KAOS

ka-os|theory
a news compendium
with a gay bias
issue 64 | May 2010

||| Introducing Jess Tarr, this week's cover model. More of Jesse - lensed by Scott Hoover - at OHLALA Mag.

||| "On some level, you could argue that twincest is this idealized version of gay sex. These guys are basically having sex with themselves." Salon.com looks at the extraordinary story of Milo and Elijah Peters, Bel Ami's infamous twincestuous moneyspinner.

||| Boys get anorexia and bulimia too, apparently, and it's all the fault of male models.

||| Gay boys who love transmen. "It's juvenile to have a fear of biological woman parts," says one such he-she fan. Don't you love how bisexuals and other supposedly enlightened super-beings like to look down on those of us whose stomachs flip at the thought of gash? Not juvenile, mate - just a preference.

||| Unlike the UK (see below), more and more persecuted GBLTs are winning asylum in the U.S. based on sexual orientation.

||| American director Gregg Araki (left) was awarded the first Queer Palm at the Cannes film festival on Saturday.

||| The Gay Files: History's grim closet. "Tracking the subject of homosexuality in these formerly 'Eyes Only' secret documents, reveals an often malicious national security and political obsession with homosexuality at the highest levels of the US and British governments."

||| The Nazis didn't just try to get the Jews - they tried getting us too. Now there's an exhibit (right) showcasing the Nazi persecution of gays.

||| Coming out to a shrug: "Barely five months into the year, several high-profile people have come out, from Ricky Martin, to the Will and Grace star Sean Hayes, to the country music singer Chely Wright. Yet Americans greeted the news largely with a shrug."

||| The kids are coming out sooner.

||| Expedia opens a gay travel store.

||| Put some glasses on her and lose the bad wig (it's gotta be a wig, right?) and this bint could be Seinfeld's George Costanza. In actual fact, it's Michigan state Rep. Kim Meltzer (left), a gay immigrant's worst nightmare.

||| George Rekers, his rentboy, and gay adoption.

||| George Rekers tortured a 4-year-old "effeminate boy" in supposed scientific experiments that eventually led to the boy attempting suicide.

||| A heaven-sent rent boy.

||| What will the American view of homosexuality be in 2050?

||| Washington D.C. students demand extra large condoms.

||| The world's oldest sex toy.

||| Remember Mithly, Morocco's recently launched first gay magazine? Just 200 copies have been sold in Morocco since April, but Islamists are warning of a threat to traditional family values.

||| Anti-gay laws in Africa are the product of American religious exports. Tell us something we don't know. Also: Africa's gays pay the price for battle between US liberals and Conservatives.

||| African homophobia: To combat it we must understand religion, history and gender politics all play a part. Essential reading.

||| The Guardian: The church must not be complicit in gay persecution in Africa.

||| Zimbabwe: Police have arrested two employees of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe.

||| Kenya: Police rescue three men - "suspected" of being gay - from public lynching.

||| Kenya: The church for "the other sheep" - the church for the GBLT community.

||| Malawi: UK ministers call for human rights review in Malawi following sentencing of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza to 14 years in jail.

||| Malawi: The world reacts.

||| Malawi: The judgement in full.

||| Malawi: "As a homosexual couple in Malawi start 14 years' hard labour, we talk to gay activists across Africa about why they're prepared to risk so much."

||| Malawi: Malawi Center for Human Rights and Rehabilitation says the couple's human rights were violated and plan appeal.

||| Malawi: Are Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza a gay couple, or something else? Jim Burroway writes at Box Turtle Bulletin: "As I said, we have avoided describing Tiwonge and Steven as a 'gay' couple, but we've also avoided describing Tiwonge as intersex, transgender or transsexual, and for good reason. None of these terms may describe Tiwonge very well because they speak to a Western, Euro-centric understanding of sexuality and gender, and not an African one."

||| Malawi: The Guardian goes further. "The case of the jailed Malawian 'gay' couple is all the worse as one partner has had her transgender identity airbrushed out."

||| Malawi: Britain may reduce aid if Chimbalanga and Monjeza are not set free.

||| Malawi: The White House issues a statement condemning their imprisonment.

