Issue 162: Chase Carter, Clayton Pettet, Russell Brand, ballroom bliss, jelly belly, Priape, ZimPride, sadism, Simon Webbe, and more...

the destination for the
week's essential news
and pop culture stories,
with a gay bias.


 PONDER THIS 

||| The seven big problems gay men have with gay men.

||| The case for hate speech. How Anita Bryant and Orson Scott Card have advanced the case for equality.

||| To the young gay kid stuck in a small town and feeling alone: hold your head up, young one.



||| The fifty most powerful gays in the boardroom revealed. Yes kids, gays do greed just as well as the straights!

Could Russell Brand stop clowning around and be Britain's Beppe Grillo? "Like Italy's comedian-cum-politician, Brand is showing he has the political acumen and energy to lead a popular revolution – but he hasn't put the work in yet."

||| Wild emotions are all very well, Russell Brand, but then what? "Now, as in the 1920s and 30s, many Europeans agree with Brand that all politicians are crooks and democracy is a sham."

 U.S. & CANADA NEWS 

||| Record number of gay Russians seek asylum in the United States.

< This is 13-year-old "B.B." - a Louisville male cheerleader - whose mother is suing Thomas Jefferson Middle School after B.B. was subjected to a campaign of anti-gay bullying and harassment. WDRB has a video report.

> Meet Abdul Asquith, who was denied the rental of a laptop because the librarian at his college believed he was a woman and the ID card he presented depicted a man.

||| Christian couple refuses to tip gay waiter, brand him a "fag".

||| Tea Party Unity founder Rick Scarborough wants to sue all gays in class action suit.

< Jelly Belly chairman Herman Rowland Sr. donates to initiative to repeal California's new law protecting transgender students.

||| Why are so many gay families living in the hostile territory of states such as Utah, Texas, and Virginia?

||| Does the Stonewall commemorative plaque erase trans people's role in riots?

||| New York City to replace all of its streelights with LEDs.

THE BIG PICTURE: Sandy Hook Elementary school demolition begins, 25th October 2013.

> CANADA: Priape - the country's biggest gay retailer - has closed all of its stores and filed for bankruptcy protection, blaming the on ban on popper sales.

 U.K. NEWS 

< This is Gavin Brewer, and his boyfriend Stuart Meads. They were found dead last weekend on a London building site after a freak accident.

||| One in ten men who call suicide helplines are gay, The Samaritans reveal.

How London life dazzles your eyes. "The thriving capital can make you giddy and a little bit smug. Meanwhile just round the corner there are Londoners struggling to survive."

||| London's only lesbian bar closing down after its rent doubles.

||| SCOTLAND: Why Edinburgh police want bareback sex in saunas...


 EUROPE NEWS 

< IRELAND: Cradle snatcher! 93-year-old Patrick Scott marries his companion of 37 years, 57-year-old Eric Pearce.

||| FRANCE: French-Moroccan gay couple win right to marry, overturns a decade old agreement between France and Morocco.

||| RUSSIA: Police who filmed an attempted rape between a man held for being drunk and another detainee escape prison sentence.

 LATIN AMERICA NEWS 

||| TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: UN criticised for launching human rights book where gays are a "prohibited class".

> CHILE: This is Juán Fernando Vera Mejias, a 51-year-old gay man found naked, stabbed and choked in his own home. Video.

 AFRICA NEWS 

||| SOUTH AFRICA: Afrikaner group claims white people are victims of discrimination - in the land of white privilege.

||| SOUTH AFRICA: Anglican archbishop Thabo Makgoba calls for end to violence against gay people.

< ZIMBABWE: Annual ZimPride week ends with drag queen contest.

||| UGANDA: Police arrest abusive "sodomy video" gays, Sunday Pepper tabloid claims in typically salacious report.

 ASIA NEWS 

||| CHINA: The devastating impact of gay husbands on the women they're married to.

||| JAPAN: What happens to a country when its young people stop having sex? Japan is finding out.

