Issue 199: Todrick Hall, Derrick Gordon, Cosby, Mykki Blanco, Mike Nichols, Adam Archuleta, Rob Smith, Rio, Westworld, and more...


the week's
news
& pop
culture,
with a
gay
bias.


| think, progress |


Ten businesses to avoid this holiday season if you care about equality.

Christmas adverts show big brands are ignoring LGBT individuals as a consumer group. "Why not make a story that shows an expression of love in all forms: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight."

Heterosexuals support gay equality, but not when gay couples kiss in public. Image: Channel 4's Random Acts, Gay Public Displays of Affection.

What does Islam really say about gay people?

Twenty-two of the shortest coming out stories you’ll ever read.

Trans murders are a silent genocide: We must stop it.


Trans murders: Those we lost in 2014.

The real Michael Phelps "scandal" is the offensive portrayal of intersex people. "Intersex people exist, and we’re fighting for our basic human rights. Stop treating us as props and oddities."

Investors worth billions demand US firms make gay policies global.


Big, bad tech: How America’s digital capitalists are taking us all for a ride.

Why horrific pictures of dead bodies won’t stop wars.

Is it possible the 1950s were more tolerant?


Is gentrification natural evolution?

| news from america |

This is Brice Johnson (right). He's been sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping - and nearly beating to death - Arron Keahey (left), who he met online.

Wayne Odegard, the "Christian" who shot a gay couple with a BB gun outside a Minneapolis gay bar, gets just six months in prison.

Texas diners hit waiter Blake Butler with "faggot" slur on their receipt.

The Kansas City shelter that won't accept same-sex married couples.

The Church of God in Christ is said to be considering legal action against "I'm not gay no more" viral video star Andrew Caldwell, who is selling a three minute version of his declaration on iTunes.

Meet Dr Benjamin Carson, a neurosurgeon who has compared gay people to paedophiles. He now says same-sex marriage supporters should not try to “redefine everything for anybody else.”

National Organisation for Marriage (NOM) co-founder Robert George thinks "it might take one hundred years for us to stop same-sex marriage"...

...Which might prove harder than he thought: NOM is $US2.5 million in debt.

68-year-old Terrence P. Bean, who helped found the Human Rights Campaign and Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, is accused (together with his former boyfriend, 25-year-old Kiah L. Lawson, right) of using Grindr to set up a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old boy.

366 companies score perfect marks for gay inclusion.

How Obama’s executive order leaves behind gay immigrants who have experienced violence, discrimination, and isolation. (Image.)

Want to know just how much Obama overreached on executive power? Wait for America's next "king". "The president’s actions on immigration are perfectly legal – probably. And he’s setting precedents for a conservative – definitely."

Jelani Henry's story: How the NYPD is using social media to put Harlem teens behind bars.

Why do people keep getting pushed onto subway tracks? "In the wake of the terrifyingly random death of a man pushed in front of a train, some are wondering if more could be done to prevent transit-related fatalities in New York City."

Seeking asylum, finding strength. "One queer person shares his journey from being outed at school in South Africa to seeking asylum in New York City."


I spent a day catcalling other men in Los Angeles. "I spent a day in Los Angeles giving every guy who walked past some unwanted verbal attention. I expected anger. What I got was weirdness."

Watch what happens when a "stereotypically gay man" takes a stroll through Manhattan.

Inside the gay wing of L.A. Men's Central Jail. K6G is the only gay wing in the entire American penal system.

 Journalist - and openly gay Iraq war veteran - Rob Smith breaks it down...

Canada begins trialling HIV prevention drug Truvada.

| news from latin america |

Jamaica: Why is The Jamaica Observer - the paper owned by Sandals Resorts millionaire Gordon "Butch" Stewart - waging a campaign against gays?

Brazil: Thousands attend Rio de Janeiro’s 19th Pride march, to speak out against anti-LGBT murders. At least 216 LGBT people have been murdered in Brazil so far this year. In pictures. More shots at The Advocate.

Cuba: On the mats in Havanna.

| news from africa |

The state of gay equality in Africa.

