MayDay, MayDay!

Photo credit: www.facebook.com/stevemay

Steve May is the epitome of what is wrong with our community. We see a man who is openly gay, who spoke out against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," who is currently running for AZ District 17 write-in Republican candidate for the House of Representatives, and we think "Yes! An openly gay politician, we MUST support him!" This is the worst thing we could do, because we don't investigate beyond that at all. And all you'd have to do is barely scratch beneath the surface of this man to find that he is in no way shape or form equipped to be running or holding public office.

According to AZCentral (http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/PoliticalInsider/87954), May was previously helping a man named Anthony Goshorn to run for this position. Goshorn goes by the name of "Grandpa" on the streets of Tempe, where, if you asked any homeless youth you might see on Mill Ave., they would gladly tell you of the man that "helps" them get by. "Grandpa" Goshorn has helped many of these youth by how you may ask - has he helped them make better decisions for themselves? Has he helped them get off the streets by finding legitimate jobs? Or how about helping them find and sign up for healthcare to take care of their ailments or Severe Mental Illnesses? No. He has done none of these things. Reportedly, Goshorn has "helped" these youth by continuing to enable them to make bad choices for themselves and stay on drugs or prostitute in order to survive. It was only at the encouraging of precinct committee members, that May decided to run for this position himself, instead of trying to push this loathsome man into our local government.

What I am sure that those precinct committee members don't know, is that May, like Goshorn, shares a questionable care and concern for the homeless youth of Tempe. If you happen to be friends with Steve May on Facebook - you might want to take note of some of the comments on his wall. Particularly, some of the comments that come from young men, very young men. These would be the kinds of comments that come from kids who are saying that they will be at a homeless services provider until they close that day, and then they will wait for him at Starbucks. May even posts videos on his youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N33pyPxhpD4&feature=autoshare_twitter) that he then tweets about (http://twitter.com/BookofSteve) which at first may come across as shedding light on the homeless issues in Tempe, or they may come across like the opening interview for an amateur porn video.

Now, I don't know who is exploiting whom in this case, one may never be able to tell. Does May really have the best interest at heart for these kids on Mill Ave.? Maybe. Is that good enough? Not in the slightest. Are they taking advantage of him and his generosity? Maybe. Can you blame them? No. If he really wanted to help homeless youth, he should be rallying for better social services for them, raising money to give to organizations who already help this population, or advocating for their rights at a state level. He should NOT be video-taping them and asking them to do push-ups, he should NOT be helping a known drug-pushing pimp run for office, he should NOT be following these kids to their homeless service providers. Steve May, may or may not be a "Predator" in the Dateline kind of way, but he is preying on young people, openly exploiting them, and who knows what else.

All I ask, is that you educate yourself. Make sure that the people you rally behind are really people that you trust and respect. It would do us all a lot of good to seek just a little beyond superficial exteriors.

Are you ready?

"Take me anyway you like it..."

"...in front of a fireplace, in front of your yacht, in front of my parents. I don't give a damn baby, just take me!"



The Scissor Sisters have made it back on the scene again, and boy, was it worth the wait. Night Work really shows their progress in the years since songs like "Filthy/Gorgeous" and "Take Your Mama", and yet they still manage to maintain a freshness that just can't be matched. The first single, "Fire With Fire", feels like an age old anthem for a new generation. It makes your blood pump like you're ready to run naked down the streets of the city. The rest of the album kind of nods to a retro vibe that makes you think you're in the gritty 80's gay club scene in New York. "Whole New Way" slaps George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" in the face and teaches it a thing or two. There's a certain kind of sexual subversive energy to the title track "Night Work" and tracks like "Something Like This", "Skin This Cat", and "Sex and Violence." How the Sisters manage to pull this off without being in your face about it, has just proven that they've come miles from their previous two albums. But Scissor Sister fans of yesteryear, don't be concerned - all of the influences that have made you love the band's unique and original sound are still intact. This is most obvious on the track "Invisible Light" which sounds like Pink Floyd made love to Elton John on crack, while licking Blondie's coochie snorcher. Sorry for the visual, but listen to this song and you'll never need to try acid. It will take you on a trip you won't soon forget. When it's all said and done, Night Work convinces you that you just spent the night out on the town, dangerous and fully loaded. So slip into your leather jacket, roll down your windows, blast this cd, and enjoy your ride.

