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!

oh it’s awful! how do so many people just…not know how to have a basic conversation? major major turnoff

There is a crisis in masculinity

The crisis is that too many men are dumbasses

lol

i like asking people questions, i like when they respond coherently, i like when they ask me questions in turn. it seems pretty rare!

yeah this is why i'm giving up dating, almost no one seems capable of doing this

this is honestly one of the reasons why i like my occasional FB— he asks questions, I ask questions, we don’t just fuck and then leave it at that. i actually like him!

anyway i am on layover in the Chicago airport waiting for a flight to the Bay, going to watch a movie or two for the second leg of my trip, including Challengers

i think sniffies has mostly completely taken over NYC? i don’t know many people who are regularly hooking up off grindr and scruff right now. i know more people who use feeld as a secondary app if they want something that moves a little slower

i personally find grindr unusable on a functional level, it’s just a horrible app. the number 1 thing that sniffies has over grindr & scruff IMO is no “tap” or “woof” feature — you have to send an actual message to somebody. none of these weird halfhearted interactions. even if it’s just a “hey” there is an inherent facilitation between two people that those other apps don’t force in the same way. it just cleaves off a lot of the annoying aspects of those apps — there’s no hidden image folders, soooo many fewer ads etc.

i only have good things to say about sniffies idk — it’s efficient if you want it to be but i carry on convos on there too. have met some wonderful guys who have become friends outside the bedroom, and i haven’t had a horror story happen to me or anyone i know. i’ve run across plenty nervous flakes who make meeting up annoying but never anyone who was trying to cause me harm

NYC is so dense that we are spoiled for dick on every corner. sniffies in smaller or more spread out cities is less fun. but i think that’s true for any of the others too

you’re OTM about grindr, it’s gotten so bad lately. probably gonna delete it soon. scruff feels kinda spent for me too but i have regular convos/sexting with a longstanding FWB of mine there and once in a while i’ll have a nice chat with someone else

safe travels T!

I deleted grindr a couple years ago, no regrets, coyote.

idk the pandemic seems to.have released me from what remained of my shackles. I've had success at bars, gay and straight, picking up guys. Even the failures have gone on to become drinking buddies. That's how I've gotten laid the last two years. I figure I've a few more years before I start to lose my looks.

haha sniffies is wild. with a web-based option! i couldn't find in the app store - apparently it gets pulled from time to time?

You could use the web version on your laptop. It'll make you look like Blofeld planning the sodomizing of the world.

👍👍

just need a headset to go with

lol

i like asking people questions, i like when they respond coherently, i like when they ask me questions in turn. it seems pretty rare!

yeah this is why i'm giving up dating, almost no one seems capable of doing this

― ivy., Wednesday, May 7, 2025 2:42 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it really doesn't help. it used to be a useful filter, I don't respond to 'hey'. now it feels like standing guard over ruins, so obstinate. I still think it's what most people want. people who ask questions on an app are rare, people who return volleys- forget it. no way am I rooting around this haystack all day.

it's been a long time since that was physically possible for me lol. the main reason why is i'm taking some things :]

hey you gotta share with the whole class

very belated congrats mike t !!! (sorry)

anabolic prohormones

oh you did my bad

we need a text-only hookup app. what vc wouldn't want to invest in that??

that reminds me, there was a time i used craiglist personals to hook up - with a surprisingly high success rate! no pics at all up front, all replies went right to your email and you went from there. is craigslist even still around? looks like it!

let's see, another site i used to frequent was called squirt dot org. it had location listings for cruising spots and guys would comment letting everyone know when they were there etc. i think it was from the manhunt era but much less popular and as the years advanced it turned into this sad, haunted little ghost town. lo and behold it's still there lol.

another one from even further back i used to lurk on all the time, before i was living on my own and out etc., was called bigmuscle dot com.

and holy shit that website is still there too! flashback to 2005. crazy. they outlasted myspace! good for them.

is craigslist even still around? looks like it!

it's definitely still around, but they don't do personal ads due to some federal law about sex trafficking.. like they could be found liable or something, so they shut that part down a few years ago

omg i love the name squirt dot org

i lost my virginity off craigslist!

we need a text-only hookup app.

while i sort of like the idea of it, i am also driven by whether i am actually physically attracted to a person. though photos lie, too, what would happen if you made a date with someone and you showed up and...you didn't find them attractive at all?