Two low-risk ways to seek gay rights in Africa.

Hell is other people. "A report from the Central African Republic, where 'acts of extraordinary cruelty have become commonplace.'"

Uganda: How the new anti-gay law could make almost every gay person homeless.

Cameroon: Police refuse to release gay man, despite his accuser backing down.

Gambia: Gays now face life in prison for "aggravated homosexuality".

Morocco: Police formally drop all charges against British tourist Ray Cole and his partner, who were jailed this summer for ‘homosexual acts’. jailed for ‘homosexual acts’

| news from asia |

India: Dragon Age: Inquisition video game banned over gay character.

India: The ghosts of Bhopal. "The lives of the Indians who were swallowed in the Bhopal gas cloud, thirty years later."


China: The Chinese Communist Party has told its members to continue calling each other "comrade" despite the word's second meaning: gay.

Taiwan: Justice Ministry declares now is not the right time for marriage equality.

South Korea: Christians storm gay equality hearing in Seoul.

Japan: Leading dictionary removes "unnecessary" straight definitions of "love" and "sex".

Australia: Prime Minister Tony Abbott's dirty deal with Cambodia will condemn refugees to destitution. "The Abbott government plans to send hundreds of refugees to Cambodia. Ironically, many poor Cambodians are displaced refugees in their own country."

| news from the middle east |

Iran: The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) launches a fund aimed at addressing LGBT human rights violations, and supporting the emerging gay community.

Iraq: Caught between the Islamic State and Shiite Militias, gays are dying.

Iraq: Amnesty International on exposing the persecution of gay Iraqis.

Israel: Interior Ministry issues new ID cards to children of same-sex parents.


| news from europe |


United Kingdom: Hysteria, vilification, a spurious "victim": Welcome to the age of anti-politics. "Thornberry broke one of the golden rules of politics. While voters can be rude to politicians, politicians can never be rude to voters."

United Kingdom: Don't sneer at the white van driving flag waving man. "No-one mocks the Scots or the Welsh, or flag-mad Italians. Why should it be bad?"

United Kingdom: Brits are more class obsessed than ever – which plays right into the hands of the rightwing UKIP.

United Kingdom: What everyday racism tells us about the immigration debate.

England: One in eight gay men in London now have HIV.

England: Police officer Mark Carter, a former Mr Gay UK, has been suspended from duty in West Yorkshire following an attack on another gay man in the toilets of The Thompsons Arms in Manchester’s gay village.

England: Gay rugby player brutally attacked in Manchester's Gay Village.

England: The gay man who wants to sue the NHS over his free "botched" nose job.

England: Anti-gay pressure group the Christian Institute has posted a blog from "ex-gay" Christian Matt Moore - who last year was exposed as a Grindr addict.

England: London hotel following Sharia Law won't be banning gays.

England: Why London's Thames garden bridge is nothing but a wasteful blight.

Scotland: Gay murderers Charles O’Neill and William Lauchlan are suing for the right to date each other behind bars. The killers were convicted in 2010 for the 1997 murder of Allison McGarrigle, who planned to report them for abusing a younger boy.

France: Former President Sarkozy condemned by key allies for call to scrap equal marriage.

Poland: Small town bans the "sexually dubious" Winnie the Pooh. Image.

Russia: Gay youth support group Children-404 founder Elena Klimova charged with promoting "gay propaganda".

Russia: Once a refuge for gay people from more conservative countries around the region, Russia is now leading a global anti-gay push.

| art & design |

Art heist: Eight pieces, worth thousands, stolen from Winter Pride Art Awards in London.

Go to bed with Tom of Finland.

Check out the floating park proposed for Manhattan's Hudson river...

...And the city one Japanese company wants to put under the sea.

The sad fates of the world's six tallest unfinished buildings.

| word! |

Second Avenue Caper, by Joyce Brabner, the true story following a gay nurse who decides to sell marijuana in order to make enough money to smuggle illegal AIDS medications into the U.S.

Introducing the Bureau of General Services–Queer Division.