> TAIWAN: Thousands march in Taipei for marriage equality. 


||| AUSTRALIA: The Australian Capital Territory has become the country's first jurisdiction to allow same-sex couples to marry.

||| AUSTRALIA: The Progressive Atheists group campaigns to stop Nigerian gay hate preacher Enoch Adeboye entering Australia.

 PLANET EARTH 

||| Boffins claim bugs are having gay sex by mistake.

||| Moose face extinction in northern US forests.

 BODY, MIND & SOUL 

||| Could a cure for HIV become a reality?

< Maybe not - US scientists have discovered it's going to be much harder than previously thought, because dormant HIV strains capable of spreading the virus hide in immune system cells like this one.

||| Why are Latinos at higher risk of HIV?

||| Making peace with HIV.

||| Australia sees 10% increase in new HIV diagnoses.


||| A brief history of painkillers (and how they work).

||| Baldness treatment a step closer.

||| A good many more people are same-sex attracted than willing to admit - if their answers can't be traced back to them.

||| Butter is bad – a myth we've been fed by the "healthy eating" industry. "Medics are saying saturated fat may not be the devil incarnate. Just don't expect an apology from low-fat food purveyors."

||| The slow metabolism obesity "excuse" is true.

< Boffins look inside chicken nuggets, are astounded. You'll be sick.

||| Coffee v smoothies: which is better for you?

When we deny our own vulnerability, we cope by being cruel to others. "If sadism is rooted in the fear of being human, what does it say about these cruel, unempathic times we live in?"

||| The open spaces where we played are cruelly lost to today's children. "Rickets is on the rise, but let's not consider it a Victorian throwback, more of a symptom of our airless lifestyle."

||| The worship of children brings only misery. "We revere our children as infants but neglect them as soon as they approach adulthood. No wonder they're miserable."

||| 47 percent of twenty-somethings check up on exes online.



 INSIDE THE  SPACESHIP 

< Google's autocomplete spells out our darkest thoughts...

...as a new campaign by the United Nations for gay equality reveals what happens when you type the word "gays" into Google.

||| Who's more evil – Facebook or Google?

||| The phone you can build like Lego.

 ART & DESIGN 

> This is Clayton Pettet, a 19-year-old student at London's Central Saint Martins art school, who plans to lose his virginity as part of a live gay sex show - all in the name of art.

Check out the work of Shungaboy this month and next at Washington D.C.'s Vitruvian Gallery.

> Capolavoro Publishing's new book Capolavoro di Uomo: Masterpiece of Man - Showcasing The Best Of The Diversity In Gay Erotic Art highlights why we need gay art.

||| Gerard H. Gaskin's new book Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene.


 WORD! 

||| John Rechy's City of Night turns 50. More on that at Lambda Literary.

< Colour Scheme author John R. Gordon's writer's diary: the characters tell you.

||| The joy of slang.

 PERFORMANCE 

||| Universal Studios claims its anti-gay Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure show is "satirical". Faced with mounting criticism, it axes the show.

> Gay Catholic schoolboys musical Bare returns to London for a limited run.

||| Gay theatre: coming out or going back? "Gay writing is at a crossroads – we've yet to produce a voice to match those who came before."

 AT THE MOVIES 

||| How gay cinema wooed straight audiences.

< The danger of idealising 12 Years a Slave.

||| Netflix streaming is killing off physical media — and film fans should be worried.

> Chase Simmons new documentary Dear Dad: Letters From Same-Gender-Loving Sons explores relationships between black gay men and their fathers.

||| Another new documentary, God Loves Uganda, explores the American connection to the virulently homophobic climate in Uganda.

||| Does size matter? That's the question posed by Unhung Hero, "the world's first cockumentary".

||| Talking to director Ferzan Özpetek about his new film Halloween.

||| Cinema review: A Magnificent Haunting. "A rich and involving piece of work."

||| Watch Silver Creek, a beautiful short film by Salazar that benefits gay youth charities.

 T.V. 

||| Russell Brand reveals he once had gay sex on heroin for TV.

< Is Law & Order: SVU on its last legs?

||| No. Please God, no... CBS plans to reboot Charmed.

||| Sean Hayes blames NBC for his sitcom's low ratings.

||| Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was a better show than you remember.

