Being Fuzzy, Being Proud. But As Hot and Hairy As We Like Them, Some Guys Want to Shave Off Their Sexyness

Guys get serious about shaving their bodies
Neely Tucker / Washington Post

Spring, and a young man's thoughts turn to chest hair.

Also, that of the back, the belly, the shoulder and maybe regions farther south. It turns out that there is a hair-removal waxing procedure called the "Boy-zilian," the male equivalent of the Brazilian bikini wax, for which you would have to put your ankle behind your head in order to do it yourself, and we never want to think about that again.

Your chest, back, shoulders. Summer beckons. The pool, the beach. Skin revealed. Worries: Slack gut, man-boobs, back fur, being regarded as a metrosexual. You don't want to be prissy (unless you're into that), and yet you don't want to be so hirsute that some guy comes up to you at the pool, going: "Burt? Burt Reynolds?"

"Body hair is a major category of what guys worry about," says Glenn O'Brien, author of "The Style Guy" and a column by that title for GQ magazine. "It's in the realm of 'What color socks match my shoes and pants?' I could write a column on it every month."

You might be thinking this is a fad. One of those alleged trends like feminists burning their bras back in the day, or maybe like the mullet haircuts on guys in the 1980s.
This is not so.

Consider: Last May, Philips Norelco rolled out the $34.99 Bodygroom BG 2020, a shaver designed to trim or shave body hair. "It blew our sales projections out of the water," says Shannon Jenest, a spokeswoman for the company. "It took off in ways we couldn't imagine. We tripled our original forecast by the end of the year."

Or: Men's Health, a magazine aimed at working guys who work out, has had exactly two guys with chest hair on the cover in the last 17 years, according to Brian Boye, the magazine's fashion and grooming editor.

Or: Last summer, a guy named Brett Marut in Santa Monica, Calif., came out with a thing called Mangroomer. It's essentially a shaver on a stick, designed to enable you to reach around and shave your back. He priced it at $39.95, looking to appeal to guys in Flyover, America, who were too self-conscious to go to a salon to get it done, or even let their friends know they were trying it out. He didn't have much money, so he just put a couple of ads on Internet search engines. It was an instant hit, blossomed at online retailers and, 10 months later, Mangroomer is in every Bed Bath & Beyond in the country.

There's also Nair for Men, which sells for about $5 and promises to get rid of hair in four minutes by rubbing a cream on it.

Waxing, shaving, depilating, lasering men's body hair: It's all part of the beautification of the male animal, an aesthetic that genuflects before the ancient Greeks.
In real life, it is boys, not men, who are devoid of body hair, and for ages one sign of adult male virility was chest hair. To be devoid was to be effeminate. This continued in Western and American pop culture right through the last century. Men never considered grooming below the neck.

Nobody has an exact beginning point, but bodybuilders, starting with, say, Jack LaLanne in the 1940s, would hearken to that Grecian ideal, shaving their bodies for competition, the better for judges to appreciate every oiled and sculpted pec. There's a picture of LaLanne posing beachside about 1950. He looks like he's made out of marble. The only hair visible is on his head.

By the early 1980s, the hairless chest and back was catching on with gay guys. Like earrings, it began to cross over to fashion-conscious straight men, athletes and celebrities, and then into the mainstream.

"When it comes to vanity, gay men have been at the forefront, the trendsetters," Boye says.

"But now, with all the celebrities, magazine covers, the movies, it's appropriate and acceptable for anyone who wants to go bald to do it."

When I had finally thought the hairy musclebear look had returned for good, this article appears. I only hope it is a fad. Hot hairy guys rule. Mega hairy muscle hugs to that, and thankgoodness for our hot hairy muscle studs. Keep that body hair, sexy guys.

I Have Never Agreed With Andrew Sullivan, But I Guess There Is A First Time For Everything

And rarely do I continue a topic, but the Lord Browne of British Petroleum fame, deserves more coverage, because for loving another guy, though really young, and getting caught, and denying it, all of this brought a very powerful business executive to his knees.

Here are our Andy's thoughts on the whole mess.

Trapped in a glass closet of his own making
Andrew Sullivan

"The rule of thumb with all gay scandals is a very simple one. Would the same thing be a scandal if the central figure were heterosexual? In Lord Browne’s case the answer is clearly yes. It would still have been a scandal – a little one, to be sure, but a scandal nonetheless.

If a leading executive of a large company had met his girlfriend through an escort service and had subsequently attempted to lie about that in court, then he would have been forced to resign early as well. Browne has not been subject to a double standard or penalised because he is gay. Perjury is perjury. Ask Bill Clinton. Or Jonathan Aitken.

The more interesting question, it seems to me, is a prior one: why was Browne subject to blackmail in the first place?

It does not appear that he abused his position at BP to help Jeff Chevalier, his former boyfriend. BP doesn’t claim any financial impropriety. In fact, apart from the perjury and before the break-up, Browne seems to have been a gentleman throughout. So what was he afraid of? Yes, he’d met his lover through an escort service. An embarrassing detail, but not exactly the kind of thing to force a big executive to launch a legal jihad against a newspaper.

His real fear, it appears, was of being “outed” in the mass media, of having the fact of his sexual orientation a public matter. This is why, in an act of Wildean rashness, he brought The Mail on Sunday injunction. This is why he threw mounds of money and hired the best lawyers to keep a petty nonstory out of the papers.

But the principle for Browne was a clear one. He explained it thus: “In my 41 years with BP I have kept my private life separate from my business life. I have always regarded my sexuality as a personal matter, to be kept private.”

And yet the facts do not entirely bear this interpretation out. Browne openly socialised with his young lover, introduced him to colleagues and many members of the British Establishment. No one seems to have taken exception.

Tony and Gordon and Peter are not likely to take offence at an adult man in a gay relationship, however young and however attractive the lover. In fact the long list of honours and privileges and testimonials to Browne’s character bespeaks a British elite completely comfortable with a powerful and accomplished gay man in their midst.

Browne rose about as far as one can in the business world and is by any rational standard ridiculously wealthy. He lives in a country where gay couples have equal standing in the law (although still denied the word “marriage”), where gay culture is completely mainstream and where gay sex has been legal – for the most part at least – for 40 years and is now legal everywhere at the age of 16.

The pity one instinctively feels for Browne at this moment is therefore not because he was a man undone by homophobia. It is because he was a man undone by its opposite – by a culture so comfortable and at ease with homosexuality that it had surpassed his own comfort level and rendered his own strict view of “privacy” completely moot.

Browne was clearly struggling to cope with this social change and was experimenting in the new world. But in such experiments he was inexperienced. And the inexperience led to misjudgment. It often does.

Try to think of it from his perspective. Think of the world that the 59-year-old Browne has inhabited in one lifetime. When he was a teenager, homosexuality was literally unspeakable in polite society. British authorities were injecting the great Alan Turing with hormones to “cure” him of his orientation just as Browne was leaving primary school.

For the first 19 years of his life Browne could have been imprisoned for a relationship with another man. During his formative years of adolescence, Browne learnt what every gay boy or girl had to learn at the time: if you do not keep this a terrible secret you will perish.
Even after being largely decriminalised in 1967 the culture remained a strong force sustaining the stigma that Browne internalised. In the 1960s and 1970s it was far from easy for an ambitious scientist and businessman to have a life – that is, a mature relationship with another man – while having a serious career.

The secrecy and fear that were soldered onto a gay man’s psyche were not as easily detached from the world as a piece of Victorian legislation. And as the gay rights movement first blossomed as a countercultural force, it did not easily include Browne and his ilk – Establishment, mannered, private men and women.

