The Gay Blade

Hmm, haven't been here for a while have I ? Life has been busy - and I'm not complaining about that, well, just a little. But the big news I turn 49 tomorrow. It's big news for me anyhow. In 1988 I was told by a Dr in London that I probably had 2 years to live, so I'm glad I'm still here. I've been so lucky compared to so many. I was talking the other day with a family friend, a woman in her late 70s, who buried her son in the early 90s, before HAART came out, he died about the time I was told I'd die in fact. I always enjoy seeing her, she's a lovely woman, and she always asks me how I am. We were talking about her son's situation compared to mine, and agreed it was nothing more than luck. I was able to just hold on long enough until the new meds came through in 1996. I was already very ill by then, and without them I would have followed him to the grave by now I'm utterly certain. I don't believe in destiny or fate. I don't beli...

Because there is something we're not really dealing with in Homoland . It's not HIV, but I'd argue a lot of our new HIV infections are caused by it. I'm talking about the generally poor state of gay men's mental and emotional health. Britain's Attitude magazine recently did a story on it, which got picked up by The Observer . I see no reason to doubt the situation is any different here, in fact what I know of my own life and the scene I move through confirms this for me. A few weeks ago I was talking with a gay man here in Auckland about the same problems. Gay men have higher than average rates of depression, of drug and alcohol dependency, of STIs, of emtoional and mental health issues in general, and, tragically, of suicide. Yet it's a topic we don't seem willing or able to address. I've been to far too many funerals of friends who have committed suicide. And I confess, it's something I've thought about often myself. That began for me as a...

Me.I have never entered a competition like this before, and I very much doubt I ever shall again, but I have to say it was a lot of fun. It was the persistent bullying of the owners while I was in a mentally weakened state that pushed me into the contest in the first place "Go on... ! Go on!" - that and my admission I can fit into my leathers again - with a good belt to help things in place. The thought of winning a free trip to Melbourne to represent NZ over there was tempting, but the thought of having to compete again was less appealing I have to say. I do not have a gym-toned body, as much as that may surprise some of you, and feel my advancing years keenly. And the winner in Melbourne gets sent to IML (International Mr Leather) a contest that's been going for 32 years, in Chicago. But the cool thing about the leather community is that it is very broad in how it defines itself and who its members are. This year, the winner at IML in Chicago, Tyler McCormick, was the f...

I haven't written about sex in oh, at least an hour, so why not start again. Actually, it's part of my job, doing my PhD, writing about sex and how gay men have sex - and I usually enjoy it - the writing I mean. Oh, and the fieldwork. I've been thinking about what it was like when I was a baby-gay, back in the 70s when I was in my teens and coming out. Nearly all my initial contacts were sexual, until I was about 17 and started making gay friends, and as a teenage boy getting all that sex, I was very, very happy with that. Young, dumb and full of cum, as they say. Yes, I also wanted a boyfriend, and love, but like most teenage boys, I tended to think with my dick. Suddenly there was a whole world of fun in front of me. And Gay Liberation actually had the message of sexual freedom at its core. We aren't heterosexuals, so why form our social and sexual patterns on their models? If you want to go and fuck till sunrise every day, well why not? And a lot of guy...

I listened to a couple of guys I know the other day making jokes about lesbians. Not nice jokes. These were gay guys too, not idiotic straights - and it made me wonder: Why do some gay men seem to find lesbians hard to deal with? I've always had dyke friends, since I was 17 or so and just coming out. Maybe that's exposed me to their world more, so I'm comfortable around it, I don't know, but some of the stuff I hear from other gay guys really repels me. It's nasty sexist bullshit, and I doubt they'd tolerate it if a straight guy talked about them that way. And I remember the way so many dykes stepped up and got so deeply involved in HIV/AIDS: They didn't need to - it's not a virus that lesbians tend to get infected with. But they stood up for us in a huge way. Way more than some of the closety bitter queens that are still around. Lesbians helped protest for better care and treatment, they helped in a practical on-the-ground sense of getting food to peop...

Every now and then I get an email from some dating site I joined up and lost interest in, telling me someone has left me a message. They're usually from Ghana or somewhere in the old USSR, telling me how much they loved my profile and that distance is no obstacle to our love - I don't even bother checking those emails now. But thanks guys anyhow. I've looked at, and joined, and forgotten, a lot of sites over the years. Just how many gay dating sites are there? Here in New Zealand nzdating has things pretty well sewn up, but gaydar can get pretty busy. They're all a bit different, but with a fair amount of crossover too. Damn, admitting I know that shows how much time I spend on them. Well, I did do my MA on gay men's online sex-lives, I'm just maintaining my research interest, honest. Let's see - what comes to mind first? - NZDating, Recon, Gaydar, Gay.com, Grindr, Manhunt, BearWWW, Hairy Turks, GayRomeo, Squirt, Silver Daddies, Adam4Adam - that's j...

Some of you will be aware of this story that has been doing the rounds this week. Two men, lovers, in Malawi, have been sentenced to 14 years in prison for getting engaged, for publically acknowledging their love for each other and for being public about the fact they are men who love men. Malawi is an old British colony, like us, and like us they were governed under British laws, and it is under these laws that these men have ben prosecuted. One of the weird things about so many ex-colonies, and old cultures that have rushed to embrace the modern western way of life is how puritanical sexual ideas have taken such strong root in them. When Catholic missionaries got to China in the 16th C they were appalled at how people regarded men having male lovers as not even worth commenting on. China after the revolution became sexually more puritan than the Seventh Day Adventists. We know that in Africa all sorts of different forms of sexuality were seen in the many different cultures there: Tod...