Read an excerpt from Philip Gefter’s new biography on Sam Wagstaff, the foremost patron and boyfriend of the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

Children’s book publisher Ladybird to drop book titles aimed at "boys" and "girls".

R.A. Montgomery, the creator of the Choose Your Own Adventure novels, is dead. He was 78.

John R. Gordon's writer's diary: Squirmily exciting.


Greg Reynolds's Jesus Days, 1978-1983 "documents a culture and moment that has vanished from the American landscape. It’s a unique and honest five-year examination of late-’70s evangelical America as seen thru the eyes of a closeted and religious young man."

Book review: Now and Yesterday, by Stephen Greco. It "richly details the cultural evolution and history of New York’s gay scene and its attention to the AIDS crisis, in particular, makes it an important addition to the canon of gay literature. The fact that the history of HIV isn’t included in most school curricula, coupled with the generational barriers that the gay community has yet to properly dismantle, makes this a uniquely accessible and relevant piece of work that educates as much as it enchants."

Book review: Blue,Too: More Writing By (For or About) Working-Class Queers, edited by Wendell Ricketts. "The writing in Blue, Too is fierce, forthright, and often exquisitely brutal while being tender and deeply real... These stories bring up the kinds of questions without easy answers that multiply marginalized folks face daily."

Book review: Great Pleasures, by Edward Southgate. "In between the narrator’s autobiographical statements, there are deeper conjectural observations about life in general, about the narrator cleansing his body, or bringing his apartment to order, little statements that illustrate the narrator’s life is not a total sexual free-for-all. But then Edward goes out and off again, taking on another trick and starts the hedonistic process all over again."

| shouting in the night |

The 20th anniversary revival of Kevin Elyot's My Night With Reg is to transfer to London's West End for a limited run in January.

Off-Broadway hit Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical coming to San Francisco.

Matilda star Christopher Sieber gets hung at Sardi's.

A new staging of Ulysses Dove’s Bad Blood, first performed by the Alvin Ailey troupe in 1986, will feature the company’s first married same-sex couple, Antonio and Kirven Douthit-Boyd (above).

Four of San Francisco’s top drag performers stage classic episodes of The Golden Girls, 4-21 December, at the Victoria Theatre.

| at the movies |

The line between film and TV is evaporating.

Numbing the imagination. "CGI has become wearingly dull and cliched. Can its deep weirdness be recovered and filmgoers’ minds stretched again?"




On Beautiful Thing, the film that made being gay okay.

 Mike Nichols, the director who made films like Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf and The Birdcage, is dead. He was 83. 

Mike Nichols made films about women – sadly a rarity in Hollywood. "From Silkwood to Working Girl, you can trace the rise of female equality in the films made by the director, who died this week. Many of his collaborators were female, and his movies portrayed his subjects as more than just pretty faces."


Talking to out actor Colman Domingo about director Ava DuVernay’s production of Selma, a film "that recalls the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery protest marches, a critical juncture in the African-American civil rights movement."

Talking to Jonathan Blake (top, far left), one of the first people in Britain diagnosed with HIV, whose story inspired new movie Pride.

Director Andrew Jenks new film It’s Not Over "is a moving and ambitious documentary that follows the lives of three people affected by HIV in different areas of the world."

New film Hotline asks if hotlines are still relevant in the age of email and the Internet, talking to the likes of Brad Becker of the GLBT Hotline.

Channing Tatum got Joe Manganiello naked "as much as possible" for Magic Mike XXL.

The Towering Inferno star Richard Chamberlain has no regrets over "remaining in hiding" during most of his career. The 80-year-old came out in 2003.

How Brooke Shields was "smitten" with George Michael after he refused to have sex with her.

Anti-gay Kirk Cameron - of '80s sitcom Growing Pains - has taken to Twitter to beg fans for positive reviews.

Ten fascinating films set in a single location. (I'd add the chilling Stranger By The Lake to this list.)

The world’s largest collection of movie posters is for sale. Collector Morris Everett, Jr. is "the only individual in history who set-out with great determination to meticulously acquire as many original motion picture film posters as possible, from nearly every film ever made, making sure to pick up and collect a few more along the way."

