocaine within a block of my house? Yes. Can I also buy a $5 pour-over and a vegan donut? Yes.

Have you tried combining them?

Love everyone itt

Loved your responses, too, rushomancy! It got me thinking about how gay identity seemed at times intractable from “sexual viability” when it didn’t/doesn’t need to be

This has been a really interesting conversation to follow. The main thing I have to add to it as relatively newly-out bi man in a committed same-sex relationship is that one of the things my partner really liked about me and has really leaned into is that I have kids and a reasonably generous custody arrangement with my ex-wife that has them up with us multiple times a year and a significant chunk of the summer. It’s very much a positive for me that he’s so happy to support my parenthood and help when the kids are here and it really didn’t cross my mind as being a strictly heteronormative thing in our relationship.

DJP nothing brightens my day more than sunny updates like these :)

I love heteronormative dick!

I love heteronormative dick!

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

like, in a platonic sense or...?

thanks for that pov on parenting djp. i'm glad to hear you have such great support.

when i close my eyes and think of myself in the future i see me and my (current) boyfriend, in our 60s, in a house somewhere, in the country? i think that last part is just tech/social media exhaustion, idk if i could hack it out in the country. anyway, maybe that's not queer in the general political sense but it is, by definition, gay, which i think is enough for me. i've actually never thought all that hard about what our social circle would look like... maybe it's not that important to me. i've always been someone who gravitates towards a person as opposed to a social circle, even in platonic relationships dating back to adolescence.

but as i get into my mid 30s i find my social interactions to be more intentional, people aren't just... around the way they were when i was 25, i don't go to random parties and run into ppl as much anymore. i feel more like i'm building a constellation of friends piece by piece as opposed to just picking and choosing from what happens to be around me, or glomming onto other groups that i find myself overlapping with socially. i've lived in new york long enough to have had plenty of friendships fall by the wayside in favor of real, bedrock decade-long relationships with people who are integral parts of my life. and frankly only during this process have i started to think a lot about gay friendships, gay spaces (the pandemic also exacerbated this, i felt the absence of gay acquaintances and strangers very acutely for the first time in my life). i started to think about where and who i'm spending my time with less thru the lens of career networking and more thru the lens of what makes me feel happy and fulfilled as a mortal being. but that also reflects a shift in me thinking about my identity as a person not thru what i do for (or with) my work but who i am as a human. we've lately found ourselves hanging w/ a lot of gay couples... i like that. spending time with gay couples makes me happy, seeing that kind of love, considering their interior lives in relation to my own, thinking about how gay people in longterm relationships at this age grow together, how they spend their time, what makes them happy, how we mutually fit into each other's lives in that way. some of them have sexual tension (not [yet?] consummated), some don't! i also enjoy spending time with single people (alfred) too :) i think i feel less cool in a superficial way now but more whole generally.

lol am I your only single friend

no i’m just shouting you out specially!

i feel more like i'm building a constellation of friends piece by piece as opposed to just picking and choosing from what happens to be around me, or glomming onto other groups that i find myself overlapping with socially.

This is what I was trying to express here yesterday morning. I've added several excellent friends in the last year, one of whom is gay; the rest are cool straights, younger than me, still apt to go on long bike rides to Key Biscayne beaches or for swimming in backyard pools on long weekends and having good conversations.

I've almost made my peace, though, with being the one who instigates hangouts even with my closest chums. Most are married with children or coupled. I get that I'm not the first person on their minds. COVID has increased my desperation for contact; I've realized that while I'm introverted and can go a few days without seeing anyone outside my job I also need banal/intense conversations over drinks, especially after a day of writing and teaching. So I don't mind taking charge when the rewards are considerable. I'm at my highest level of intimacy with several close friends. Reading Sarge's post, I realized, shit, I've been buddies with this guy for 12 years, has it been that long?

One of the weirder things is that I’ve yet to meet either of you irl, despite our being on the queer threads for what feels like the longest?!? I’ve met a lot of the other queers here.

I was also thinking the other day: What happened to Je55e? I know Corey is down in the panhandle, married, and seems to have a quiet and peaceful life.

Been too overwhelmed with other stuff these last few days to meaningfully contribute to this conversation, but I just want to say that DJP's post makes me extremely happy, and the rest of your posts are giving me plenty to chew on. This is a great group of queers!

Over the years I've lost touch with a lot of friends, gay and straight, because they've had kids, or they had to move out of the SF Bay Area for financial reasons or other job opportunities, or they have chosen to leave, some to Palm Springs but also to many other places. One of my best friends is moving back from NY, which I’m ridiculously happy about. I have also lost touch with some extended family members I really like. I know it is important to reach out to people to maintain contact, but I'm not an extrovert so it's been hard for me.

The friends and family that remain in my life are spread out over the world, but I feel comfortable enough around them that I am determined to stay close to them. For me this is what it has boiled down to.

today's convo just inspired me to send an e-mail to friends i haven't spoken to in awhile, thanks gayz <3

hung out with my oldest, closest gay friend yesterday and had a lovely time. we went to a big pride dance party and then had dinner together, the first time in awhile it's been just him and me without our partners. he teaches in a smallish college city on the east coast but moved out here in 2020 to be closer to people he knows during the pandemic, not wanting to feel isolated in a cold climate where he only really knows other faculty members. shortly after moving here he met his very sweet now-boyfriend and they've since moved in together. he has to go back to the east coast this summer and his bf's going with him (the bf has never lived anywhere else aside from here so this'll be a big move for him). i'm honestly gonna feel pretty sad about it when he leaves - lockdowns robbed us of a lot of potential hang-out time, but i loved being in the same city as him again and generally just feel lucky to know him and still be friends with him after 15+ years. sorry to be a sap but good, close gay friends really are precious.

that is a really nice post donna rouge

One of my best gay friends is going through cancer right now— we’ve been friends since 2004. It’s a damn good thing he lives close by and I can pop in with nice things for him and get some quality time in.

thank you dan S :) and i'm glad you feel determined to stay close to your people

xp sorry to hear T, but it's great that you're close enough to visit him regularly, and i'm sure your visits mean a lot to him

This thread is a good thread

Isn't this a lovely thread? The gay thread. What a lovely, clever name. Where the elite meet. Never have I seen so much elite.

ok fuck off

I suppose the sell-by date of All About Eve quotes has expired, Dan. Eric and I've been using them since the Bush II years.

and remember what I said upthread about cooling off and stop assuming the worst of posters?

