The Gay Blade

here’s a an episode of The Simpsons when a Gay Pride parade goes by and the marchers chant “We’re here, we’re queer! Get used to it!” and Lisa shouts back “We are used to it! You do this every year!” The entire “Pride” concept is simply dated - it’s too last century, too 80s, too pre Law Reform. The choice of this name for the replacement committee for Hero really makes me wonder what they think they are doing. If the Hero brand is now poison, as it seems to be, then just what makes anyone think that “Pride” is going to be all fresh and new? “Pride” was never a big movement in Auckland in the past - there used to be those sad little “coming out” marches down Ponsonby Rd in the 90s - and really, could you find anywhere less offensive to gay pride than Ponsonby Rd? The Pride Centre - a debacle, and also a concept rooted in the politics of 30 years ago. Have you seen the logo ? It is simply embarrassing. It’s tired, cliched, yawningly unoriginal and dull. Which is most likely what this...

So we have a new government. Democracy in action, messy, imperfect, but it still beats all the alternatives (except for me being Dictator of the World!). We now have openly gay and lesbian MPs all across the Parliament, from the Greens to National. Not quite every party, but all the biggest ones. Even our Attorney-General, a National MP, is an out gay man. What I find both bizarre and wonderful is that no-one has commented on his sexuality. Have we perverts become so mainstream now that when a right-wing Government appoints an open homo to one of the most important positions in Parliament there is no response? And what does this signal? What does it mean for us? In some ways, it is the culmination of what “we” fought for – the right to be accepted for who we are as full and equal human beings, regardless of our sexuality. In other ways, it the opposite. Let me explain. There have basically been two streams to the movement for our rights over the last 100 years or so. The one w...

We call them, only half-jokingly, our "fur children" . Dogs, cats, whatever pet we have, they enrich our lives. When I was recuperating from being at death's door in the mid 90s, one of my brothers bought a puppy, much to his wife's horror, with 2 kids under 5 at the time, so I ended up looking after her for 3 or 4 days a week. I took her to obedience class. She made me get up every day and take her for walks, morning and night, summer and winter. In short, even though she adored my brother, she also bonded with me. I seriously believe that having her in my life helped me in my recovery immensely. It stopped me focussing on myself and my troubles so much, something that's so easy to do. She made me laugh, doing silly dog things. She made me exercise. Having to keep up with a happy, energetic young Doberman cross is bound to make you fitter. She had "4-paw drive" fast as lightning, up and down hills, running like crazy then stopping to see where I was....

It's my birthday next Monday. 47. Amazing. When I was 27 and in London and newly HIV+ I was told I had about 2 years left to live. And then when I was 35 or so, back here in Auckland, I was told I had a year to live. Either the Drs got it wrong, or you are reading the writings from beyond the grave - my advice - don't listen to Drs when they tell you how long you have left. Or maybe we're all stuck in an episode of "The Ghost Whisperer" or something equally crappy. But they meant well when they did say that to me, and they were basing it on their not inconsiderable experience of what the typical trajectory of HIV infection meant in those days. In fact, back in 95 I was so sick everyone thought I was on the way out, me included. I am bloody lucky - there is no other reason I'm still here but blind luck. I don't think I'm special. I was lucky enough to somehow hold on till the new drugs came through. I know so many guys who didn't make it. But I con...

There used to be a fashion in the 17th century to write manuals of advice for young men. Often they were framed as letters from a father to his son. I was wondering what sort of advice I'd give today to a young man coming out into the glamorous glittering world of gay Auckland. Because, of course, when I was a young man, venturing out into homoland, there really wasn't anything in the way of examples or models except for Hudson & Halls or Mr Humphries on "Are You Being Served" - and as much as I appreciate them now, at the time I just didn't want to be anything like them. However, I did start my sex life at the tender age of 15, in the public toilets in the Otahuhu car park. And I just kept going back, there and to other bogs around town. Doing the milk run as we called it. Albert Park, High St, Durham Lane, Customs St and back. There was no Rainbow Youth to go to - all the advice I got was from men who wanted my sweet young body. Some of them were remarkably...

