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!

I need to know more about this, especially if they have an archive of Classic Concentration episodes.

― cryptosicko

they do! 742/1090 episodes, 145.5 GB.

https://archive.org/details/@big_money_project

I mean, this gets at my puzzlement with fandom in general. Like, even if JK didn't turn into the trans community's own Anita Bryant, is the Potterverse producing anything fresh or rewarding these days anyhow? Even that new TV series is just a remake of the original run of books, not a continuation, prequel, or anything like that. Do you like Fantasy? Well, there's lots more of it out there, and a lot of it isn't made by people actively funding transphobic initiatives.

― cryptosicko

i'm gonna try and put the rest behind a cut, hopefully i don't fuck it up this time :)

i was just talking about this (unprompted lol) with the folks on the gameshow discord. there was this whole search for the live-action pilot for a show i've never heard of called the backyardigans, and there was some fucked up drama around it. not the worst i've heard, but yeah, it was kind of fucked up. there's a saying - apparently a guy named pete graham coined it - that "the golden age of science fiction is twelve", and that personally resonates with me. it's more complicated than simple "nostalgia", though. i didn't have an ordinary childhood. my memories are incomplete, fragmented. a lot of them are trauma memories. the stuff that i'm obsessed with - old game shows, old tv commercials, old doctor who episodes - is, i've recognized, in large part because they do sometimes help me understand my own past, in ways both good and bad. i had this really profound experience, coming to terms with the ghost of my dad, while watching a compilation of ad breaks from a 1985 broadcast on Metromedia 11 WNEW, for instance. (nerd side note, that's the year 1985, not the dystopian tv movie "1985" which was made by metromedia television in 1970.) these facts are doubly important to me given that the other people who were there aren't always reliable narrators.

and i'd move on, living in the past sucks, but god, i don't really have much of a present. i'm doing what i can. i'm trying to live in the present. i try to make the most of my opportunities but they're limited. so yeah, i probably spend more time these days looking for "the past inside the present", like boards of canada said. who i was is part of who i am. remembering is hard and it hurts and it also can be for me really healing. i'm carrying so much around, and i don't _need_ to. an old therapist of mine once said "it hurts coming out like it hurt going in", and i have found that to be true.

that said, yeah, people do get too literal and too hung-up and not willing to... acknowledge that things _change_. i was a big fan of Magma for a long time, and when i found out they were fascist... it wasn't a moral choice, i _couldn't_ listen to them anymore without knowing. it's the same with radiohead. their music was a big part of my life in a personal, emotional way, and it is painful to me to know that thom and jonny are supporting genocide. and it doesn't do me any benefit to try to hang on to things that no longer serve me.

i've struggled, sometimes, to come to understand my own identity, my own values, my own life, and it's tempting to make one's entire personality about a fandom. i couldn't ever _really_ do that. a lot of the things i'm a fan of... i experience fandom is a common language that divides me from other fans. it's this sense of wanting to belong and at the same time being weird. being different. being _queer_.

when i look at the history of video collecting particularly, a lot of it _has_ been queer-coded for a long time. i read a book about the world of people who collect film prints, and it seems to have just been accepted in that community that most of them are gay men. i don't know why that is and i'm not going to speculate. that's just how it was.

Y'all are great, of course, but Kate, fgti, and Deflatormouse really bringing it in this thread these days.

Thanks for the link, Kate. I have a syllabus to finish putting together and a very involved grant application that needs about a hundred edits, so I think I'm gonna save that to my Bookmarks for later. At first glance, though: wow! Talk About is an old fave; did it even air outside of Canada?

Ten years ago I was having my first true meltdown— my relationship of twelve years had become quadruppled, which then led to my boyfriend and the other couple carousing around while I was on tour, and I was struggling to stay sane about it. I spent most of the summer smoking and crying, and started therapy, and learned how to meditate, and started doing that actively.

I had noticed that I most-successfully meditated in crowded and noisy environments, on subways, for example, I was able to really strongly shut things out and go quite deep with it. While I was on tour, we had this one very-long drive and the van had to make it to Wales to play Green Man Festival— it was an 11 hour drive. Toward the end of the drive, the band was getting restless. My tour manager, in the front seat, had started talking about perennial topics she thought were interesting (“I only eat meat that comes from the wood”). My drummer started going stir crazy and making bad jokes and my FOH was laughing at them manically— this was obviously punishing to my bassist. It was wavy winding UK country roads and the van was weaving and there was so much irritation and I closed my eyes and started to meditate.