||| Malawi: Canada denounces the sentence.

||| Malawi: UN Chief Navi Pillay denounces the sentence.

||| Malawi: Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement calls it "horrific".

||| Malawi: Even Grandma's got the hump about the decision, releasing a strongly worded statement slamming the decision.

||| Malawi: Protesters demand the couple's release at the Malawian High Commission in Pretoria, above.

||| Peter Tatchell: "Before the British conquered Malawi, there were no laws against homosexuality. These laws are a foreign imposition, they are not African at all. Despite independence, these alien criminalisations were never repealed. Today, the minds of many Malawians – and other Africans – remain colonised by the homophobic beliefs that were drummed into their forebears by the western missionaries who invaded their lands alongside the conquering imperial armies. The missionaries preached a harsh, intolerant Christianity, which has been so successfully internalised by many Africans that they now claim homophobia as their own culture and tradition."

||| Jamaica: Why hate your gay brother? Maurice Tomlinson writes in The Jamaica Gleaner. A look at the comments below the article from ordinary Jamaicans makes for depressing reading.

||| Jamaica: Human rights and gay activists held a short protest outside Emancipation Park in New Kingston to coincide with International Day Against Homophobia.

||| Colombia: Kiss-in on the International Day Against Homophobia:

||| 90% of gay men in the Asia-Pacific region denied access to HIV/Aids help because of discriminatory laws.

||| Singapore: Pink Dot 2010. 4,000 pink-attired people gather to form a giant pink dot in a show of support for inclusiveness, diversity and the freedom to love. Lovely.

||| Portugal: Gay marriage law ratified, despite opposition from the Pope. Bad luck, old man.

||| Slovakia's first gay pride parade:

||| Gay Pride Bratislava: What went right. In pictures.

||| Gay Pride Bratislava: Gay pride, Slovak shame.

||| Gay Pride Bratislava: Neo-Nazis attack, police admit to being unable to ensure safety of attendees.

||| Australia: Homophobia rife in sport.

||| Australia: More beautiful hypocrisy. A family

values politician resigned after being filmed leaving a gay sauna. Maybe he could hook up with George Rekers?

||| UK: Virtually all gay asylum-seekers sent back to persecution; Britain's immigration system guilty of institutional homophobia. Ekklesia has more on this.

||| "As a gay asylum seeker, I was lucky," an anonymous correspondent writes in The Guardian. "Granted refugee status more on account of my political activities than my sexuality, many others are less fortunate."

||| Islamists, their victims, and hypocrisy: Britain gives refuge to Islamic fundamentalists, while deporting GBLT men (and women) who've been brave enough to challenge Islamism back to certain death. Above right, gay teens Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, moments before they were hanged in Iran on July 19 2005.

||| Liberal Democrat MP claims there will be no rollback on equality under the new coalition government. Uh huh.

||| Scotland: First openly gay church minister boosts congregation by 5%.

||| Stonewall, the UK-based GBLT charity, is 21.

||| Why won't you hold your boyfriend's hand in public?

||| Badass rainbows.

||| So this is the new design they've come up with to replace the much-maligned bendy bus, and bring back London's beautiful Routemaster bus. About as exciting as the recent redesign of the Daleks. I like the curved roof but that's about it.

||| Why are whites five times richer than blacks in the US?

||| Vitamin E may protect lungs.

||| Just half an hour of mobile use a day increases brain cancer risk.

||| Can animals be gay? (Or, DUH! Why wouldn't there be gay animals?)

||| The spike-nosed tree frog and tame woolly rat: The jungle paradise in Indonesian New Guinea that offers a vision of life on earth without humans.

||| Watch it and ooh and aah with me: The Aviaros del Caribe sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica, the world's only sloth orphanage.

||| WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! Half the planet will be rendered uninhabitable by global warming as temperatures soar.

||| Rebrand ocean destroyer BP! Greenpeace are running a competition to redesign the global polluter's inappropriate friendly green logo. More entries here.

||| Facebook, or Openbook?

||| Apple's top man (hehe) promises a world "free of porn" with his iPad, in email exchange with blogger.

