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A F I L M I S A P E T R I F I E D F O U N T A I N O F T H O U G H T

A reporter (John Aprea, The Godfather Part II) doing a story on life on the streets pays a young hustler (newcomer Jonathan Kos-Read) to tell him how he wound up where he is.

Filmed entirely in New York City, Confessions of a Male Prostitute (1992) was written, produced, and directed by Brian Scott Mednick when he was only nineteen and a freshman at NYU film school. He has since went on to write the acclaimed biography Gene Wilder: Funny and Sad (2010), as well as the short story collection Drinking Games…and Other Stories (2011) and the novel Unnecessary Headaches.

Rex Reed said of the film: "I am a bit speechless. This is exemplary work...revealing much sensitivity and intelligence. The actors were absolutely first-rate and directed with skill, precision and naturalism… I actually could have hung in there with [these] characters for another hour or so. I am really most impressed with by the writing more than anything else – an economy of words, a wealth of style, an almost minimal thrust in dialogue but with maximum believability. [Brian Scott Mednick] has obvious talent... This short film is so good I would be very keen to see what [Mednick comes] up with in the next few years."

Confessions of a Male Prostitute, a film by Brian Scott Mednick.

Left &
Found

Half of the world's countries are stopping the LGBT fight for equality.

Is it possible to escape the commercialization of Pride?

Why you need to stop telling me: "You don't seem gay".

Do gay men have a particular problem with getting older?

Don't let history forget about Compton's Cafeteria Riot. "Three years before Stonewall, drag queens and transgender women stood up to police violence during a tense August night."

Why some guys love taking their shirts off in public.

Why it might be time to retire the buzzword "toxic masculinity".

Transgender men can help the #MeToo movement. Don’t exclude us. "After 36 years I now have male privilege - like a secret agent pushing feminism and undermining the patriarchy from the inside."

What does it mean to be agender?

We live in an age of anxiety – and we can’t blame it all on Trump. "Precarious jobs, inequality and unaffordable housing: no wonder we are all so worried. But what if the answer is to drop out a little?"

Long read

Denialism: what drives people to reject the truth. "From vaccines to climate change to genocide, a new age of denialism is upon us. Why have we failed to understand it?"

Are we losing the art of telephone conversation? "Phones are increasingly being used for anything but their original purpose – having a chat with a friend."

All about my mother: Brandon Taylor on love, rage, and family. "My family was a series of hushed rages behind shut doors."

News
America

Gay men over forty-five more likely to be single and live alone.

Murder of gay teen Blaze Bernstein is recognised as hate crime.

NYPD seeks man who punched bus rider, called him a "white bitch homo".

Houston man bludgeoned with rock, belt buckle while walking home from gay bar.

Police lured a gay man into sexual activity — then they arrested and outed him.

Trolls use rainbow flag on "pedophile pride" flyer.

Gay man arrested and outed in US police cruising sting.

Gay couple in New York denied a marriage license.

A Trader Joe's shootout, an innocent death, and soul searching for LAPD.

Police violence, cliques, and secret tattoos: fears rise over LA sheriff "gangs".

How plastic straws became the latest battleground in the US culture wars. "Conservatives are posting to social media photos of themselves drinking out of plastic straws in the latest attempt to spite the liberals – or ‘own the libs’ – and to protest the straw ban."

InfoWars host Alex Jones: Obama is having gay sex with ten dudes a day.

Somehow, Trump keeps finding groups of thirsty, shameless and silly church negroes to meet with him.

The hate group successfully rolling back LGBT equality.

What is QAnon and how does it affect LGBT people?

Missouri Republican candidate: being gay more dangerous than smoking.

Rudy Giuliani has turned out to be a dangerous liability for Trump.

Democrat accuses Republican opponent of liking Bigfoot erotica.

How Trump radicalised ICE. "A long-running inferiority complex, vast statutory power, a chilling new directive from the top—inside America’s unfolding immigration tragedy."