Gays of our lives: All the latest gay soap developments from around the world, with Anthony D. Langford. Right, German soap Among Us.


Twenty amazing British TV shows that Doctor Who fans should watch.

More new shots from the BBC's forthcoming drama An Adventure in Space and Time, which dramatises Doctor Who's earliest days.

 MUSIC 

> LastO returns to the rap game after a four-year hiatus, joining a growing raft of gay hip-hop artists.

||| Union J member Jaymi Hensley to marry his boyfriend Olly Marmon.

||| Kurt Cobain thought he was gay.

> Blue singer Simon Webbe declares himself bankrupt. If he needs a place to sleep for a few nights...

||| Tom Hardy to play Elton John in new film Rocketman.

||| Kanye West and the Confederate flag: why it's really hard to be a Kanye West fan at times.

||| Video: Night Cadet - Seaside.


 EROTICA 


< Former CocoDorm model Pimp suffers heart attack, survives.

||| Vito Gallo arrested for allegedly attacking producer Michael Lucas.

||| Diesel Washington announces his retirement.

> Don't miss Candis Cayne's hilarious cameo in Lucas Entertainment's new Kings of New York episode starring Sean Xavier and Duncan Black.

||| Talking to sizzling Randy Blue model Sean Zevran.

< Here's one last look at the 15th Annual Hustlaball New York.

> New kaos krush Marco Rubi has been hard at it, this time with Rogan Richards for Men at Play...

...And the delicious Tyson Tyler's also been busy, making Cheaters for Naked Sword, left.

||| But Bel Ami's plans for the biggest and most expensive bareback orgy scene ever produced surely top all that. Due for release next month, it will star Kevin Warhol and Jack Harrer, amongst others.

||| Meanwhile, we can enjoy Lukas Ridgeston, Kris Evans and Jack Harrer in Forever Lukas.

>  Chase Carter is back in the CocoDorm, looking hotter than ever without the 'tach.

||| Take a trip to Fire Island with Nasty Pig; and what Patrick Cowley's electronic music gives us a taste of what a bathhouse would have sounded like in San Francisco in 1979. 


 IN THE ARENA 

> Gay sports leagues are replacing bars as the main meeting place for those seeking same-sex friendships.

Meet Los Lobos ("The Wolves"), Mexico City's gay football team.

> The Warwick Rowers get naked to beat homophobia.

< Olympic gymnast Louis Smith is packing.

||| New Olympics chief Jean-Claude Killy claims Vladimir Putin "can't be evil as he wishes me happy birthday".

||| Johnny Weir to bend over and take Russia's anti-gay shafting while he's raking in the loot doing TV at Olympics.


 AND WHILST YOU'RE 
 THINKING ABOUT 
 THAT, THINK 
 ABOUT THIS 

||| Could Concorde ever fly again? No, says British Airways.

< America's creepiest abandoned amusement park to open for one week only.


||| Are people snobbish about frozen food?

||| Six tricks to revive old food.

||| And finally, Walter discusses those Barney store arrests in the way only Walter can; video stores explained to modern kids; dumb white girl Instagram tips; and an epic Halloween prank.

I don't care what you think unless it is about me

 R E A L 
 B O Y S 
narcissists & camera whores

When anger rises, think of the consequences

 M A N N E Q U I N 
 M A N I A 
men, in pictures

Issue 161: South Africa's gay sex orgy murder, Daniel Zamudio, David Haye, Detroit, Bill and Ted, Julian Clary, Cazwell, Idris Elba, Hustlaball, and more...

the destination for the
week's essential news
and pop culture stories,
with a gay bias.

 PONDER THIS 



||| The decline and fall of the ex-gay movement.


||| There's just over one million gay African-Americans - and other facts with which to impress your friends.

||| Gay youth share their stories.

 U.S. & CANADA NEWS 

< Activist and writer Wayne Besen reports from the ultraconservative Values Voter Summit, where the vile pretend to be virtuous.

||| Why California Governor Jerry Brown advocates bareback sex in his prisons.

