There was a time when the portmanteau term “cumshot” wasn’t a fixture in the English lexicon.

Before mass media forms made us intrinsically self-aware of our appearances and physical prowesses, it’s doubtful the male climax carried the visual wallop it does now. More likely it was internalized — regardless of the sexual pairing — and not subject to the self-direction and theatricality that it is now.

Porn forever changed how we have sex. Thanks to the visual medium of sex, we’re aware of how to frame, position, and pace the act. Certainly the bulk of our sexual fantasies are staged just like fuck flicks, with awkward transitions edited out and big finishes lensed at ideal angles in the porn shoots of our minds. That’s not necessarily wholly bad or good; it could be argued that porn has created unrealistic expectations and a glut of camera-fetishizing narcissists, but I can say it helped me figure out exactly what I want, who I want if from, and how I want it.

It’s not enough to just hit the mark anymore — you have to time the big finish, choose what body part you want to land it on, and really deliver a gusher of a crescendo. The element of performance — of offering a bravura turn — now preoccupies us. I remember seeing a stand-up act on TV in which a comedian related how everyone in L.A. was an aspiring star; when he stopped at a gas station, even the attendant told him he was an actor, and he knew exactly what sort when he finished pumping, pulled out of the tank, and proceeded to spray all over the windshield. (read the full article)

Yes! Johnny Weir is going to Vancouver!

Under the colors of the American flag, he will skate for us all
here in the land of the free, home of the brave,
birthplace of DOMA, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and Voter-Approved Homophobia.

Aren’t we lucky! The whole world wants to be us!

Ever wonder how, where, and when the vulgarities of our society got their starts?

A friend once asked me who gave the very first blowjob (I guessed one of those slutty Ancient Romans, maybe even Caligula himself), and that in turn had me positing who might have coined the slurs and filthspeak — specifically the ones centering around sex acts — that we take for granted today.

I’m sure there must be renderings of pictographic proto-porn in Neanderthal caves, and certainly the tribe had some verbal classification for the males of the clan who wanted to go all Quest For Fire on each other’s asses. The word “fuck” is often misidentified as a medieval acronym (“For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” or “Fornication Under Consent of the King”), though it does date back to at least 15th Century Germany. “Fag” and “Faggot” had nothing to do with sexual orientation in their original British context until around 1914 in (natch) America when they supplanted “Fairy” and became common nomenclature in straight and gay circles for demarcating an effeminate man from a straight or straight-seeming one. (read the full article)

Eighth grade was a tough year for me. I was 13 years old in 1998, in an oppressive yet typical American middle school where “pack of wolves” could accurately describe the student body. I was a big-eyed late-bloomer who enjoyed class more than recess and was irrepressibly talkative. Quickly, I became a focal-point of abuse for my male peers, most of whom were bigger than me, had girlfriends and some of these guys were even shaving.

It was also the year Matthew Shepard was murdered, and the news felt personal. His death coincided with my realization that I was gay. Though I was still in the closet, bullies at my school gleefully pointed out that Matthew Shepard and I shared a first name. They taunted me as they poked fun at Shepard’s story, making clear that even murder is fair game for expressing disdain for homosexuality. (read the full article)

It is hard to discuss Bayard Rustin without noting our current moment in history, when race and sexual orientation intersect in unprecedented, tumultuous ways.

The first black American president claims positions that would make him the greatest advocate for LGBT rights ever to grace the Oval Office, more gay-friendly than any of his white predecessors. Yet President Obama is paradoxically under closer scrutiny from LGBT groups than any former president was — both because the moment is so ripe for change and because he has yet done little to fulfill his promises.

Similarly, the aftermath of Proposition 8 in California last November brought group tensions to a head, when some pro-gay commentators placed the blame for the insidious law’s passage on the votes of black Californians. Same-sex marriage advocates lamented the lack of understanding from a group that has faced similar discrimination, and LGBT people of color (who obviously did not vote for Proposition 8 ) faced a cruel backlash from their white peers at a time when they, too, were reeling from the shock that their right to marry was revoked.

Progress happens when we put aside defensiveness and focus on the truth: that all people deserve to be treated with dignity, fair judgment, and respect. The life of Bayard Rustin (pictured above with Martin Luther King Jr.) proves that LGBT Americans and black Americans are indebted to each other, and are more alike than different, having been intertwined for generations. (read the full article)

“What I am, Michael, is a 32-year-old, ugly, pock-marked Jew fairy. And if it takes me a while to pull myself together, and if I can smoke a little grass before I get nerve to show this face to the world, it’s nobody’s goddamn business but my own.”

The cutting words of The Boys In The Band’s sharp-tongued Harold aren’t just one of the most hyper-aware self-assessments in the history of filmdom — they’re a fitting tagline for a landmark movie that’s as many simultaneous things as Harold, its birthday boy is.

At once a social document, wry sexploitation flick, hissing bitchfest, repository for immortal camp dialogue, midnight movie, urban character study, bleak outsider period piece, and parlor drama run amuck, The Boys In The Band has managed to endear and repel, engage and repulse, disarm and dismay its viewers in equal measure, and as it nears the big 4-0, it’s apt that as the film reaches midlife crisis time, its target audience finds itself at a heady vantage point of not only looking back at a turbulent past, but looking forward to as precarious a future.

By now, scribe Mart Crowley’s watershed 1968 Off-Broadway production that inspired the film has become a part of New York history and Big Apple mythology beyond. (read the full article)

On June 10, 2006, just in time for her birthday, Judy Garland appeared on a U.S. stamp.

I always think of Judy at this time of year, as the rainbow flags unfurl and the floats come down the street with their glamor-girl boys and near-nude leathermen.

Hyper-real spectaculars that would not be out of place in the Emerald City — or Munchkinland!

“Are you a friend of Dorothy?” soldiers would ask each other during World War II, using this code phrase to signal that they were gay. It was only a matter of time before the brass caught wind of it, without quite understanding its significance. In a dither that Reds and homos were sneaking into their ranks, the military spent $250,000 to find out who this diabolic den-mother of the GI homos was. Yet even the nelliest civilian could have told them (in exchange, we hope, for a little buzz-cut face action).

She was, of course, our Judy. The gal who fell from a star called Kansas. So tenderly young in The Wizard of Oz, yet already empowered by that penetrating cry in her voice.

We need only hear her tearful call of Toto! Toto! as her terrier is being bicycled away in the clutches of Miss Gulch to get that old chill, the heartachy twang of childhood injustice. (read the full article)

Because the ’50s were so much more than tailfins and pointy bras.

BUT WAIT! — THERE’S MORE! (read the full article)