I don't assume the worst of you Alfred at all, but that post was very condescending

(the post about the gay thread)

Joseph L. Mankiewicz, hon, was like that.

My long post seven hours ago makes clear what I think of this thread.

"Isn't this a lovely thread? The gay thread. What a lovely, clever name. Where the elite meet. Never have I seen so much elite."

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 13, 2022

I feel like I'm in sync with you for the most part Alfred, but that is an awful post and is not representative of you or of this thread at all

and I don't even exactly remember my comments about All About Eve, just that I didn't think it was as great as Sunset Blvd. It's depressing to think that you were mocking me about those comments

i’m kind of cracking up at a spat breaking out after everyone posts how wonderful this thread is… but i don’t think we need to derail the thread over this

Shut up J0rdan S

Just now:

Him: “the white mugs would be cleaned better w baking soda”
Me: “that sounds fascinating and maybe you could demonstrate by doing the dishes once in a while”
Him: “or you could do what my mom does…”
Me: “fuck your dad?”

It's depressing to think that you were mocking me about those comments

I wasn't -- I was quoting AAE, as usual. I'm sorry, though.

We all need to take a deep breath in this thread. The last 48 hours have been bizarre, certainly the surliest it's ever been. I'm not sure why we're assuming the worst from posters who've been on ILX in some form for almost two decades. We should start with the assumption that "no one here tries to be an asshole."

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 13, 2022 12:05 PM (

Oh just to be clear I was trying to be funny in telling J0rdan to "shut up"

Sorry if it came off otherwise (or just wasn't funny)

I understood!

How is this the second time in as many months that someone got seriously set off by All About Eve quotes?

I understood both times—

I want to note that while we can’t always agree with each other on other threads, we’re all here in some degree or other because the moral panic continues to be about us, some of us more than others obviously. While we can’t find agreement in other areas, it might be best to assume the best of each other, as Alfred says, because the ally straights are NOT going to be saving us from their infinitely more hateful counterparts.

fgti that is some grade-a repartee. elite even 🧐

we really do need more allyship, table otm. feel like some of the difficulty is text messageboard communication is so one dimensional it's hard to see each other!

Negronis on me!

alfred it would be lovely to meet you some time but i would need to order a mocktail or a shirley temple lol

do you still smoke weed? If so, we're good.

all the thumbs up

... or a milkshake?

A martini, please. Very dry.

i ate so much last night the thought of a milkshake hurts. sparkling water or kombucha. or water from the gd tap haha.

i drank cocchi and soda all saturday afternoon at the annual dyke pride picnic

... or a milkshake?

― Eggs Benedick (Eric H.)

...duck?

sorry I got bent out of shape last night, Alfred. I know now that I misread your intentions. I really like you and everyone else in this thread

Cheers!

to you too!

There are very few moments in life as good as this. Let's remember it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea1TFx3HIL8

hey y'all - I just caught up on all the action from the past week, and the conversations here are giving me life. it feels so necessary to be exchanging perspectives with a group like this, coming from all kinds of different backgrounds. it's a real highlight of the week for me and fills my heart <3

no need to belabor the conversation - but just to say that I've been hanging with a straight guy friend recently (my first straight guy friend in years!), and it's been really great. I didn't realize it would be! it recently occurred to me that I don't have to feel ashamed of wanting to identify as both a man - and very much with womanhood, as well. of course, not having to feel ashamed is very different from actually *not* feeling ashamed, if that makes sense, but I was glad for the realization. as all have said, way complicated.

I also want to share some big news, which is that I just beat cancer. I was diagnosed at the end of last year and was in treatment most of this year - I guess "beat" is pretty relative (always a chance of having to deal with this again), but it was the best possible scenario and for now I'm in remission. :D it felt important to tell you all.

also - "Hi guys. I doubt anyone remember me from 10 years ago. Just wanted to pop in. *Goes back to lurking.*

― lilsoulbrother, Wednesday, May 11, 2022 11:51 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink"

I remember! and I'm really glad you've popped in :))

omg swen wonderful news, i'm so happy for you

hooray swen!! ❤️

gah thanks. what a trip. the hair is almost back but body needs some time - which i don't have much of because I'm going to fire island at the top of August! I'll have to "rebrand."

wish you the best Swen, hope you have a fun summer!

Swen you champ, you are gonna rule Fire Island <3

dear Swen, I am glad yr doing okay. <3 love and light always

<3 me too. grateful for you T. also I can drink and ingest edibles again, which is feeling very real. hope all are enjoying the weekend so far.

wow! congrats

very happy for you :)

That is awesome and great news!

🙏🙏🙏 what's up 4 Saturday bubbies?

That is awesome news Swen!

Today my plan is to relax, enjoy gnocchi for lunch (the sauce is simmering), practice cello for a few hours, swim, play video games, and not do anything even remotely resembling "work".