(this is why in-person cruising will always win out for me)

I gotta say, I've been online cruising for 25 years and while the guy may have disappointed me I've never met a guy who's lied about his looks.

what would happen if you made a date with someone and you showed up and...you didn't find them attractive at all?

A real possibility, as uncomfortable as a guy who hits on me and I find him unattractive.

I've just never met a guy who didn't have a photo— or at least include a photo after chatting for a bit. "face swap" is at least a minimum.

A real possibility, as uncomfortable as a guy who hits on me and I find him unattractive.

But like, I'm not traveling across a city (which I've considered and have done in the past) to meet a guy whom I don't find attractive. Without any pics, this is (in essence) wasting time, unless one is looking for gay friends, which, fair enough!

oh no these days it's a five- to 10-mile radius for meeting up, usually at a place I know.

Funnily enough, my current bf and I met on Grindr, but it was essentially a text-only courtship. I very very rarely use the app, and it’s def more entertainment-oriented than hookup-oriented. One night I had no plans and I stayed in a logged on and had the predictable hailstorm of dick pics raining down on me over six simultaneous conversations…

…and meanwhile one of these conversations was more verbal, just me and this stranger chatting chatting, and he suddenly broke kayfabe and said “you are by far the most interesting person I’ve met on here and beyond a potential hookup I would love to either go on a date with you or just become irl friends if that doesn’t work out” and I was so charmed by the frankness that we made plans for a date.

It was pandemic times so we didn’t plan to do anything but walk around the park. He told me he waited at the park praying “please don’t be a dud, please don’t be a dud” and I showed up and he said “NOT A DUD” and we had two dates with just talking and walking

Date three I dared to touch his hand under the table and it felt electric and I’m pretty sure we made out shortly after and then got the blessing from our respective pods to start doing the dirty and that was that

We had a year and a half of almost-no-sex, mostly because I wasn’t exercising and wasn’t feeling up for much of anything but I’ve been running again and we are once again having gay sex and lots of it, hooray!

aww yeah -- love at the time of COVID

man, the other thing with getting back into the apps is that my tech is no longer supported. i drew a line in the sand when they got rid of the headphone jack. and now i'm finally in the dumpster bin of planned phone obsolescence after 2 whole years.

i'm going to have to switch to android eventually, maybe sooner rather than later.

i'm starting to think a little more seriously about trying out onlyfans for a little extra cash, gonna need a decent camera and a phone that works for that though. sigh. i'd rather be running.

Rarely do I watch films during the daylight hours, but since I no longer teach and am out of classes for another few weeks, I took the liberty to watch Young Hearts, which was a lovely, tender film. Thought it would do a number on me, but mostly just made me reflect on my first loves rather than mourn them.

I've talked about this before, but those first people really do leave a huge impression.

they do. my first ltr had so much need wrapped up in it. in retrospect i think it gave me the courage to become fully myself. which took another 10 years after it ended but anyway.

well, my first love wasn't a LTR— it was with my best friend, when we were in 8th grade. i've written about him, long ago in the masculinity thread, but needless to say, i never got to apologize to him for rejecting him. we probably could have been a very cute teen couple.

my first ltr that lasted more than a few months certainly changed me for the better, though like you, map, it took a number of year for those good changes to materialize...for both of us, i think! he's now sober and a social worker, instead of an alcoholic with daddy issues and no impulse control.

my first was brief but lovely. he was friends with my friend emily, he lived and went to high school in a different town. she arranged for us and some other friends to hang out, we went to a diner then to her house then to the park. we talked and flirted the whole afternoon and kissed for what felt like the whole night. he wore an estee lauder cologne and smoked parliament menthols and after that first meeting i kept the shirt i was wearing under my pillow for a few days because it still smelled like him. he was my first kiss and he told me that i was a good kisser (he was right, fwiw).

it only lasted a couple weeks, partly because he was about to head off to college (i was a junior-going-on-senior) and also i was starting to get a little too invested in having a boyfriend, so he thought it was best to end things. which made sense but it still hurt when we broke up and i feel like it made me a little wary of overtly showing too much interest too soon with future romantic interests. we're friends on FB and i've gleaned from his page that we both live in the same city but i haven't made any attempts to contact him or vice versa. he's got a husband and kids now.