Are you ready?

I really couldn't have said it better...

So I'm letting Josh Aterovis say it for me:



I recently watched the first season of the hit Logo series Noah's Arc on DVD. While I doubt there are any Emmy nominations in the show's near future, it's really sweet and entertaining. I count myself among its fans now. One of the things that most impressed me was the way it didn't shy away from tackling tough subjects with unflinching honesty. One of the topics raised was the way gay men have a tendency to worship the heterosexual image. In white culture, it's the whole Abercrombie model obsession. In the African-American culture, they call them homothugs.

That got me thinking about how often I hear someone gay use the expression "straight-acting" to describe another gay man. The more I thought about it, the more offensive it became. I'm sure I've been guilty of using it in the past, but more recently, I've come to realize just how damaging the term can be -- both within and outside the LGBT community.

How does one even act straight? Is there one prescribed way to be heterosexual? And why would a gay person even want to act straight? Possibly because the flip side of acting straight would be acting gay.

Ask your average Joe on the street what it means to act gay and you're likely to get a laundry list of gay stereotypes: limp wrist, lisp, obsession with appearance, flamboyant, and effeminate, maybe with a few "you go, girls" thrown in for good measure. Do I know any gay people who fit that description? Sure. But I know even more who don't. The truth is there are as many ways to act gay as there are to act straight. It's the stereotypes that scare some people, though.

I used to date a guy who could easily have been described as straight acting. By his nature, he was very masculine: liked guns and cars, played in a death-metal band, and always dressed in a sloppy-casual style that was as far from the typical "gay style" as you could get. He had a sweet, sensitive side, but he viewed it as more of a weakness than anything. On more than one occasion, I heard him make extremely homophobic remarks. It always bothered me, but I was still struggling with finding my own identity at the time, so I never made an issue of it.

After we broke up, I remember him telling me about a time when he was out with a group of his straight friends, none of whom knew he was gay, and they started assaulting a couple of obviously gay guys. He couldn't understand why I found the situation so disturbing. Eventually, I came to realize that he was extremely self-hating. Going into the military and having to crawl even deeper into the closet certainly didn't help. Today, he's dating a woman even though he's told me he still considers himself gay. He's taking acting straight to a whole new level.

I think a big part of his issue is that he'll never fit society's idea of what it means to be gay. He could never be somebody's girlfriend. Of course, you and I know that not every gay man has to fit the stereotype, but his fear was that if people knew he was gay, they would assume he did. He was always afraid people would judge him as something he wasn't.

Obviously, we can't blame all his issues on society. He's responsible for his own actions, and the general public is changing as quickly as it can. These things take time. However, the gay community has to share in the blame. We've accepted the idea that there's a specific code of conduct that makes one gay or straight.

So many gay people are caught up in negative image ideas. Some feel they have to act a certain way in order to be gay -- you have to worship Madonna, call all your guy friends "girlfriend," and sleep around as much as possible. Hey, if that's who you really are then great! You be you. The problem is, I've seen so many young gay guys just coming out embrace these traits simply because they've been led to believe that's what being gay means.

On the flip side, I've also seen many gay guys who are so busy trying to emulate heterosexuals that they start to resent their more flamboyant brothers. I hate to hear a gay man say something like, "I can't stand flamey guys." That's just as homophobic as Fred Phelps picketing a gay funeral with a "God Hates Fags" sign.

Again, I want to stress that if you're naturally inclined to be feminine or masculine, then run with it! I don't believe there's anything more freeing than accepting who you really are. I have a close friend who fought for years against his desire to be a drag queen. When we first met him, he was struggling to tone down his flamboyant nature for the sake of his straight friends. Over the course of the last few years, he stopped trying to be something he wasn't and simply allowed the real him to shine through. Today, he's happier than ever, and he didn't lose a single friend in the process. In fact, all his friends have been 100 percent supportive.

