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

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.

err luck but look too why not.

The last week of breakup has been a Shakespearean tragicomedy with many acts and many tense intermissions. That said, if this tragicomedy had a title, it’d be “It’s Going Fine Overall”

I did find this bizarre gift I received fifteen years ago— a candle, matte black, shaped like that famous church that Varg did an arson on. I don’t know why it was given to me but I remember who gave it to me and I love her and I’ve kept this odious object for all these years out of love for her. It’s travelled with me for, idk, fifteen moves? Maybe more?

I discovered it again, tucked behind some archival scores, like I was hiding it out of embarrassment and affection, and it felt like finding a wart shaped like a monkey’s paw. This cursed object. I took a photo and sent it to aero and asked him if this object has cursed my life. He told me he’s more death metal than black metal but has no respect for the burning of this church; absolutely cursed. I left it on a dumpster, either to melt in the sun or to be plucked by a passerby to curse them, instead.

i discovered broadway barbara and her fosse videos today - feels like something that belongs in this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zqje92ud3Y

Finished my movey move today— still have to set the shit up— but enjoying an absynthe drip at the pretentious place up the street. I texted my friend:

No place to go but somewhere
Nothing to gain but something

ramble on

not sure if this or the gay film thread is the best for this kinda discussion but!

has anyone seen the gay british film Departures? i believe it came out last year but is only now getting reviewed/wide released. i saw it last night and thought it was fantastic. i thought it made for an interesting contrast to Pillion in a number of ways, i liked this a lot better, i think maybe it has a certain sensibility (narration, addressing the audience, doodles on screen) that might repel some people, there is a slight whiff of tweeness that makes for an interesting tone given the subject matter, but i also think it balances lightness, humor, and darkness (it's a film about a tryst but it isn't a love story) in a very winning way. so british, really. i also thought it addressed submissiveness, degradation, sexual violence etc in a way that was more insightful, relatable and overall more interesting than "pillion," delving into the sort of incidents from our early lives & childhoods that inform our adult kinks, i just thought there was a lot more "why" there than what you got w/ "pillion," not to keep shitting on "pillion" i didn't hate it, but it was hard for me to not compare the two films and feel like one was a lot better than the other. recommended! (i think alfred will dislike this film)

Two friends of mine basically said Pillion wasn’t about kink but about abuse. I agree with them, loathed that film

(i think alfred will dislike this film)

idk I love tonal shifts.

I loved Pillon (the novel's even better).

i'll have to keep an eye out for _departures_. i've still yet to see pillion... i get really backlogged, hate watching films by myself and don't always get out as much as i'd like. and i think that, in film, a lot of stuff that would be abuse in real life can be portrayed as kink... the cinematic lens complicates the idea of consent.

just for me, a lot of submission is the _fantasy_ of being taken without my consent... that's categorically different from the reality, which unfortunately i know firsthand. the thing for me about portraying consensual kink in film is that showing that process can be kind of, i mean, boring. negotiating boundaries and stuff. it's like doing a film about poly, to do it realistically, a lot of that _is_ scheduling. my opinion has really evolved about that over the last few years.

i get so caught up in the last conversation and forget to talk about what i mean to!

idk, intimacy, the depression has been pretty bad for a few months now and that means that i haven't felt very, idk, in that headspace. part of it is that my sexuality is, i guess what they say, "responsive", it's normal for me, as someone on estrogen, to feel that way based on how into me someone else is. and things being the way they are, people i know don't necessarily have energy for it.

one of the things that's interesting is thinking about my bestie, how much we've both grown, and how we've grown closer since i broke up with her. we were always good for each other in some ways... it just, when we first got together, was that we were bad for each other in other ways. and we've both grown so that... we each know when we're doing something that's not working, know how to take space for ourselves while making space for the other. that's not something i've really had before to that degree, that sense of trust, that sense of independence. we spent a lot of time with very strong limitations on how we interacted, and i think that's really let us become close the way we have.

anyway a lot of stuff coming up, things being complicated... my bestie right now has physical problems that keep her from being too sexual, and she's got an operation coming up (if you're thinking of one, it's not that one) that should make a pretty big difference.

i'm also thinking about it in terms of... her roommate, who's another one of her exes, has a new partner and is feeling that new relationship energy. and it's been really positive for my bestie... her roommate's last relationship was with this dude who had, like, a lot of problems, a lot lot of problems. and seeing her roommate in that relationship, being around that guy who did fucked up shit on the reg, caused her some issues. anyway around this new person, she's got what they call "compersion". she's learning to trust her gut. she didn't trust her gut about her roommate's last partner, rightly so, and she trusts her gut on this person, and it's helping her to open up.

she's been really socially isolated... what happened in 2023, with us and our social circles, both being rejected like we were, really fucked up both of us. and we both had to really work to not make it a "you and me against the world" thing. i'm less socially isolated but professionally... i want to get it together professionally before i get into relationship stuff. idk. i'm probably stable enough for a relationship, if i can get out there.

we've been taking a break from the sex parties, mainly because we're seeing a. in july and we just wanted testing windows to line up. i have little going on socially right now and i guess i'm ok with it. i've been pressing forward in my own little world. j. seems content to do the same, although i think he's a bit more social than i am, with texting and stuff. i hate texting and refuse to do it unless i can type on a large keyboard.

i see flashes of old faces online. i train a friend on saturdays. my gym is basically a gay bar lol but i ignore everyone. so that's the extent of my gay life right now. j and i have a nightly toad and frog routine - recliners, blankets, the screen.

it's the solstice. somehow the daylight felt like it was going on too long anyway. i noticed it last week while camping. too many golden hours. false golden hours before real golden hours. it's time to move back the other way i guess.

darkness ain't so bad.

it's the balance i think. light in darkness. darkness in light. but that's just how i do.