I went so, so deep. I felt my core engaged to keep myself upright. I became aware of a third eye on my forehead and I smiled internally at the cliché of it. I tried to open the eye and saw intense TV static and the eye snapped shut. I tried a second time and again it was TV static and it snapped shut. When I tried a third or fourth time I was able to keep the eye open and stare at the TV glow. Images started coalescing. I looked at each image without any emotional response.

I realized I was looking into the future. I was not seeing anything predictive but rather a number of possibilities. My mind was attempting to prepare myself for many eventualities and I was accepting them all.

I saw a future where my boyfriend and the other couple were on a beach in our 40s all drinking cocktails and laughing.

I saw my band onstage in our 60s playing to sold out crowds, I saw the feelings of creakiness and also triumph.

I saw a house that my boyfriend and I had purchased in Montreal.

I saw my best friend and I arguing and ending our friendship.

I saw myself working on something and my musical pursuits were completely set aside.

I saw myself dead and my boyfriend frowning at my funeral.

I saw my boyfriend dead and me frowning at his funeral.

And most strikingly, I saw myself in a kitchen, cleaning the stove top, with the light filtering in a certain way, and in that moment I was suddenly reminded of these people who had taken over my sanity and my stability— the other couple and my relationship with my boyfriend— and these people, in this kitchen, were all so extremely past tense, that they flashed in my head like a distant memory, and I thought of all three individuals without any feeling whatsoever.

This last image really stuck with me, that these people who I loved so deeply and who had upended my life so utterly might not only be “gone” but also “forgotten” in some future tense.

Anyway, having arrived in Vancouver, my current boyfriend and I celebrating five years together, I looked in the kitchen and I didn’t see it at first, but it was indeed the same kitchen from my meditative vision. And I marveled at my own neutral emotional response. It’s interesting to realize just how things that feel So Unbearable one day can feel like nothing a week later, a month later, a year later— in truth it took many years for me to process the shitshow that went down ten years ago.

And things are so mild, here, now. It’s a dog that needs walking and a film that needs scoring and my brother is nearby and my mom is also and I’ve been having drinks with Vancouver acquaintances who are quickly becoming friends and it’s all pretty bucolic, almost boring, but in this comforting way.

"pretty bucolic, almost boring, but in this comforting way" has been my life goal for a number of years now (somewhat successfully).

xp that was really nice to read, fgti. your contentness shines through it - i'm happy for you.

I loved that post.

I did have a recurring nightmare last night that is so horrific and strange— that there is a Visitation Zone in my basement, and the grates and lower windows shift and allow me new sights and they’re mostly terrifying. My dream exited the nightmare and I was talking with friends about this strange recurring nightmare, and they urged me to write a screenplay about it, called “Blooberland”. I started writing the screenplay, taking walks around the building and/or daring to descend to the laundry room when I needed a horrific scene for inspiration

am I the only regular contributor to this thread still single?

i am, but not a regular contributor of course

i guess i am sort of dating someone, a non-monogomous person, for the first time. but doing so incredibly slowly instead of rushing in like i always do

i feel like i'm only just learning how to slow it down with someone.

I was single from September 2016 to March 2017. That's about it though.

am I the only regular contributor to this thread still single?

― hungover beet poo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

i'm occupying the "it's complicated" zone, in that i genuinely don't know what "single" or "partnered" means.

i'm basically constitutionally incapable of being single

yeah my 20-years-long conception of what a relationship should be is being unwrapped. it started by opening things up with my primary partner, and now i'm basically starting to "get" polyamory. it's really cool to have it all be good and real - for a long time i was scared by polyamory or thought it was some fake-out bs - but i feel more secure and ok-within-myself than ever, not needing nearly as many relationship attachments and obligations. it's interesting to be in that place and be experiencing new relationship energy. i can say i love the guy without needing that to mean anything beyond a shared feeling. ten years ago it would have been like - i love you therefore we must live together. it's taken a long time to unlearn all of that.

