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

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 ❤️

yeah that makes sense. i think maybe his english teacher gave him the rec though. when i was in high school subversive lit was like "on the road". now that i think about it, the kid who was particularly into kerouac is trans now.

it sounds interesting! a lot of folks i know are down with psychedelics and i'm just not. that level of consent, to me - mixing kink and entheogens - requires a pretty close relationship, a lot of vulnerability, a lot of trust, not the kind of relationship i've ever really had with anyone. part of the reason i don't really get involved in the kink scene is because there are plenty of people around here who do mix drugs with kink in a way that i'm not personally comfortable with. i don't think i'm _better_ for not drinking or doing drugs, i just think i got different vices. i do think that asceticism _is_ a vice, i think that life is meant to be enjoyed, and i think my strong internal resistance to enjoying things is probably not a good thing.

anyway i might read pihkal at some point. i haven't had the attention span for reading in a long time. chronic trauma does things to one's brain, and picking up reading again is, well, not a priority. i got this thing where i really want to be just fucking stupid. it's something a lot of people i know have, not a gendered thing, and yeah it's "problematic" but it's also how we are. the way patriarchy genders behavior and shit. i have this inner Clever Boy, and they're pretty bored and resentful a lot of the time and as a result of that, sometimes thinking too much causes me problems. i spend most of my time trying to manage my feelings, and i think there is a certain amount of cognitive atrophy that comes with that. i'm not sure if it's more true that i'm smarter than i let on sometimes, or that i'm not as smart as i _think_ i am. probably a little of both.

Fully on the "Freedom '90" brigade as well, both for listening and karaoke-ing.

the section i mention is written from ann's pov. the psychedelics are almost beside the point. the whole passage is really about trust. trust in both the other and in cosmic darkness, trust that neither is going to hurt you.

i think i mention it because, well... it's been over three years since we met this guy. we're still texting every day. sending audio messages. i have video chats with him from time to time. we always cum at the same time. the distance aspect sucks but we've gotten somewhat used to it. he's a kinky one. extremely imaginative. if i get deeper into kink it will be because of him.

the section i mention is written from ann's pov. the psychedelics are almost beside the point. the whole passage is really about trust. trust in both the other and in cosmic darkness, trust that neither is going to hurt you.

i think i mention it because, well... it's been over three years since we met this guy. we're still texting every day. sending audio messages. i have video chats with him from time to time. we always cum at the same time. the distance aspect sucks but we've gotten somewhat used to it. he's a kinky one. extremely imaginative. if i get deeper into kink it will be because of him.

― dream mummy (map), Sunday, April 5, 2026 2:43 PM (yesterday)

hmmm. yeah, i like your description of the section. i got a lot of thoughts about kink and mostly i don't talk about them because the opportunity doesn't really come up. trust and vulnerability are definitely key to me.

my issue with the cosmic darkness is that i _know_ it doesn't want to hurt me and that really frustrates me sometimes. like i was talking about the other thread about shame, and i do understand that desire firsthand. part of me wants to be told that i'm an awful, disgusting, terrible person. it's not true. the universe is not going to tell me that. space does not care, lol. because the truth is that i am part of the universe, and i am valuable, and i am loved and cared for, and that _doesn't_ mean that i'm going to get what i need. it's not the fault of the universe, it's not the fault of anyone else in particular. it's just how things are. so what hurts me most is actually getting that love and kindness and affirmation that i so desperately crave, not just in my soul, but somatically - that's one of the reasons i've soured on the internet, because it's this disembodying force, and i seek to be embodied in community, even with my flawed, disabled body. kink does intersect with disability a lot - that's why bob flanagan, what he did always just instinctively clicked with me. it's about going into a space...

well people talk a lot about "subspace", and sure i guess but really i think of it as a _shared ritual space_. i'm very down with tops, bottoms, doms, subs, but desire just doesn't work like that for me, and never has. i don't really desire penetration or to be penetrated. i have nothing against those things, but they just don't mean anything for their own sake. there's this old thing they used to say about lesbians, "which one of you is the man?", meaning "who tops", and it _is_ a serious question for me but not in a penetrative way.

the traditional "vanilla" way of looking at things, as best that i can understand, is that the bottom serves as a receptacle for the top's pleasure. so someone who is willing to serve as that receptacle, that's considered to be of value, that's desired. in kink, though, i see it more as the "dom" being the one who's holding the space, who's looking after the ritual space. the one experiencing pleasure is the "sub". maybe it's not always that way, but that's the way i always see it. so it makes sense that there is such a thing as what's called a "top shortage", because the tops, the doms, are the ones doing the _work_. and often when i do talk to people who top or dom, they are very very focused on the happiness of their partner, and dismissive of their own happiness. i think it comes with being queer. i learned very early and for a very long time that what i want doesn't _matter_, ask not what my partner can do for me, but what i can do for my partner, etc., etc.