For that generation their “discretion” was, and is, a matter of honour and pride. That this pride was inevitably entangled with the remnants of shame did not make it any the less treasured. “I have always regarded my sexuality as a personal matter, to be kept private” is almost a credo for a man of Browne’s generation. Younger generations scoff at this but they never had to acquire the psychological armour that a gay man needed in that era.

Societies, moreover, change more quickly than individuals do. This is especially the case with gay culture. Gays are a unique minority because we are almost all brought up as if we were heterosexuals in heterosexual families. We learn what it is to be gay from the general culture we imbibe as children and teens. As it changes, gay kids change. And quickly.

The difference between a culture that can safely mock “the only gay in the village” as comedy and a culture that would have beaten that gay to a pulp five decades ago is a vast one. And yet we have forgotten it so easily. A gay man who has lived through each of those decades is not in such an easy position.

I meet young gay men today who take it for granted that they can get married to someone they fall in love with.

When I was their age – only two decades ago – an argument for gay marriage was about as radical as it gets. If I feel somewhat left behind I can only imagine the perplexity Browne is grappling with this weekend.

Sympathy has its limits of course. Browne is a wealthy and privileged man. His remarkable achievements will soon outlast his temporary embarrassment. Besides, he foolishly tried to have it both ways: to live a life as an openly gay man, but to insist on controlling the disclosure of every aspect of that identity. In a culture where gayness is now unexceptional you cannot get away with this. You cannot simply segment your emotional and sexual life into a hermetically sealed “private zone”. No heterosexual can.

With acceptance come the same rules of public and private that heterosexuals have to live with. Browne could not be private about being gay in some contexts and public in other ones. Even a man as rich and powerful as he is cannot control the culture with that degree of precision.
He lived in what is best described as a glass closet. It’s when a gay man wants to have an openly gay life but not a publicly disclosed one. He tries to manage the contours of his identity on his own terms and in the way he was accustomed to in decades past. But those days are gone. With new freedom comes a transparency that also demands a new responsibility.

These are not easy adjustments, they merit compassion and understanding. But they are necessary if gay equality is to mean something tangible. Others didn’t see his glass closet but Browne did. That was the asymmetry that eventually righted itself. And so the glass shattered and the shards wounded. But the wounds heal. For so many others they already have. "

So the moral to the story maybe, be picky and careful who you chose, if you want to remain in a glass closet. But like glass houses, you'll soon be exposed, no matter how hard you try to cover up matters. An openly gay life and a publicly disclosed one do go hand-in-hand. One leads to the other, no matter how one tries to keep them separate. So you got to live with it and its consequences. In the long run, it will always be the better decision.

My 300th Blog Post. Unfortunately I Have To Report Yet Again About the Sexual Escapades of Powerful Closeted Gay Men

Oh how weak affairs of the cock and sometimes, heart are. But seriously, couldn't this have been handled differently? Is hiding a boytoy and then getting caught and exposed worth all the scandal, financial loss, and scrutiny?

As many of you may have read or heard, Lord John Browne, the former Chief Executive Officer of British Petroleum (BP) has been implicated in a corporate scandal involving his former gay lover, which has forced the 58 year old Lord Browne to resign his position in the company.

The following are exerpts from an article appearing in the publication, This Is London.

Dressed in Prada and housed in luxury, the young gay lover of Lord Browne, the shamed ex Chief Executive Officer of British Petroleum.

Lord Browne fell for the charms of Jeff Chevalier, (pictured above), a young Canadian computer operator, in 2002.

It is unclear how their paths crossed - Lord Browne originally claimed it was a chance meeting while he was "exercising" in Battersea Park, near his luxury London home, but later admitted that this was a lie. The truth was recently revealed that the two met courtesy of a male excort service. (More of this below).

However, it is clear that the pair became partners for four years and during that time Chevalier "adopted Lord Browne's [the Claimant's] lifestyle and was provided by him with food, travel, clothes and accommodation at a fairly luxurious level.

According to reports, the end of the affair came in 2006. According to court papers, when the relationship ended, Mr Chevalier went home to Canada but "found himself in financial difficulties and also having to adjust to a drastically reduced lifestyle".

Lord Browne helped his former lover by giving him money to help pay for a 12-month lease on a flat in Toronto and to buy furnishings after promising Chevalier "that if needed, [he] would assist in the first year of me transitioning from living in multi-million pound homes around the world, flying in private jets, five-star hotels, £2,000 suits, and so on to a less than modest life in Canada."

But Chevalier soon fell on hard times, the computer business Lord Browne bankrolled, now bankrupt, and by the end of 2006 was asking Lord Browne for more money.

On Christmas Eve, he emailed his ex-lover on holiday in the Caribbean, telling him: "I have nothing left to lose ... I am facing hunger and homelessness after four years of sharing your lifestyle ... the least I am asking for is some assistance ... please respond ... I do not want to embarrass you in any way but I am being cornered by your lack of response to my myriad attempts at communication."

It was after this missive, which Chevalier denied was intended as a threat, that he decided to make the affair public and Browne reached for his lawyers.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=452194&in_page_id=1770

But as more of the story unfolds, the two met up, thanks to the website, http://www.suitedandbooted.com

It is not known what drew Lord Browne to the site or when he first visited. It could have been idle curiosity, or perhaps it was word of mouth.

But at some point in 2002, it apparently led the multi-millionaire to Jeff Chevalier.

The site has a gallery of 100 male 'escorts'. Some appear in leather outfits and chains, others in a string of provocative poses some with faces visible, others hidden to disguise their identity. Underneath each image is a name. These include Romeo, Beloved and Big Alex.
Users can click on the image that takes their fancy and find individual profile pages with personal information and the promise of more pictures.

The homepage opens with the welcome 'Thank you for choosing to visit our site' and the offer of a first-name, friendly and personal service.

It claims to be the UK's first and largest web-based agency and an award winner, set up in 1998.
Bold lettering proclaims that all models featured on the site are over 18.

Suited and Booted is advertised with a string of similar agencies in listings columns on the Internet. One advertisement reads: 'Stunning, educated guys with great personalities and friendly attitude. One call to us and we make all the arrangements.'

Another promises 'discrete, friendly service from guys who enjoy their work'.

Curiously suitedandbooted.com appears to have a social conscience. A £1 charity donation is promised for every booking.

Yesterday the agency did not respond to phone calls or e-mail. Visitors to the website saw a message stating: 'We apologise that suitedandbooted.com is down due to technical reasons.'

I guess this source for boytoys won't be providing any outcalls this weekend in London.

So where is our boy Jeff hiding? According to the Toronto Globe and Mail, the whereabouts of Jeff Chevalier remained a mystery yesterday with his former lover suspecting that the 27-year-old Canadian, who single-handedly brought down a British oil tycoon, is holed up somewhere until his story is published in a London tabloid newspaper that bought it.

"I'm sure [The Mail on Sunday] has got him out of Toronto so no one can talk to him," John Trickey, ( an appropriate name, especially if they had ever gotten married), Mr. Chevalier's 48-year-old former lover, said yesterday from his Toronto home.

Mr. Chevalier's brother, Blair, also said he was not in the city. "I don't want to speak with you," Blair said before hanging up his cellphone.

The young Canadian is at the centre of a British scandal. Lord John Browne, the chief executive officer of BP PLC, abruptly resigned this week after losing a court battle to keep secret the details of a four-year affair with Mr. Chevalier. Now, The Mail on Sunday can publish details of the relationship.

