KAOS: Issue 175: Michael Sam, Derrick Gordon, Taleon Goffney, Generatin X, Godzilla, Theo Huxtable, James Baldwin, Le1f, B-style, Diane Abbott, and more...

the week's

news

& pop

culture,

with a

gay

bias.

Ponder This

||| "In gay culture, there’s never been more of an almost hysterical centering of life around two things — drag queens and marriage — both of which are unfortunate misogynistic parodies of heterosexual life. Gay men have completely lost the sense of who they are because they’ve been immersed in terror, because they’ve been living under a viral load for two generations." Discuss.

> Who was your first gay crush? (Mine? Theo Huxtable.)

||| The 6 gay men who are changing the world.

||| Binge drinking among gay teens linked to chronic stress.

||| Guess what? Gay people are more likely than straight people to go to jail

||| Straights still think gay men are not masculine.

< Why the bro — and our obsession with him — is a symptom of masculinity in crisis.

||| Quantifying the effects of homophobia.

> How Generation X ruined the world.

||| How materialism makes us sad.

||| The viral "Princeton privileged kid" is idiotic, but not for being conservative. "Tal Fortgang's essay on white privilege made me grimace in recognition. His left-wing critics, though, made me shudder."

||| Straight women judge emotions and thoughts better than lesbian women, study reveals.

< Is misogyny worse now than before the internet?

||| The world has nothing to fear from the U.S. losing power.

||| Welcome to Britain, the new land of impunity. "No matter the criticisms made or damage done, fat cats and politicians seem able to cling on. Often their efforts are rewarded."

U.S. & Canada News

> Judge strikes down gay marriage ban in Arkansas, but a week later the State Supreme Court reinstates it while the State appeals the decision.

||| Judge strikes down gay marriage ban in Idaho.

||| America is being "re-engineered" by gay activists, claims the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP).

< Meanwhile: Purity balls, Plan B and bad sex policy: inside America's virginity obsession.

||| Another Westboro Baptist Church member abandons church.

||| Why would a gay teenager commit hate crimes against herself?

||| Musab Mohammed Masmari pleads guilty for New Year’s Eve arson at Seattle's Neighbours gay nightclub; hate-crime and terrorism charges possible.

> Gay Philapdelphia man Dino Dizdarević found dead after online hook-up.

||| South Carolina push to block gay books at university draws writers' fire.

||| A definitive guide to gay Baltimore.

||| Boycott over Brunei's Sharia law costs Beverly Hills Hotel $US1.5 million in cancellations.

||| Other lives: Gay Arab-Americans.

< The story of the Satyrs Motorcycle Club, the oldest continuing gay group in the world.

||| More than half of gay employees are closeted at work.

||| The truth inside the Google bus lawsuit: gentrification hurts the environment. "Stop blaming poor people for pollution. When Silicon Valley's class war prices out city workers and forces them to the suburbs, they become more eco-evil than Google."

||| Why Phoenix is the worst place ever.

> The gay New Yorkers who can’t wait for Chick-fil-A to hit the city.

||| Are New York City's subway dance crews the biggest assholes in a city full of them? Perhaps - police are waging war on them.

||| Gentrification reduces crime — tearing down public housing doesn't.

< The National September 11 Memorial Museum, in pictures. Left, a composite of five floors worth of material from one of the Twin Towers that was heat-fused and compacted during their collapse. There's a more extensive gallery here, and another at Boston.com.

> It's 11th July 1966, and James Baldwin has written a report from occupied territory. "Negroes have always held, the lowest jobs, the most menial jobs, which are now being destroyed by automation. No remote provision has yet been made to absorb this labor surplus. Furthermore, the Negro's education, North and South, remains, almost totally, a segregated education. And, the police treat the Negro like a dog."

U.K. News

< London protesters disrupt Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's speech with pro-gay equality protest.

||| Why is Conservative minister Chris Grayling blocking research into rape in prison?

||| Conservatives block plan to sign an EU gay equality treaty, for fear of alienating right-wing sections of the party's membership.