Why do we call movie previews "trailers"?

So bad it’s good: The proudly formulaic, brazenly homoerotic Tango & Cash.

Todrick Hall's Pitch Perfect parody is everything.

| the box |

Is sci-fi having a "regaysance"? "The emergence of out and open LGBT characters in sci-fi TV suggests that yes, it is."

Why Doctor Who is less graphic today than it was in the old days.

HBO announces Westworld series, starring Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton.

Thousands sign petition to end gay "fear mongering" on reality show 19 Kids and Counting.

MTV is looking for white people who think being white is really hard.

Will & Grace star Sean Hayes has married his music producer boyfriend Scott Icenogle.

Australian Idol runner-up Anthony Callea has married his actor boyfriend Tim Campbell in New Zealand.

Five ways Sesame Street changed the world.


Dallas' Christopher Ewing - aka Jesse Metcalfe - strips for a photoshoot with Stephen Busken. Whatever would Sue Ellen say?

Freddie Smith (above right), who plays the gay character of Sonny Kiriakis on Days of Our Lives, has been charged with drunk driving.

The UK is to get its first out gay character with HIV on a soap. In January, Hollyoaks' Ste Hay (above right), played by Kieron Richardson, will have unprotected sex with a stranger and contract the virus.

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

Watch the season finale of Go-Go Boy Interrupted; and the latest episode of Triangle; go behind the scenes on the forthcoming second season of Looking; Ellen choses a new gardener. The audience go wild for the hairy white boy with no body, but are lukewarm for Teagan Rose (the black guy), whose pecs "should be a National Monument" (thank you Towleroad commenter, Malcolm).




Bill Cosby: From America's dad to sexual predator. "Stories of his alleged sexual assaults may have circulated widely in Hollywood, but they came as a shock to fans."

Bill Cosby: Why so many women are accusing him now, and why they didn’t do it earlier.

Bill Cosby: Why we were so desperate to ignore the rape allegations.



Bill Cosby: Can you hate the man but still love his TV show? It depends. Regardless, The Cosby Show is too important to erase from TV history.


Bill Cosby: Openly gay CNN anchor Don Lemon asks rape accuser why she didn't bite Cosby's penis...

...And in apologising for that, brings up being an abuse victim himself.

| beats, rhymes & life |


The surprisingly sturdy state of the music industry.


Mykki Blanco pens love letter to Russia after concert venue is raided: "When I think of Russia I think of the secret gay house parties I have been too [sic] kissing boys drunk on vodka and caviar... I think of smoking weed in the Siberian forests and stumbling drunk in the Russian ghetto's with my straight male friends. I think of going to the underground Russian gay clubs packed with muscle bound men in skin tight shirts and emo twinks softly gyrating to ear splitting trance..."

Country Music Star Ty Herndon comes out as gay. Herndon has racked up seventeen Billboard hits over two decades.

Country singer Billy Gilman comes out as gay. In 2000, aged 11-years-old, "Gilman became the youngest singer to land a Top 40 hit on the country music charts with his debut single, One Voice."

Why I had to turn down Band Aid. "Saying no to Bob Geldof was hard, but when I saw how negatively the lyrics portrayed Africa I had no choice."

Band Aid 30 ditched the only good line it had. "A limp selection of pop stars have created the blandest version of Do They Know It's Christmas yet.


Meet the two kids putting the fire back into grime photography.

Twenty-five of music’s most misandrist anthems.

Why sisterhood in pop music is the 1990s trend we need to resurrect.

Videos: Out singer-songwriter Eli Lieb - Lightning in a Bottle; Cash+David - Bones; and Zebra Katz - Alone Now...

| sex |

Chris Hemsworth is, apparently, the "Sexiest Man Alive".

Treasure Island Media owner’s name carved into porn star’s chest; blood used as anal lubricant.

Here’s why Diesel Washington and Ryan Rose are fighting.

Tae the Doug gets down with Kameo for Raw Breeders...

...And in a jaw-droppingly sizzling scene, turns out Extasy Baby for Raw Rods.