Our boy Jeff has been described by his former lover as someone who loved a life of privilege that included whirlwind trips to London and New York and shopping sprees at Holt Renfrew.

Mr. Trickey said the young man left him when his Internet business was starting to collapse. He left for London and later met Lord Browne through an escort agency.

Mr. Trickey said he kept in touch with Mr. Chevalier. "Lord Browne lavished him with clothes and exclusive restaurants and trips," Mr. Trickey said yesterday.

Mr. Chevalier's sister, Courtney, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview yesterday. A woman who picked up the phone at the number listed for Mr. Chevalier's relative hung up when told it was a reporter calling. No one answered the building intercom buzzer for a Rexdale apartment listed as belonging to "Tom Chevalier."

After Mr. Chevalier's relationship with Lord Browne ended last year, he threatened to embarrass the oil tycoon, according to a court ruling. Mr. Chevalier alleges that Lord Browne used BP money to support him and shared company secrets.

Lord Browne denies those allegations. BP chairman John Sutherland said in a statement that the company has investigated the allegations and found them baseless. The scandal has left the blogsphere buzzing with theories and opinions about the relationship between the business tycoon and the Canadian.

But on a sadder note, why is this surprising? So Lord Browne (LB) wanted to act as a "daddy" to a young gay lad. Acting with his cock and on the downlow, LB, by not, first publically acknowledging this relationship, affair, early on, could have prevented the scandal by showing the public one side, or at least, pretending that Jeff was his assistant. But it seems that LB was hooked by the candy between the sheets and not necessarilyby the brains of the boy.

Like the "good, gay and horny" former governor from New Jersey, James E. McGreevey, LB chose to hide this from the press and the public. By being outed, LB faces the same shame as McGreevey did, before he could put a positive spin on it, and proclaim himself to be a "proud Gay American".

There is nothing wrong with older guy, younger guy relationships. But all of these men have handled them very badly. It takes a special kind of commitment to make them work. The boy has to have respect for the man, and the man has to have respect for the boy. Money and power, just seems to complicate matters.

Gay Yesterday, Gay Today, Gay Tomorrow. What Deep Roots We Have.

The following is from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6593281.stm

Ancient text shows 'gay activist'

Dr Hal Gladfelder discovered the document by chanceThe battle for gay rights may have been fought more than two centuries before the UK legalization of homosexuality.

The 18th Century writings of Thomas Cannon, believed to be one of the first gay activists, have been found by a University of Manchester academic.

They were contained in a handwritten scroll indicting the printer of his 1749 work "Ancient And Modern Pederasty Investigated And Exemplified".

The book was banned but the scroll has long, previously unheard, extracts.

Dr Hal Gladfelder found the parchment among a box of uncatalogued documents from 1750 while doing research at the National Archives in Kew.

The indictment suggests the book was an anthology of stories and philosophical texts in defence of male homosexuality. I think what happened to Cannon paved the way for 200 years of homophobic repression , said Dr Gladfelder.

One story deals with cross-dressing while others are translations of Greek and Latin homo-erotic texts. One of the extracts reads: "Unnatural desire is a contradiction in terms; downright nonsense.
"Desire is an amatory impulse of the inmost human parts."

Dr Gladfelder, from the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, said: "This must be the first substantial treatment of homosexuality ever in English.

"The only other discussions of homosexuality were contained in violently moralistic and homophobic attacks or in trial reports for the crime of sodomy up to and beyond 1750."

Sodomy in England was a capital offence punishable by death until 1861 and homosexuality was banned until 1967.

Dr Gladfelder said Cannon fled to Europe to avoid punishment and no copies of the book itself survive.

"It's a fair assumption that Cannon was writing for a gay subculture at the time - which has largely remained hidden," he added. "Though he lived in anonymity - possibly because of the notoriety of his pamphlet - I certainly regard him as a martyr.

"I think what happened to Cannon paved the way for 200 years of homophobic repression," he added.

So our first gay scholar and activist was Thomas Cannon. You learn something everyday.

That just goes to show that while our battles for acceptance and equality seem to be recent, the war has gone on for a very long time.

Check out my Slide Show!

A Very Sad Week

We are mourning the senseless killing of gay brothers and sisters shot down in Blacksburg this week.

Gays among victims of Virginia Tech slayings‘It’s not a gay thing, it’s an everybody thing’By LOU CHIBBARO JR. Apr 19, 1:44 PM

Members of the gay student group at Virginia Tech joined other students in sharing their grief over the shooting rampage Monday that claimed the lives of 33 students, faculty and staff members and were struggling over the discovery that gay people were among the fallen, the leader of the group said Wednesday.

“Thirty-three people were killed,” said Curtis Dahn, president of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Alliance of Virginia Tech. “Some were queer, and others were straight allies. The GLBT community at Tech grieves in the same way as others — deeply and as part of a greater whole.”

Dahn declined to disclose the number of gay or lesbian students killed or wounded in the incident, nor would he identify them, saying he and the gay alliance group wanted to wait until they were certain all families were notified about the loss of their loved ones.

“Yes, there were gay people that were killed,” he said. “One was a very close friend of mine. But I don’t feel comfortable talking about it because I haven’t talked to the families and I want to be respectful to the families, first and foremost."

Dahn also said he doesn't "want this to be a gay thing, because it’s not a gay thing,” he said. “It’s an everybody thing.”

Dahn said that like all others at the college, members of the gay alliance were grappling with the realization that a Virginia Tech student, 23-year-old English major Cho Seung Hui, unleashed the nation’s deadliest shooting rampage on their campus.

Authorities said Cho was a South Korean native known as a loner who had been suffering from depression. He took his own life in a classroom in one of the school’s crowded engineering buildings as police closed in on him, authorities said. Minutes earlier, he fired two pistols at students, professors and staff members in the building’s halls and in other classrooms, leaving behind a scene of indescribable carnage, according to details released by police and campus security officials.

The shootings in the classroom building took place about two hours after Cho reportedly killed two other students, a male and female, in a student dormitory.

Dahn confirmed reports that at least one of the members of the gay alliance, undergraduate student Erin Sheehan, was a survivor of the shootings in the classroom building. Sheenhan described her harrowing experience in witnessing fellow students being struck by bullets in network television interviews. She could not be reached for this story.

“She was inside one of the classrooms and she survived only by playing dead,” Dahn said. “I can’t even begin to describe it.”

Dahn said the incident prompted his group to postpone campus activities associated with Wednesday's National Day of Silence. The annual event is sponsored by the New York-based Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to draw attention to anti-gay and anti-transgender bullying, harassment and name-calling at the nation’s high schools and colleges.
“It’s the last thing on our minds right now,” he said.

Instead, the gay alliance is devoting all its time and resources to help the school and its students deal with the aftermath of the shooting incident, Dahn said.

“This is a painful time for all of us, and we really appreciate the huge influx of support from everyone,” he said. “We are coming together as Hokies and as human beings,” he said, referring to the term used to rally school spirit for its sports teams and student body.

“We are sharing in our grief, regardless of minority status or previous social groups. Tragedy has broken down barriers,” he said. “We mourn.”

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group, issued a statement Tuesday saying the group was joining the nation in mourning the loss of life at Virginia Tech brought about by the shooting rampage.

“Our prayers are with the students, faculty, families and the entire school community as the fact of this terrible tragedy unfold and as the enormity of the unprecedented loss sets in,” Solmonese said.
“America is a strong country with great resolve and it’s that resolve that will bring this country together in supporting the victims and their families and friends in the days ahead.”

