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.

The not unhandsome beardo delivering this earnest monologue was, I think, persuading his bro to join him at some outdoor event that sounded Peterson-esque.

I wonder if that is textbook homophobia or crypto-misogyny

either way it's learned insecurity

I’m in Germany, in rehearsals for a (first ever) full performance of an entirely orchestral album I made a few years ago. I wasn’t ambitious enough to try and book this gig myself, a conductor friend set it up because he’s such a fan of the album.

The first stage of development with regards to this project was one of me dragging-my-feet, basically just assuming that something would happen and it’d be cancelled

The second stage had me spending a couple weeks chained to the computer making revisions— it’s a lot of fucking music and it took a shit tonne of time rendering all the scores and parts

The current stage finds me sobbing onstage at every rehearsal at how intensely beautiful it is sounding, like I am struggling to express satisfaction at how things are going because of the mixture of “this is devastatingly beautiful music” feeling and a “I have been selling myself short for the past decade and that feels extremely upsetting” feeling

"Listen, the first roommate I ever had? He was gay. A masculine gay. He never disrespected me. But if you're a feminine gay? I have no time for you. Like, okay, a coworker? That's fine. But otherwise? Fuck. That."

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, October 7, 2025 6:32 AM (six hours ago)

straight cis guys insecure about my having been born with a penis, gay cis guys insecure about me not actually being a man, sigh

it's the same kind of insecurity, the same kind of thing with those silly "gold star" lesbians who were like "these lips have never touched dick"

personally, i'm not a lesbian because i hate dick, i'm a lesbian because i _like girls_

mostly though i like people. i am attracted to a wide variety of different human beings, and sometimes, rarely but sometimes, i can even imagine some activities i might like to do with these human beings.

I laughed when Bearded Bro said "Fuck. That." almost like Kendrick on "A.D.H.D."

The current stage finds me sobbing onstage at every rehearsal at how intensely beautiful it is sounding, like I am struggling to express satisfaction at how things are going because of the mixture of “this is devastatingly beautiful music” feeling and a “I have been selling myself short for the past decade and that feels extremely upsetting” feeling

― We're sad to see you. Go! (flamboyant goon tie included)

that's a shitty realization and i'm at the same time, i'm really happy that you're not selling yourself short now :purpleheart:

I am struggling to express satisfaction at how things are going because of the mixture of “this is devastatingly beautiful music” feeling and a “I have been selling myself short for the past decade and that feels extremely upsetting” feeling

as a chronic debilitating procrastinator i have had to learn the feeling of finding satisfaction in finally doing something even if it's happening like... years too late (i.e. cancelling a membership to a gym in a city i hadn't lived in for a long time). i know yours isn't procrastination related but i think there is a way to look at something you think is really ugly -- your own inaction -- and find a small ray of fulfillment in simply having changed the inaction to action. and as far as art goes maybe there are aspects of the music or your own performance or your emotional connection to the music that are present now that wouldn't have been there had you performed it back when it was released. i don't know if it's possible to fully shed the feeling of being upset at yourself but can you turn the emotional knobs in different directions so that the present beauty of the music overshadows the inaction that you can't go back and change?

TIL Michael Alig is dead!

What a wonderful world we live in.

Some recent news:

My boyfriend farted and I sang in a D’Angelo voice “he said it’s talking to you, talking to you Daddyyy”

Also I decided I don’t like the word “pimp” because it’s not onomatopoeic enough. Two possible substitutions I came up with are “whoremonger” and “conne-cierge”

That's a sequence out of Mulholland Drive.

Gays, I'm a bad gay. I don't care much for Halloween. I went out last night, stayed out late partying at a karaoke bar, will stay in and probably go to sleep in an hour

1 vote for whoremonger. we're going to some friends'. one of them is doing a 'dusking' no idea what that is. he's into enya and ren faire music lol. lovely fella. i may have a bit of a crush.

I’m coming home from a week at AfroTech in Houston and will going directly home once I get off the plane.

I generally don’t like dressing up unless it’s like medieval cosplay. I don’t really do Halloween. Unless there are kids, then I’ll do it. Last time I went was eight years ago with my ex. He went as a pig and me as a blood-soaked butcher

i also never dress up. though this time i had a car mechanic shirt so i'm a car mechanic. i always wanted my fantasies to be realer than they are, so the dress-up thing never really interested me. also i don't like the smell or feel of make-up on my face. i play dress-up when i wear leather to a sexy event.

i hope the early nighters rest well. i'm probably going to insist we go home before 11 lol.

oh i’m a bad gay too re: halloween, not even in my top five favorite holidays. i just had two consecutive nights of being around a lot of ppl, looking forward to spending the night in (we had low-key plans but husband’s not feeling well so we canceled).

how was Houston DJP?

i updated the polyamory thread about recently becoming the ultimate nonmonogamous lesbian but. i had a good halloween bc i spent a lot of time with two of my girlfriends today :)

that's good to hear. our party was fun. the boys did some kind of english folk dance - a morris dance? - "dancing down the sun" for the winter. someone had a very epic homemade goat costume.

