The Gay Blade

The end of another year - and that's not a bad thing. There have been ups and downs, as usual. Personally, it's been a hard year for a number of reasons, so I'm not sad to turn the page on 2011, and hope that 2012 feels better for me. It's been quite a year really. Huge political changes in North Africa and the Middle East. I cheer on the one hand,  but despair as well, as I read of the persecution of gay men that gets carried out in the turmoil. Scores of gay men have been targetted and murdered in Baghdad, killed just for being gay - this is hideous and barbaric, and it seems like it's not just happening there - we have become a legitimate target, easy to attack with no consequences. Gays don't count as real humans, we're just scum in their eyes. We are so lucky in New Zealand, as bad as things can get here, you won't be pulled into a car, driven off to some wasteland, raped, tortured and shot and then have your body dumped back at your parents'...

And it's Christmas - again. It keeps coming around every year! I'm doing the usual mix of family and friends. A friend of mine told me this morning "Treasure your family, especially your Mum"  - he's an orphan from another country, so he knows what it's like to only have friends at this time. Family lunch today, then again tomorrow, it's a lot all at once, but generally, I enjoy my family. And I like being an uncle and a great-uncle. I'm lucky that way I guess, I know it's not the case for every gay guy. Families can be a curse or a blessing, or a mixture. Another friend from SF told me the other day "You know, I read your blogs and think you sound more like a cranky old man, but I find myself agreeing with you!" So maybe I am cranky - and right at the same time if he's agreeing with me. I can be a moody shit at times, I know. It's part of the package. I can also be kind, caring, charming and fun - we all have our weak-s...

I went to my friend Wayne Otter's farewell from the NZAF yesterday. 18 years he'd been there. That's a long time. And he was there through the so much of the bad times, when we were sick and dying. When I was sick and dying. The thing about Wayne is that he was there - he did far more than his job description required. There aren't many people in the organisation on any level today who know what he knows, or have seen what he saw. His instinctive grasp of what it was like for us and the wider gay community and all those affected by HIV was a key asset, and will be missed. They couldn't muster up a single Board member to appear, just a pro-forma speech, which I think was a bit shabby. But there was a lot of love and respect poured out to him yesterday from people who know what he has done, and he deserved it all and more. And the two senior managers at NZAF are leaving as well, more change. Simon and Eamonn have both made a fantastic contribution over the years...

I turned 50 in October, and I'm really happy about that. Half a century. That sounds old. It did make me stop and think, re-evaluate my life, think about what I'm doing - after all, I never expected to be alive this long,  every year feels like a bonus to me, so I want to make sure I'm making the most of it all. And life is pretty good. I could do with more money, but materially my life is ok. I have a lot of people who care for me very much, family and freinds who love me, and I'm lucky in that. It did strike me though, that I will probably never fall in love again. It's not impossible, I know, but let's face it - the odds are getting pretty long that I am going to meet a guy I am going to want to buy flowers for and do all the silly romantic things people in love do. It would be great to have that wonderful feeling in my life again, to meet a man and revel in that sense of joy and silly happiness that being in love brings. But I doubt it's going to c...

December 1st is World AIDS Day, the UN's theme this year is "Getting to Zero" but who would know it here in New Zealand? As I write this, I can find zero public notice of the fact. Nothing in the mainstream print media. Apparently the NZAF put out a press release, but that seems to have sunk into obscurity. I can't see any evidence of work from Body Positive or the other HIV+ support groups either, but all of this could simply relate to the way the mainstream media just aren't interested in this topic anymore, not unless it gives them a nice lurid scandal to put in a headline. Or perhaps it relates to a total lack of any media strategy from all these groups. Maybe the Occupy movement here in NZ are all wearing red ribbons today...or maybe not. The complete indifference from nearly all areas of the social and political world in New Zealand really  fucks me off. People who should be our natural allies don't even seem to konw about it. Public figures ...

