The Gay Blade

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?