The Gay Blade

I gather I'm in a minority, but I really like man-buns. I've heard so many friends put them down. Suffering from GOMS (Grumpy Old Man Syndrome) I think. I always think criticising the hair of a younger generation is a dangerous sign that the speaker is getting conformist, slipping into the same sort of middle-aged attitudes we hated as kids and about to launch into "Back in MY day we never ..." sort of platitudes. I regret that I have never had long hair. When it was in in the 60s and 70s I was too young, and Kings Prep had a strict "no hair touching the collar" rule. Kings College was a little more relaxed, and longer hair had become normal by then. But by the time I left school and could make my own decisions punk was in and my hair was short, and dyed in as many colours as I could find. My hairdresser once stole a lime green from a colleague for me. My older brothers, especially the oldest two, really went for long hair in a big way. I remembe...

  As a gay man I look at the tragedy that has occurred in Orlando and am struck dumb with grief. This was a pre-meditated attack, an act of unbridled hatred, against people simply because, like me, they were born different. This is as stupid as killing people for being left-handed or having green eyes. I’ve been trying to understand why it has shaken me and so many of my friends so deeply. It is because we are so used to living with fear, we are so used to the little put-downs so often described as “jokes”. So many of us were bullied at school and rejected by our families that we don’t trust the world around us easily. We know that we are inviting verbal abuse and the danger of physical attack if we walk around holding our loved one’s hand or kissing in public. We know to check and not behave in a way that is “too gay” if we’re out on the street at night, especially if you’re on your own. We know we are at risk, and what this foul act of terror in Orlando has done is ...

“I want to get married and have kids.” That’s what the young guy (mid 20s) told me as we were lying there having a cuddle after all the hot sweaty fun was over. He wasn't proposing to me, let's be clear. And he didn’t mean go in the closet and marry a woman, he meant find a nice guy, settle down and raise a family. And as he went on to explain, preferably not in Auckland, but a smaller town like the one he grew up in, which he said had made for a great childhood. He doesn’t see this, as many queer theorists might, as being trapped by heteronormative and patriarchal models of life; he sees this as being key to having a good life. And when you think about it, love, children, stability – it’s a pretty attractive package. It just struck me how he and others are “doing gay” in such a totally different way from we ever envisaged when I was his age. As a young gay guy in my mid 20s, the idea that I could be an out gay man, and a dad with a husband, could h...

I went out for a walk on Monday, enjoying the last week of my holidays, and running across K Rd I pulled my right calf muscle. It hurt like hell, but I tried to pretend it didn't. Same thing happened about 5 years ago. So I've been laid up, resting my leg, in a compression bandage, icing it the first day or two, the usual stuff. It will heal, and I will be ok in time. The frustrating thing is that I'm not actually sick - just unable to do normal things, like go for a walk or a drive, or cut the grass, have a hot fuck, and enjoy my holiday. It made me think back to when I was really sick, back in the 90s, about 20 years ago in 1995 I had AIDS and was expected to die. My specialist at the hospital told me I had about a year to live. I was in a hospice for people with AIDS. I weighed about 50kgs - I couldn't walk more than a couple of metres. I shat my bed often because I couldn't get to the toilet. I couldn't breather without an oxygen tank. I'd eat,...