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IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

YOU WILL UNDOUBTABLY have seen some of these pictures before. Now you can put a name to the face: Max Philisaire. The insanely muscled Haiti-born model is a US Army Combat Engineer veteran. EVERYTHING LENSED ELSEWHERE - Max Philisaire (MySpace)

DOWN-LOW 2.0

MALE, THE BLOG, recently posed the question: Does Colour Matter?

Boy, am I sick of this question.

Sick of the issue - but not irked by MALE raising it; it remains a thorny issue in the SGL community, because colour (or racial background) does matter to so many people. Let's get one thing straight first: personal preference isn't up for debate. What you like is what you like. It's okay to "date outside of your race" (to couch it in Americanised race-sensitive terminology) as it is to not date outside of your race. It doesn't make you racist if you're white and only ever date white guys, are strictly black-on-black or just Papi-to-Papi - if the reason for keeping it like-for-like is just personal preference. The problem arises when people make their choice of fuck buddy or lover a political statement, or bring ignorant stereotypes into the equation. As respected blogger thegayte-keeper says, "I remember a while back I posted a blog entry asking my readers who would they date? I had a black, white and latin man as the option... Suffice to say most didn't want the white man and their reasons were not good (at) all." That can be applied to any race. Many people chose not to see the beauty in other races, because of their own inherent ignorance - or worse still, because of peer pressure. As an example, when I frequented BGCLive.com, I would occasionally receive messages from guys along the lines of, "You're fine for a white guy, so what's really good." Often times, those guys stated on their profiles: brothers only, no caucasians. (As an aside, statements like those most definitely are racist. Fine, so you're only interested in other black guys, but why single out white people for a red flag? If I'm Chinese have I got a chance? How about Pakistanis? Or is the truth that you just want to make it known that you've got a problem with whites?) There's a lot of talk about down low culture in the SGL community, but this also extends to race. It's fashionable and politically popular amongst certain factions to denigrate white people in general, and interracial couplings in particular. As with all generalisations, this ignores the true diversity in the SGL community - those who are themselves products of mixed race couplings, not to mention everyone who isn't black or white. Does colour matter? In matters of love and lust, it shouldn't, but it seems lots of us are intent on making it an issue for a long time to come.

ELSEWHERE - Does Colour Matter?

ELSEWHERE - thegayte-keeper...

PREVIOUSLY - GodFathaNYC Speaks (ka-ostheory Guest Bloggger)

PREVIOUSLY - You Only Count If You're Black: I Got It Wrong

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IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

ALAN VALDEZ IS A 21-year-old Mexican-born model who currently resides in Miami, with all the other beautiful people. As you can see, you get a lot of beef for your buck. For some reason, I haven't seen previously Alan before, but a quick Google revealed approximately 96 billion different pictures of the stacked beauty. These particular pictures are by ka-ostheory favourite Dylan Rosser, more of which can be found at good ole BeautifulMag. EVERYTHING LENSED ELSEWHERE - GETTIN' WET WITH ALAN VALDEZ ELSEWHERE - ALAN VALDEZ (MySpace)

MICHAEL OBIORA

THIS THURSDAY'S EDITION of EastEnders will feature ka-os|theory crush Michael Obiora.

The actor is due to appear in four episodes of the broadcaster's flagship soap.

Obiora is probably best known to those of you reading this as gay receptionist Ben (left) in the BBC's trashy-yet-charming comedy-cum-drama Hotel Babylon (sneer if you like, I think it's fun. And it's got Spike out of Press Gang in it). He told the BBC: "Playing the gay character of Ben really brought out my feminine side and my girlfriend really liked it. She said I smiled a lot more and in particular gesticulated and used my hands more when I spoke, as well as being more considerate to her, so she really liked my camp side. She also thinks I take more time over my appearance now, which I wasn't aware of - which is really interesting." On the subject of playing gay, he told Attitude last year: "I was getting shot on stage every day. And it affected my mood. I'd go home with a headache, feeling depressed, and I thought to myself, there has to be more to acting than playing gangsters, the stereotypical black thug. The auditions I was going for, the character always had a gun in his hand. I was like, 'No, I have to stretch myself.' That's one of the beauties of acting—simulating different existences and playing different characters. Hotel Babylon came along and the character was so different. You can't get further from a criminalized youth than a gay hotel receptionist!" Obiora also appeared in the heart-stopping, painfully elegant Doctor Who episode, Blink, playing an African policeman. The London-born actor's parents are Nigerian: "I remember going to Nigeria, where my family come from, and I jumped at the chance to perform on stage. Afterwards, the villagers pressed money upon my skin, which stuck to me, and my mum immediately sent me to drama school when I got back to the UK."

PREVIOUSLY - LENSED: ROLAND BELL
ELSEWHERE - Chelsea meets a footballer in R&R
ELSEWHERE - Michael Obiora (Wikipedia)

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ISA RAHMAN, LENSED by Joseph Bleu.

EVERYTHING LENSED

ELSEWHERE - Joseph Blue (Official)

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IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

DON'T YOU WISH your holiday snaps were hot like this? Following on from last weekend's Cristiano-Watch (insert 80s news sting here), here's more of the semi-synthetic boy slut. I'm still living the little white shorts. You're such a tease, Cristiano! EVERYTHING LENSED