LENSED

"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it..."
LENSED: IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

ISKANDER FAY, MALAYSIAN model and athlete.

EVERYTHING LENSED

LENSED

"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it..."
LENSED: IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

BECAUSE SOMETIMES, WHITE is right.

The model is Simon Nessman, with his boy whore lips.

EVERYTHING LENSED

LENSED

"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it..."
LENSED: IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

Joseph McCrae, lensed by Tarrice Love.

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ELSEWHERE - TARRICE LOVE: PHOTOGRAPHER [Official Blog]

6

A 16 YEAR-OLD boy has been stabbed to death in Lambeth, South London.

The murder happened around 2030BST on Monday night in Larkhall Park; another boy was also stabbed during the incident, but is said to be in a stable condition.

Oluwaseyi Christopher Sunday Ogunyemi, of Stockwell, is the 6th teenage boy to die as the result of violent crime this year.

This article will be updated when further details become available.

Last updated: 04.18, 01 May 2009

VIEW ALL: Teenagers Who Died Before They Lived

ELSEWHERE - Teenager Killed In Double-Knifing

ELSEWHERE - Stabbed Teenager Named

PREVIOUSLY - How Do You Get Inside The Head Of A 16-Year Old Knife Wielding Thug?

REVIEW

"AFTER AWHILE, ISA sat up and looked around the clearing, suddenly frightened, suddenly realizing where he was and that he was naked and vulnerable.

Something bad could happen if he continued to lie there and do nothing. A python could be stealing through the brush, ready to ambush. He put his underwear and shorts back on and got painfully to his feet, hobbling back the way he had come, through the large fronds, wanting to get out of the jungle before... whatever.

His butt and lower back hurt, and this made walking difficult, but he ignored the pain and hurried as fast as he could, not stopping until he reached the safety of the banana trees. From there, he walked slowly, in a sort of daze, uncertain as to what had just happened to him or what it meant."

Adventures of a Bird-Shit Foreigner is the story of fourteen year-old Isa, the child of an American GI and a Thai prostitute. According to Alyson Books, the publisher, "Thai society can be cruel to those not of pure breeding—they are called 'bird-shit' foreigners".

That must rank as understatement of the year. Abandoned by his mother, Isa is brought up by his hateful grandparents, who call him half and half. He's also called that (and other things) by the plantation workers, who take turns raping him in the jungle, and by the homeless boys he meets when he runs away to Bangkok, the leader of whom gets him hooked on heroin and - after an initiation involving a spot of oral sex - pimps him out. So far, not the best start in life, and things get worse before they get better.

Sulayman X's novel, despite the grim content, is utterly compelling in its telling of a young boy's journey of discovery, and healing; the setting is rich and the characters captivating. The joy comes from Sulayman's sheer human empathy - every character is a complete human being with a story.

The fragile love story that develops between Isa and Hamid - the son of the Muslim Iman who takes Isa in - is poignant and beautiful - as beautiful as Jummah is repellant. Jummah, the teacher entrusted with teaching Isa the Koran, takes his turn using the boy, too...

Adventures of a Bird-Shit Foreigner is a page-turner and a real joy. One thing's for certain: you'll never look at a Visa card in the same way again.

PREVIOUS REVIEWS

LENSED

"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it..."
LENSED: IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

WELL, THAT WAS quite the weekend, wasn't it?

After the blitzkrieg by separatists high on haterade, it was nice to wake up on this rainy Monday morning to a friendly email from Urban Shotz with some freshly baked boy loaf.

Jouvan was lensed by Urban Shotz, who have kindly supplied these exclusive shots. There's more at Urban Shotz Photography.

EVERYTHING LENSED

ELSEWHERE - Urban Shotz Photography

THE WEEK ACCORDING TO GARÇON STUPIDE

*"If one of the custodians of Western culture is a corporation like Amazon, perhaps they should be regulated like the financial world. We need regulation in the cultural world too so that they don't restrict anything, like Amazon did." Edmund White on Amazongate.

*And Amazon isn't the only cyber super power out to get us: is Google harbouring homo hatred too?

*And how about Facebook? Campaigners claim it's become a breeding ground for racists and far-right extremists.

*Homocaust in Brazil.

*Wockner reports on the latest developments in the Boycott Jamaica campaign.

*Scottish woman fined for homophobic abuse. The victim? Her son.

*Tom Daley, the teen diving prodigy, is bullied out of school.

*And in America, another innocent young boy is bullied to death.

*Some good old-fashioned African homophobia - in the boardroom!

*"Activists against homosexuality in Uganda stormed parliament on Tuesday protesting against the practice and demanded a probe into the practice in the country." There's so many things wrong with that sentence that I don't know where to start. Meanwhile, here's some quality Ugandan journalism: "This is a killer dossier. A heat-pounding and sensational masterpiece that largely exposes Uganda's shameless men and unabashed women that have deliberately exported the western evils to our dear and sacred society. They have been influential in spreading the gay and lesbian vices in schools to kill the morals of our lovely kids!!" Heat-pounding? What's that when it's at home then?

*The Gay Commandments, according to thegayte-keeper. Unfortunately, not everyone in the blogosphere has signed up to No.3, Thou Shall Not Practice Racism.

*And while we're on the subject of bible-stuff, Theology Now breaks down the great book's advice on raising children. Warning: contains violent imagery that some readers may find disturbing (but that's the bible for you).

*Is the Westboro Baptist Church going to do a Jonestown? Well, if it's God's will, so be it...

*Humanist victory? Andrew Copson, director of education and public affairs for the British Humanist Association, joins the BBC's Standing Conference on Religion and Belief.

*Superstition trumps science: Jews, Muslims, win the right to deny a post-mortem.