Tomorrow I plan to work all day and then sing karaoke with friends in the evening.

I was feeling like I wanted to enter into a large-scale collaborative artistic project with somebody in particular. This person is not a close friend, but we've known each other for twenty years, seem to have a deep connection, and have worked on small projects here and there. I called him and made my pitch and he said, "the best part of this suggestion is how excited I'd be to work with you again" and I had the biggest dopamine rush. I am excited! excited to be excited about work again.

that is a great feeling fgti!

i have no real plans this morning or afternoon. tonight i’m going to watch ‘aliens’ in a cemetery.

I'm in a pool.

omg donna

heroic weekend plan

fgti I'm finally in a creative period too after A HOT MINUTE
real nice feeling

i'm subbing in for the saturday dj at da gay club

got all the rihanna and ariana i was missing

yesss which RiRi

diamonds, we found love, where have you been, s&m

fav thread💙

you are all a complete and total delight.

donna that's ... uhm, quite an intrguing idea.

I'm so jealous 💙

I'm about to start a show called wild things on Amazon, seems pretty cool

Yo i keep thinking it's Sunday

Tomorrow's like a bonus

my red state decided to make juneteenth a holiday, so i get monday off!

i'm subbing in for the saturday dj at da gay club

got all the rihanna and ariana i was missing

― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map)

words that confuse me unneccessarily:

1. "subbing"

lol

I get Monday off too but I need to call a board member in the morning and ask for his 25k which should be fun

Awesome news, cousin Swen!

xoxoxoxoxo

hi tbh

I have an assignation on Friday with a longtime acquaintance -- we graduated college together and have several common friends without he and I ever becoming friends ourselves -- who after 20 years realized I'm hot.

you are hot!

what does he look like

He's actually a public figure -- or was. He was the boyfriend of a dude who starred in "The Real World" in the mid '90s. He's now a reporter for a major daily.

do we ever give in and spy on exes online? pretty sure i know who my last x's new boyfriend is and it's very funny.

Of course! We wouldn't be fully human if we didn't yield to pettiness.

omg lol
from public figures to Carmen Sandiego over here
an interesting time to be an ilx gay today

you don't have to be crazy to work here but it helps!

grrrrrrrl i wrote the BOOK

although recently i'm learning that apparently i present as "high functioning" lol

I know who all my exes’ partners are, but I don’t have too many exes.

most of my exes have little to no online presence. my first boyfriend (the only other really serious relationship i’ve had) got married shortly after we did, he and i don’t talk very much these days but they seem like a cute happy couple.

although recently i'm learning that apparently i present as "high functioning" lol

― Swen

oh my god do you know how totally fucked up it is that i am a high-functioning and respectable trans woman? _me_?

anyway i'm going to literally lie back down in bed and go back to sleep

i honestly wish i could be reasonable and high-minded about my breakups but they were both really traumatic ruptures. it's been a lot of years though and time heals wounds. i don't think back often any more but when i do i still experience the weird dislocated feeling of having created whole lives twice only to feel them vanish overnight without a trace.

alfred i hope your assignation with the reporter goes well. if he was boyfriend of a real world star he must be a silver fox now.

one of my exes is one of my best friends & we have a much healthier and more supportive relationship as friends than we did as partners. the other one i haven’t talked to since we broke up and he has me blocked on instagram. i get both sides

Both of my serious exes remained friends and we don’t really interact in real life any longer, tho still message each other and such on IG

My partner’s ex before I came along was/is a college professor who taught many of our younger friends, which is kind of funny

I'm friends with all my ex's, including women!

Well,, an exception for the Trekkie who gave me crabs in 2000.

won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown

He's actually a public figure -- or was. He was the boyfriend of a dude who starred in "The Real World" in the mid '90s. He's now a reporter for a major daily.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, June 30, 2022 1:21 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

haha i know which "star" you mean but there were plural boyfriends. that was the only season of the Real World i watched, my parents canceled our cable that year.

i'm friends with all my exes pretty much, but they were mostly short-term relationships and i've had deeply traumatic 'breakups' with platonic friends that i can't seem to heal from and it's debilitating to the point that dating is completely out of the question now.

To be clear, it was "Real World -- Miami."

Oh, i know- i caught bits and pieces of the previous seasons but was a little young to really watch 'em

memba Danny from Orleans?

that soul patch though lol

hope yall are enjoying a day off

currently in a cabin in southernmost mendocino county with husband, friend and godson. leaving today to go to a county fair and then spend a night by ourselves in boulder creek. tentative plans tomorrow to see some pals, a lesbian couple whom we haven’t seen in years, then driving home. relieved to be missing the LA fireworks, they’re always kind of intense.

oh that sounds really nice. we're going out to the sticks next weekend for some r&r, it's been a few months since we've gone anywhere and i'm really looking forward to it.

sounds lovely you guys

sooooooooooo FIP is coming up in 2 weeks and it's going to be kind of weird bc i'm still coming out of the health stuff and suddenly things are firing on the boys front but i haven't been able to hook up since chemo bc, well, not cute

should be interesting!

anyone amped for bastille day? ;x)

thought i'd post this here. it's a really beautiful essay imo. most relatable to cis gay men i think so ymmv.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/dicks-pics-dark-rooms-nathan

anyone else tryna get the monkeypox vaccine? I got my first dose, another in a few weeks.

nice. how are you feeling?

local gay org person who everyone likes brought in a few hundred doses the other day. there was a line out the door and they ran out in the first few hours. my boyfriend didn't make it in time.

did not feel a thing. also got covid boosted today so feeling nice and hopped up. :D
how are you bubby?

