The Gay Blade

Clunky, quirky,  and not exactly easy on the eye, but I'm going to miss it. Long-time editor Jay Bennie announced  that he and his business partner Neil Gibb have decided it's time to retire, which looks like it means the end of Gaynz, the only site of genuine journalism and news that focussed on NZ's LGBTTI+ world. And as a disclaimer, it's only fair to note that I've been published there many times, as well as in Express when Jay owned and ran that so well. The website was definitely past its best-by date. It would seem to go against every cliche there is about what wonderful flair for design gay men are supposed to have. And Jay was generous in the way he covered so many smaller events and gave free publicity to many smaller community groups and efforts. And most importantly, underneath the plain front was real journalism, not just empty puffery for advertisers. Jay is a trained journalist, and he hired trained journalists over the years to edit the...

Why are we so invisible? I don't know if you saw, but there was a news report out this week saying a pair of bodies that had been trapped in the lava at Pompeii, and identified for many years as "The Maidens" is in fact two male bodies. This has led to all sorts of speculation that in fact they were two lovers, two men taking comfort in each other's arms at this terrible time. The UK magazine Attitude got so carried away that it claimed that they were. And it's a beautiful and poignant way of thinking about them.Two men, in love, as this terrible catastrophe destroys their world and comes to take their lives, finding some comfort, some refuge in each other, in death as in life. But it's highly unlikely to be true. There is in fact no way of knowing anything about them except they are two bodies whose forms were preserved in lava. Yet so many of us  really, really wanted to believe they were lovers. And that's because we so rarely see an...

I blogged years back on how much I enjoyed the hookup apps, the fun and freedom they give. It was a by-product of getting my first iPhone. Suddenly it was all so easy. (Yes, like me, would be the obvious joke here.) I have been fascinated by our online sexual interactions since the early days of sites like gay.com, when we used the chat rooms, then the other hookup sites like NZ Dating. They all make scratching the itch so much easier. I even did my MA thesis on what gay men were doing in sites like those. Then smart phones changed the game again. Suddenly you could carry hundreds of potential fucks around in your pocket. Men from around the world. It made hooking up overseas so easy.And who knows, maybe you'd even date someone and fall in love! It has happened. I know people who've met that way. Yet the other day I deleted all of them. Because love. It's not that I'm a sudden convert to monogamy, or believe that you can't have a loving relationship in t...