The idea that there is only one way to be gay is extremely damaging, not just for those of us already free from the closet, but for those who haven't come out as well. Here's the catch-22: The more non-stereotypical gay people who come out, the more the stereotypes will be debunked, but the very ones who need to come out in order to do this may be afraid to come out because they don't feel they fit the stereotypes.

By continuing to embrace phrases like straight-acting, we're perpetuating the idea that there is a proper way to act gay. The truth is you can't act gay or straight. The words only describe what gender you're attracted to, and how do you act as if you're attracted to the opposite sex?

So let's get rid of the mindset that there is a particular way to be gay or straight. If we want society to accept us as we are, we have to accept each other first. We have to realize that we come in all shapes and sizes, colors and creeds. We range from magnificently masculine to fabulously feminine, and everything in-between. There is no one way to "act gay," so let's celebrate all of the many colors that make up our rainbow flag. We need to stop acting like anything, and just be who we are.

© Josh Aterovis, All Rights Reserved. Josh Aterovis is the author of the Killian Kendall Mystery Series as well as numerous columns and articles. Article provided by GayLinkContent.com

Are you Ready?

Music Review: Kylie Auldist

I'm just now catching the Kylie Auldist and The Bamboos train. The Bamboos are a funk and soul band from Australia. They formed in 2000 and have released 6 studio albums with critical appraise. It was on their second album "Rawville" that first featured Kylie Auldist with a stylistic change to start including vocals on their tracks. If you haven't heard of them, I strongly encourage a thorough listening on Itunes or youtube. I have a special soft-spot for their 3rd album, "Just Say The Bamboos present Kylie Auldist" It makes me feel like I've been transported back to the days where shag carpets and record players were all the rage. Like I could be driving down 110th St. in a big black Mercedes convertible Jackie Brown style. "No Use" especially conveys this feeling as you envision yourself as a bad-ass. Other tracks of note are "Still Into You", "Make Me Want More", and "Never Did I Stop Loving You" So make some good food, set aside a good movie, put on this record and call your friends over. You'll all feel like you've just spent the best years of your lives together, and then you'll know the sweet goodness that is Kylie Auldist.


Are You Ready?

Patience IS a virtue . . .

In my most recent endeavors, I'm finding it more and more common that when men want to have sex with you, its now or never. I, of course, DO realize that we are living in a world where everything we want, we get instantly. And that, if we can't get what we really want, a great substitute is within reach. And it will most undoubtedly satisfy our appetite until the real desire is available. But, isn't there something to be said for ... well, waiting...? I know that there are hook-up sites where its like ordering a pizza; you can get exactly what you want and have it delivered to your door in 30 minutes. But what about when what you want is that traditional brick oven wood-fired gourmet pizza that's only available at the hot little spot downtown where you have to wait 30 minutes to get seated and another 45 for the pizza to be made. Its SO worth it, isn't it? Cuz, every once in awhile, we ALL go to that pizza shop instead of ordering Domino's. While growing up in a generation where STI's/STD's and HIV/AIDS are so common, shouldn't we use a little more discretion, a little more often? I mean, yes you can always choose to play safe. But I think there's a little more to safety than using a condom. At least, that's what I've learned. There are things like trust, and getting to know somebody that are also important to being safe. Of course I think some of you are going to say you already know this, and aren't a hoe with a profile on a hook-up site - but even if that's the case, how many times have you met someone at a bar, maybe had a few dates with, or met through a friend - that later after you had sex with them, you found out something about the person that would have made you wary to have ever had sex with them in the first place? I guess what I'm trying to say is: please be safe, honest and kind to those whom you choose to bed. If we all put just a little more thought into it, a little more patience, a little more virtue in the act of having sex with someone - then maybe we'll find ourselves in better circumstances in the next generation.


Are you ready?

Philosophy of Sexuality

I've learned a lot in this class. I want to give it the proper send-off and post my final paper for it.