> Anti-gay hate crime up 5.6% in London; Labour MP Diane Abbott demands action from Mayor Boris Johnson, who has previously referred to gay men as "bum boys".

< This is Winston McKenzie, a candidate for the rightwing UK Independence Party (UKIP), who branded gay adoption child abuse. He now denies his party is racist.

||| Disturbing video for the far right British National Party (BNP) features young white English people blaming "militant gays" for Britain’s ruin.

||| Gay teen tells education minister Michael Gove: You could have saved me from HIV.

> Supermarket to offer free HIV testing.

||| Gay men urged to get tested for syphilis as rates soar.

||| Virgin tycoon Richard Branson announces boycott of hotel chain owned by the Sultan of Brunei.

< The halal outrage has little to do with animal welfare. "The Daily Mail et al feign concern for animals in their objection to Muslim ritual slaughter – which is in fact a humane, swift method."

||| So, surely it's moral bullshit that we don't care how an animal lives, only how it dies.

> SCOTLAND: 24-year-old Darren McLauchlan cleared of stabbing to death boyfriend Steven Barrett, a former RAF pilot. McLauchlan was acquitted on a majority not proven verdict by a jury, but found guilty of attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

Europe News

< FRANCE: Skirt-wearing high school boys clash with anti-gay Manif Pour Tous protesters.

||| FRANCE: 78% rise in anti-gay incidents in the year since marriage equality became law.

||| RUSSIA: Gay equality protest approved for the first time since anti-gay laws came into effect.

> LITHUANIA: Fairy tale banned under anti-propaganda law.

||| CYPRUS: Homophobes to be jailed, fined thousands.

Latin America News

||| JAMAICA: Opposition leader Andrew Holness pledges to allow gays in his cabinet, should he be elected Prime Minister.

< CUBA: The Havana Cuba Pride Conga March kicks off a week of events culminating with the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia.

> BRAZIL: São Paulo gay pride parade, in pictures.

Africa News

||| The dark continent. Do not believe almost anything you read or hear about Africa.

||| Why African leaders attack gays; is gay genocide next?

||| UGANDA: There's been a tenfold rise in attacks on gay people since anti-gay legislation came into force.

< UGANDA: Jackson Mukasa - one of two men set to go on trial for homosexual acts - has been granted bail, but his co-defendant, 19-year-old Hakim Mukisa, a student, is still in jail.

> UGANDA: Prominent gay activist John Abadallah Wambere seeks U.S. asylum.

< UGANDA: How I went undercover with "Ex-Gay Uganda" to attend the launch of the president's war on homosexuality.

||| UGANDA: The gay refugees who are seeking asylum in the world’s most notoriously anti-gay country. "If they’re seeking sanctuary in Uganda, just imagine what they must be running from."

||| UGANDA: 10 reasons to repeal anti-gay legislation, by Rev. Anthony Musaala.

||| GAMBIA: President Yahya Jammeh on gay asylum-seekers: "I will kill them."

< NIGERIA: Radical Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram is facing a vigilante backlash from armed young men with nothing to lose. Meet the sons of anarchy.

||| CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Hell is an understatement. A report from the bloody, crumbling CAR.

||| ZIMBABWE: Being a tourist here is a pretty lonely experience.

< SOUTH SUDAN: Portraits of Riek Machar's White Army.

> SOUTH SUDAN: Refugee turned model and actor. Ger Duany's story.

< SOUTH SUDAN: The terrible things seen by refugees. Don't miss VICE magazine's "Saving South Sudan" issue.

||| MOROCCO: Six jailed for being gay.

Asia News

THE BIG PICTURE: Young Cambodian Buddhist monks dress for Vesak Day, 13th May 2014.

< CHINA: Beijing police detain 9 activists meeting to discuss anti-gay discrimination.

||| CHINA: How Shanghai's vibrant and open gay culture has evolved.