Here's three Bel Ami models (Adam Archuleta - who's looking spectacular these days - Hoyt Kogan, and Andrei Karenin) in Mexico for a show in Guadalajara.

OMG! Delicious Fernando Torres is shooting new scenes in Berlin with his real life boyfriend.

It's impossible to quantify how delicious new Lucas Entertainment model Joey Pele is. He's from Brazil. More pictures here.

Here's some new pictures of sultry jock Ken Ott.

Sean Zevran discusses open relationships.

Former Randy Blue model Reese Rideout "closing that porn chapter of his life" and auctioning ten years of accumulated gay porn memorabilia. Reese is donating 100% of the proceeds to AIDS Life Cycle.

Max Ryder is also now officially retired, and is writing a porn memoir.

Mason Wyler on why he reclaimed his Twitter.

Cody Cummings’ worst gay porn moments, ranked.

Meet the "Sexiest Teacher Alive"!

| arena |

IOC President wants to add sexual orientation to Olympic policy against discrimination.

Anti-gay Qatar is to host the 2019 World Athletics Championships. Temperatures in summer often reach a blistering the 47 °C (117 °F).

Openly gay US Division I college basketball player Derrick Gordon scores 17 points in first game.

Jason Collins, the first openly gay active player in a major men's pro team sport, has announced his retirement. His strong legacy is intact.

Big, beautiful Michael Sam is one of GQ's Men of the Year.

Unfortunately, Queerty thinks Michael Sam and Jason Collins are the same person.

Ian Thorpe is "ashamed" he did not come out as gay earlier.

The word gay is not uttered once in new official Olympic video on Tom Daley.


| betta work! |

Salvage beast. "With roughly 100,000 large merchant ships in the water at any time, scores sink, burn, break apart, run aground, or explode each year — often with toxic consequences. It is Captain Nick Sloane's job to board troubled vessels and salvage what he can. Against heavy odds, he recently refloated the doomed cruise ship Costa Concordia."



The human billboards of New York City.


| body, mind & soul |

The problematic hunt for a "gay gene".

What can gay and straight twins tell us about sexuality?

HIV now and then: 1982 vs 2014.

United Nations initiative hopes to end AIDS epidemic by 2030.

PrEP is not the problem, perfection is.

Amazing HIV-positive gay men: Patrick Ingram. "After he attended the Young Black Gay Men’s Leadership Initiative’s 2014 Policy and Advocacy Summit earlier this year, blogger Patrick Ingram says he realized just how much pressure there is to act as if living with HIV is easy."

Maybe kids are right after all, and kissing is gross... Boffins have discovered French kissing transfers eighty million bacteria between participants.

Six bad signs of a good relationship.

Female alcoholics need help, not vilification.

The many stories behind double-eyelid surgery.


"Neglected diseases" are becoming a global danger.

Why you get sick on planes – and how to keep it from happening.

Why do so many people die shovelling snow?

You're not sleeping as much as you think you are.

| hell's kitchen |


Fast food restaurants are targeting black kids with their advertising.

Can Whole Foods change the way poor people eat? "Challenging elitism, racism, and obesity with a grocery store may sound crazy. Here’s what happened when Whole Foods tried to do it in Detroit."


| zoo |

Benjy the gay bull to be castrated, following the international crowdfunding campaign to save him from being slaughtered.

Elephants are being wiped out, but not enough people seem to care.


| planet earth |


| inside the spaceship |


The Internet of Things is far bigger than anyone realises.


Was Google Glass an epic fail?





All the reasons why Uber is the worst.

| and whilst you're thinking about that, think about this... |

Lego's awesome, inclusive note to parents, from 1974.

The men who spread their legs on public transport.

And finally, Walter asks why he's so hated for his views on HIV; Andrew searches for a hero; Jacob talks about his first ejaculation; and Rogue "Marbie" Scott discusses sagging...



Issue 199
17-23 November 2014
On the cover: Rio Pride 2014.

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Read the last edition.


© 2014

Postcript
"You know, we might just as well not have
bothered to come. The whole thing's been ridiculous."
by KAOS on November 24, 2014

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