We Still Have a Lot of Growing Up To Do

The following is an excerpt from a review of the movie, Boy Culture.

"Boys may be boys, but sharing a life with a boy is no easy feat. A man is what’s required, and Q. Allan Brocka’s film “Boy Culture” exposes the necessity for adulthood among gay men who value youth (and even immaturity) above all things."

"Framed by a sometimes-witty sometimes-intrusive voice over, the film tells the story of X (Derek Magyar), a high-end hustler, and his two roommates: the newly out Andrew (“Noah’s Arc’s” Darryl Stephens) and the professionally out Joey (Jonathon Trent). X is in love with Andrew, Andrew might be in love with X, and Joey is definitely in love and lust with X. Convoluted? Slightly. Implausible? Hardly."

"X and Andrew do end up trying to forge a relationship that’s based on love, but the pair has a lot of baggage to unpack first. Andrew still wants to explore other men in an open relationship, but finds X’s hustling repugnant. X, who believes that hustling is just a job, thinks that sleeping around for free is the morally reprehensible act. "

"The really interesting part of the mix comes in the form of Gregory (Patrick Bauchau), X’s newest client. The 79-year-old hasn’t left his apartment since his lover of 50 years died — eight years ago. While the odd couple doesn’t have sex until far into the film (and what a refreshing sex scene!), Gregory does guide X into a greater understanding of loving relationships because of his own rich past."

“BOY CULTURE” IS one of the better gay films to come along in recent memory. The snappy writing, courtesy of Brocka and Philip Pierce with inspiration from the novel written by Matthew Rettenmund, creates a witty and frequently stinging commentary on the characters and gay culture.

Love might be born in a look or a dinner date, but relationships require maturity, and in “Boy Culture,” each character needs to grow up, even the 79-year-old. It’s been a long-held theory that coming out starts a whole new period of emotional and sexual adolescence for the individual. Perhaps this is part of the reason why gay men have difficulty acting like adults in their relationships with friends and lovers.

"While Joey might be the most obviously “young” character (his emotions vacillate wildly and he’s willing to burn all his bridges), the chronologically older characters act in similar ways, just with less flair. Each character is trying to come to terms with the rigors of gay adulthood, without any role models in sight. If they could watch their own stories, they just might find the guideposts they need."

Sounds like the coming of age gay male flick that hasn't been made in about 20 years. Gay adulthood takes balls to live through. What gay men seem to always fall back on is that little boy inside us. That's a big mistake. We need to "man-up" and take responsibility for our actions, whatever the consequences.

Roseanne Barr made a remark this past week that has gotten herself into a lot of trouble, but not Imus type trouble. Her remark about gay activists always talking about "it", the gay struggle, and the perception that they are one dimensional since they always talk about the "we", can appear selfish to straights who support us. We got to be more than one issue gay guys. Yes, we want equality and yes we deserve it. But sometimes we come off as "in your face", instead of persuasive and "equal opportunity" caring guys.

Rosie O'Donnell is accused as coming across as a loud-mouth lesbian. She brings up gay rights every weekday into the homes of millions of gay and straight viewers, on her bully TV pulpit, "the View". But when Roseanne was a guest recently on 'the View", the ladies shared the view that the working middle class in this society today is getting the short end of the stick. This is not just a straight issue but a gay issue. It's an economic issue. We are working harder and enjoying it less.

These ladies are both rich, but they can see how the rest of us, gay or straight, are getting screwed. Everyone wants what everyone else who has it better, got, and no one seems to care about the other guy's struggles and hardships. It's a "me too and the hell with you" mindset that never gets to the collective issue. First we got to end this bloody war, then with a bit of persuasion, maybe the majority in this country can be convinced that it's ok for same sex couples to get married and get an economic benefit in terms of a tax break, the same that married straights currently enjoy. But this right is never going to be given to us on a silver platter.

We have to be adult men and earn the legal rights to anything straight society takes for granted. So what, if straight married couples screw it up by getting divorced. We have to prove to straight society and to ourselves, that we are better than them because we are compassionate, civil, smarter, and more creative in adversity than they will ever be.

So let's pull ourselves up by the jockstrap, put on those boots, millions of pecs strong, and stand up for our equality. Not by getting in society's face, but by collective action. Talk is cheap, standing around and criticizing is ineffective. It takes action. Straight society needs to see us as more than guys who can coordinate paint colors or drive the latest sports car. Let's get down and dirty. I'm all for playing in the mud. WOOF.

Straight Men Playing Their Gay Card for Financial Benefit

This just in from Out Magazine. It seems that various straight men love flirting with us. Yes, they seem to want to get into our wallets, and if it means getting into our pants, then they are up to the challenge.

One of the members of the rock bank, Grizzly Bear, loves to hit on gay men. When he's in a homocentric situation, ( a nifty catch phrase I haven't come across before), he feels that he needs to fit in more, so he lays it on. For him, flirting opens up the gate.

Party promoters, journalists, those weird European men, it seems that they appear to be putting on a convincing front. So these guys spill their guts to the author, Will Doig, and most of those guys interviewed for the article admit to being horny. And they like the attention. They feel, if they are so hot, then they can be attractive in either world.

So, guys, are these sluts bisexual, closet gay men, or just guys who like to have guys hit on them, for sport and financial gain? I think these guys are hiding something. Being blunt, they appear to be messed up fucks. I wouldn't waste a hairy muscle hug on any of them.

What Guys Are Truly Missing When They Only Cruise the "Cover"

The following is exerpted from an article appearing at http://www.edgephiladelphia.com

Tim Bergling is the Margaret Mead of the tribal rituals, customs, and psycho-sexual behavior of gay men. The author of Sissyphobia: Gay men and Effeminate Behavior, Reeling in the Years: Gay Men’s Perspectives on Age and Ageism, and his latest, Chasing Adonis, looks at the cult and illusion of male beauty. Through interviews and polling, Bergling collates and dissects the raw data on the gay male pecking order.

Bergling’s research is more anecdotal than scientific, but there is something to be said for keeping it real with unorthodox field work. Scrap anthropological methodology; Adonis is part John Rechy and part Sex and the City. This volume is a survival guide for the sex romps of Fire Island, the local parks and truckstops, and the bathhouses, mostly past, from the meat racks to the cloths racks, the gyms, the bars, the Halls of Congress, and all points inbetween.

Of course, much of this reflects what is on the GLBT codes-and-conduct, hard-wired gaydar, with individual tweaks, that Bergling seeks to speciously, validate, if not prove. The real fun is Bergling’s collection of tales of elusive encounters with beautiful men - the mythic gardener, the swim god, the ripe go-go boy at Tracks, a now closed DC gay disco, and all those elusive Adonises that have blipped across various beaten-down paths. Bergling has practical advice about gay mating dances - from hook-ups to dating etiquette - and any attendant head games. Passages on how to be rejected with dignity, or reject someone delicately, for instance, can serve as a ’how to’ manual to avoid seduction missteps.

The chapter on body types wittily reads like old Charles Atlas testimonials of weight lifting, but completely uninhibited from a homo point of view. Thankfully, it isn’t cutesy, a la Queer Eye. But, like Narcissus, obsession with the body becomes as shallow in the mind as the broken image in the water. Berling even relates a personal story about a ’hands on’ assignment for Instinct Magazine about masterbating in cyberspace.

And so, through the author, you learn in reading this book, "Who's a dude or dud?" Didn’t Cosmopolitan conduct the same survey in the 70s (or was that After Dark?) (God, this guy really did his research) He even devotes an entire chapter, titled, "Survey Says," with results on pie-charts from a cross section of gay men on what they find as hot or not.