Justice for gay friends ejected from Philadelphia taxi.

18-year-old Seth Owens' parents sent him to conversion "therapy" when they found out he was gay - then they abandoned him. Now, strangers have raised $80,000 for his college career.

Provincetown Carnival, in pictures.

From party boy and jail to family man - one gay dad’s story. "Erik Alexander threw himself on to the gay scene when younger but cleaned up his act when he met his partner and pursued his dream of parenthood."

Kim Kardashian gay-shames Tyson Beckford.

Long read

Schlitterbahn’s tragic slide. "Jeff Henry often said that his goal in life was to make customers of his family’s legendary water parks happy — 'to put a smile on their faces, to give them a thrill or two.' It was a beautiful vision. Until it went horribly wrong."

Canada

A swastika was painted on a rainbow crosswalk in Toronto.

News
UK

Ten years after UK gay teen Michael Causer's murder, where's the justice? "Ten years ago, teenager Michael Causer was murdered. Today, activists look back at the killing that shocked the UK."

Gay teachers came out to pupils during school assembly.

Education campaigner says LGBT teachers should stay in the closet, gets called a dinosaur.

How two British boys planned to shoot up their school.

UK Government admits it's failing LGBT people on healthcare.

Former Victorian chapel converted into temple to Oscar Wilde.

Revellers "crushed and trampled on" while trying to leave a "truly awful" Brighton Pride.

Brighton Pride, in pictures (more pictures here). "Despite the controversies and the scorching temperatures, 300,000 showed up to march for LGBTI equality."

Brighton Pride: empty bus at festival marks absence of gay footballers in Premier League.

Leeds Pride, in pictures.

Forget angry, Brexity stereotypes – the "white working class" does not exist. "The standard complaint is that people bang on about the white working class to invoke nationalism or bash people on benefits. But there’s a deeper fallacy here."

Far-right protesters ransack socialist bookshop in London.

The far right is at its strongest since the 1930s, and the media is helping. "Prominent far-right figures being given airtime on the BBC, LBC and ITV are not being properly challenged on their views."

When the far right targets books, it should ring alarm bells for us all. "The violent attack on my bookshop Bookmarks at the weekend could never have happened without Trump, and Britain’s ‘hostile environment’."

"Slugs came through the floorboards": what it's like to be a millennial renting in Britain.

Government says it will take control of Grenfell Tower site.

Grenfell was a foreseeable, entirely preventable, tragedy. Here’s the proof.

Video shows aftermath of triple knife attack.

London drill rapper killed in knife attack admitted music's effect on crime. "Incognito, who was stabbed to death in Camberwell, was apparently victim of attack by so-called postcode rivals."

"They wanted to jail us all" – Black Panthers photographer Neil Kenlock looks back.

North Yorkshire shop sells golliwogs, owners think calling them "jolly gollies" makes it okay.

Northern Ireland

Belfast Pride Parade 2018: thousands take to streets to celebrate LGBT community, in pictures.

News
World

Armenia

Villagers tried to lynch nine LGBT people.

Australia

Half of LGBT millennial adults haven’t come out.

Brazil

A photo of a gay couple kissing at a Brazilian tourist spot sparks outrage.

São Paulo: taggers killed for their art show dangers of city's graffiti culture.

Denmark

EuroPride Stockholm, in pictures.

Israel

Jerusalem Pride, in pictures.

Japan

The ruling LDP party rejects controversial MP Mio Sugita's homophobic LGBT comments.

Netherlands

Amsterdam Pride's Canal Parade, in pictures.

Nicaragua

Ghost resorts: Nicaragua crisis ravages nascent tourism industry. "Crisis stemming from crackdown on anti-Ortega protesters has left resorts on the stunning western coast empty and businesses on edge."

Russia

Police detain twenty-five LGBT activists in St. Petersburg.