There's a joke that for gay men, having sex is like shaking hands. It's just what we do, you know, it's how we say hi to a stranger. And there's an element of truth to it, after all, as gay men we are defined to some extent by what we do with each other with out clothes off. Or at least flies open. And it's often said that nzdating should really be called nzfucking, cause that's how we treat it. And I'm not complaining about this. Casual sex is one of our great treats. But what about dating? Why don't we seem to do that in this country? I was talking about this with an American friend recently, and he claimed that over there it's actually quite normal to go out and have a meal, maybe a coffee or a drink, and not fall into bed straight away. From what he said, they sometimes even do that two or three times before they do fall into bed.(OK, not always, and maybe not so much in NY). And I was also talking with another friend, who is, sexy, and smart...

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Well, it happened again. Met a guy online, chatted a bit, figured out that the filthy, perverted, friendly things we enjoyed would complement each other's need for perversion and filth nicely. Agreed to safe sex, naturally. Met up in a neutral space so we could each back out with dignity if the reality didn't quite match up to what life online had conjured up. We both fitted our descriptions and agreed we still wanted to do filthy things to each other. Then I told him I was HIV+. Fear, confusion, doubt and... "Look", I said, "if it makes you uncomfortable then hey, let's forget it - no point trying to pretend." He was grateful for the chance I gave him and he left. I didn't have to tell him - and I don't always tell everyone I get naked with. That's why we do safe sex guys - so we won't catch it or pass it on. In fact, I can remember about 7 or 8 years ago at a bar being told off by a guy for telling him my HIV status - as he said "W...

They're having an election this year, in case you hadn't noticed. God what a dismal set of options we have before us. Labour? They seem desperate to stay in power, and willing to do just about anything to do so. But so tired, so arrogant, (witness their indignant howls when the Auditor General demonstrated they'd broken the law) and so out of touch. Plus I don't recall seeing the EFA on the list of promised policies before the last election, when I did vote for them. If they'd had that on the list I wouldn't have. Their constant spiteful attacks on John Key for being successful just don't do it for me either. I know whoever was in power would have cosied up to China, but I find that country as morally bankrupt as apartheid era South Africa. But Labour won't mention a word on those issues. National? Moving so fast to the centre they're nearly indistinguishable from Labour on social policies. Economically neo-liberal still (no thanks!) and not really s...

I was talking a bit about types of men we find sexy with a friend the other day. I don't know if I have one anymore. When I was younger I used to have a type, or types, of men that I found attractive. I am old enough to remember being young with men who had long hippy hair and untamed beards, dressed in flares and wearing love beads, smelling of patchouli and were sweet and gentle and passionate. In my early 20s, they were in their early to mid twenties (28 seemed so old, 30 ancient) slim, trim, but not covered in muscles - I don't think the uber-developed gym-body was around in those days when I think about it. I have always liked a hairy chest, I have to say. And for some reason, a man's back has always been a major turn on for me. Some backs are like warm ivory shields, and tracing the muscles and lines of them as I lie entwined is still something I enjoy. Legs too, I've always been a leg man. I can remember deliberately standing at the bottom of the stairs at schoo...

The tragic suicide of Dr Matt Wildbore last week as well as the imminent publication of Dr Chris Brickell's new book "Mates and Lovers" made me think of a few things. One thought that I keep returning to is the way our history, individual and collective, is so fragile. For many younger men in Auckland, Matt Wildbore is not a name they'd know. For me, and I guess for my generation, he was a symbol of compassion, of care, of fun, of bravery and support through the worst days of the plague. He was vocal, he was courageous, he cared. The effort he put in, and also the efforts of many others, through those dark days when all you could expect after an HIV+ diagnosis was to get sicker and sicker and die, usually terribly, perhaps in your own shit, emaciated, blind, demented, unable to recognise those around your bed who loved you, it seems that history, that part of our culture, has been lost to some extent. It's as if the generation coming straight after a terrible w...