I also just want to add in response to article linked above that my d pics are not aesthetic failures. proud of myself for bringing it all these years.

haha i'm sure they are

i'm good! it's hot af outside.

I'm hot as fuck inside.

HO

Hoe is right!!!

lol

hi gay! on my second bout of COVID two weeks before my family is flying out here to visit :) :) :)

oh no! sorry to hear it.

nooooo. are you feeling better? I've definitely had it 3 times and counting.

map i just bought myself a new wearable fan, have you ever? shaped like headphones and you wear round your neck, 2 little fans on each side. I also have a mini portable handheld. gorge.

what! that is fan-tastic

🤣🤣 what's happening today bubby?

Haha, I attended an outdoor wedding where the groom was wearing one of those pre-ceremony

omg yessss I legit thought I was the only one

I could've used one Thursday afternoon, that's for sure

i mean honestly. it's 103° in Missouri today. in truth I think I would be fine with it if I didn't have to wear clothes.

sounds missourable

lol someone took their ginko biloba this mornimg

🧠

nothing is happening today and i'm lovin it

the best
just played tennis
then shopping and rest (pretty much the same for me) for rest of day
so i put up a photo on grindr that seems to be going over well
i can't wait to get laid to be frank
ny hair is finally back and i don't have to wear a hat - that was not fun tbh

feeling much better now. still technically quarantining so spending today - my partner’s bday - at home, we’ll probably order in some nice dinner later :)

ugh i love ordering in so much. happy birthday to the mister!

swen please update us when your lay inevitably happens, with more detail rather than less :)

bet your bottom dollar
don I'm so glad
hope you guys had a lovely mini celebraysh!!

"bottom dollar" lol now you're just sending me soft lobs

omg lol
listen I would never send you anything soft 🥁🥁🥁🥁😂😂

oo la la

i made a small mistake and told a mean entitled boy we could get down and dirty. red flags all over that one so i'm backing out. also just ew what was i thinking.

I assume you were thinking “dat ass, tho”

omg what does he look like

weirdly i can't get down with fuckwads anymore, i didn't used to care but i'm just not attracted to it anymore

djp is otm. idk how to say what he looks like, he's kind of a pretty boy. dark almost-black flowing hair. pouty clean-shaven face. he wore a 90s pac sun tshirt and fluorescent purple short shorts to my dj gig on sunday - he was very much aiming for me and the only reason i crossed the line with a text message saying we should hook up was 'dat ass, tho'. now i'm ghosting lol.

i really don't think i'm 'into younger guys' to an unhealthy degree thank goodness (where power / maturity balance is out of whack in a gross way), but i had this really hot hookup about five years ago with a very pretty guy in his mid 20s. we did it in his bedroom in a trailer (shared with roommates not family), he had those glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling and he played an edm mix for the soundtrack, it was really great. also 'dat ass tho'.

a few days ago my boyfriend made the first move re the opening things up conversation we've been having for the last year or so, and i'm really proud of him, because i wasn't sure if he really wanted to or not, so i was hesitating. and now it's like, kind of a rush of energy knowing my desire has a new freedom, but also realizing i'm not very good at pursuing side things because social skills. anyway he's been really great at giving me feedback on it <3.

oh, my boyfriend talked to this guy briefly at the gig. he was talking to his girlfriend about road trips, j. asked him if he was taking one soon, he said yeah, and then something to the effect of "but it's really annoying when friends flake out on you because they don't have enough money." bleh.

How you guys handling hookups and dates during COVID? I've requested home tests before we meet.

that sounds like an excellent idea.

omg a lot happens in two days. my blackberry almost got me laid last night. i have no idea Alfred but now the pox has me buggin too like... don't want to touch anyone.

map the introvert extravert dissonance is real. it's okay to flirt with someone who isn't entirely you tho. and fun is one of the most important things you can have. but also you don't have to talk to literally anyone you don't want to.

i forgot what good flirting felt like until last night, how it's not forced! next on my relearning the trade tour is going to be info exchange.

ps opening things up oww owwwwwwww
what kind of experiences u want to have will be fun to figure out

A guy on Scruff just asked me if I’m Ashkenazi or Sephardic. Never gotten that one before! (I’m Roman Catholic.)

haha! i mean, it doesn't strike me as an entirely off the mark assumption.

i can't stop laughing at this

would nondisabled people PLEASE stop using accessible stalls!? i need to have sex in there

— jackie quinn 👉👉 (@llcooljackie) July 31, 2022

went on a nice couples date dinner last night. we were talking about the heat. one of the other two, j., said that the other day a coworker asked him if he had been working out. j. was like yeah, i'm back into it, i'm eating a lot of chicken and tuna and stuff. the coworker was like no, i mean because your back's all sweaty.

I saw a Matmos concert the night before last and it was indisputably the best gig I've seen in many years

The crowd was wonderfully attractive, it felt like we were all at the secret gay beach that only cool people know about

A fun weekend! I hit on two guys, both with boyfriends.

very nice! i went to a pool party on saturday night and had a good time but didn't talk to anyone for 2.5 hours until my boyfriend showed up! i wanted to but major social anxiety. it's about time i go back to therapy specifically for that.

I looove pool parties.