*13 things that do not make sense. I can think of many more, like Lost, and James off The Apprentice, but NewScientist is looking a bit deeper than pop culture. The Kuiper cliff, the Wow signal and the Pioneer Anomaly certainly got my attention.

*And while we're on the subject of things that don't make sense, how about this? Yeah, let's clone people, because the breeders ain't churning out enough livestock already.

*Why don't these mad scientists use their genius for something useful, like a cure for blindness?

*We're all going to die! (I know, again.)

*Where's the remotest place on Earth? (Anywhere you can't reach by Tube, if you ask me).

*Saturn like you've never seen it before. (I wish it was Uranus, just so I could say something puerile, but it's definitely Saturn.)

*The Sun is quiet and the galaxy smells like rum. And tastes like raspberries too.

*It's shrinking! It's growing! No wait, it shrinking! Er... no, it's definitely growing. (This ain't what you think).

*What happens when you combine HD video and slow motion technology? This:

*And the award for Best Science Fiction TV Theme Tune of all time goes to... Doctor Who! I'll go along with that - but the rest of the top 10 sucks. I mean, Buffy? Really? It's a dreadful piece of music. Where was Blake's 7, Star Trek: Voyager, Survivors et cetera...?

*Plastic boy slut Cristiano Ronaldo promises to watch Corontion Street. I know, I can't believe I just typed that either. (File under "Really Dumb Non-Stories".)

*This is pretty cool - a TV house through the ages. Who would've thought?

*Speaking of places appearing as somewhere they're not...

*Good brother/bad brother.

*Tube trains attacked.

*In Soho, you can pay in kind.

*TK Maxx shunned by Piccadilly Circus.

*Surprise surprise - bored already, Boris won't bother to stand for Mayor of London next time around.

*Lauryn Hill making a comeback this July? Except... well, what the hell happened to her?

*Tinchy Stryder wanted to be bigger. I mean, er, taller.

*Robbie Daw wonders who's really buying CDs anymore. I have to confess, I rarely do, but then there's little out there that excites me enough to want to pay for it. Lady Gaga? Piss off.

*Naked Japanese poptart!

*Brain music!

*Wanna be a porn star?

*Breathe gin!

*Rent a friend!

*Naked Swede twinks!

*"The reassuring stage set that everyday reality in the suburban west presents to us is torn down; you see the ragged scaffolding, and then you see the truth beyond that..." J.G. Ballard, 1930-2009.

*"Look — I'm 5-feet-9, I have a deep voice and I have a way with a line. What can I do about it? I can't stay home waiting for something different. I think it's a total waste of energy worrying about typecasting." Bea Arthur, 1922-2009.

ISSUE 06

On the cover: Shawn Sutton, by Idris + Tony.

You Only Count If You're Black

THERE'S A BANNER you'll sometimes see on blogs, and on some of the profile pages of social networking sites like Gaydar and DList:

Sexual Racism SUX.

It's a movement that seeks to confront "racist behaviour and speech in gay men" - a problem that's endemic in our community. In fact, it's flourishing right there amongst our supposed friends and allies.

If there's one thing my blog seeks to promote, it's inclusion vs. exclusion, diversity, unity, and the shunning of the racial separatism promoted by the likes of James Earl Hardy and Jasmyne Cannick.

I define racism as behaviour that deliberately excludes (or vilifies) someone based upon their ethnicity.

Living Out Loud With Darian recently posted an article promoting "Black LGBT Bloggers" - which is great, in and of itself. But it also sends out the message that you only count if you're black. Darian talks about "a blogosphere largely dominated by white gay men", and says "It can be even worse if you happen to be a gay person of color, you're liable to be rendered invisible altogether."

So the answer, apparently, is to render white gay men invisible, a cluster bomb tactic that says black is good and white is bad. To hell with inclusion, diversity and unity - two wrongs make a right and if you ain't black, you're wack.

That's a real shame. And shame on those of you who lapped up the praise, and for not seeing the bigger picture: racism is wrong, no matter who perpetrates it.

UPDATE, 26.04.09. Darian Aaron has posted this story on his Facebook page, together with the erroneous accusation that in writing this articile, I was accusing him personally of being racist. I wasn't, and I'm not.

His re-post provoked a number of comments, mostly along the lines of "he's white and can't deal with self-determining black folk" - which, as anyone who knows me and the content of this blog can attest, couldn't be further from the truth.

I responded to Darian - and those friends who chose to attack me on his Facebook page - thus:

"Darian, I didn't actually say that you were racist. I was simply talking about inclusion vs separatism, and that the whole notion of racial separatism is unhealthy.

The pretty nasty diatribe above this comment (Tarik Jones), which is heavy on the Them/Us haterade, illustrates that perfectly.

And since my opinion as a "white" gay man is apparently worthless, it's worth pointing out that some black gay bloggers have left positive comments on my piece agreeing on the subject of unity.

It's a shame you felt the need to launch a personal attack - using my picture too, as if to say "Evil Whitey Is Trying To Keep The Black Man In His Place". For the record, I'm mixed white/Asian, not that I think that's relevant.

I don't think there's any harm in sensible debate on the issue of race. And again, it wasn't a personal attack on you, just a personal opinion expressing regret over the Them/Us status quo."

You can see Tarik Jone's diatribe in the comments below.

UPDATE, 27.04.09. Taylor Siluwé offers his opinion of the whole affair in his post "Is Pro-White Anti-Black?" over at SGL Café (link below).

ELSEWHERE - Sexual Racism Sux!

ELSEWHERE - Black LGBT Bloggers: Out Front & Online

ELSEWHERE - SGL Café: Is Pro-White Anti-Black?