he set some other kind of funny relationship precedents for me: after him, i had a string of dates/relationships where i met someone i really liked and wanted to spend more time with riiiight before one of us moved to another city or left town on a long trip (even my now-husband spent part of our first summer as a couple in another country, doing research for a book). this guy also lived in israel for a while when he was younger and could speak hebrew; i then proceeded to date several guys who were either bilingual or had dual citizenship. these are both more circumstantial than indicative of something deeper i think but still, funny how things turned out that way

My first time in love was with a good friend. We remain good if not best friends.

In other new: New Jersey solicitor general Jeremy M. Feigenbaum, who argued today's case before SCOTUS this morning, is a cutie and sounded queer:

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

his eyes are like small neighboring outposts on the vast terrain of his forehead. i've literally never seen a politician who was sexy. someone once told me that dc was hollywood for ugly people - i'd extend that to any state capital. i work in government now and i'm even more convinced it's true that politicians and government employees are predominantly ugly-ass ego freaks.

I don't disagree. It's Dorian Gray syndrome -- they got a painting someplace.

yeah sorry i am with map, very much not my type lol.

Young Hearts had a moment that really sums up the feeling— the main character is first realizing his feelings for his new friend, and he rests his head on the friends chest, sort of nuzzles him, and says, “I just want to be with you.”

awww -- very much in the Ben and Rafe vein

yeah. recommended! it’s not life altering cinema but “tender” and “heartfelt” are good descriptors

question for crypto and other interested parties: do you find yourself resentful when categories like “Romance” are separated out from “LGBTQ” in films, books, etx? I ask because the professor for a class I am taking this summer, on youth programming and young adult literature in libraries, has done this, and I found myself wanting to mention it. I don’t give a fuck about reading some nonsense about straight teenagers falling in love, I have been doing so my entire life!! Is it worth trying to say to her, “hey, i think maybe Aristotle and Dante or Simon or whatever might be better suited to the romance section”? or is that just a dumb fight that i want to pick because i don’t want to read the Fault in Our Stars?

I have to admit I am not sure I understand the specifics of what you're discussing: do (some) libraries America separate YA fiction into subcategories like LGBTQ, Romance, etc? In my experience, both libraries and book stores usually just lump all YA together, and the only time I've ever seen QYA separated out in any way is when certain titles appear on a Pride display or whatnot.

In broader questions of classification, though, I suspect that QYA is still very much thought of its own niche within YA, whether the stories are straight-up romance, coming out, or some other genre hybrid. Which I suppose, if pressed, I resent a very little bit in that I assume that something like Aristotle and Dante will always be QYA first, and Romance (or anything else) second, but what are ya gonna do? Perhaps the Goodreads model of endless micro categories (what they call "Shelves") makes the most sense here: searching Aristotle and Dante just now, it is variously listed as Young Adult, LGBT, Contemporary Fiction, Queer, Coming Of Age, and further down the list, MM and finally YA Romance.

I don't know if that comes anywhere near answering your question. The class sounds interesting though!

Totally— I mean you’re totally right that it is seen as a niche, but I guess what I wonder is why “romance” excludes QYA in this prof’s class structure—

Ok, I get it now. I will say that from the dabbling I did on BookTube (photogenic young people talking about YA books on YouTube) during my PhD research, that much of the current intended audience of YA seems to care less about distinctions like LGBTQ. Like, if they're a fan of YA Romance, they'll read and gush on about any YA romance they read, whether hetero, queer, trans, or whatever. Ditto Fantasy and other such subgenres of YA that currently make room for queer characters and content. Young consumers of YA--cishet or otherwise--don't appear to be all that bothered by these distinctions. They're an adult imposition--which, of course, was always the case.

yeah, that seems about right, from my knowledge too.

required reading for this course includes “The Outsiders,” which i am unreasonably happy about— i loved that book as a middle schooler, haven’t read it in 25+ years

Totally--The Outsiders rules.

rip colton ford

he died on a desert trail outside of palm springs. somehow i didn't realize that he started his adult film career at 40 yo.