I had no luck with the dudes other than one giving me his number, but to be back on the field felt nice.

it was fun tbh. a fundraiser for the burning man fire performer group my boyfriend is a part of haha. there was a boylesque number featuring a thick man in a santa suit who stripped down to a red lame bikini with the small gap in the back that shows a little bit of crack. all to "father figure" by george michael. very amusing. lots of louche swinger-with-money energy in the air.

i mean, it doesn't strike me as an entirely off the mark assumption.

i've def been mistaken for jewish IRL before (the mitzvah mobile ppl in NYC used to flag me down all the time), just never on a dating/hookup app lol.

my family (mom + two brothers + brother's gf who i met for the first time) were all in town visiting this week, we took them around LA before spending two days at disneyland and the weekend in las vegas. my mom tested positive for covid on the second day of the disney trip so she sadly had to spend most of her time quarantined in her hotel room, but she felt fine enough on the last day in vegas to gamble and go out to dinner. in vegas we mostly hung out by the pool while the rest of my family hit the casinos. saturday night my husband and i escaped the hotel and went to a couple gay bars off the strip: the fun hog ranch (excellent name but a little too crowded/hot for our tastes) and the garage (chill, lots of cuties, and FOOD omg i love when gay bars serve food). i think i decided i love las vegas? i'd like to visit more often - it's monstrous and weird but also kinda thrilling.

oh that sounds great. i used to hate vegas but like you i thrill to some of the excitement there now. off the strip is where it's at, though last time we were there we hung out at the cosmopolitan because my boyfriend's sister and her husband were staying there for a convention. we bought swimming suits, took edibles and went to the pool. amazing buffet there lol. in the area where those bars are, there is a giant plaza with two bathhouses, an actual workout gym, a couple of good gay bars and tons of good restaurants. i could make that area my las vegas destination, plus a dispensary a few blocks away, and be happy tbh.

I didn't realize there were gay bars at the Cosmopolitan! I love that place. so glad you went in the pool. Vegas is totally awesome, I would go back in a heartbeat. wait can you imagine how much fun it would be if we had a meetup there? ......

just got back from fire island - I kissed two boys and had a little fun with the second, a super handsome and sweet Israeli dude. papa's first bag since chemo. it was about time!!

MAP I am THE world's expert on social anxiety. srsly if you ever wanna chat about that lmk.

sorry my post was really unclear, jumping around all over the place. i meant in the area of the gay bars that dr went to.

hmmmmm i would actually really appreciate chatting with you about it, especially any scripts or pointers you might have. i kind of feel like at this point i just need to script some lines out and practice. swen can i find you on socials? my webmail here is long gone but you can always drop me a line at struggin at gmail dot com.

i think the Tropicana is the one that has a big gay pool party in the summer - the last time my husband and i went to Vegas we went to it, and then shortly after leaving i broke my foot lol. would absolutely do a gayLX meetup in vegas!!

anyone else gotten the MPX or MPV or whatever shot? i took the first dose on tuesday, didn’t really feel any soreness until today weirdly but it’s definitely achin’, oof

would absolutely do a gayLX meetup in vegas!!

omg cosign.

that reminds me i need to get on the dept of health list.

the mpx mention that is.

yes I got my first! absolutely no side effects - now I have to get an appt for the 2nd.

map of course - it's so funny you mention you'd like to write out scripts because I was literally just setting my weekly reminder to go through the calendar and figure out when I have to set aside time to "cope ahead" for major stress moments. I'm a dork! @ramiallavodka on ig

I'm all about trips these days, I just got started to thinking that I want to go to Reno as well :D I'm going to the Netherlands for the holidays!! traveling alone and zoned about it.

snap and sizzle, August fizzle, how y'all doin'?, life's a riddle!

I'm a little thicker around the middle. So is Blache!

hahahahahaha <3 me2

I was in NYC last weekend and saw A Strange Loop, which was a trip and a half; if you can swing tickets I strongly recommend going, the story rules and the cast is incredible, especially the lead (he just finished college last year)

I just ended a Zoom interview with Narada Michael Walden.

!

hold up i thought that was the head of new age label narada or something, not the drummer for journey

well, he WAS, but you'd forgive me for wanting to ask about "How Will I Know," "Attack of the Name Game," and "Vision of Love."

oh dang, didn't he only start 2 years ago? life comes at you fast even when you're old :|

whoa that’s awesome alfred

i am very keen to see ‘a strange loop’, hoping it travels to LA at some point

i am going to a golden girls drag performance tomorrow night!

sorta forgot he was in the Mahavishnu Orchestra!

I still don’t know how you pronounce Narada. Is it nuh-RAR-da or is it NArruh-da?

my husband's off to burning man and i just booked a cheap motel in vegas for the weekend. i deserve korean food, weed and a trip to the bathhouse!

lol my oldest pal's there too -- first time! He's there for drugs and orgies.

well who isn't? i'm a little worried about the heat tbh. i think i wanna go out to a gay club too. get real fucked up on diet coke. maybe talk to a stranger.

vegas trip canceled - too hot! going to western colorado instead. a little less hot, and nature sounds more restorative than a cheap vegas trip alone.

wish i could rendezvous with ilxor pals instead - california or chicago or east coast or britain / scotland! gotta plan something, maybe next year.

rebooked vegas and canceled colorado. i need an adventure, not the same old. not sure why i'm serial blogging about this in the queer thread lol. maybe i'll have a good follow-up story or two. they might not be good but i'll still put them here probably lol.

I am appreciating it. I’m going to spend the weekend with my kids and I’m excited about it, but I’m also excited that others are planning their own getaways of whatever fashion

that's awesome, very glad to hear that!

ok so i might go to this pool party at the luxor

Temptation Sundays is the longest Running LGBTQ+ pool party in Las Vegas has become a must-do event. Summer is about to get even hotter.

featuring dj nick stracener, a semi-hairy ken doll who plays ... wait for it ... tribal house

i just want to be in some water somewhere at some point, and it's only $20

feel like you gotta

So! An hour into a date it come up in conversation that he's...not vaccinated. When asked why, I get the excuse salad with the same dressing: I'm young (24), I'm healthy, FREEDOM. We did make out but after dropping me off I rinsed my mouth with kinds of Scope.