TWO GIRLFRIENDS. I love that.

I did a throuple for a minute and a quadrupple for a couple months but True Non-Monogamy always stressed me out

One of my best friends, he and his long-term girlfriend are super non-mon. We were hanging out and she told me she’d been broken up with by three of her lovers in a week; six of them over the course of two months. “THAT IS TOO MANY BREAKUPS,” I bellowed at them.

Nothing to report today except that I’ve decided to seriously grow my hair out this winter and it is looking terrific so far

i actually have 4-5 girlfriends (statistic flickers a little because one of them is in a monogamous relationship with a friend but we are really in love each other and know it and that’s good enough)

i’m weirdly not stressed about this at all!!! idk we’re all busy people and i’m not looking for a primary partner (too hierarchical) so it’s mostly very chill and extremely hot

where/how'd you meet, ivy?

ok well, chronologically:

wife 1: a, aforementioned woman in a monogamous relationship with a straight man. we dated a little over a decade ago and i was devastated when it ended but i tried really hard to be friends with her because i knew she’d be important in my life. she is

wife 2: h, who i met at the queer book club i lead about two years ago. developed an instant crush on her bc she’s cool, smart and knows a tremendous amount about things i’m interested in (in particular: water) but pulled back because she’s married and has a kid and i felt weird dating in book club, didn’t want to accidentally ruin the space (i don’t think i will tho). when we started becoming closer friends, i realized she was in an open relationship with her husband, and also that she really really really liked girls. it still took me like another year to gather up the courage to tell her i had a crush on her. but we’re dating as of last week

wife 3, m: nonbinary person (referred to as wife bc … i need to invent a gender neutral term for “wife” in the sense that i’m using it, “partner” way too official), poet, huge genius, like had SUCH a crush on them the instant i heard them speak. had NO idea they liked me at all until they asked me out on a is-this-a-date last week. it turned out to be a date and i got fucked real good that night wee-ow. first trans person i’ve been with as an out trans woman and my body felt… understood in a way it hasn’t before. real smitten

wife 4: s, who i dated briefly 1.5 years ago but called things off because something didn’t feel right to me. we remained friends, and our communication evolved so much over time that we got very close very organically, and now we are kissing again and it’s pretty cool. she’s someone i can be effortlessly myself around. she’s a really good teacher with all these little niche obsessions and it’s just… no wonder i was so attracted back then, glad it’s come back around

wife 5: erin, who i’ve mentioned here a lot, who i fell in love with late last year and who i remain very much in love with even after our breakup and the reconstitution of our connection as friendship-yet-it’s-something-more? it evolves very slowly and deliberately and i like not knowing quite was it is, and i am just getting closer and closer to her within it, and it is all very special to me

ok lmao i can’t believe i typed that all out. enjoy my new insane life gay thread

two of these people i am fucking because of queer book club, so join your local queer book club today

loved reading that ivy, thanks for sharing

how was Houston DJP?

I mostly just saw the convention center and the hotel, but I was able to catch up with one of my college roommates over dinner and the event itself was super inspiring, particularly my company’s investment in it (we sent 90+ people and had maybe the second or third largest booth on the convention floor). I was very much in corporate mode as I knew no one else from the company who was there but made some good contacts. Also, the hotel bartender was crazy hot.

we’re all busy people and i’m not looking for a primary partner (too hierarchical) so it’s mostly very chill and extremely hot

that sounds amazing, love it! i wish i could crush on ppl instantly like you tbh, it’s only happened for me 3 or 4 times and i’d known all but one of them for years when the crush started.

the boys did some kind of english folk dance - a morris dance? - "dancing down the sun" for the winter.

halloween is the sunset of the year, the thing i love so much about it is the colorful glow of ending. i’m def more of a “rage against the dying of the light” halloween enthusiast tho. you can’t stop the sun from sinking, but you can celebrate loudly and demonstratively, and i actually think the ‘traditionalist’ halloween ritual of dressing up and trick or treat is a really good and cathartic way to do that…

every year at midnight i read for myself on life direction questions, tracking my progress, stuff like that. last night i went 2 hours straight on questions formulated over the previous couple of weeks, it was

today was for letting myself grieve the light part of the year and feeling really sad, not filling my time with doing or other distractions.

in a couple of hours i’m hosting a mute supper for dead pets which i’ve decided not to stress about being underprepared for.

halloween is the sunset of the year, the thing i love so much about it is the colorful glow of ending.

this is so beautiful dude

you can’t stop the sun from sinking, but you can celebrate loudly and demonstratively,

right. it feels good to do. fuck you sun, i'm alive and i'll sleep if i have to. the wave returns.

i'm glad to hear you're taking care of yourself well deflatormouse. will you have company? i hope it's lovely.