👍👍 or should i say 👍👎

i have little going on socially right now and i guess i'm ok with it

meanwhile i'm staring down pride weekend in new york like i'm about to be shipped off to normandy

getting ready for d day?

thank you for your service j0rd 🫡

You're not a good proud soldier unless you've gotten crabs at least twice.

doxypep sure helps to improve worker safety on deck

pride weekend was fun. i went out in a dress for the first time (finally), it was great :D

hell yeah

carrying very specific baggage right now where i keep seeing gay guys posting about "confessions II" and each time my brain thinks "wait why is this fag posting about usher?"

how were the shores of normandy?

idk lemme ask the madonna fans!

you stayed in and listened to old usher tracks didn't you

hahaha

I posted in the Madonna thread that a 20-year-old queer kid in my film class, wearing a (quite nice) Confessions tour shirt, said he couldn't wait for the album to drop.

Students don't stop surprising me.

pride month is over but there's never a bad time to throw on "i'm coming out" by diana ross on a whim. i buried it in a running playlist and when it appears it's always perfect.

Jeremy Atherton Lin on the unpaid emotional labor queer people do to stay together

😷

I liked "Deep House" and "Gay Bar." from the excerpts i read i can see what he's getting at— there is a lot of emotional labor that goes into legitimizing one's relationship, from my experience. even in progressive areas!!

I quite liked Gay Bar; my reading it coincided with my finally getting laid again after the pandemic had turned me into an ascetic.

i liked "gay bar" a lot, i think he is a really strong imagerist, there's a description of sniffing armpits in that book as being like an animal grazing in tall grass that sticks w/ me. i think maybe i connected w/ it bcuz he also has a british partner and talks a lot about areas/bars in london that i or my bf spent time in. i haven't read "deep house" yet but recently i saw him read from it & do a talk w/ matt wolf... jeremy is funny and pretty self effacing, and there's some ridiculous and/or baldly corny parts of what he read (esp when writing about sex) where he sort of embraced the embarrassment of it all irl

just finished Deep House and really enjoyed it; the reportage on the legal history of gay marriage is interwoven with the memoir aspects really deftly I thought. haven’t read this essay (or Gay Bar) but am keen to

if you like the interweaving of reportage and memoir you'll def enjoy gay bar

okay "gay bar" sounds pretty good. i think that listicle headline was just designed to annoy me with "unpaid". like, omg who do i send an email to in relationship hr?

i'm in a pretty good facebook group called "gaybarchives" or something like that. an elder gave a great rundown on "esta noche" a bar in the mission with predominantly cholo clientele. fun stuff.

i saw someone else reminiscing about "the spotlight" another old bar in hollywood, or like on the border of weho and hollywood. someone chimed in and said the chatted with leslie jordan there just after he quit drinking (he was having a shirley temple). i was in l.a. during some of the last years The Spotlight was open. i went once and i remember hookers out back.

there was a sexy bodybuilder who bartended at gold coast, another old bar around there. i kinda worked my way into hanging out with him and his partner, i guess i could have called them friends. they were probably worried about me as i was drinking a lot at the time. fuzzy memories.

i have vague thoughts about queer culture finding itself in a big flux state between "respectability" and "disreputability". go into any queer space and you'll always find a lot of tension between those two poles.

i think i went to esta noche once? it's now a bar for queer women called Mother, went there the last time i was in the city. it was nice but i felt terrible because i needed to take what turned out to be a hardcore #2 when i got there. sorry lesbians!!! didn't mean to foul up your space like that.

i went to the spotlight a couple times, the clientele there was...interesting lol. i once had a long chat with an older straight woman who was clearly a regular, she told me she worked for disney in the 70s as an animator. another time i went and a very drunk bear i was chatting with kept trying to tickle me, i had to threaten him with a punch in the face to get him to stop. i absolutely could envision leslie jordan perched at the bar there.

i miss gold coast! by far my favorite of the weho bars (there's really not much competition lol). there was an incredibly handsome and flirty bartender working there one night; my husband wrote his phone number on the bill in the hopes that we could engineer a three-way, but nothing happened. i took morbs there once after an outfest screening he was in town for. it's re-opened as another bar now, but i haven't been to it yet.

i think it was actually "gold coast" with the hookers out back. i'm not sure i ever made it to the spotlight.

xp yeah gold coast was fun! people were very friendly and non-judgmental there. let's see if this works... not every weho gay went to gold coast, but every one who did ended up in a spontaneous three-way.

also lmao at your giant turd in mother story

only went into Esta Noche a few times, tho i did once pick up some trade at El Tin-Tan half a block away and we got frisky in Albion Alley.

i love gay bars but whew, i hardly drink so they simply aren’t as fun as they once were.