> Michael Ighodaro, a gay Nigerian activist outed in an article by The Washington Post, has been in the U.S. for a year now and is settling in to a better life. He was forced to flee to New York after he was attacked in his homeland.

||| Matthew Shepard's murder: 'What it came down to is drugs and money'. "In 1998, Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered in Wyoming, the apparent victim of gay-hate. But a new book suggests fresh answers may lie in the crystal meth subculture of his home town."

||| However, Paul Tough, a former New York Times Magazine editor, says he spiked Stephen Jimenez's version of the Matthew Shepard's murder because it wasn't quite good enough, not because it was "politically sensitive."

||| Tim Newcomb, meanwhile, an attorney involved in Matthew Shepard's murder trial, has debunked conclusions in Jimenez's book.


< Meet Lewis Duckett and Billy Jones, who have been together for forty-six years, and have now married.

||| Watch Any Given Tuesday, a new short film from the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center that paints a stark picture of what an LGBT youth might go through during the first week he or she is rejected from their home. Jamie Foxx and Elton John appear in the film.


< The failure of downtown Vegas gay clubs will have big ramifications.

||| The - gradually - disappearing ruins of Detroit.

 U.K. NEWS 

||| Three in four gay Brits still don't report hate crime to police.

||| Abdul Qadeer Baksh, the chairman of the Luton Islamic Centre, tells BBC Radio an "ideal world" would see homosexuality punished with death.

< 26-year-old Shane Peake faked being a gay teen to rob foster parents and cry rape.

> This is Anthony Marsh and Lee Davis, who have admitted to meeting several gay teens - some as young as 13 - on Grindr and other social media for unsafe sex. Marsh is HIV-positive.

||| Vauxhall drugs crackdown "may kill gay scene".

> Core Issues Trust - the "gay cure group" - are suing Transport for London over the "Some People Are Gay, Get Over It!" ads running on its London bus fleet.

< Who killed Teon Palmer? Police offer a reward.

||| 17-year-old planned "Columbine" style massacre when he was teased about being gay.

> London school bans pupils from using slang...


||| London will soon become home to only the very rich and the poor. "The capital threatens to become the world HQ of speculative house-buying – the social damage may be immense..."

...But London can't become home only to the rich. "Unless property prices are made affordable, London will lose the people who give it its soul."

 EUROPE NEWS 

||| RUSSIA: Dutch diplomat Onno Elderenbosch tied up, beaten up, and has "LGBT" scrawled on his mirror. Russian foreign ministry expresses "regret".

||| RUSSIA: Lawmaker drops anti-gay parenting bill, citing lack of support from politicians.

||| RUSSIA: About that other new oppressive law... In Russia, it's essentially against the law to hurt religious people's feelings.

< MONTENEGRO: Police clash with extremists at gay pride march.

||| ITALY: Gay kiss exhibition in Rome destroyed by vandals.

||| SERBIA: One in ten gay boys think about suicide.

 LATIN AMERICA NEWS 

> CHILE: Four men accused of the murder of Daniel Zamudio have been found guilty. Patricio Ahumada, Alejandro Angula, Raúl López and Fabián Mora - who beat Zamudio unconscious and carved swastikas in his skin - will be sentenced on 28th October.

||| JAMAICA: Police raid, burn gully where homeless gay men slept. The men later tried to complain at New Kingston police station, but were turned away. In pictures.

||| BRAZIL: Rio de Janeiro's 18th Gay Pride Parade, in pictures:


 AFRICA NEWS 

< ZAMBIA: No bail, no trial. Nearly six months on, Philip Mubiyana and James Mwape are still in prison on gay charges.

||| UGANDA: Anglican bishop Christopher Senyonjo takes a stand against anti-gay hate; is excommunicated for his trouble.

||| UGANDA: Ethics minister Simon Lokodo threatens to ban charities supporting gay equality, saying homosexuality is "bestiality" in African culture.