> JAPAN: The B-style girls who want to be black.

||| THAILAND: How the notorious Klong Prem prison became a fight club.

< PHILIPPINES: The "backward" town boasting the oldest gay pride parade in Asia.

||| INDIA: Landslide win for the nationalist BJP party, which wants to keep gay sex illegal.

> INDIA: The world's first gay prince on India's colonial hangover.

||| INDIA: Gay equality since 2003 - it's complicated.

Middle East News

||| BRUNEI: All the things that can get you stoned to death in Brunei.

||| Why we should hail the celebrity boycott of the Dorchester over the sultan and sharia law.

< SYRIA: The city of Homs left in ruins as rebels desert.

||| KUWAIT: Vice squad raids alleged "gay" party, arrests 32.

||| KUWAIT: Students told to report gay classmates.

Art & Design

||| The stunning London "time-travel" video that merges two centuries.

||| London's top 10 towers.

> Court ruling paves the way for demolition of the Foster + Partners-designed Harmon Hotel in Las Vegas – a half-finished building that never opened.

||| The cutest microcars of the 20th century.

Word!

||| Book review: Limiters, by Christopher Stoddard. "More narrative snapshot than traditional story, Limiters left me thinking for days afterward, not just about its characters, but about story, society, and my own expectations."

Shouting In The Night

< Well, just look at gay Broadway star Nick Adams, in Wicked.

> Broadway Bares: Solo Strips, in pictures.

At The Movies

< And The Band Played On: Once a groundbreaking book, then a star-laden movie, has lost its sheen in recent years. Here's why.

||| After Bob Hoskins, it's curtains for working-class actors these days. "Bob Hoskins had a rich and varied career that would not happen now as upper-class men get all the good parts."

||| Antonio Banderas brands anti-gay bigots "mentally ill".

||| Bollywood actress Celina Jaitly vows to carry on fighting for gay equality, despite threats on her life and the lives of her children.

||| Do we really need another three Star Wars films?

> "Based on a true story" movie subjects: Where are they now?

< Cinema review: Pompeii. "Hollywood fiddles, credibility burns... Paul WS Anderson's disaster movie worries too much about potatoes and not enough about plot."

||| Cinema review: Godzilla. "The latest blockbuster to punish the sins of mankind... [Director Gareth] Edwards has more than honored the spirit of the original."

> Cinema review: Godzilla. "Go home Godzilla. No one cares about your bullshit."

||| The amateur's guide to Godzilla...

...And a more detailed analysis of the genesis of the monster.

< Hollywood first tried to reboot Godzilla in 1957.

||| The weirdest giant monster movies ever made.

||| Banned James Bond commentaries, originally released on laserdisc in 1991, have resurfaced as MP3.

||| Revisiting The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

||| Revisiting GoldenEye.

||| Revisiting The Matrix: It's "dated and embarrassing."

> Trailer: Truth, a psychological thriller starring former porn star Sean Paul Lockhart (a.k.a. Brent Corrigan).

Telly Addicts

||| The future of T.V. might not include T.V. channels.

< SundanceTV to adapt Hap And Leonard book series by Joe Lansdale. The project is "a Southern set wry thriller centered on an unlikely friendship between a straight white southern man and a gay African American Vietnam veteran".

> Out actor Luke Macfarlane of Brothers & Sisters fame returns to T.V. in new gay role.

< About Nashville's ground-breaking gay country singer storyline.

||| Here's how long you spent binge-watching your favourite T.V. show.

||| Who watches the shows the critics hype? Significantly less than those who watch reruns of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, it turns out.

||| Don't miss this article on why the old-fashioned, multi-camera The Big Bang Theory is the biggest show on T.V. right now.

||| Star Trek veteran George Takei: "The media stripped us of all humanity and made us into pathetic stereotypes. The media then was a soul-crushing monster."

||| Former Coronation Street actress Julie Hesmondhalgh cast in new Channel 4 gay drama Cucumber.

||| Gays of our lives: The latest from our favourite gays in soaps, with Anthony D. Langford.