Case in point: a chart divided into slices marked with legends like, I do not exercise; I exercise, but don’t belong to any gym; I go to a gym to work out; I go to the gym to check out other guys; I go to the gym to work out, and to check out other guys. Some charts track trends as relevant as the percentage of men who were fat once and then lost weight (and visa versa). We all have our types, such as "I like guys with fuzzy bodies, lots of body hair," and as crucial as the percentage of men who say, "I like guys with a lot of muscle. Deep...dense... tissue, here.

At its best, Adonis’ stories about what drives gay male libido makes it an erotic journey about queer male sexual energy. Not to mock the sincerity of the shallowness of gay male obsession with the body, which, as Bergling proves, can be mind-numbingly profound. Bergling write in a witty manner that he allows the reader to expose himself to why, for the most part, gay men are so shallow.

It is really a shame that gay guys look only at the surface. Oh what they are missing. I too sometimes get carried away by the flesh. (Hell, I post those hottie pix above to get your attention). But being superficial isn't going to get you the man of your dreams. Yea, its nice to see a hot guy shirtless, and beefy. But can he be passionate, hot in the sack, and make a mean french toast in the morning? Guys who waste away their lives looking for Adonis will be left with an empty life. There is something hot about any guy. You just have to invest time to explore those hidden gems.

There Goes The Gayborhood

Community activists worry that "gayborhoods" are losing their relevance as gays win legal rights and greater social acceptance.

"Thirty years ago, if I lived in the Midwest and I was gay, my thought was I would go to San Francisco or New York," says Gary Gates, a demographer for the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA that specializes in sexual orientation and the law. "Now, a person can go to Kansas City and find a fairly active and open gay community."

In fact, from 2000 to 2005, the 10 states with the biggest increases in the percentage of gay couples were all in the Midwest, Gates said. Sandy Sachs, a nightclub owner in gay-friendly West Hollywood, has started promoting special dance nights for straight Iranians, Israelis and Russians because her gay clientele has fallen off. Sachs said that many gay men and lesbians now prefer to meet potential partners on the Internet.

Another factor contributing to the decline of gay neighborhoods: Many young gays feel comfortable mixing with people of different genders and sexual orientations. "We don't want to ostracize ourselves," said Matty, 20, who moved to San Francisco's diverse Mission District from nearby Petaluma three years ago. Activists agree it is a good thing that gay people no longer feel confined to the Castro, but some fear younger generations will overlook their history. "We have Chinatown and Japantown and so forth, and that's important for minority communities in this country, to have a place where they can get a sense of being the majority," said Joe Curtin, an architect who serves as president of Castro Area Planning Action. "But if you took those away, you would still have China and Japan. If the Castro goes away as a gay neighborhood, there is nowhere else. "

With ever rising real estate prices, maybe it is time for gay men to find other "gayborhoods" away from the main urban core. Older suburbs have many of the same features of larger downtown clusters. Maybe opening a bar in a community where there is cheap housing and access to jobs in the urban area, may be the new gay frontier. This exodus may already be happening. With a conservative figure of around 300,000 unmarried cohabitating male households and growing, this may well be the trend. Just think of the all male eye-candy landscaping the front lawns of suburbia as hunky guys tend to mowing and working in their yards. WOOF.

Gay Men and the Corporate Ladder. Do We Make Better Bosses?

According to this month's Details Magazine, a study has revealed that gay men do make better bosses and supervisors.

Why Gay Men Make the Best Bosses
America's most desirable managers all have one thing in common: homosexuality. —By Danielle Sacks—

Only three months into his senior manager gig at a Fortune 500 company, Matthew Klein was in way over his head. "I finally walked into my boss's office, threw my hands in the air, and said, 'I'm feeling totally overwhelmed and inadequate,'" he explains. "I basically had a breakdown." Many managers would have reacted to such a display by telling him to get back out there and grow a pair. But Klein's boss had the opposite reaction: First he reassured Klein he was doing a great job, then he helped him prioritize his workload so that it became manageable. "It's not like he's this fuzzy guy who would reach across the table and hug you in a meeting—he's tough as nails," says Klein of Robert Ollander-Krane, who is director of learning and development for the company. "But he allowed me to be completely honest about my circumstances. Now we have this huge foundation of trust."

Wouldn't that be nice—a boss who actually gave a damn. And while it's not conclusive, evidence suggests that one of the reasons Ollander-Krane is so effective is that he's part of a new breed—gay managers—who could be becoming America's most desirable bosses.

In The G Quotient: Why Gay Executives Are Excelling as Leaders . . . and What Every Manager Needs to Know, author and USC business-school professor Kirk Snyder argues that gay bosses embody a style of personalized attention that allows high-maintenance Gen Xers and Yers to maximize their performance. "Gay executives tend to look at how each individual brings unique abilities, and they see their job as figuring out how best to take advantage of those skills," he says.

In fact, during Snyder's five-year study of American executives, he stumbled on some startling findings: Gay male bosses produce 35 to 60 percent higher levels of employee engagement, satisfaction, and morale than straight bosses. This is no small achievement: According to human-resources consulting firm Towers Perrin, only a measly 14 percent of the global corporate workforce are fully engaged by their jobs. And the Saratoga Institute, a group that measures the effectiveness of HR departments, found that in a study of 20,000 workers who had quit their jobs, the primary motivator for jumping ship was their supervisors' behavior.
So what makes gay bosses different? It may have to do with the way they survived high school. "Gay people are constantly having to dodge and weave and assess how and where they're going as they grow up," says Snyder. "And that manifests itself as three huge skills: adaptability, intuitive communications, and creative problem-solving." In other words, your boss is cool with your leaving a little early one day a week to pick up your kid from school, or happy to offer a learning experience that helps you close a crucial deal.

Gay executives note that the reflection and candidness required for coming out mean that by the time they get to the workplace, gay men are often secure in their identity and don't feel the need to abuse people in order to boost their ego. "It makes you really honest with yourself and everyone around you," says Chris McCarthy, a vice president at MTV Networks who came out 10 years ago. He believes the experience has allowed him to tap into the individual needs of his seven team members, including two discontented employees whom he recently helped find new positions within the company. "I think it's really important that you give people the opportunity to have self-respect, even if that means helping them leave a job in the way they want to," he explains.

And this kind of empathetic management style is both gay and straight benefiting employees. When Brian Wachur, 23, wasn't getting the promotion he'd been waiting for at his D.C. PR firm, he approached his gay manager, Jason Smith. "I was nervous about what he was going to say, but he was able to tell me where I could improve in a really constructive way," he says. "It was a big contrast to other managers I had had in the past." Wachur soon got the new title, and he now considers Smith his professional mentor. "It's definitely surprising to me that I have a 38-year-old gay male in my life who is such a huge influence."

Matthew Klein says that working for a gay boss has taught him that emotionally honest doesn't equate to weak in the workplace. "Your typical hetero male is programmed as a boy that there are two emotions: angry and tired," he says. "These are gross limitations that restrict our ability to be great managers."

But being gay doesn't give you a monopoly on management skills. "The only managers that succeed are ones that have energy and are outgoing and interested," says Richard Laermer, the gay CEO of a New York-based PR firm and co-author of Punk Marketing: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution. "If that's a gay thing, then mazel tov, but I know the same number of straight managers who are emotional and caring." And one gay vice president at a financial firm says his leadership traits come from his life history, not from anything related to his sexual orientation. "I was in the military, in a fraternity, and played a varsity sport," he says. "I feel like I spend my life explaining that what I'm saying or doing has nothing to do with the fact that I'm gay."