if i _ask_ to be tied up, am i still "subbing"? if someone says ok, i'll do this, but just for you - who's the one in control, really? well the truth is, for me, it doesn't _matter_, it's a _shared communal space_. one of the things that i do really want is to do things for the pleasure of other people, to serve, and the paradox is that i don't really often get the opportunity to do that in a healthy way. it's a secondary reason i enjoy sucking dick. only a secondary reason, though. the primary reason is that i just, well, like having stuff in my mouth. freud can talk shit all he wants, there's nothing wrong with that, it's not something i have any desire to "grow out of".

and the third reason is that it impedes verbal communication, if i try to talk with my mouth full. it's pretty clear from my posts here, i think, that i'm a pretty verbal person, i have a lot to say, and my desire to talk sometimes gets in the way of my best interests. i do like it when someone can make me shut the fuck up. i think about that scene, the date between vincent vega and mia, where they talk about that - not in a kink context, but the beauty of feeling empowered to just shut the fuck up in someone else's company.

here's the esoteric bit of it... one of the thing that influences me a lot is this book by a lady named, i think, natasha nawataneko, called "somatics for rope bottoms". something she says that really hits with me is talking about how people talk a lot about how rope bondage is "connection" and that she sees it as _communication_. i think bondage and, well, intimacy in general, that it's kind of a somatic form of communication. there's this one-woman show i also saw a video of called tether: adhd and bdsm. i find that keeping my body from wandering off can also help keep my mind from wandering off. i have a hard time staying focused in the present. a hard time not getting distracted. bondage is centering for me. it's peaceful, secure, meditative.

and the thing that's frustrating is that people want to look at bondage as either sexual or nonsexual. am i "allosexual" or am i "asexual"? what i don't like is that there's this very binary approach to it, that it's one or the other. talking in the other thread about exhibitionism... i'm not an exhibitionist but i _do_ think it's ok and normal to have sexual feelings in public, and i think there are appropriate ways to express them. i haven't ever had sex in public but when i was younger and had more testosterone in my body i absolutely would masturbate in a toilet stall sometimes. wouldn't dream of doing it now. i read half of this romance novel called "for the love of april french" where the dom, who's a cis man, commands the protag to masturbate in a toilet stall, and she has to break kayfabe, so to speak, and say "uh, i'm a trans woman, i can't _do_ that". i think there's something to that, something to the complex ways we navigate our sexuality. the "kink at pride" stupid "discourse" is another example of that, the idea that people think it's _wrong_ to do kink in a public space where _the children can see it_. i've been to rope jams in public parks, been tied up in those spaces. it wasn't sexual or socially inappropriate. it was practicing a skill. human macrame. if i'm being tied up in private, things might be a little bit different. it's _complicated_, there's _nuance_ to this shit, and people just don't want to see the nuance in it.

this stuff about the so-called "top shortage", it's not really a _blame_ thing. it's just that holding a ritual kink space open is work. it takes energy, it takes effort, and no matter how much one wants to do it, because of how bad shit is, most of us just aren't really up to it right now. that's the thing. i'm _worth_ it, sure, but the people who would do that kind of thing, who would participate in that ritual space with me, mostly aren't up to it. it's hard for me to get my shit together enough to do that for someone else, and i mean, honestly, i do have to say at some point "what's in it for me?" that's _why_ so many of these puppygirls piss me off. i _am_ respectful of the person holding that ritual space, which a lot of people aren't, i _do_ want to empower them instead of just placing demands on them. as much as i want that liberation from being responsible for myself, i know that it's not absolute. part of my responsibility as a "sub", which i take very seriously, is to be able to advocate for myself, for both my physical and, more importantly, my psychological well-being. because as a "dom" i've been treated by "subs" in ways that are unfair, i've been held up to impossible standards. if someone can't look out for their own well-being, i feel like i'm being set up for failure.

part of the desire of kink for me is based out of that shame, of wanting things but not being empowered to _ask_ for them. because people who take "bottom" or "submissive" roles, particularly when they're perceived as men, are often shamed for that. it's taken me a long time, but i have learned to acknowledge to myself what i want, to verbalize what i want. what i struggle with is finding someone i trust in a way that allows me to grow _with them_.

it's kind of weird. the way i understand intimacy is best put by, i think, the apostle paul - "the two become one flesh". well, actually, he says "the two become one flesh in Christ Jesus"... well I'm not a Christian but that's even more accurate, because intimacy for me (if it's with just one other person) is sort of a three-way, me, them, and "the universe" or "god" or whatever. it's, i mean, a form of _communion_. catholicism, one of the things i like about it is the somatic aspect of it. i would go to church and eat christ's flesh, drink christ's blood, and maybe some people think that's creepy but people think having a cannibalism fetish is creepy too, and it's not to me. i mean it's not my thing, personally, it's not what i'm into, but i _get it_. it's an act of communion.

see this is why i keep saying i need someone to shut my mouth for me lol

i'm curious what yall think are places or cities with an uncommonly high level of beautiful attractive people in them. just leaving aside the question the values of beauty etc for a second, i know they're tilted in not-nice or not-fair ways, but just your kneejerk reaction of going to a city and thinking 'my god this place is full of beautiful people' - what have been those places for you? i feel like new york and l.a. are obvious answers for the u.s., but where else? i often joke to my partner that the working class suburb of slc we find ourselves living in is full of uggos.