< Chris Meloni (Oz, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) on having the best ass on T.V.

||| 15 ’90s teen heartthrobs who’ve resurfaced on T.V.

Beats, Rhymes & Life

||| Why it's so hard to listen to a song all the way through.

> The New York Times talks to Le1f.

||| Did Erykah Badu suggest "racist" gay men are behind criticism of her performance for the King of Swaziland?

||| Russian politicians, popular Russian rapper Timati outraged over Conchita Wurst win.

< How to learn to love Eurovision: laugh at foreigners, unite, laugh some more.

||| Everything an American needs to understand Eurovision.

||| Eurovision 2014, in pictures.

||| Never mind Eurovision – France offers a rich heritage of LGBT-empowering music.

||| Beyoncé, anti-feminist terrorist.

> Here's the only account you need to read of the Beyonce/Solange/Jay Z elevator incident. "A big ass bodyguard tries to hold Basement Baby back, but when he you take Basement Baby out of the basement she goes nuts and he can’t control her ass. Meanwhile, BeyonceBot just stands there like, 'I’m not about to fuck up my makeup, nails, dress and weave over this shit.' Jay-Z must’ve turned her off before they got into the elevator, because bitch barely blinks while her sister goes full 'Sharon Stone in Casino' on Jay-Z’s ass."

||| There's a Justin Bieber, Michael Jackson collaboration in the works. Some might say Michael is several years too late, in more ways than one...

||| 40 albums baby boomers loved that millennials don't know.

> The Roots' new album, ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin, is out next week.

||| Videos: New from Le1f - Sup; Trim - Vending Machine; Paloma Faith - Only Love Can Hurt Like This; and It Gets Better, by openly gay actor Blake McIver (perhaps best known for his role in 1994's The Little Rascals).

Sex

> Taleon - the straight half of the infamous Goffney twins, who once shared Marc Williams - is out of jail after a 6 year stretch, and he's blaming brother Keyon for enticing him into gay porn, and his subsequent downfall.

< Tallking to Chris Harder about orgies, weight issues, and the boylesque backlash to his porn career.

> SEXCIRCUS London saw live sex on stage with models including Damien Crosse, Alex Marte, JP Dubois, Robin Sanchez, Donato Reyes and Kayden Gray. In pictures; video.

< Photographer Thomas Knights is crowd-funding the creation of a coffee table book comprised of pictures from his photo exhibit of redheads. Sold.

> Brent Corrigan hosts Tom of Finland birthday party, using language we here at kaos approve of: "Try to shed yourself of that BS notion that we’re only going to survive or THRIVE if we assimilate and domesticate. Unfortunately, we’re really not all that much like the rest of them. And you should be PROUD of the fact that you’re an individual that thinks outside of the box."

< Blatino Oasis 2014, in pictures.

||| Looking back at Black Inches magazine.

||| Diego Lauzen is back at Tim's Tales - without boyfriend Wagner Vittoria.

> Dato Foland appears in a line-up for Men At Play, and spends some quality time with Topher DiMaggio (below right).

||| Robin Sanchez and Maikel Cash? Oh, hell yeah!

< Bel Ami filming follow-up to Scandal At The Vatican with kaos favourite Kevin Warhol, and new model Joel Birkin. Meanwhile, here's a tribute to Jack Harrer's impressive appendage, with GIFS of excited Asian people to help explain.

Arena

||| Watch Michael Sam, the first gay player drafted into the NFL hear the news, cry, and embrace his partner... And later telling a press conference: "If someone disowns you [for being gay], be part of my family." Watch both below.

...Said partner is Vito Cammisano. Hot couple, right? Turns out Cammisano once dated porn star Austin Wilde (right).

||| Bizarrely, many black gay news blogs didn't mention the kiss at all, let alone carry pictures of the historic moment. Rod McCullom, for example, pointedly didn't make a single mention of it on his blog Rod 2.0. It's a shame racism gets in the way of celebrating something so beautiful.

||| How did NFL players react to Michael Sam being drafted by the St. Louis Rams?