Senegal

How Dakar's beaches exact a deadly toll. "Forty people have drowned in the first three weeks of the summer holidays as residents seek respite from a cramped city."

Zambia

Court convicts two men for gay sex.

Zimbabwe

Hopes for new start after Mugabe dashed.

Art
Skool

"Zombie Boy" Rick Genest, the tattooed muse to Lady Gaga, is dead. He was 32.

How one artist forever changed the AIDS crisis. "A new exhibit at the Whitney Museum remembers David Wojnarowicz, whose work forever changed what it means to be queer in America."

This queer artist's latest work shows public art's complicated link to gentrification.

How the white art world misuses Basquiat’s work to define what’s expected of black painters.

Peek into Marqius de Sade’s very NSFW mind with Marquis de Sade – 100 Erotic Illustrations. "The namesake of 'sadism' wrote and commissioned prolific amounts of erotica that still pushes the boundaries of taste over 200 years later."

The big picture: going nowhere in New York’s outer boroughs. "The glamour of Manhattan is a distant dream in Evelyn Hofer’s evocative shot of 1960s Queens."

Pornhub Nation, an interactive art installation.

Word!

Boiling point: why literature loves a long, hot summer. "From The Go-Between to Atonement, The Great Gatsby to Call Me by Your Name, novelists have used heatwaves to create tension, erotic charge and moments of possibility – it is a time when ‘all the rules change’."

The conservative movement to get a New York Times reporter fired.

Dictionary faces backlash for defining "homosexual" as "freak".

Eighteen dead LGBT magazines worth remembering.

On The Rag, your guide to the gay weeklies.

How we made Smash Hits magazine. "We asked Jason Donovan questions in German. We called the singer of A-ha Morten Snorten Forten Horten. And when Chris de Burgh got dreary, we reduced the typeface."

Shouting
At Night

Who's going to see The Boys in the Band? “Based on a random sampling of recent theatergoers, the revival seems to be attracting a predominantly male audience, some of whom look like they could vividly remember that original production or the film that followed it. But there are also pockets of younger audience members, ones who are decades removed from the closeted, tortured era portrayed on stage.”

Interview

Talking to Aaron Pierre.

Film
Skool

Chloë Grace Moretz slams Boy, Erased: "Queer films should be made by queer people".

How The Miseducation of Cameron Post is subverting Hollywood’s standards for queer films.

Long forgotten, a landmark film in AIDS history is rescued. "Buddies, the first feature film about AIDS. An intimate two-hander from 1985, it was a snapshot of a terrible time for gay men in New York, made during some of the worst hours of the epidemic."

A sequel to the much-loved '90s film Trick is in the works.

Why are there so few queer female coming-of-age movies? "Sundance hit The Miseducation of Cameron Post is the first of two films about gay conversion this year and with its unusual female perspective, it might end up as the most important."

Sorry To Bother You rejected by international distributors as "just" a "black movie".

Hollywood's secret history: Scotty Bowers on sex and stars in the Golden Era. "A new documentary reworks the memoir of Bowers, who boasts he paired Cary Grant with Rock Hudson and Katharine Hepburn with 150 brunettes – and slept with so many actors he didn’t have time to see their films."

Watch

Orson Welles: actor, director… painter? "The great film-maker was also a fine artist. His rarely seen images feature in a film by lifelong fan Mark Cousins, who tells here of finding treasures that reveal a whole new Citizen Welles."

Watch

Techmoan looks at HMV's new retro Blu-ray packaging.

Watch

Mexico’s overlooked black communities are given a voice in social realist drama La Negrada.

Watch

Henry Cavill reads thirst tweets.

The
Box

The queer art of failing better. "Queer Eye for the capitalism-damaged and toxically masculine."

TV's boom-and-bust cycle: why shows are hot … and then suddenly not. "With on-demand services and competing streaming sites viewers are at liberty to twist rather than stick with TV shows. But are they missing out and what does it do to television?"