A good friend, who at 44 is a couple of years younger than me, had a heart attack the other week (henceforth known as HAM -Heart Attack Man). Given that he smokes like a chimney, and in his drinking makes me look (at times) like a Salvation Army officer, perhaps it’s not surprising. Worrying, as I am very fond of him, but maybe not so surprising. Another friend, also younger than me, but only by a few weeks, has been living with a nasty cancer diagnosis (henceforth known as CB - Cancer Boy) for the last 2 months. Both of these guys, myself and another friend (let’s call him the 4th), were sitting chatting the other night on K Rd. CB and HAM were sort of swapping notes, while both were smoking still (I can be smug as I haven’t had a ciggie in weeks and weeks now) joking a little, when I asked the 4th if was ok, and he assured me he was, and he asked me if I was ok, and I said “I’m fine thanks, just fine” or words to that effect. There was a slight sort of pause, then I said, “We...

Here’s a question for you: Do all immigrants to New Zealand, or any country, share the same issues? I mean, do a multi-millionaire French immigrant and his American wife settling in Marlborough and running a vineyard have that much in common with an IT peon from Shanghai in Wellington? How much does either one share with a Samoan wife joining her husband and his family here in South Auckland? They all have to adjust, they all come from somewhere else, they’ll all feel a bit different here, for a while at least, but their social and material conditions are vastly different, and this will affect how they adjust to life here. I ask because from among the mailing lists I’m on, I received one the other day that had this acronym - GLITTFAB = gay, lesbian, intersex, transgender, takataapui, fafa’afine, asexual, and bisexual. What an assortment! And why on earth are we all grouped together? That’s what I don’t get. As a gay man, I think I do share a few interests with lesbians. We get ...

A message from a guy I don’t recognise on nzdating - “So, do you still paint your fingernails black?” How long ago was that? 1981? Did I ever paint them black?Maybe in my late-70s wannabe punk days. I remember whore red, sometimes with turquoise glitter laid over the top when the varnish was still wet (cosmetics were more limited in those days). Not sure about black though. I did have black hair with pink stripes. And then lime green hair with a big pink triangle that came down over my forehead to the tip of my nose. I can’t remember all the rest of the stuff I put through my hair. It changed colour regularly. I used to have a beautiful white angora mini-dress, from Streetlife I think. I wore it to my first anti-Springbok tour protest outside Air NZ house, complete with the lime green and pink hair, and tights, one leg pink, one, you got it, lime-green with, I think, red boots. After getting baton-charged I started to wear more protection to protests. I remember having a pair of...

So I see the idea of “Negotiated Safety” (NS) has been re-appearing, both here on the message boards and in the rag. Actually, that’s unfair, Mark Farnworth in express actually wrote a fairly good, if historically uninformed piece on the topic. And at first glance it is easy to see why people go “Why doesn’t NZAF push this idea…?” NS was first “named’ by the Australians, Kippax et al, in 1993 if my memory serves me right. They claimed they had ‘identified’ it as a strategy being used by gay men to avoid getting HIV. I guess Mark was still in primary school when this first surfaced back in the early 90s. Official NS goes something like this: you and the guy you’re with go through a 3 month minimum process of discussing the idea, figuring out how much you trust each other, how easily you can talk about your sex-lives honestly and openly (and that’s never a problem, right?), with a counsellor, then it’s about getting tested, sharing your test results, waiting another month or so,...

I like bars. But, I do like a drink and chat. And even with their drawbacks, bars are one of our main social spaces as homos. There are guys I know from bars and only from bars. We never or very rarely socialise outside them. Yet we know each other, or we know about each other. I think the gay male world is one of the few places where you can know a guy’s intimate details, you know, how big his cock is, whether he likes to top or bottom, what sort of men he goes for, any special kinks, does he like to get pissed on, or get turned on by leather, and still never know his surname, how big his family is, what his living room looks like or what he does for a living. But you will know what he drinks. In fact, you can know all that about another guy without ever having talked to him or even had sex with him. You see, we do tend to talk to each other and about each other. Every time I see one particular guy walking down the street, I think “There goes Mr Accident” after a friend told me of an ...