< Fox News, Donald Trump unhappy people can't say negative things about Michael Sam.

||| Michael Sam picks up first endorsement deal.

> Michael Sam jerseys are the No.2 biggest seller among all NFL rookies.

< Miami Dolphins' Don Jones - who tweeted "OMG" and "Horrible" in reaction to Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend after being drafted - suspended, fined by the team.

||| Gross. Disgusting. Weird. Watching NFL players kiss wives, girlfriends.

||| Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman threatens to "financially rough up" any NFL team which drafts Michael Sam.

> Derrick Gordon is dating actor Gerald McCullouch, who at 47 is 25 years his senior.

||| Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black move in together.

< Sevilla players Ivan Rakitic and Daniel Carrico share "passionate kiss" after win.

< Long live the Gay Games!

||| The world's most popular sport, as a resilient repository.

> Rugby player Mitchell Moses suspended over on-field gay slur.

||| Michael Jordan was a racist teenager, he confesses.

The Human Body

||| Should you trust the latest health news? Here's how to tell.

||| "I was born in September 1986 in the back of a cop car in New York City. I was raised in a heterosexual, Latino, Catholic household, and consequently, sex was never a topic of discussion. I contracted HIV the first time I had sex, a few days before my 16th birthday."

||| 22% of people living with HIV have major depression.

||| How HIV can still land Americans in jail.

||| Is it time to redefine "unprotected sex"?

> Syphilis is back with a vengeance among gay men.

||| Antibiotic resistance: 6 diseases that may come back to haunt us.

||| Are we at the dawn of the age of epidemics?

||| Smallpox is only alive in two labs. Should we destroy it?

||| Why taking aspirin to prevent heart attacks is not a good idea.

< A nagging spouse can shorten your life!

||| And they make fun of Austin Powers' teeth?! One in three Americans didn't see the dentist last year.

||| What happens when you ask gluten free health nuts if they actually know what gluten is?

||| The five-second rule isn't such a bad idea.

||| Red wine's "magic ingredient" resveratrol has no health benefits.

Adebisi humiliates Kenny "Bricks" Wangler in Oz.

||| Why there's so much confusion over health and nutrition.

||| Lucid dreaming can be induced by electric scalp stimulation.

||| Why can't you remember being a baby?

> Why humiliation is the most intense human emotion.

Betta Work!

< Working at Amazon is a "soul-crushing" experience.

> The biggest fast food strike in the world.

||| Britain has given up on employee rights. "We have developed a system where poverty can be actively enforced by brutal employers on their powerless staff."

Planet Earth

||| The Antarctic ice sheet has started to collapse, and nothing can stop it.

||| How climate change is already affecting the U.S.

||| How islands really do breed giant animals.

< Rare megamouth shark caught off the coast of Japan.

> Bee thought to be extinct since 1946 found.

||| Looks like the environmentalists were right about what's killing all the bees.

< The stories of "bully" breeds that dispel the bad dog myth.

||| Human, bear encounters are on the rise.

Inside The Spaceship

||| Blue light from our computer screens is killing us.

||| Why this summer will change the internet and media forever.

||| Why your phone bill should be going down, but isn't.

||| Nintendo apologises to gay gamers for excluding gay characters.

> Latest Sims game rated "adults only" in Russia over same-sex relationships.

||| pdf graveyards.

||| Google launches same day delivery service for New York, Los Angeles. Now we never lead to leave our homes.

||| Why I just can't quit Facebook.

And Whilst You're

Thinking About

That, Think

About This

||| Is this the end of food?

< Men's shorts are getting shorter.

||| The lives and loading times of gay YouTube stars.

||| And finally, how to talk to your kids about Michael Sam; Andrew discusses "straight pride"; Rogue "Marbie" Scott investigates Bareback Real Time; and Walter wonders why so many black gay men are so upset about interracial couples.