I think he saw he'd infuriated me.

xps high five ok. at least i know there's good food and a good gym close by where i'm staying. my motel is likely pretty dumpy, hard to tell exactly how bad it is from the internet. person on the phone was nice enough. it's probably fine.

aw alf you deserve better than this

thanks, map. I need a good bacchanal like yours.

i'm more risk-averse than i used to be. i feel more vulnerable as a low-mid income person. cutting loose has gotta be on a budget, and there's safety to consider. glad i don't drink anymore, that was going to catch up with me sooner or later. i'll make the 6 hour drive and probably take it pretty easy. vegas can be intense especially at the budget level haha. but i'm going to do my best to keep it light and have some low key fun.

I'm more risk-averse too, in large part thanks to COVID.

it's so funny i'm sharing all this here. anyway, this motel canceled my (re)-reservation, because they thought that maybe they hadn't cancelled it right the first time. i don't believe in the "universe nudging me in the right direction" but in this case i'm going with that. i realized i didn't actually want to go anywhere, i was just trying to distract myself from feeling lonely. so i'm taking a nice long staycation this weekend and i already have plans with at least two friends :)

one reason that staying home has become more compelling option for me in the past few years is that a well-off friend of my man gifted us a really expensive mattress, by far the most comfortable thing i've ever slept on. i didn't know that simply laying on a thing could be like that haha. so now i feel this shudder of horror in my body when i contemplate sleeping on the mattress at a budget motel, and even the nicer places i've stayed at can't compare.

anyway i feel content, glad i'm not on the road alone. i hope everyone who posts here is doing well or at least hanging in there in their various circumstances.

hi queers

we're getting through it are we not?

i have a pretty firm rule on socials, if anyone posts anything fawning about this one human who recently died, that's an immediate unfriend/unfollow. idk it feels good to be strict about these things sometimes, like i have values and i honor them, you know?

lol what a silly post. anyway, wishing decent or indecent weekends to everyone.

You're good, map. I like to know my queers are okay.

:)

Just wanted to check in and say the long weekend with my kids was fantastic and my partner is really fantastic with them in terms of not letting them get away with being assholes while also following my lead on discipline and not overstepping, it’s amazing to watch really

An hour into a date it come up in conversation that he's...not vaccinated. When asked why, I get the excuse salad with the same dressing: I'm young (24), I'm healthy, FREEDOM. We did make out but after dropping me off I rinsed my mouth with kinds of Scope.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

Soooo not worth it imo. Alfred, you're a gentleman. You don't need this.

My aunt went to the Luxor once. She brought me back a mug with my name spelled out in hieroglyphics.

thank you

agreed.

HI EVERYONE. map i am thoroughly entertained by your Destinations Unknown live blog.

i don't have much to report other than i've been getting laid which is nice. this thing is happening though where i'm not sure how to disentangle myself from someone once we've hooked up and they're interested in more. like sometimes a thing is just a thing, let's move on etc. but i'm super not good at the "i'm not really up for anything more" talk - historically i've been more of a fizzle-outer. am i dick?? :/

you aren't doing anything wrong!! we need to normalize one night stands again!! i feel like it's probably worth trying to be more clear about an expectation like you say, but sometimes we need people to pick up on context clues imo. as long as you aren't leading them on with mixed messaging i think you're well within acceptable behavior.

i'm pretty excited because after years of wanting to do this i've been able to afford some leather - fun! checking out the local leather scene via a bar event and monthly party. the organizer is at least a stand-up guy so it seems promising. we went out last weekend and i smoked a cigar. i forgot it would make me nauseous so we ended up leaving early. my husband was the best buddy the whole time.

anyway what's up with all youse?

we went out last weekend and i smoked a cigar. i forgot it would make me nauseous so we ended up leaving early. my husband was the best buddy the whole time.

this was unclear, i went out with my husband, not the other dude.

omg I'm so sorry I've been away

thank you so much for your encouraging words MAPsweetz

LEATHER

wait this is so exciting, like what kind of outfit did you have on

some mr. s stuff, a bar vest, cap and fingerless gloves. also some wesco boots which i've wanted for years. they're black mister lous and they're incredibly beautiful and sexy and i'm figuring out how to wear them. i put it all on for my dj gig at the gay bar like why not?

swen how are you feeling about fall?

i'm currently bogged down with a head cold and out of sick hours so next week will be fun :P

that sounds so cool, i'm glad you did that. super sexy.
well I've already broken out "The Shining" which means i'm feeling festive for fall. i aim to continue the getting laid streak but i took a break this week to eat unsubstantiated amounts of pizza and ice cream. work sucks right now, it's a pressure cooker. so trying to connect with the creative side of what i do and also write lots of music on the side. hey map what are your thoughts on w33d?

ps i'm sorry to hear it, does that mean you have to go in sick? i just had covid and it suckkkkked

Hung out at a buddy's for most of the night doing not-so-legal things. At midnight, my idea, we went to the local karaoke joint, my first karaoke since early 2020. We hung out until before 3 a.m. I sang "She's So Cold." Got home at 3:30.

We're moving into a house
More of a cottage, really, but it's beautiful and in a great neighbourhood and reasonably priced (considering the shitty asshole that is the market right now)

houses and late night karaoke are fucking awesome.

swen, i'm going all in on edibles and tinctures lately. where are you at these days?

oof cottage jealous
yes I'm hitting the sativa edibles and resin vapes o snap
intrigued by these illicit acts Alfy

alfred, what's your scene like post-hurricane?

Miami never in the cone.