So the NZAF has had its AGM and Board elections - well done to the new trustees, but it's very sad to see no-one with links to Auckland's gay community on the board, and no-one with HIV itself. I asked a few friends who had been active around HIV issues before if they'd voted and their reaction was "What's the point?" The general sense was that the NZAF is no longer connected to the community that established it. NZAF used to be central to the world of gay men in New Zealand - now, with the number of people living with HIV at the highest they've ever been, they're seen as increasingly irrelevant. Auckland has got by far the largest population of HIV+ guys, yet we now have a board with zero contact or knowledge of this world. Let's hope they can rectify that with a judicious appointment - I think they have one place left to fill. As an HIV+ man, and an ex-Chair of the organisation, I find this development sad and worrying for the future effectiven...

New Zealand has a long history of sad, joyless, puritan wowsers, out to point their finger and tell us what is best for us. 100 years ago they tried to ban booze. They know better than we do what we should read, listen to or see, of course, because...well...just because. Yeah, I 'm writing about the ban on Odd Future's appearance at the Big Day Out next year. Apparently the idea that some of their lyrics might offend us gays is enough to get them banned. Goodness knows that we homos are such delicate wee flowers, it is obvious  that hearing people voice nasty words about us will lead to mass suicides. Or not. As Craig Ranapia has pointed out at Public Address, the process around this has been disturbing to say the least. Who the fuck gave Sandra Coney and others the right to act as our censors, on the pretext that some people might be offended? In a free society we have freedom of speech, and that means that sometimes we will all be offended by what others say. Is...

When I was young - such a long time ago gentle reader - but when I was, way back in my early 20s, I was a gay hippy, a believer in all sorts of fringe New Age ideas, like shamanism, the Radical Faeries and all that went with it like homeopathy, astrology, shakra-alignment, karmic choice, all sorts of crap. The Radical Faeries appealed because they are the ultimate in gay hippydom really. They take the idea that gay men have a special spiritual gift, and we are ntaurally more inclinced to being spiritual healers/leaders/ whatever. All based in pretty piss-poor anthropology and re-interpreting other cultures to fit what was basically a cozy American middle-class identity of gay hippy. But it was attractive in its own way. It provided community of a sort, I met some great guys. I was even a professional tarot card reader for a while. Yes, I've had a rich and varied life. Part of it was based in that general questioning and rejection of mainstream society that came so naturally...

So many things swimming around to write about, things I've been thinking about. Life, politics, HIV, horror. Life: I turned 50 last week - that was amazing - and I celebrated with family and friends. It was a lot of fun, and I am very glad, and I am very lucky. And I was very hungover... Politics - well the election looms, and I have opinions, but I'll get to them in another blog. But to be clear, National and ACT and United Future are shit. Perhaps I'm getting old and grumpy, but none of the parties actually inspire me. HIV - why are young guys not getting the message ? Part of the blame must lie at the feet of the NZAF. They are supposed to be experts at connecting with the gay community, that is what they were established to do, and what they get millions of dollars in government funding for and pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries for, but they have dropped the ball here. As they have moved away from being a community organisation to a generic Well...

I was trying to think of the last time I spent the whole night with a guy, going to bed, fucking, and waking up together - it's been a while. So long in fact that I can't remember. It's not that I haven't been having sex - I have. But actually sleeping with someone - that is something that happens rarely. It seems to me that in the past it used to happen much more. You'd go out, pick up, go back to his or your place, and stay the night - it was common in my youth. Maybe in the morning there'd be an embarassing rush for clothes and insincere mumbles about seeing each other again, or maybe you'd have coffee, meet the flatmates, and go. But staying the night was normal. Perhaps it's just me, but now it's not really part of my life. I realised that sleeping with a man is now a much greater act of intimacy for me than fucking with one, which is a little strange, but when I think about it, maybe it's not that weird. I know that my life isn't a ...

A student came up to me after a lecture last week to thank me. I'd been doing my annual guest lecture on "Gay Auckland" and, among other things, talked of the way gay men tend to move to cities from small towns, and how that affects Auckland, and often then we move on overseas, to Sydney, or New York or London. This guy came up and told me how I'd described what he had done by coming to Auckland, and now he planned to move to Sydney or Melbourne when he graduated.  He recognised part of his life in what I was teaching, and that's important. Earlier this year, I had an email sent in the name of some queer students in another class of mine, who said how much they'd appreciated me working gay/queer themes into aspects of the course, and how this never happens normally. It made me realise just how invisible we still are, and reminded me just how important visibility is. If we don't see ourselves represented, whether it's on TV, in movies, or in t...