in all honestly i'm still learning about how much "gay friend / hook-up / sex party" social time i need in my life. i had a weekend (last weekend) with a lot more of that than usual. birthday dinner with friends, sex party, workout and hook-up with muscle guy the next day, plus saying goodbye to my partner for a week away (and having goodbye sex). i felt like i was stretching myself, but at the end of it i had a full and satisfied feeling.

i've been a fairly strong introvert and lone wolf my whole life, so it feels comfortable to go for days without seeing friends. but, say, after 3-4 days of it i start getting bored, lonely and restless.

what would really be awesome is a running buddy or two. i saw something about a men's group meet-up near me. i need to be more proactive about checking some of these things out. they don't have to stick, i just have to keep trying. i think they're less something i dread now and more like "this will be interesting / an adventure" than they used to be. still a lot of "utah culture" crap to wade through though, i can't help but feel like i'd have a better chance at connecting somewhere a little less fascist-fucked.

alfred i am more or less permasingle. not by choice really but definitely by default at this point

any other working stiffs with a long weekend have plans for labor day? i was this close to hauling ass down to the desert but i opted to take it easy at home instead.

i'm occupying the "it's complicated" zone, in that i genuinely don't know what "single" or "partnered" means.

― Kate (rushomancy),

"I am not seeing any man regularly."

z_tbd! did I miss you here as a contributor?!

No plans for Labour Day, I work and work, but I am going to a sugo-making party tomorrow followed by a pizza party. I've been sternly instructed that I'm invited to observe and not to contribute, with regards to the making of the sugo.

I play to meet a couple new film critics at the gay bar for midafternoon drinks, then my buddy, the chair of Florida Film Critics, will help screen a 16mm print of Eisenstein's Strike. Appropriate!

that sounds cool!

so does sugo making 😋

i'm going to the nude beach on sunday

jelly

i am always astounded by how huge some flaccid dicks are, like you think you might be immune to it but no there really are some absolutely giant soft penises out there

what kind of sugo??

might be a not-nude beach day tomorrow, it’s finally getting hot here. gay bar parking lot party is sunday.

oh and an update: i did end up “networking” with the guy from my last post, a couple hours before i had to give my presentation lol. we used his hotel room. wild to have had a 13-year window between hookups with someone! it was exquisite tbh

i am always astounded by how huge some flaccid dicks are, like you think you might be immune to it but no there really are some absolutely giant soft penises out there

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Friday, August 29, 2025 3:58 PM

a new meaning to Labor Day

z_tbd! did I miss you here as a contributor?!

i’m not sure how people do it these days but i made a little instagram story a few days where i was like “oh i’m queer, haven’t mentioned that!”. last year when i entered therapy there were about 40 gender options and nothing felt right, and my last few partners have all been trans, including people who transitioned while i was with them. i’m dating someone now who was like “btw if you’re straight we’re not dating”, and it was one of the first times, i guess the first, where i said “i’m not straight” out loud and it was fine. the next day i talked to a good friend of mine about things at length, including how to go about telling people, or whether i should. they seemed so happy that i was telling them (it was the first conversation i’ve had like that with a friend), and it just made me want to go ahead and put it out there as a 24 hour thing and just carry on

wild to have had a 13-year window between hookups with someone! it was exquisite tbh

awwww i looove hearing these kinds of stories!

z_tbd! a warm welcome from the queer thread to the wild world of non-straight bs!

errrr the straight stuff is bullshit, not the non-straight stuff

and really i should have said "wide" not "wild" though it is both

i am always astounded by how huge some flaccid dicks are, like you think you might be immune to it but no there really are some absolutely giant soft penises out there

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Friday, August 29, 2025 8:58 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'd watch, like, flop-fight porn lol

Warm welcome, z! I raise mummy Aviation Royale to you.

"I am not seeing any man regularly."

― hungover beet poo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

oh well in that case i'm _definitely_ single lol

it's the "regular" thing that's the issue. much as i try to lead a regular life, it doesn't take. i can't seem to establish routine with other people, beyond the two platonic friends i have coffee with every week - certainly not the girl i'm seeing lately. shit's beyond her control. everything is catch-as-catch-can.

the main thing for me is cuddling. my girlfriend was able to come up today for a half hour and we didn't talk, just cuddled. there are so many other things we'd like to do together but there isn't time.

yeah my 20-years-long conception of what a relationship should be is being unwrapped. it started by opening things up with my primary partner, and now i'm basically starting to "get" polyamory. it's really cool to have it all be good and real - for a long time i was scared by polyamory or thought it was some fake-out bs - but i feel more secure and ok-within-myself than ever, not needing nearly as many relationship attachments and obligations. it's interesting to be in that place and be experiencing new relationship energy. i can say i love the guy without needing that to mean anything beyond a shared feeling. ten years ago it would have been like - i love you therefore we must live together. it's taken a long time to unlearn all of that.