> UGANDA: Police arrest activist Mleuben Maccarthy as he grieves for his gay hero mom. "Mama Naomi" - who openly supported her gay son - was a popular figure amongst gay Ugandans.

||| NIGERIA: Anglican Bishop of Asaba, Justus Mogekwu urges President Goodluck Jonathan to sign the "Jail all the Gays Bill" before the world ends.

||| KENYA: Fresh CCTV footage emerges showing the brutality of the Westgate mall attackers.

< SOUTH AFRICA: Mthokozisi Ndlovu and Themba Maseko found guilty of murdering Barney Van Heerden during a gay sex orgy in Johannesburg. A third man, Maxwell Nyathi, had already confessed to his part in the murder.

 ASIA NEWS 

||| AUSTRALIA: On marriage equality, the coalition is showing its true colours – and it's not pretty.

||| AUSTRALIA: Heterosexual father finds greater empathy for gay people after anti-gay baggage prank.

||| HONG KONG: 35-year-old Michael Morrill is Mr Gay Hong Kong 2013. In pictures.

THE BIG PICTURE: Beijing's "zombie car", shortly before being towed away, 18th October 2013.
THE BIG PICTURE: A statue in ruins, 17th October 2013, after a powerful earthquake struck the Philippines.

 MIDDLE EAST NEWS 

||| EGYPT: Locals "destroy" Cairo sauna; fourteen men face gay anal probe torture after being taken naked to a police station.

||| IRAN: Gay men arrested at a private birthday last week bailed.

 PLANET EARTH 


< Wildlife photographer of the year 2013, in pictures. Left, Mother's Little Headful, by India's Udayan Rao Pawar.

||| Does the global warming "pause" mean what you think it means?

 BODY, MIND & SOUL 

||| Virulent new strain of HIV discovered in Russia.

||| Air pollution "definitively" linked to cancer.


> The problem with taking too many vitamins.

||| How much better is standing up than sitting?

Would you date Todd, the average American man?

||| Use the triangle of happiness to calculate how happy you are with your job.

||| Rumination: The danger of dwelling.

 INSIDE THE SPACESHIP 

||| What to do when your cloud service fades away. "Nirvanix customers learned first hand what happens when cloud services go out of business. Here's how you can be prepared."

||| Facebook to host Europe's first gay hackathon.

||| Has Big Tech got too big for its boots? "Silicon Valley is an economic powerhouse – we all benefit from its innovation. But its dark side is an ugly hubris it may regret."


 ART & DESIGN 

> A historic look at images of masculinity.

||| Beauty in the Bronx: to create is human, but art is too often a privilege. "Girls is great, but I also think of Lena Dunham's education and connections. Across town, aspiration is thwarted by deprivation."


> Skinny skyscraper one step closer to reality after the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the proposed 60-foot-wide design.

||| Real abandoned castles ravaged by time, in pictures...


||| Fake abandoned castles: the remains of Virginia's Renaissance Faire...


 IN PRINT 

< New book George Hurrell's Hollywood "reveals lavish details about the lesbian, gay, and bisexual stars and artists of the golden age of Hollywood". Left, Grace Jones and Dolph Lundgren (1984).

> Attitude magazine takes a break from straight celebrities and puts a gay man on its cover.


 PERFORMANCE 

||| Former principal dancer with the Kirov Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov, has blasted his former homeland Russia over its persecution of gay people.

< Bill and Ted play slammed as "super homophobic".

 AT THE MOVIES 

||| Gorillas are more evolved than anti-gay humans, says Sigourney Weaver. Her 2009 film Prayers For Bobby is being re-released.

||| Daniel Radciffe talks about first time gay sex being painful.


||| WikiLeaks feature film The Fifth Estate has the worst opening weekend of the year. They got Julian Assange right, but didn't convey why WikiLeaks matters.

||| Madonna "banned" from cinema chain after 12 Years a Slave screening row.

||| Mary Poppins: Brian Sibley's sequel that never was.

Talking to the cast of cult 1979 picture The Warriors.

||| Cinema review: Floating Skyscrapers. "Beautifully made, crisply affecting and undeniably brave."

> Cinema review: Tom at the Farm. "An engaging, intriguing work from a filmmaker still working beyond his years."