A friend died the other week, a lovely, warm and kind man, he was younger than me, and it was out of the blue. Heart attack while doing something he loved, so as deaths go, I guess it counts as a good one. Not for his husband or family of course, it was just awful, but I'd rather go like that with no long decline of sickness and hospitals - when I go I hope it's fast. At his funeral there was a lot of talk about enjoying life now, seizing the day, not putting things off. These are things we all say, but they became far more real and relevant in this setting. So that, and the fact I will be 50 next month, have made me sit back a bit and take stock, consider my life and what I'm doing and where it's heading. I am still surprised to be alive - I never thought I'd make it this long after getting my HIV diagnosis in 1988. I've been told twice by doctors to get ready to die, and I'm still here. You'd think I'd be pretty good at living in the moment, ...

My regular fuck-buddy and I have been rooting each other for over 5 years now. That's longer than a lot of other relationships I've had. He's 11 years younger than me and he's so good for me. We go through phases where we see each other lots, and times when we're busy and a few months go by, but it always feels the same when we meet up again. We laugh, we chat, have some wine, we cuddle and kiss, and we fuck, and then we cuddle, and... you know how it goes. There is a genuine affection for each other there too, we know each other pretty well  by now. Last week he said to me "I know your body so well, I know how you will respond when I touch you like this...or here, and I love it!" And I can do the same to him. And hey, he's hot, athletic, hairy and hung - what's not to like? He's HIV negative, and my status isn't an issue for him at all. That's something I really value. When you're HIV+  it's a lot harder to meet guys who ...

Eight years ago, on July 26th, I sat by the bedside of one of my most loved friends as he lay dying in the scummy, dank AIDS ward in Athens. David Turner was so lovely, so kind, so smart and funny. He came into my life in the 1980s when I was living in Istanbul and he brought a group of US students over who were studying Byzantine history - he was a historian and a scholar. David was old friends with another friend of mine from my youth, John, who was visiting me at the time, so we all met up. David has spent part of his youth at school in Auckland where he'd met John, but his mother was Greek, and he was always happiest there. That first day we met we three had an uproarious slightly drunken lunch together, filled with such lewd and vulgar sexual jokes and stories that we actually made a group of English tourists get up and leave the restaurant in disgust.We didn't care. David loved to shock, loved to confront, but tried hard not to hurt. We had a fairly im...

What years of agonising aversion therapy, hormone treatment for some, being prayed over and beatings and prison couldn't do, Shortland Street scriptwriters have managed. Again. They turned a gay character straight. Again. Jonathan McKenna on his return to the show has now fallen for Gabrielle, when years ago his youthful  character was hailed for helping break down sterotypes about gay men. Obviously the ex-Gay movement, homophobic religious types and the few remaining psychiatrists who claim we are mentally sick should get on a plane and find out just what their secret is, because they succeed in turning gay men and women straight with remarkable frequency. I know, I know, it's a TV soap opera and has little to do with reality, but still, I find something nasty about the way they do this. Australia isn't much better, with "Home and Away" nicknamed "Homo Away" as any gay character they ever bring in is quickly moved on. It's like the way the Sovi...

Yes, I have been assimilated by the Apple Borg, and yes, I love my iPhone, but it does make me stop and think. Most gay men who have an iPhone or Android will know at least one of these icons: Scruff, Grindr and Recon. And there are lots more, Manhunt, Gaydar, Adam4Adam to name just a few. All designed so we can get a root, or maybe love, not just in the privacy of our own home while online, but when we're out and about through the apps on our phone. New technology = new ways to  hook up. Is this what happend when they invented paper and ink? It is kind of weird to have my phone chirp at me from my pocket while I'm walking to work and find someone in Texas thinks I'm hot and will be out here in 3 months and do I wanna hook up? Weird, but cool in a strange sort of way. Hey, it's flattering even if it will probably never happen. (He was HOT btw). I love the way I can monitor the different time-zones on scruff, as the screen fills up with people from d...

