The Gay Blade

A friend gave me some back issues of gay mags the other day. DNA, Attitude, Gay News etc. All choc-full of images of beautiful men. Men who obviously spend hours every day in the gym and live on wheatgrass juice, tuna and rice - I know, I know, they're models, but even so, they're held up to us as the image of what a gay man is supposed to be. These images are powerful, and their common-place use to depict gay men tells us something about our world, and I'm not sure I like it. And really, let's face it, these guys are our equivalent of busty blonde bimbos for straight guys. Hasn't Gay Liberation been a great thing? Baby, we've come such a long way... So many muscles and such sharp definition that the split in their abs starts to look like a vagina, a friend noted. Ridiculously slim waists. And, with one exception, no body hair. So even though they're supposedly what gay men aspire to be like, if we're not already there, they actually look more like perpe...

I was at Urge again the other night and noticed a poster from The Basement. for those who don't know, The Basement is a sex-club. Anyway, the poster read something like "Thursday Night is Fetish Night at The Basement". I looked at it and knew I wouldn't go. I just don't think I have any fetishes these days. I used to. The feel and smell of leather used to be a fetish. Hairy chests used to be a fetish. B&D and role-playing used to be a fetish. Actually, without boasting, there are few things that men can do to each other sexually I haven't tried, and only a few of those I haven't really enjoyed at some stage in my life. Not that they were all fetishes I guess. But now, I just don't seem to have any. I know guys who just about cream their pants when they see a guy in the right sports kit. For some it will only be Adidas, never Nike or any other brand. Others are just into sports-kit in general. Other guys get all hot and bothered over tatts, or facia...

Why is it that so many wonderful men that I know are single? And, for that matter, why am I ? Not that I am necessarily all that wonderful. Is it the pool of men around? I mean, I have so many friends in Auckland, but I can't see myself falling for them, not when we've been mates for so long. And then you look on-line and see, well, all sorts of guys, some, let's admit it, seem just a bit sad and desperate, or wildly unrealistic. Guys who post entire shopping lists of desired characteristics on their profiles are not going to be my choice. I mean, how could you ever live up to it? A few weeks ago an 18 year old messaged me on NZD and asked if I wanted to do cam-sex with him. I mean, really - 18!? Do his parents know what he's getting up to in his bedroom at night when they think he's studying? Shit - imagine if they walked in just as we were reaching the point of the whole thing. But most parents of teenage gay men have no idea what their sons are up to, let's ...

Mike, Glenn, Alan, Peter, Alan, Andrew, Chris, David: I used to have a list somewhere of all the names of the men I know who’d died. Then it got too long. And now I can’t remember everyone I knew who died of AIDS. I hope their families still do, but it is over 20 years now since many of them sickened and died. Even to their brothers and sisters they will be turning into misty memories, the sadness and grief now all but worn away over time, as they look at old photos and remember the good times. I suppose this is what it is like after a war. Twenty years on who wanted to hear talk of the trenches of WW1 and their horrors, or who in the 1960s really cared about the agony and brilliance of the Battle of Britain pilots? Who cares today about the veterans of the first Gulf War? But in all of these, families were destroyed. Young loved men in the prime of their lives disappeared into some distant land or city, and returned, if at all, either plague-wracked and waiting to die or already dead,...

"It's easier to hide an elephant in your armpit than a queen in a crowd" : apparently a popular saying in Constantinople in the 10th Century or so. OK, so I'm fudgeing the date a bit, but the friend who told me this was a Byzantine historian from Athens, and a big old sodomite to boot, so I believe him. I've always loved the saying. It's not always the most popular observation, but the queen does seem to be a pretty unviersal human type, and one we can recognise whether you're in the streets of Moscow, Cairo, Beijing or Dunedin. I swear that in Jerusalem a few years ago I saw two screaming mincing queens dressed up as Orthodox Jewish women, wigs, head-scarves and all.They seemed to be having a great time, though causing some level of puzzlement to those around them. Queens are powerful, and that's how I use the word queen, not in a disparaging way, but they are strong. Think of Quentin Crisp. Think of Philippe, Duc d'Orleans in 17th Century France...

Well, it's probably a good thing it isn't, or nothing would get done, but the thought came to me as I was sitting here waiting for the plumbers to arrive. If life were like porn, the plumbers would be hot, maybe one in his 40s, dark and hairy, strong but a little gut going on there, one in his 20s, friendly, eager and smooth, both wearing overalls undone down to the crotch cause of the heat, and that are somehow constantly threatening to fall off and reveal that big hard tool that all plumbers always walk around with. After fiddling with their tools and a couple of subtle comments and some serious eye contact, well, it'd all be on. But would your loo ever get fixed? After you'd all had so much fun together, would it even be possible to say "The tap over the laundry sink is dripping too" - bit of a come-down really. Just think of all the trades that'd be so much more interesting if they were just like in the pornos: electricians, pizza delivery boys, mech...

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