Sanibel, where I vacation every summe, was demolished.

i'm glad you weren't too affected then.

maybe it would be fun to name a recent crime we've committed. a few months ago i took a hit on my vape pen at work, like inside my cubicle. i was getting ready to leave and go for a run and forgot where i was, lol. luckily no one was in the area at the time. bad boy.

LOL I've so vaped at work
my soul is a crime tbh

what crime specifically?!

last week i went skinny dipping in a pond in the middle of the night in total silence and darkness. i accessed the pond through a nature preserve, but it mostly borders a really posh private island. someone's car alarm happened to go off (not my fault) and they must have heard me splashing around because someone on the island came out and shone their flashlight onto the water. that made me a little nervous.

omg! what a thrilling tale. I'm jealous!
xp the illicit act of existence is crime enough tbh

ok what's up today

working from home in the cold med zone

skinny dipping at night in a pond, that sounds like living to me

I've never been a big skinny dipper - but I'd be willing to try

Confession...

I've never swam in freshwater.

you know - it's really nice
I would try it

Confession...

I've never swam in freshwater.

Florida lakes and rivers are dangerous! Y'all got snakes too, and I can handle those, but you don't have flesh-eating bacteria. Maybe this explains the number of conservatives living in the Panhandle?

It's a "pond" in name only, technically a tidal marsh (so not freshwater). I've swam in it many times, including at night, but only recently discovered my strong preference for doing so without wearing shorts. The preserve technically closes at dusk but the gate is easily breached by anyone on foot, so it's a popular spot for teenagers to tag up the seawall and a couple of the abandoned buildings (and indeed, i passed a few on the way out). I'm not totally sure of this, but I think the 40 acre pond actually belongs to the private island. I've never seen anyone else swim in it, and of the laws I was breaking the only one that may be potentially kinda serious is trespassing.

fgti, congrats on the house/cottage! sounds like a good move

*passed a few young graffiti writers, not abandoned buildings lol

I get that about Florida— i still just find it surprising, but I also lived for a decade in a place where the ocean is barely swimmable except with a wetsuit or in extreme heat, whereas the lakes and rivers are simply lovely. Hell, I used to swim in a river nearly every day, for over a year. Just a different experience.

Yeah, exactly -- for me it's living 20 mins from the beach. Now, I never go to the beach in Miami -- that's for tourists.

I will say that swimming in the ocean is an absolute balm— I was jumping into the cove every chance I got this past August up in Maine

It's what I'll miss most about summers on the Gulf coast.

are you moving??

i prefer swimming in freshwater but almost never have the opportunity

I love freshwater swimming, but I’m always careful about my feet. Sharp rocks and things

My new lease was a VERY lucky score. The market is unbelievably competitive and picked over and we lucked out— or rather, the universe owes me and elected to start paying its debts this week

i love freshwater swimming! a few years ago my husband and i went on a western MA/VT road trip and our friend took us to this secluded pond that i think was technically in SW new hampshire, it was a warm humid weekday and we were the only ppl (+ dog) in this huge placid chilly pond. i dream about going back to it someday.

we went to the beach last weekend thinking it would be the last super-warm day to do so here. it was super nice but we chose a beach in malibu that had some pretty intense waves. many years ago at the jersey shore i was knocked unawares and pulled under by a massive wave towards the shore, i’m pretty sure that i would’ve drowned if i’d been underwater for even two seconds longer. to this day i have a love/fear relationship with the ocean lol

Yesterday was moving day, and I:

- gently threw out my back (it’s a quiet anger back there rather than a labour-ender)

- scrubbed the outgoing apartment’s floor too hard and tore open my fingerskin and it is infected

- realized that the bedroom of our cottage is impeded by a very steep stairwell and was required to dissemble bed and antique dresser, cart up the pieces, and reassemble them, which I handled myself in a pleasingly masc way

- suddenly hit a wall energy wise around 10pm and crashed, in my clothes, and slept for twelve hours

- predictably as we were waking up in a new place my bf woke up horny and I woke up sore and tired and I said “I can’t be both gay and exhausted, please try again later”

Vivid dreams last night, too. I dreamed about a lot of things and one of them was that I changed my DN to “my favourite “death to America” t-shirt” as my Thanksgiving tribute

Cross-posting Pumpkin spice has gone too far here since it is relevant

haha. no thanks to boutique poppers for me, pwd 4 life. i want them to smell like the back pages of a softcore mag from 1996.

I have never once thought sex would be enhanced by inhaling a Yankee Candle

“Get that gourd in me” lolol

not really a fan of the smell of regular poppers and i feel like additional synthetic odors would make it so much worse

“I can’t be both gay and exhausted, please try again later”

yeahhhh. today is the first day in two weeks i've felt energetic. it's always like an existential experience when i get a cold/flu now, and then i'm reborn at the end of it. have they always been like that?

my bar is unbelievably low when it comes to "i did some house chores today". i trampled the weeds down around the trailer and cut all the aspen stalks down and feel like i finally did something. our "yard" has been literally untouched since last year. except the front, that's what the hoa complains about.

Haha a couple of weeks ago we raked out tiny side yard and planted grass seeds and now that they’re sprouting in all “I’m an expert horticulturist now, all my fingers are green thumbs”

well yeah

so i'm chatting on and off with this guy on scruff, a few days into it he says we've met before and sends a closer-up version of his profile picture.

i tell him 'what can i say, it's raining men and i just can't distinguish one drop from another.'

lol that happened to me years ago. My fault too: I didn't recognize how he hadn't changed much in two years (the assignation sucked the second time too).

dear i'm not sure what you mean tbh.

after three weeks back on, i think i'm done with scruff.