Gay Promiscuity; A view on:
Who's Afraid of Polygamous Marriage?
by Cheshire Calhoun

In Cheshire Calhoun’s article, Who’s Afraid of Polygamous Marriage?, Calhoun tackles one of the issues brought up by gay marriage opponents that if we legalize gay marriage, the next item on the list will be polygamy. She argues that, at least academically, advocates of gay marriage should not be afraid to discuss the topic of polygamy, and maybe should question whether or not it’s advantageous to challenge the marriage bars on both same-sex marriage and polygamy. “The central issue raised by marriage bars is thus not whether the state should permit nonmonogamous and nonheterosexual marriages, but whether the state should support nonmonogamous and nonheterosexual marriages by assigning them the legal status of civil marriage.”

Calhoun brings up several very interesting and important points in her argument in comparing the 19^th century pro-polygamy movement to today’s same-sex marriage movement. She also challenges the assumption of gender subordination in polygamy with examples of how the 19^th century women in polygamous marriages had several more rights than women who were not, like the right to vote and own land. Her research and courage to bring these things to light are all things that I agree with completely as reasons why, academically, we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about polygamy in the gay marriage movement. But I feel that before this happens, advocates and members of the LGBTQ community need to talk about a larger argument that is commonly and closely associated to the immorality of polygamy; the argument that gays and lesbians are promiscuous and therefore immoral people undeserving of the status granted to heterosexual citizens when they marry.

When the AIDS epidemic swept America in the early 1980’s, it was first called GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency, because it was showing up mostly in gay men. Most people didn’t even care that there was this disease spreading among the homosexual male populous because they felt that those men were getting what they deserved. In June of 1982 the CDC, Center for Disease Control, released a report that “a group of cases amongst gay men in Southern California suggested that the disease might be caused by an infectious agent that was sexually transmitted.” It wasn’t until the disease started showing up in children and members of the heterosexual community that it became an issue that needed concern and recognition. Harold Jaffe of the CDC for Newsweek said, “When it began turning up in children and transfusion recipients, that was a turning point in terms of public perception. Up until then it was entirely a gay epidemic, and it was easy for the average person to say 'So what?' Now everyone could relate.” These are all comments and issues that the nation dealt with right at the onset of AIDS twenty years ago, but the logic used then can still be found in our society today.

When I came out to my grandfather, the first thing he asked me was that if when I found this out, was someone doing something to me – and if so, was this welcomed on my part or forced upon me. He assumed that I had already had sex. After I started dating my first boyfriend, my mom asked me if I needed condoms. She assumed I was already sleeping with him or that I would immediately want to start. Because I am a young 20 something, the older gay men that I know assume I am out every weekend at a club going home with a different man every night. If ever I want to donate blood, because I am an out and proud gay man – it is assumed that I have had penetrative sex with men and am therefore too risky a candidate. From those who know me the best to complete strangers – it is assumed because I am gay I have lots and lots of sex. This is not true. But that really shouldn’t matter, should it?

When it comes to fighting for our equal rights as citizens in this world, I believe that we must first look within. Within ourselves and within our community. Afterall, in order to change the world, you have to start with one person: yourself. I don’t know who said that, but it is something I firmly believe. I think before we tackle the bars on polygamous marriage, and even before we tackle the bars on same-sex marriage, we must first deal with some more personal issues.

---

Are you ready?

Celebration

I've been wanting to review this to give my view point on this.

Celebration by Madonna.

If I had to give it a star grade three and half out of five.

What I like about this song most is her return to her natural beginnings. Most of her early music consists of these high paced beats with her singing, or talking, more slowly than that beat. I love that about her early work. As she progressed she moved away from that and starting doing new things with her abilities. I love Paul Oakenfold's work on this song as well. The bass is pumping and the progression of the electric whirs and zooms is brilliant.

What I dislike about Celebration? It's not new. It's not fresh and intriguing. She's done this before and she is not breaking any rules. "I guess I just don't recognize you with your clothes on."? That's not risque for her. I miss her breaking boundaries and doing things that people don't expect of her. Even with Ray Of Light she broke ground.

This should have been a gift to her fans for the last 30 years of support, but over all it comes off like an album b-side remix.

But I wont deny it... put this song on when I'm at a club and I'll still be dancing my ass off.

LDI.