< Cinema review: Eastern Boys. "An ambitious experiment with storytelling, mixing and matching different styles and genres."

||| DVD review: Out In The Dark. "A moving gay romance, successful thriller and an effective exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, particularly how difficult it can be for gay Arabs."

||| DVD review: Behind The Candelabra. "A funny, sometimes moving and extremely entertaining movie."


 T.V. 

Dying on T.V. Which screen death broke your heart?

||| Why the proposed cable/Netflix alliance will be a miserable failure.

||| "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve #gaymarriagef*ckoff," Tweets new Made In Chelsea "star" David 'Miffy' Mifsud.

> Comedian Julian Clary talks about his 1993 suicide attempt.


> HBO's new gay drama Looking to debut in January.

||| 24 things you missed from Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary trailer.

||| First Doctor Who director Warris Hussien on the sci-fi series the BBC "didn't want to make".

< And here's some pictures from the forthcoming BBC Two drama An Adventure In Space And Time, which recreates Doctor Who's first days, fifty years ago. There's a few more shots here.

< Looking back at Doctor Who – Remembrance of the Daleks. "Ben Aaronovitch's script uses the Dalek forces to explore some other pretty major themes. Chief among these is the Dalek's xenophobia and obsession with racial purity; the episode draws parallels with 1960s London through Ace's discovery of a 'No Coloureds' sign in the guest house where she is staying."

Looking back at Doctor Who's "pink noir", The Happiness Patrol.


||| Gays of our lives: All the latest gay soap developments from around the world, with Anthony D. Langford.

THE BIG PICTURE: Liz McDonald (Beverley Callard) returns to Coronation Street after an absense of two years.
> Idris Elba admits he hasn't watched The Wire.

||| Rape, women and Law & Order: SVU's not-so subtle misogyny.

||| Paterson Joseph, Daniel Kaluuya to co-star in Channel 4 police comedy series Babylon.

< Felix Dexter, the comedian and actor, is dead. He was 52. Dexter is best remembered for his roles in The Real McCoy, and in later years, Absolutely Fabulous.

 BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE 

||| The problem with making Miley Cyrus the lightning rod for all our angst about female sexuality.

||| Why is no one talking about Eminem's incredibly homophobic Rap God...


||| Britney Spears claims her new single Work Bitch is about respect for gay people.


||| No new Frank Ocean music until summer 2014.

||| Videos: Dizzee Rascal is back with Love This Town; Houston based artist Cory Jreamz delivers Alive; Naked Highway - Friends With Benefits; and Cazwell has No Selfie Control.


 EROTICA 


||| New HIV awareness campaign features bareback porn producer Michael Lucas, "because who better to get the word out about HIV than a man who makes his living off people having sex without condoms".

> For those of us who couldn't be there, pictures from HustlaBall New York 2013, hereherehere, and here.

||| Next Door Studios goes bareback.

< Dean Monroe's ones that got away (plus Matthew Rush, who Dean just couldn't get enough of - and who can blame him?)

||| Talking to Randy Blue model Nicco Sky.

||| Pictures of kaos crush Marco Rubi.

||| Tumblr proves gay porn GIFs are applicable for every situation.

 IN THE ARENA 

> David Haye says boxer Tyson Fury went "too far" with his anti-gay tweets.

||| Coca Cola bosses "to decide" ahead of the Winter Olympics whether to speak out over Russia's anti-gay stance.

||| Major League Baseball teams under fire from anti-gay fans for taking a stand on anti-gay bullying.

< Nike donates $US200k to LGBT Sports Coalition.

||| Finnish hockey player Harri Tikkanen puts rainbow decal on stick to support gay players.

 AND WHILST YOU'RE 
 THINKING ABOUT 
 THAT, THINK 
 ABOUT THIS 



< Gay fans geek out at New York Comic Con.

> Wonder at Michael Paul Smith's amazing miniatures.

||| And finally, Rogue "Marbie" Scott ponders on Disney's mixed message; Andrew talks about stereotypes; Justin opens up; and Walter picks himself up.

 
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