Oh, just saying I didn't realize when I liked him on Hinge that we'd gone out before.

ahhh

and how is your dating life these days if you don't mind me asking?

at the moment i’m on scruff and grindr. on the former my profile is like “hey let’s chat and maybe meet up and if it leads to the boudoir then cool but friends are great too”; hardly anyone talks to me on it. the latter one is more like “yo let’s do sex stuff” and i get a lot more messages there lol. the people i’ve met on scruff tend to be more interesting generally, at least where I live - last night i hung out for the second time w/ a sweet bearish guy i met there who runs in similar circles as me and with whom i have some mutual acquaintances.

i am much too lazy to do dating apps— the fact that i never met anyone worth it in them only seals the deal for me. they’re useless

xp that sounds nice!

i feel like my dislike for slc really hinders my desire to be social in the gay scene here. the boys who are from here are all out to their mormon families who are "accepting" on the surface and they're involved with the siblings and nieces and nephews and blech i just don't relate. the people who have moved here - it's like, your reasons for doing so mean we probably won't get along. idk it's complicated.

i've hung out a few times with a friend i met here several years ago, who is from southern utah, he's an exception, really articulate and charming. one friendship i feel good about. he's monogomous with his current partner. my partner doesn't really relate to his partner. so i just get coffee with him on saturday mornings sometimes and a few weeks ago we went out dancing. i'm happy to keep it platonic. still not sure what "openness" looks like with my partner tbh, we're trying a few things. he has hangups, i have hangups. just trying to see what feels good.

Not in recent years, but I've met several boyfriends and good friends on dating websites/apps. No bad experiences to speak of.

and how is your dating life these days if you don't mind me asking?

― ꙮ (map),

I haven't been trying the last couple months after a decent late spring and early summer. I'm still learning how to navigate this pandemic world.

I'm like - post-date

no I'm really not but this idea is shocking to me of like - are you supposed to have a date BEFORE you hook up? something about it just feels sort of ridiculous

i tend to agree with that.

i had my first hookup in forever a few weeks ago with a guy who lives in the condo complex across the street from me. i went over there during his lunch break, first time meeting him and all that. a little nervous and awkward at first, then kinda fun, then nice to talk to him for a few minutes afterward. i genuinely look forward to the "talking for a few minutes afterward" part now, whereas i used to just want to get out of there. hookup sex is less urgent now, a little more of a chore than it used to be i think. exception is with my partner thankfully! connection and trust keeps it rich. still finding ways to let loose even more etc. maybe polyamory is about having that with multiple people? i don't think i could do that - i hardly have the time to keep everything that is currently in my life from falling out of the picture.

I do think it's a nice part of the experience too - depends on the chemistry obvioso

I just am ready to meet like a prince type - I've been seeing very Brooklyny guys which is great but I need an elevated moment

I don't think polyamory has to mean any one thing apart from having love with more than one person

i don't think i've ever made it with royalty! no royalty here as far as i can tell, just unctuous sons of provincial corporate tycoons. sounds dope tbh. my idea of royalty is like a dancer from old money or something.

hookup sex is less urgent now, a little more of a chore than it used to be i think.

This.

no I'm really not but this idea is shocking to me of like - are you supposed to have a date BEFORE you hook up? something about it just feels sort of ridiculous

― Swen,

I don't know if I'd call it a "date" but pre-pandemic and a couple times since we've met for a beer before a hookup -- especially if safety worries me.

omg a dancer from old money

well Alfred you're a very stand up guy

highest up the ladder i’ve gotten is a CFO i think

!!!! i want to hear that story

lol it happened the first time i visited LA. way back when i had a much stronger tolerance for alcohol than i do now, i went on a solo WeHo bar crawl since I’d never really been to the area before and also didn’t know very many people in town. i had one drink each at five different bars. at bar #5 a man who was drunker than i was started aggressively flirting with me, and, well, he was handsome so i yielded. he drove (😬) us to his house in Beverly Hills where we did the deed (twice!). right as i was about to drift off to sleep he asked me if I wouldn’t mind leaving because he had to catch a flight the next day and wanted to get a good night’s sleep. this was around 2am and i was living in the valley (ie far) at the time. he gave me a couple twenties for cab fare (this was pre-rideshare) after I told him where I lived and he sent me on my way - it wasn’t enough to cover the cab ride.

he shared a first and last name with a former US president. he also absolutely couldn’t remember my name and kept calling me “trouble”, like “ooh, you’re trouble.” obviously i never saw him again after that, and they all lived happily ever after.

lol that's great

I went out with a guy a couple times years ago who'd mumble "mmm you're trouble."

right here in river city

with a capital P

he shared a first and last name with a former US president

living for this blind item!

I'm legit terrified of sex with strangers. I remember a Grindr-happy friend once expressing confusion about the act of "picking up at a bar", like he couldn't even process the idea that you might want to first converse socially with somebody you intend to be intimate with

In the early 2000s I picked up somebody in a bar in Austin who drove me back to his place, we hooked up (it was lame), and then he drove me back to where I was staying, pointing out all the fragile parts of the South Austin moraine landscape that his development company was intending to steamroll over. Me at age 23 in the passenger seat nodding as he talked about his problems with "environmental activist lobbyists" etc.

I just finished a draft on Erotica (30 years old tomorrow) and tried not to lean too hard into the terror of sex in the early '90s. But it was difficult. And I didn't succeed.

I have had sex with online hookups, but only bad and unfulfilling sex. The only fulfilling hookups I had were with people I met in bars. I met my husband at a Kink Bound in Public shoot in a bar, ffs.

I say this with love ... that tracks :)

https://www.slantmagazine.com/music/madonna-erotica-retrospective-review/