That said, if your new boss happens to be gay, chances are you'll be happier and more fulfilled in your job. And even if you're not, the consolation is that there's still one area in which he's likely to excel. Says Smith, "We throw the fiercest holiday parties."

I've been a manager, as well as have had managers. I feel that I am a good listener and a good judge of character. I think gay men do have certain characteristics that make them better bosses. But there are always the exception. In-the-closet types can be the bosses from hell. I had one of them, and he was a real prick. Also I hear that multi-billionaire businessman David Geffen can be a hard person to work for. But the head of Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner, is a great guy to work for, and a nurturing publisher.

Something related, one of the earliest gay character actors on TV has died. John Inman, who played Mr. Humphries on the classic Brit TV sitcom, "Are You Being Served?" died yesterday.

More from the advocate.com

Trailblazing gay actor John Inman dies

Actor John Inman, popular for his memorably camp role as Mr. Humphries in the '70s sitcom Are You Being Served?, died Thursday in London. He was 71.

Inman died in St Mary's Hospital in Paddington after suffering a hepatitis A infection.

His character's catchphrase, "I'm free," and suggestive sexual humor made Inman a star, and he starred in more than 40 pantos—traditional Yuletide family entertainments that include double entendres and male and female drag as well as lots of jokes for the kiddies.

Named BBC personality of the year and "Funniest Man on Television" by TV Times in 1976, Inman remained popular long after the show ended in 1985. He went on to star in an Australian version of the show in the early 1980s and also appeared on BBC's 2004 series Revolver.

Are You Being Served?, about a stuffy department store staffed by lovable eccentrics, reached the United States in the late 1980s, where it became a cult hit.

When publicly questioned about his sexuality, Inman remained coy for many years, but admitted that he could be bisexual.

However, in late 2005, Inman made his sexual orientation public when he entered into a civil partnership with his partner of 33 years, Ron Lynch. Lynch is said to be "devastated" by Inman's death.

Although Mr. Humphries was widely criticized as a gay stereotype, actress Rula Lenska, who worked with Inman, defended the gay undertones of the character.

"It was suggestive, but never in-your-face or aggressive. It had an innocent quality that you rarely find today," she told the BBC.

Inman "was a joy to work with, and even after an exhausting day in pantomime he would have time for the fans who crowded round the stage door," Lenska said. MY NOTE: GOSH, RULA LENSKA is still around?

Wendy Richard, who played shop assistant Miss Brahms in the series, told BBC Radio 4's Today program: "John was one of the wittiest and most inventive actors I've ever worked with. He was a brilliant, brilliant pantomime dame, and he was a very good all-round actor, really. He was a true professional."

Inman's manager, Phil Dale, said, "John was known and loved throughout the world. He was one of the best and finest pantomime dames working to capacity audiences throughout Britain. John was known for his comedy plays and farces, which were enjoyed from London's West End throughout the country and as far as Australia, Canada, and the USA."

George Broadhead, secretary of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, told Gay.com that at the time of the show, "Inman became a bit of a bête noire for the gay community for promoting stereotypes of gay men as effeminate."

However, he said, "The gay community has grown up since then and has come to appreciate its trailblazers. Inman fits into the same mold as Larry Grayson and Frankie Howard. We can actually see reruns of Are You Being Served? and appreciate their zaniness now rather than cringing at stereotypes." (Hassan Mirza, Gay.com/U.K.)

I always enjoyed his character for comic relief, especially his interaction on the set in scenes with the character Mrs. Slocum and his eye movements when she mentioned her "pussy". I made sure I never acted like him. He will be missed.

Yet Another Gay Male Porn Star Tragedy

It saddens me to report that Brett Mycles, aka Rob Sager, died over the weekend of congestive heart failure. He was 29 years old.

Brett was a star of several porn flicks as well as a fitness model. He reportedly was gay-for-pay, an escort as well as bisexual. He had married his childhood sweetheart several years ago, but it was not known if she knew of his porn life, or was with him at his time of death.

There has been speculation that his premature death may have been caused by steroid use. I don't know if an autopsy was performed to confirm cause of death.

Brett had a large legion of gay fans who literally worshipped his body. They were devoted fans and very obsessed with him.

I know this will not be the last death of someone who was part of the gay porn industry. I also realize that steroid and drug use in the industry will continue, and for young guys in the porn industry, it will be anything but a wakeup call to change their lifestyles.

I don't know if Brett knew any other life than in front of the camera. He will never get to explore and experience maturity. He will never see life fulfilled in some way.

I don't believe that his fans and their expectations have such control over an individual that all that he lives for is their admiration. If that is the case, then we live in a very superficial world.

I feel that while it is great appreciating hot gay men, it is even more important that we value each other from both an inner and outer perspective. Indeed, genuine beauty and sexyness is much, much more that what lies on the surface. What makes a man truly hot is his brains, his compassion, his values, his virtues, and as an added bonus, his brawn. These so called "idols" need to realize that life can be cut short, and if you want to live a full life, you can't cheat life by destroying your body, or forever being a party boy and expect to live a full and happy life.

Sorry to Keep Revisting This Story, But It's Definitely Worth Repeating

Why Can't Guys Learn that "Tina" is a BITCH, and get her out of their lives?

The following is from a news item posted on the Washington Blade web site.

The Atlanta Meth Task Force convened the forum at Outwrite after several recent deaths of local crystal meth users. The emotional forum included testimony from Josh Williams’ brother, one of guys who recently died of an overdose in the Atlanta area, as well as from Tommy Varnador, who wept as he talked about the November overdose death of his partner, Joseph Myska.

“This drug fills a void in people — a sense of guilt, a sense of shame,” said Brian Dew, a professor at Georgia State University who leads the Atlanta Meth Task Force. “It’s seen as a perfect short-term solution to the feelings that are there.”Drawing attention to the harmful effects of meth is particularly challenging among gay men, Dew said.“I think that the gay community has been reluctant to address our own pitfalls, and I think we’re seeing it with drug use,” Dew said. “But we can no longer sit back because of what it’s doing and the impact that it’s having.”

Russell Beasley talked about how he and Josh Williams had a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” attitude in many parts of their friendship, including drug use. But instead of being inspired by a desire not to appear judgmental, the informal policy was a manifestation of both men’s fears that if his friend knew the truth about him, he would no longer love him and would leave.

Gay men can no longer afford to mask their insecurities through drugs or indifference, Beasley said.“In the old days, when we were fighting HIV, we were going out and we were doing AIDS education and we were fighting to save lives — it’s kind of the same thing,” Beasley. “We all need to go out, spread the word, let everybody know that meth equals death, and that there is healing that can be achieved from everything.”

Also participating in the Outwrite forum was Mark White, who talked about how he had a staunchly conservative disdain for drug use most of his life before going through a difficult break-up.Crystal meth use, however, led to White landing in jail on Thanksgiving Day as well as Tina-fueled sex romps that led him to becoming HIV positive.“I became very lonely, I began to shy away from some of the things that I never really dealt with — for example, being comfortable being gay,” White said. “I’m a shy person by nature, but on crystal I became very sociable, I felt very powerful, very confident and very sexual.”

Guys have to have will power. Can't they realize that a guy can be sexual without the so called enhancement of fatal drugs? Is it too much to ask that guys interact more with their brains than with the lure of drugs? Can't guys get a woody by just taking in the "woofyness" of another guy's pleasure?