Miami is awful in many ways but my god the boys and men

Shorts and thighs all year, man.

Mexico City

i'd really like to visit mexico city some day.

i have heard that people are very beautiful in miami

is this just "most cities with a sexy rep?" like not kansas city but maybe new orleans. vegas has a sexy rep but it's firmly ugly ime. definitely not salt lake city i can tell you that though we do specialize in some mountain man hunks. most rural places in the u.s. though are full of mutants haha the stereotype is true. if someone has looks they'll end up moving to a city, is my theory.

To wear shorts 11 months a year and to sink your teeth into thighs is a pleasure the ancient Greeks knew about.

The Bay Area, despite its penchant for tech dweebs, is full of gorgeous people.

Philly’s under 30s are looking good, above that it’s a bit meh imho

Half of the young men I encountered in Poland were gods. The other half were mutants. No surprise that so many pornos star eastern european twinks

I met some beautiful men in Warsaw!

oh lord. i think i'd go crazy on the apps if i were somewhere like warsaw or prague or budapest. if apps are even legal in budapest :|

My answers would be Riga (Latvia) and Santa Teresa (Costa Rica).

interesting!

In my dream last night, I was having an argument, and at a certain point I yelled: “don’t shit in my mouth and tell me it’s my birthday”

otm

i'm curious what yall think are places or cities with an uncommonly high level of beautiful attractive people in them. just leaving aside the question the values of beauty etc for a second, i know they're tilted in not-nice or not-fair ways, but just your kneejerk reaction of going to a city and thinking 'my god this place is full of beautiful people' - what have been those places for you? i feel like new york and l.a. are obvious answers for the u.s., but where else? i often joke to my partner that the working class suburb of slc we find ourselves living in is full of uggos.

― dream mummy (map), Friday, April 10, 2026 2:44 PM (four days ago)

it's not really a matter of societal beauty standards, trans women are basically _all_ way more gorgeous than we think we are, which seemed like an upside except that (1) i can't actually tell how old any of us are and a lot of them are way younger than me. a couple years ago i went out with someone who turned out to be 20, at which point i was like "oh shit yeah this isn't gonna work" (if other people are up for that, i think fucking around and finding out is sometimes necessary and not even _bad_ sometimes, that's just not me) and (2) well i was talking about this in the 50s thread, at a certain point of marginalization it becomes difficult to have a healthy relationship, and i'm _not_ at that point and a lot of extremely hot people here _are_ at that point.

and then the other factor is that _because_ so many of us are self-conscious about our bodies (the twinks are self-conscious about not having tits, the more, uh, zaftig ones like me are self-conscious about having sizeable tummies), we go out of our way to try and feel good about ourselves. i go the opposite direction and put, like, no care or effort into looking good most of the time but that is _not_ how it is with a lot of us.

I started with a new therapist this morning. The recommendation was made by a trusted friend and I went in blind with no knowledge of the therapist's practice or anything. Turns out she's into Barbara Brennan stuff, we had long conversations about 'hara' and other such energy healing concepts. I'm one of those people who intrinsically enjoys and benefits from rituals around spirituality and religion, because I do think they have a psychological benefit, even if I'm essentially atheistic. I think this will be a positive experience?

The past six weeks have been very weird and hard. Relationship is very rocky, father is sick, my inner ear got infected and I'm facing a long period of slow recovery (had 95% hearing loss in my left ear six weeks ago, and it's maybe around 65% now, with no ENTs available until much later in the year). Despite the 'weird and hard', I've been feeling grateful for my emotional resilience through it all, no disregulation, just normal manageable levels of acceptable stress and sadness. Getting back into therapy is just gonna superpower this period, I think, I hope

oh hello I guess I’m back for the first time in like a decade

hiii!

hi Alex!!

and hooray for promising therapy fgti

hi Alex!

Alex!

j farted the other morning and i said "it's your morning mating call!" and he said "it's the strait of whore poos"

That’s cute :)

I’m desperately trying to finish my submissions for this doc I’m scoring so that I might have a relax day sometime soon— hopefully a Monday canyon hike with dog and some visiting homo friends

good luck!