The Gay Blade

“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...

So all things being equal, it looks like we're going to get the right to get married , if we're all reading the tea-leaves in the right way. It seems like it's going to get through. Marriage. Love. Intimacy. Trust.   If the point of marriage is a public, legally binding declaration of love in front of all who we love and recorded officially by the power of the State, then is it ok for the married couple to stop using condoms?  After all, if you've decided to make that commitment to another guy and maybe you're going as far as buying a house together, merging your finances, getting a mortgage, sharing a credit-card, all the things you see in so many straight marriages - surely if you're doing all that with each other, you can consider whether you need to still follow the old rule of  "Use a condom every time!" Looking at the NZAF's latest condom campaign , they seem to be saying  "No!"  And it's not just here in N...