Drugs just fuck up the pleasures of the sexual experience. If guys invested some time for foreplay, they'd realize that great sex and staying power can come naturally. Drawing this from within, can make sex between two men real, and rememberable.

I know you guys have strong opinions on the subject. I can't accept the fact that guys can be so lonely that their only recourse is to use crystal. We've already seen these cries played out daily by Britney and look what happened to Anna Nicole. So why are guys who can have it all, killing themselves for instant, at the moment, pleasure? Self esteem seems to be at an all time low.

Men Together. Should It Always Be about Sex?

Our old pal Andy Sullivan, is writing again about gay men showering with their straight buds in the gym and elsewhere. He tells us that while he might have been turned on by other men, straight men, in the shower, he always controlled his woody. I was surprised that Andy didn't start describing all of his shower encounters where guys "worshipped" his woody.

So I was curious about the opinions of other guys on the subject. The following is from a healthboard post about men showering together.

Here's one guy's opinion.

What is the big deal here. I have been showering at the gym for years and before that in college and before that in high school. There was always someone that I knew either as a friend or just an aquaintance in there with me. I admit that in junior high when I started taking showers after gym class the gang showers were a little intimidating but after a while you realize that most of the other guys are nervous too and then you all get used to it. Yes some guys have bigger or smaller equipment or flatter stomachs and bigger muscles. But you know what.... There is always going to be someone who is bigger or smaller or who has a better body. Be a man and have some confidence in yourself. Everyone looks you can't help it but 99.9999% of the guys in the shower could care less about what they see. They are just there to get clean and get out. As far as showering with your buddies as was mentioned in the original post, I say so what. You are all buddies and it is not like you are squeezing into a tiny shower stall together. There was room for 2 so I say go for it and don't make a big deal about it. If you can not be comfortable around your buddies where can you be comfortable.I have been in situations where I have had to share a bed with a buddy when we got stuck after a day of skiing and had to spend the night. There is nothing sexual about it - a guy has got to shower and sleep don't he.

So the communal showering ritual is just that. When guys shower in public, the unspoken rule is no hard-ons and no come-ons. When you invite a guy to your house, then the shower is considered a private venue. This is when showering together, man to man, becomes a totally pleasurable experience. One of the hottest examples of foreplay I know. Anyone care to comment?

Mega Hairy Muscle Valentine's Day Hugs

Well guys, as you know, Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday. I guess I have always been a closet cupid. I enjoy seeing guys together, loving each other, sharing their passion, their lives, making each other happy.

Even after that Snicker's Super Bowl commercial, I can think of nothing sexier than two guys sharing some delicious between their lips. Enjoying a creamy chocolate Dove bar or other treat maximizes the taste buds and makes for fun eating.

So guys, I want each of you to pledge to me that when Cupid's arrow strikes, and it will, that you hug that cute guy next to you, whisper sweet nothings in his ear, give some tongue action if appropriate, and make him feel like he never felt before. When he moans, you got him where you want him.

Have a super Valentine's Day full of affection and hot sizzling sex.

What's This With Gay Porn Stars and Their Vicious Killer Tempers

Straight from the headlines. Two stories about gay porn stars and their murderous deeds.

A sad state of affairs, especially when these guys are "gay for pay".


A former Falcon pornstar will be tried in US state Colorado for the murder of gay businessman John Paul Kelso. Police apprehended the accused Timothy Boham, 25, very near to the US/Mexico border back in November. Boham had fled state Colorado, where a warrant had been issued for his arrest. Boham is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated robbery. Boham, apparently straight and gay-for-pay, was known as Marcus Allen in Falcon porn titles such as "Little Big League," "Through the Woods," "Never been touched," and "Ripe". Boham allegedly worked for the gay Kelso, 43, who had made millions though a career of debt recovery. A housekeeper found Kelso shot to death in the bathtub of his upscale Denver home.

Kelso, a philanthropist donating thousands of dollars to charities, often hired rent boys.
At a preliminary hearing this month, local police reported that Kelso was killed during a robbery attempt by Boham who needed money for a pregnant girlfriend. According to the Denver Post, Detective Aaron Lopez said that prior to the murder, Kelso had asked Boham to come to the bedroom for "a cuddle". Boham then pulled a gun on Kelso, asking him to open the safe box, which was believed to store buckets of cash. However, Kelso resisted and a struggle ensued leaving Kelso wounded.Kelso tried to pull an alarm, but a panicked Boham then suffocated him and shot him in the head. A blood smear was left on the alarm button, Lopez said.

Following the shooting, Boham was able to pry open the safe, which was empty except for a few rings. Boham then seized Kelso's Rolex watch and fled the scene. Court documents suggested that Boham, who had bipolar disorder and was prone to fits of rage, told his mother and sister that he had planned to use the money to go to South America with his girlfriend. But in the end it turnd out "he had done this for nothing," affidavits say.

Boham's lawyer maintains murder was not premeditated. He told the court that there was no evidence that Boham had gone to the Kelso's home with any other motive than to rob him. Boham has been ordered to be in custody until the trial date is set.

At a preliminary hearing this month, local police reported that Kelso was killed during a robbery attempt by Boham who needed money for a pregnant girlfriend. According to the Denver Post, Detective Aaron Lopez said that prior to the murder, Kelso had asked Boham to come to the bedroom for "a cuddle". Boham then pulled a gun on Kelso, asking him to open the safe box, which was believed to store buckets of cash. However, Kelso resisted and a struggle ensued leaving Kelso wounded.Kelso tried to pull an alarm, but a panicked Boham then suffocated him and shot him in the head. A blood smear was left on the alarm button, Lopez said. Following the shooting, Boham was able to pry open the safe, which was empty except for a few rings. Boham then seized Kelso's Rolex watch and fled the scene.

Court documents suggested that Boham, who had bipolar disorder and was prone to fits of rage, told his mother and sister that he had planned to use the money to go to South America with his girlfriend. But in the end it turnd out "he had done this for nothing," affidavits say. Boham's solicitor maintains murder was not premeditated. He told the court that there was no evidence that Boham had gone to the Kelso's home with any other motive than to rob him.

Boham, who has a 5-year-old daughter, had "numerous girlfriends" according to the Post and once told a downstairs neighbor that he "sanitized" his apartment "by thoroughly scrubbing it because a gay man had lived there previously."

Said the neighbor: "He hated (gays). He hated their lifestyle."

Yet he had no problem being "gay for pay" in such movies as Falcon Studio's Through the Woods. One talent agency owner said that Boham seemed desperate: "He didn't like people telling him what to do. He seemed like an angry person. His opportunities were tapering off. He got into bloody fistfights. He just had anger issues."

The second story follows.

Officials investigating gay porn producer's death want to talk with escort

By EDWARD LEWIS elewis@timesleader.com
WYOMING – Law-enforcement officials remain interested in talking to a Virginia Beach male escort whose photo surfaced in the investigation of last month’s murder of gay porn producer Bryan Charles Kocis.

Trooper Tom Kelly of the state police at Wyoming said he couldn’t confirm if the picture that investigators released last week is of the escort.

The man, who identified himself only as Harlow, told a reporter on Wednesday that the photo is of him, but denied any connection to Kocis. The escort said he was with a client for three hours in Virginia Beach on Jan. 24, the night Kocis was stabbed to death inside his Dallas Township home.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission lists a Harlow Cuadra as president of the Virginia Beach-based escort service Norfolk Companions Inc.

Last week, police released a photograph showing the head and shoulders of a person they said might have the last name of Drake.

