The Gay Blade

I gather I'm in a minority, but I really like man-buns. I've heard so many friends put them down. Suffering from GOMS (Grumpy Old Man Syndrome) I think. I always think criticising the hair of a younger generation is a dangerous sign that the speaker is getting conformist, slipping into the same sort of middle-aged attitudes we hated as kids and about to launch into "Back in MY day we never ..." sort of platitudes. I regret that I have never had long hair. When it was in in the 60s and 70s I was too young, and Kings Prep had a strict "no hair touching the collar" rule. Kings College was a little more relaxed, and longer hair had become normal by then. But by the time I left school and could make my own decisions punk was in and my hair was short, and dyed in as many colours as I could find. My hairdresser once stole a lime green from a colleague for me. My older brothers, especially the oldest two, really went for long hair in a big way. I remembe...

  As a gay man I look at the tragedy that has occurred in Orlando and am struck dumb with grief. This was a pre-meditated attack, an act of unbridled hatred, against people simply because, like me, they were born different. This is as stupid as killing people for being left-handed or having green eyes. I’ve been trying to understand why it has shaken me and so many of my friends so deeply. It is because we are so used to living with fear, we are so used to the little put-downs so often described as “jokes”. So many of us were bullied at school and rejected by our families that we don’t trust the world around us easily. We know that we are inviting verbal abuse and the danger of physical attack if we walk around holding our loved one’s hand or kissing in public. We know to check and not behave in a way that is “too gay” if we’re out on the street at night, especially if you’re on your own. We know we are at risk, and what this foul act of terror in Orlando has done is ...

“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...

I went out for a walk on Monday, enjoying the last week of my holidays, and running across K Rd I pulled my right calf muscle. It hurt like hell, but I tried to pretend it didn't. Same thing happened about 5 years ago. So I've been laid up, resting my leg, in a compression bandage, icing it the first day or two, the usual stuff. It will heal, and I will be ok in time. The frustrating thing is that I'm not actually sick - just unable to do normal things, like go for a walk or a drive, or cut the grass, have a hot fuck, and enjoy my holiday. It made me think back to when I was really sick, back in the 90s, about 20 years ago in 1995 I had AIDS and was expected to die. My specialist at the hospital told me I had about a year to live. I was in a hospice for people with AIDS. I weighed about 50kgs - I couldn't walk more than a couple of metres. I shat my bed often because I couldn't get to the toilet. I couldn't breather without an oxygen tank. I'd eat,...

Ructions at Body Positive and unhappy members.  Where have I seen this before? Before we go on, let me be upfront that I do know some of the people involved on all sides of this: that’s NZ’s HIV world for you. And if I’ve got any dates wrong, please let me know – but be forgiving,  I’m painting in broad brushstrokes here. My first contact with BP was back in 1993, and I was a member of the Board for 1994 – 95. Mike Butters was the first Executive Director of BP, and if my memory serves me right, he was the first person to have a paid position with the organisation. That in itself pissed off some members, who thought any work done should be voluntary and any money we had be used on supporting people living with AIDS.  Of course it was a very different era. We didn’t really talk about HIV then, it was AIDS, as everyone was getting sick and dying of AIDS. I attended a 12-on-12 support group (twelve HIV+ people meeting for twelve weeks) and one of the...

I took this photo as I left Urge on its last night/morning of business. I like to think the white ball is the ghost of all the accumulated cum that was spilt in those walls, slowly rising up to gay heaven. Because let's face it, there was a lot of sperm spilt in there over the 17 or so years it was in business. And yes, some of it was mine, and I helped other guys spill some of theirs too. I recall a few years back being in Sydney and talking to an Aussie in the Oxford who'd been over to Auckland and Urge the week before and he excitedly told me how he'd been given a blow job while standing at the bar. Maybe I'm jaded, but I was like "Yeah, that happens there." And it wasn't just cum, remember Troughman? And others of his ilk lying on the floor in the toilets and hoping for a drink straight from the tap. He swore he could tell what drugs people were on by how their urine tasted, and sometimes got high off too much P in their pee. But Urge ha...

We’re two years into marriage equality here in New Zealand, and as Green MP Kevin Hague noted, the world hasn’t come to an end yet. I never saw this one coming, the huge importance that would get tied to being able to get married I mean. I was attending a conference in Melbourne with Warren Lindberg, sitting in his hotel room and watching on his laptop as Louisa Wall’s bill went through its final reading. That feeling of euphoria was amazing – even more so the next day at the conference when we could celebrate this with our fellow Rainbow health activists and advocates. Growing up as a young gay activist the last thing I ever thought we’d fight for was marriage. Isn’t it just a patriarchal institution, designed to subjugate women and keep men in power? Why would gay men (or lesbians) ever want any part of that? Even straights were giving up on getting married! And as gay men, we were busy celebrating our right to have a full and rich sex life, not to get tied down ...