||| Only in Japan: A robot with flashing eyes and plastic pigtails conducts a wedding.

||| Gold To Go, the machine that sells gold bars to men with tea towels on their heads.

||| The Royal Institute of British Architects in London have announced the winners of this year's RIBA Awards. Left, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, by Rick Mather Architects.

||| This is a safe. How lovely!

||| What's the secret of Madonna's success? Adobe Photoshop Day Cream, of course!

||| Rapper Wale cancels DC Black Pride appearance, claims he didn't know it was a GBLT event.

||| A JLS tour bus singalong. With added shirt-ripping...

||| And here's our lovely boy diva manikins returning home to Blighty, sans entourage and lifting their own luggage. Except for Marvin that is - she's too busy having her catwalk moment...

||| How cute is Britain's Got Talent's Josh Barry? It's almost enough to make me wanna watch.

||| Yikes! The killer preacher is really starting to come undone...

||| A cave painting created 7,000 years ago bear's a striking resemblance to Doctor Who's TARDIS. Or a Police Box. (This story, in The Sun, is

approximately 150 times more interesting than the current series of the show.)

||| Hollywood continues to pander to homophobia, Brent Corrigan writes. ||| Doily art.

||| Driving license fail.

||| A tourist lane for NYC streets? How about one for guys trying to walk like 50 Cent, or smug dawdling straight couples? Or dickheads with cases on wheels? Or-

||| And finally, Afraid To Be Gay, a documentary screened earlier this month in the UK.

||| READ THE LAST EDITION ||| ka-os|theory, ONE YEAR AGO: 23.05.09

_____________________________________________________

Issue 64 of ka-os|theory covers the period

15 - 23 May 2010 - plus some stuff I missed!

ka-os|theory is not responsible for the content

of external websites.

POSTSCRIPT

"You know, we might just as well not have bothered to come.

The whole thing's been ridiculous."

DISCO GRAPHIC

THE FIRST All Male Singing Group I ever loved, before Next, 112, Goodfellaz, Damage and even Ultimate Kaos (whose second album, in 1998, just so happened to be called The Kaos Theory...), was MN8.

They made my teenage hormones do backflips, with all their crotch-grinding, pec-thrusting sexiness. They had it all - the face, the body, the hair... And there was one in every flavour: light-skinned prettyboy KG, cute joker in the pack Dee-Tails, big, beefy, sexy G-Man, and smooth, delicious Kule-T (they're pictured left to right on the cover, above). Musically, they were hot too - but you'd have had to look a little deeper than the singles and albums released by Sony UK, who creatively stifled the band and simply didn't understand (or have any real interest in) black urban music. What Sony wanted was a black Take That. Ultimate Kaos (contemporaries of MN8, but younger and poppier) had the same problem. Before they were MN8, the two lead singers - KG and G-Man - had already gained underground credibility as The Jeuce; as MN8, it was the dirtier, street-influenced B-side tracks 4 Ya Flava and Someone To Love that were more sought after than their parent single, the Disney-esque Pathway To The Moon.

In 1996, MN8 released their second album. The choice of singles was mind-bogglingly bad. Instead of the nasty, sextastic title track Freaky, Sony/Columbia released the poppy Tuff Act To Follow, followed by the smooth (but unexciting) Dreaming. The label totally failed to capitalise on the huge success the band enjoyed with their first album, both in the UK and overseas (I've Got A Little Something For You even featured on the soundtrack of Will Smith's Bad Boys).

Fortunately, those weak singles were accompanied by the real sound of MN8, in the shape of three tight B-sides: the lush, magical Magic Ride, the downright filthy The Player, and the impossibly catchy Dreaming ('Bout U). Why the record label thought these tracks shouldn't be on the album, given the calibre of some of the material that did make it onto Freaky, is anyone's guess.

1994's I've Got A Little Something For You is still a tune. But to this day, I don't know what some of the lyrics mean. Just what, exactly, is the gift that "you and I'll enjoy"?

Bound to be something freaky.

Every MN8 video:

If You Only Let Me In

Happy

Baby It's You

Pathway To The Moon

Tuff Act To Follow

Dreaming.