Last night got innaresting. I invited over a guy I'd made out with last year at my karaoke joint. He spent 90 minutes asking questions about queerness and his own inability to get hard around men as opposed to women, then we'd make out some more -- he would let me go no further and got especially nervous if I showed too much curiosity in his ass.

Cute slang for an unexercised anus: buttonhole

i love that. alfred that's hot!

There was a period where I used the phrase “pee poo” as short for “nothing sexual occurred”, as in, “my dick is for peeing, my asshole’s for pooping”. i.e.:

Q: how was your date last night?
A: it was a lot of fun, pee poo but we’re gonna see each other again next week

lmao

Sounds good Alfred. I’m all for asking questions, even if it’s awkward. I applaud it. Also I want this year to be about expanding my horizons.

i'm glad to hear you're taking care of yourself well deflatormouse. will you have company? i hope it's lovely.

thanks! it was nice, about a dozen people came and a few brought (living) pets. always wanted to have a party with more pet guests than humans but i thought the pets would be alive.
I found my dog’s old collar and leash and jiggled it around for a few minutes since that’s how I used to call him for a walk. it really felt like he was following right behind me, that was a powerful memory trigger. Even though “spirits” to me are more locally embedded and I don’t really believe in individual spirits of the dead. It’s still nice to create a space for remembering them quietly.

Yesterday I went to a Dia de los Muertos festival in the East Village with a beautiful ofrenda and an incredible mariachi band. And caught a play at Under St. Marks called Gore is for Girls, about a queer necromancy party :)

It was really, really gay. Could have used more glitter.

first thing i saw when i got out of my car at work this morning

https://i.postimg.cc/x0qnsYWD/kumho.jpg

otm

hitting the end of a long run of socializing. pee poo, in vintage fgti terms.

it's difficult for me. keeping track of my life often seems overwhelming, particularly socially. i don't do well at parties or in big groups. i don't drink. i have plenty of friends, and just continuing to talk to them feels overwhelming. not _too many_ friends. i'm just a complicated person and i talk to different people about different things - i don't have a "friend group".

i'm still trying to push myself to keep looking for work. applied for a job for the first time in five months this weekend. routine helps, but keeping a routine is hard when there are lots of things i have to do, but nothing i have to do at any particular time.

seeking out "pleasant and productive" social experiences is one of the things i need to do, and i've been doing it. i spend too much time around other people, though, and i stop caring for myself. i've been talking a little bit about the so-called "portland freeze" and how it's more that it's encouraged to cancel social obligations when we need to have time for ourselves. it's good but it definitely complicates socializing a lot. i overbook socially because i don't know who is going to cancel at the last minute. if nobody else cancels at the last minute and i'm still overbooked, well, i guess i'm the one who cancels at the last minute.

i value friendship more than intimacy. it's a lot easier to find people who will have sex with me than it is for me to find people who can have a conversation about something that isn't star wars, marvel movies, or lego. i'd rather be touch-starved than friendship-starved. all my friends complain about how hard it is to find someone who will get with them. i used to do that, and for me it's the opposite. my life is full of "ifs" - people who i could do things with if things were different. if they weren't twenty years younger than me. if they didn't have too much dysphoria. if they had been on HRT for more than, like, a week. if they weren't drunk all the time. if they didn't live too far away to spend any time with. if they didn't hate themselves. if we were remotely sexually compatible.

that last one is a big one. people around here complain about the "top shortage", and the truth is we don't have a "top shortage", we have a glut of entitled, demanding bottoms and subs. the longer i live a queer life the less sense "dom/sub" or "top/bottom" framing makes to me. it's more a question of how we ask for what we want, and what we're willing to compromise.

it's not gendered behavior, but because it is influenced by patriarchy, guys are often a lot more entitled. there are a lot of cishet guys who call themselves "subs" when what they really want is to be pegged, on demand, with no consideration for their partner. i'm a switch, but the bigger issue is that asking for anything is, like, the one things that makes me feel dysphoric, even though being entitled _certainly_ isn't an inherently gendered thing. i'm certainly willing to be there for other people, but a lot of times i don't feel like there's reciprocity or equity in my intimate relationships. i guess the natural thing to do would to be to tell my partner what i want instead of, like, leaving because i'm not getting my needs met. it's not easy. if i ask for something, the person will know what i want. knowledge is power. if someone knows what i want, they can use that knowledge to control and manipulate me. most people aren't like that, sure. usually the result of asking for what i want is just that i won't get it, nobody's fault, just the way it is.

well i guess i should go apply for a job or something. that's the thing - dating is the least of it. my life has been full of relationships of all kinds where i'm disempowered, mistreated, where my vulnerabilities are exploited and i'm taken advantage of, often by people who then tell me that it's all my fault. it's november 2025. i look around me and i feel like i'd be fucking stupid to _not_ expect that. except from my friends. i trust my friends. i'm very glad that i have so many great friends.

i had so much gay sex last night that it killed dick cheney and got zohran elected mayor