― she freaks, she speaks (map)

for me "polyamory" is a question of "am i getting my needs met?" my ex-wife felt like she needed to be my everything, and that was fairly disastrous. i'm a complicated person and i don't think it's reasonably to expect one person to meet all my needs. i don't think i have the time or the energy for more than one romantic partner in my life, but intimacy? sure, i can theoretically be in intimate relationships with a number of different people at once. the problem is just getting any of us to go outside and touch grass.

i am always astounded by how huge some flaccid dicks are, like you think you might be immune to it but no there really are some absolutely giant soft penises out there

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.)

oh yes, i have considerable experience with soft penises (estrogen will do that) and they are wonderful. it's kind of a meme among some transfems to talk about what natalie wynn called the "mouthfeel". i like girls and i like sucking dick and i'm lucky enough to be in an environment where there's no contradiction between those two things.

finally WELCOME z_tbd, :tada:

I learned a few minutes ago that this bartender I hooked up in April (and called it off because he was "confused") spent the week in santeria ceremonies confirming him as one of their own.

that is hot xp and that is interesting! i feel like religion is kind of in the air lately. we get lds missionaries who roam our trailer park occasionally. twice they've knocked on our door. i let j handle it. he's kind but very firm - 'don't come back.' of course they came back, the sisters this time. the senior one had the audacity to say 'you are a son of god' to j. and he was like 'let me tell you something about god, first of all you know nothing about it' and went off a little :).

something about a reaction to a post of mine bothered me, so i’m just going to say it:
i know the butthole isn’t everything— this is obvious— but it’s important to me. i was quite literally a power bottom for years. i have grown to accept my diminished body and range of options in terms of pleasure, but in the realm of hook-ups and sex parties and whatever, it sort of ruins the mood to say, “sorry i had cancer so i don’t have a butthole and we can’t do that.” because the thing is that even though i have always had a latent top side, i have bottom energy, and i can’t really change that tbh.

so yeah, the butthole is overrated and doesn’t mean everything, but it does mean a lot to many men, myself included, and my sexual possibilities are lesser because of this.

not scolding, fwiw, just trying to explain my feelings and frustration.

it would be easier if i had an enormous cock and could find bottoms to hop on it, but alas, i am merely average in that department, and i get asked constantly to bottom on apps etc, even when i literally spell out how my body is different in my profile.

i'm sorry tabes :(

i'm glad you explained a little more. mourning it with you.

thanks map, for your kindness and understanding

you deserve both! you're a wonderful person. i was afraid of feeling in that moment. i wish i could give you a big hug :)

thanks for saying that tabes. whether or not other people feel the same way about their bodies, it's really clear that it was important to you, and losing part of your life that was important to you, for reasons beyond your control, is really painful and does deserve to be grieved.

Idk where else to post this, but I’m drinking coffee and delighting myself in thinking about all the different English words that begin and end with ‘P’ syllables and their diversity of meanings that somehow makes a beautiful salad:

Pap, pape, pop, poop, pup, pep, pip, pipe, pope…

So many dirty one-syllable words that begin and end with the same syllable: poop, tit, boob, cock, rear, mime…

thanks for saying that tabes. whether or not other people feel the same way about their bodies, it's really clear that it was important to you, and losing part of your life that was important to you, for reasons beyond your control, is really painful and does deserve to be grieved.

thanks kate. also i hope recent comments on other threads about the length of your posts wasn’t taken as negative— i tend to like and agree with your posts, even if i gloss over them at times— but just an observation.

i didn't take it that way at all! i know you well enough to know that any criticism you offer is constructive and in good faith, and i took it seriously in that vein. what i've decided for now is that i do find value in writing long posts, and others do find value in reading them, so i'll continue to go on at length when i feel it's appropriate. however, if something starts getting away from me, i've started putting it behind a spoiler cut. we'll see how it works out :)

:-)