Why the era of Peak TV is the era of the disappointing second season. "It’s become incredibly hard to follow up a great first season with a great second season."

Pose's Angelica Ross was kicked out of the Navy.

How this nonbinary woman created Steven Universe the queerest cartoon on television.

Better Call Saul: the audacious prequel series keeps getting better. "In the new season of the Breaking Bad prequel, creator Vince Gilligan once again showcases his ability to rewrite the rules with flair."

Better Call Saul is still the best at making little details devastating. "In its fourth season, Better Call Saul raises the stakes through attention to the everyday."

The Handmaid's Tale recap: season 2, episode 12 – has the regime gone too far? "Offred could be making a return to the commander’s house as Serena struggles with motherhood, while a public execution shows Gilead’s dark underbelly."

Home sweet Homer: the strange saga of the real-life Simpsons house in Nevada.

Watch

Your Time With Thomas, gay Filipino-American Thomas Orlina's love letter to L.A.

Watch

Here are the trailers for Netflix's Maniac, staring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill; and the seventh and last season of Where The Bears Are.

Bye, Lawrence: why Insecure just doesn't need him anymore.

Beats, Rhymes
& Life

Watch

MNEK on Grindr racism: "Change starts in the people".

Amanda Lepore removed from Travis Scott's album cover.

How Nissan, Kia and Mount Gay Rum got caught up promoting a trans hate song.

Interview

Talking to Felix and the Future - a singer drawn to superstition, drag queens, and what lurks in the dark.

Is grime dead? Or has it "just gone back underground"?

Arena

There's a downside to the NFL's first male cheerleaders. "This fall, two teams will debut male dancers for the first time. They'll face tough working conditions and a history of exploitation in the league."

10,000 athletes head to Paris for the Gay Games – and here is why. "Over 800 participants make up Team Great Britain; other participants represent countries where it's illegal to be gay."

Seven historical facts about the Gay Games.

Gay Games, in pictures.

LGBT athletes waved Taiwan's flag at the Gay Games opening ceremony in Paris. "China doesn't recognize the country and tried to prevent the Taiwanese team from waving their own flag."

Playing squash was a refuge as Mexican athlete struggled with being gay. "Growing up in a macho culture where bullying was prevalent was very hard for Luis Hernández."

People mock hugging baseball players because we can't have nice things.

Ranking the apologies of Major League Baseball players for their anti-gay tweets.

Cricketer Ben Stokes allegedly flicked cigarettes at gay men after pub brawl. "The two gay men said last year that Stokes had defended them from the homophobic attack."

Black man wears "Caucasians" t-shirt to call out racist logos, white tears ensue.

Meat
Market

Gay porn star Bryce Evans takes nineteenth mug shot after being arrested for felony drug possession in Florida.

Up Your Alley San Francisco, in pictures.

Thirst traps, in pictures.

20th annual Pines Party on Fire Island, in pictures.

Interview

Talking to Angel Rivera.

Behind the scenes with Ricky Verez, Devin Franco and Hans Berlin.

BelAmi introduces new models Jens Christensen, James Walsh, Robin Rieff and Steve Harrelson.

BelAmi's Hoyt Kogan, Nils Tatum, Kevin Warhol, Raoul Vargas, Joaquin Arrenas, Kirk Gauguin, Mario Borges do it.

Aiden Garcia and Gabriel Martin do it.

Helmut Huxley and Raphael Nyon do it.

Andrei Karenin and Jens Christensen do it.

Nils Tatum and Hoyt Kogan do it.

Kirk Gauguin and Mario Borges do it.

Diego Grant and Trevor Laster do it.

Dakota Payne, Manuel Skye and Blaze Austin do it.

D.O. and Pietro Duarte do it.

Luke Wilder and Marcell Tykes do it.

Josh Brady and Logan Cross do it.

Forest and Greyson Lane do it.

Mateo Fernandez and Sean Harding do it.