A friend put a post up on facebook asking where he could buy a douche while he and his partner were on holiday - they'd  forgotten to pack one. I thought some of the reactions were interesting, that it was "TMI" or "ewww...gross". Shit is shit, and not many of us like it, especially when you mix it in with sex. Don't forget though that all the human sex organs are also rubbish outlets, there's no need to get extra squeamish about the arse. Not all gay men fuck or get fucked, but I guess for most of us, fucking is the defining sexual act. Sodomy. Taking or giving it up the arse. We're bum-bandits, and it's one of the things that straight men find so scary about us - that we can get fucked and enjoy it. It unmans us and is also intensely masculine. It is an incredible amount of fun, it feels fantastic, it is deeply intimate and personal, and physically it's the closest we can get to another man, to be there, inside him or have him inside ...

I have never been all that confident about my looks - like a lot of gay men I guess. I tend to see the negatives, all the things I wish I could change or hadn't been born with. When I was younger I genuinely thought I was ugly - and  now I feel sorry for that teenage boy who couldn't see how cute and hot he was, and wish I could sit down with me then and explain how wrong I was about how I saw myself. I don't think I'm unusual in that. So many guys I know have their anxieties about how they look, whether it's physically or their clothes, and so many of us have worked hard to come to terms with our bodies and faces - learning that we won't be as perfect as the images in the magazines takes time - some of us never really learn and keep beating ourselves up over our failure to look like a cover model. And I can think of men I know who are drop-dead handsome, fantastic bodies, and lovely personalities, but they still think they are ugly and undesirable. And for ...

I haven't blogged for a while - just been busy I guess. I'm sitting here on a break from my PhD writing and once again thinking to myself "Why the fuck did I decide to write a PhD about HIV? Why?" I ask the question because it takes up so much space in my life anyhow, so having to read and think and write about it as well in an academic way may not have been the best move for my sanity. The answer is obivous of course. It matters. What HIV does to the men I count as my community matters - the stories that poz guys have so generously entrusted to me about their own experiences matter and deserve to be heard and to feed into our work on controlling the spread of it. They also simply deserve to be heard, and I hope I can help do that. This morning I was re-reading the interview I did with a young guy who died earlier this year. We just had the annual Candlelight Memorial here in New Zealand - I used to go to them but I don't any more. I feel like I remember t...

I bareback. A  lot. Every time I fantasise I do it bareback. I never imagine condoms being used in my jerk-off fantasies, and  have never met any guy who does.Condoms just don't feature in my ideal imaginary sexual scenarios. In my head I break all the safe-sex rules and don't worry about it and no campaign or sanctimonious finger-wagging is ever going to change that. And I don't know any guys who act differently. How is this different from watching bareback porn? Well, it's fantasy, it's not real - no-one else can get infected through my fantasies, but part of the logic that condemns bareback porn is the claim that watching it undermines the safe-sex message and teaches guys it's ok not to use rubbers, but in fantasies that's just what I do, I watch and take part in wild  hot fucking without condoms, yet I am still able to look after my sexual partners safely in real life. And for some social and historical context for tho...

Mark Stpehens from Adelaide, Mr Leather ANZ 2011 I have a new-found respect for the people who enter beauty paegents and body-building contests and that sort of thing. It's fucking hard work! You really have to put yourself out there. The contest is in Melbourne because it's really the heart of the leather scene in Australia now. Sydney doesn't even have a dedicated bar or venue for this group anymore. My flight over was paid for me courtesy of the great guys at Urge , and I arrived, at 9pm on   Thursday, Melbourne time (11pm for my body-clock) met by my  friends Nick and Graeme who dropped me off at Joy FM , the  gay community radio station,  where I got to sit and wait (we did a lot of waiting...)  till the charming, hot and irrepresible Dean Beck was ready for us on his late night show Hide and Seek , along with Mr Leather South Australia and Mr Sydney Leather. It was fun, but shit I was tired, and not up to my usual sparkl...