LOVE MAKES ME GAY I don’t think about why I am gay so much these days, unless I have to. When I was an angst-ridden teenager, it occupied my mind considerably. Why was it that I had no sexual interest in girls, like the other boys did, I wondered? Why did I enjoy showers so much, all of us standing around in the communal shower room, talking and soaping up. Why did I keep thinking about guys all the time? Why were all my wet-dreams based around men, not women? What was wrong with me and how could it be fixed? I was terribly confused, full of self-doubt, and sure there was something deeply “wrong” with me for all this. My family would reject me, if they ever found out, as would my friends. I would be an outcast, a weirdo, unloved and unlovable forever. And it took me a while to get over it, quite a while really. But when I think back to before my balls dropped, I remember that even as a five-year old, while I enjoyed hanging out with the girls in Primer 1, I also really enjoyed the fe...

I’ve been thinking about cock a lot. Well Duh! I am a homo after all. And I’ve seen a lot of cock in my life. OK, more than just seen. I mean, of course I like arses, legs, arms, chests, stomachs, armpits, faces, etc, but really, if a guy doesn’t have a dick, well, as they said in Sex and The City, I’m just not that into him. But guys, never give your dick a name “This is my mate, little David” – it’s so straight. And cocks are all so different. And I don’t just mean size. Some are aesthetically perfect, beautiful objects, that have just the right colour, size and heft (you have to hold it in your hand and feel the weight to really know how good it is) - they just look perfect on that guy’s body. A good heavy cock is a delight. And the arguments you can have over the virtues of cut vs uncut. Gives a whole new meaning to wearing a hoodie. Not to mention the debates on the merits of length vs girth. Hours of fun. Most cocks are ok to good, which means they are great, even though most of...

Seymour Butz Sauna Sessions at Urge were the place to be on Saturday night. Dirty hard great hip-thrusting dance music. The random DNA count on the floor and all around the place probably went up quite a bit. And a certain real-estate agent was seen early in the morning wandering along K Rd in nothing more than a towel (and I know he had nothing on underneath, trust me I know). So what do you think of silky boxers with cartoon characters on them? I mean, are they a fashion statement, or a cry for help? Or does it just show a really rejection of the tyranny of fashion? Or that your mother still buys your clothes even though your 30? Because a certain gay Auckland journalist wears them, I know, I saw, at Urge ;-) On Sunday, in spite of rain in the morning thousands of Auckland homosexuals descended on quiet suburban Coyle park on Sunday, to celebrate, um... well, to celebrate anyhow. Bears were bearish, hairy and sweaty and beery. Twinks twinkled, Dykes dyked, Queers queered and drags...

That dumb "article" in the latest depress that hints, without ever saying so explicitly, that something is deeply wrong at the AIDS Foundation, again, It's one of their favourite themes for some reason. The article is a mess of innuendo and non-sequitirs. I must confess, I used to sit on the NZAF Board and was even the Chair, but that was a while ago. So while I've never been an employee there (though I have just started some consulting) , I do know it pretty well, and I'm happy to criticise it when it needs it, trust me, but this article was just rubbish. You do wonder if anyone at depress has any journalistic training, I don't know, but I suspect not. Oh, yeah, just remembered, I used to work for depress... So you know, I'm sort of, impartial. Let's look at what they said. The Headline claims there are "Community Concerns" well, gee, there's a piece of hard detailed news. Who is this "community"? They never actually seem to ...

Writing, like cigarettes and good sex, can get to be an addictive vice, and I'm a happy addict of at least two of those mentioned. I also love to read, and to read intelligent thoughtful reporting on what goes on around me in this world, especially the microcosm that is gay NZ, or really, for me, gay Auckland. So as that is not easily found, I thought, what the hell, I'll blog about it from my point of view. One of the reasons is I get so pissed off with the crap of what passes for our "gay press" - the printed stuff here that is. Cheap, shallow, sensationalist and driven only by advertising, it typically lacks substance. Will I be any better? Maybe not, but I'll have some fun, and maybe you will too. So if my other addictions don't get in the way (and I'm trying to stop smoking again) I'm going to use this to put up my views, which being mine and mine alone, are bound to piss off a few people, but hell, that's their problem, right?