President Ballard & Elder Edwards do it.

Cedric and Evan do it.

Five things you don’t know Jack Mackenroth.

Ghetto
Romance

Am I wrong to be annoyed with the term "partner"?

Why it took me seven years to realise I was sexually manipulated.

I masturbate a dozen times a day. Am I addicted?

Medicine
Ball

Analingus is causing outbreak of rare STD among gay men.

What is shigella? An explainer of the STI exploding among gay men.

Everything you ever wanted to know about sweat.

How ablation destroys cancer to prolong lives. "Ablation, a minimally invasive tumour-destroying technique using focused radiation, is proving effective. So why is it not more widely known?"

Want the truth about alcohol? You won’t hear it from the government. "Official guidelines are based on morality, not evidence, so will never admit that there may be benefits to drug or alcohol use."

Middle-aged non-drinkers may have "higher risk" of dementia.

How to know if you need therapy.

Planet
Earth

The disturbing reason heat waves can kill people in cooler climates. "It’s not a record-high temperature that necessarily makes a heat wave dangerous. It’s whether you can cool off."

Long read

In this rapaciously dry year, a quiet question grows louder: What are we doing here? "Drought, dread and family in the American Southwest."

Australia's drought seen from the air, in pictures.

Losing Earth: the decade we almost stopped climate change. "We knew everything we needed to know, and nothing stood in our way. Nothing, that is, except ourselves."

Zoo

Straight guy freaks out over his dog being called gay.

Snake eats pigeon on London street.

The week in wildlife, in pictures.

The White
Heat of This Revolution

This black queer furry is one of the world’s greatest gamers — and just won his fifth title.

A social media expert explains why you should just delete your old tweets. "Not everything needs to be broadcast to the world, especially when people can’t hear your tone, where you’re coming from."

YouTube star Alfie Deyes apologises for selfie sitting on AIDS memorial.

YouTube suspends gay fetish app Recon's account, prompting censorship questions.

Facebook, Apple, and more ban vile conspiracy theorist and homophobe Alex Jones.

Grindr users using "secret codes, symbols and emojis" to sell illegal drugs on app.

Grindr's "Kindr", a "first step" in fighting sexual racism.

Why Snapchat is shrinking.

Uber and Lyft are fighting a critical battle against New York City — and this time, they might not win.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Will giant cruise ships destroy the wonders their passengers claim to love? "Guides who shot a polar bear have been denounced as murderers. But what does that make the tourists who are ruining its fragile habitat?"

The "subway hands" Instagram explores our strange fascination with people eating on the train.

Betta Work!

These nine laws are forcing employers to acknowledge chosen families.

Automation could destroy millions of jobs. We have to deal with it now.

I Own 51% Of This Company!

Amazon’s tax is not transparent – but politicians let them get away with it. "Multinationals like Amazon can hide a multitude of sins behind our 20th century accounting procedures. Three reforms could change all that."

Not so penny-wise: the last days of Poundworld. "The bargain chain is due to close the last of its 335 stores this week. What happened to the chain’s unstoppable rise?"

The world’s most peculiar company. "How does catalog-loving retailer Hammacher Schlemmer, famous for such eccentric and extravagant products as the Navigable Water Park, continue to survive in the age of Amazon?"

Hell's Kitchen

The new L.A. gay bar honouring LGBT history.

Long read

How an ex-cop rigged McDonald’s monopoly game and stole millions. "
and his network of mobsters, psychics, strip-club owners, and drug traffickers won almost every prize for 12 years, until the FBI launched Operation ‘Final Answer.’"

Long read

The gulp war. "In a state where too many towns don’t have clean tap water, the world’s largest water tasting is still going strong after nearly three decades."

Rag Trade

Stonewall and Primark blasted for printing Pride T-shirts in Turkey. "The charity and high-street retailer faced criticism for manufacturing Pride merchandise in a country with woeful LGBT rights."