The escort said he is the man in the photograph but said he does not use the name Drake.

The body of Kocis, 44, was recovered from his burning home. An autopsy showed Kocis died of multiple stab wounds and was dead before the blaze broke out.

After obtaining Kocis’ telephone records and e-mail accounts, police determined that Kocis sent an e-mail to an associate with photographs of Drake, stating he was meeting the man at his Midland Drive home at 7 p.m. to discuss a modeling job for Cobra Video. Kocis owned and operated Cobra Video, a company that produces and sells gay pornographic movies.

About 90 minutes after the scheduled meeting, firefighters responded to Kocis’ home for a fire, at about the same time a witness saw a light-colored sport utility vehicle back out of the driveway and speed away.

Harlow could not be reached for comment on Thursday.


SO is this Harlow dude guilty as shit? A jury will decide that, sooner or later.

Both of these murders indicate that gay porn can be a very risky undertaking. What appears glamourous on the outside is a cesspool of corruption behind the scenes.

Happy Groundhog's Day.

So Punxsutawney Phil says spring is on its way. Wishful thinking but I'm sure all of us are ready for some shirtless weather.

While Phil, the groundhog is furry, he definitely could use a makeover. So how about any of these replacements? Perhaps there is a new reality show in the making.

Hoping you guys are having a super day.

Speaking of hotties, are you watching the Super Bowl on Sunday? I'll be rooting for the Bears. That's a no brainer.

It's a GAY, GAY, GAY World. We Interact with Each Other No Matter Where We Live.

Guys: I found this great article by Brian on the http://www.washblade.com

web site.

Searching for a connection Rural gays turn to new technologies to ease sense of isolation

By BRIAN MOYLAN Jan. 26, 2007
Rural gays turn to new technologies to ease sense of isolationMANY GAY PEOPLE have a song they identify as their coming out anthem. Maybe it’s a song with lyrics about empowerment or a track that was popular in the gay bars when they first started going out. For Mike, a 42-year-old auto mechanic, his coming out anthem could be the familiar “You’ve Got Mail” greeting that sounds when he logs onto America Online.
“I knew I was gay since I was 12, but I was afraid to act on it and I didn’t know who to talk to. I didn’t start coming out until I was 30,” says Mike, who asked that his last name be withheld for privacy reasons. What made it even harder for Mike is that he grew up and still lives in Helena, Mont. Though it’s the state capital, there is only a population of 26,000 people, and the nearest gay bar is 64 miles away in Butte. There are only two other bars in the state, one in Great Falls, about 100 miles away, and one in Billings, almost 300 miles away.
He never ventured out to the bars and didn’t even know they were there when he was younger.
“I just kept to myself, rode my motorcycle and got drunk at straight bars for no reason,” he says. “My brother signed me onto America Online, and I found the men-for-men chat room, and for the first time, I thought there were more people like me.”
Twelve years later, Mike has had two long-term boyfriends (though the last one lived about 100 miles away), watches Logo — the gay cable channel — on satellite TV and is out to his family and a few people at the auto dealership where he works.
MIKE’S STORY ISN’T uncommon for gay people who live in rural communities, but the internet has ended some of the isolation for such people by letting them develop communities online and in their towns.
James Martin, a 48-year-old accounting clerk, grew up in rural West Virginia, but spent many years living in more urban areas of North Carolina before moving to Anchorage, Alaska, several years ago. Though it’s a city of 700,000 people, Martin says that he used the internet to locate other bears and community events geared for them before making the move to Alaska.
He says being able to do this research is a big shift from when he was coming out, where the only connection he had to gay people was in medical books in the local library, most of which portrayed homosexuality as a disease or something negative.
Tim Niehaus, a 21-year-old restaurant worker, also used the internet as a research tool, talking to gay people online before he ever talked to any in person. In Eagle River, Wis. (population, 1,500), that was his only resource. He now lives in Stevens Point, home to a branch of the University of Wisconsin, which boasts 20,000 people (including the university), and he met many of his gay friends online.
Though they may be spread out, there are plenty of people in rural communities to meet in online chat rooms. Jeff Soukup, president and chief operating officer of PlanetOut, Inc. — which owns the websites Gay.com and PlanetOut.com, as well as RSVP cruises and LPI Media which publishes The Advocate and Out magazines — says that half of the sites’ U.S. traffic is from the South and Midwest, where the biggest number of small towns are located. Soukup says that the company’s two sites get 5.4 million unique visitors each month.
NEWER TECHNOLOGIES ARE making it easier for gay arts and culture to come to these communities as well. Logo and Here! TV, another gay television service, reach a national audience through satellite television and digital cable (though some digital cable providers still don’t broadcast the channels in all markets). The companies are also using streaming video and podcasts on their websites to bring their programming to anyone with a high-speed internet connection. These and other technologies are out there to bridge the distance gap.

We are all connected in this great big world of ours and that brings us all together. I am so glad that technology makes us gay brothers, where ever we are. I am a better man because I know all of you. Stay warm and sexy.

Is There Such A Thing As A Gay Male Mid-life Crisis?

Seems that our friend, Dan Savage, has devoted a lot of his column this week to just such a question.

The guy writes about his hottie partner who is turning 40 and wants to celebrate at a clothing optional gay resort and have sex under the sky.

Been there, done that. And for me, it was just fun, and had nothing to do with time or space, for that matter.

I don't think wanting to be sexy, playing safely, and just being a guy has anything to do with a guy being a horndog. Enjoying leather, boots, jockstraps, play toys, whatever, do it if it feels good.

The partner shouldn't have a hang-up about it. But there are limits. Three ways are always best when all three players are consenual. And when all three are enjoying the playtime. That's why for three ways, the key player is the top guy who gives both his playguys equal attention.

It's winter now, and sure, it is the perfect time to snuggle and get real nice and cozy physically with your man. The sexiest thing this time of year is a pair of long johns with a nice button fly. Sure gives new meaning to the phrase, "Are you glad to see me?"

A healthy appetite for sex is nothing that should never be turnoff or dismissed, no matter how old a guy is. Channeling that energy into safe, sexy fun is something that should be enjoyed to the fullest.

Our man Dan, I feel, was right on with his advice, as usual. Explore, be adventurous, and consensual. The same old, same old, isn't who we are, sexually or otherwise. If sex becomes so routine, so mechanical, then something is missing.

I truly believe that you get out of something only by investing in the time and trouble of making your best effort. That goes with life and with sex.

New Years Resolutions that We can all share together for the common good

Yes, it is that time of year to make and in some cases, already break, New Year's Resolutions.

I thought that maybe we could share together some New Year's Resolutions that we wouldn't break, and that we could easily commit to.

You guys know how much I love to hug. That aside, you might assume that I would also be a "tree hugger". You'd be right again.

So how about we try this spring to plant a tree. If each of us would commit to planting a single tree, a seedling would do, and help to nuture it, we would be doing our collective share in making the air a little cleaner and the environment a little better.

Likewise, we all set personal goals for ourselves, be it losing weight, gaining muscle, etc. Let's pledge to help each other with these personal goals. That way, it won't feel so lonely trying to do it alone.

An idea I saw on Ellen during the holidays, about loose change, could also be something we could do collectively and give to a favorite charity, gay or straight. A lot of our biker buds out there have favorite charities which we could devote some of our loose change in helping others.

Feel free to add your own ideas. You make this a place great to hang because you guys are the best. Never forget that.

Hoping you all are having a great start to the New Year. Together we can make it fun and sexy.