Art: Gay student to lose virginity in live performance.

From Vice:

By Dan Wilkinson

Virginity generally tends to be a big deal for most people. Presumably because society dictates that, pre-sex, you are a hairless fawn crawling your way through the embarrassing undergrowth of training bras and stealth wanking, and post-sex you're fully grown with a comprehensive understanding of D'Angelo's discography and the right to drink triple sec next to swimming pools. But then society is notoriously mean and ill informed and probably doesn't even know what it's talking about.

In a bid to understand where the obsession and scrutiny of virginity comes from, my friend Clayton Pettet has decided to lose his flower in front of a crowd next year as part of his St Martins art project, titled "Art School Took My Virginity". He told me that some tabloid journalists had been sniffing around the story, so I thought I'd give him a call before they got their noses in the trough.

VICE: Hey man. So, I hear you're being hounded by the press?Clayton Pettet: Yeah, I just spoke to this journalist and it was so weird – it feels like the national papers that are asking about the project want to get the best angle and rip it apart. It’s crazy. It’s not something I’m used to, watching everything I say with caution.

But you must have expected something like this would happen, right? I don’t really mind what they say about me, as long as it's their words. I don’t want them to twist mine. But it brings discussion, and whether it's making people angry, excited or confused, it’s bringing forth emotion about art. Which is something we’ve lost.

You think? People say that everything has been done already, but I don’t think that’s true. If you think hard enough, there's shit that only you could think of – something so buried inside of you that, if you let yourself, you'd be able to just to throw up onto a canvas and let your mind do the rest.

Fair enough. When did you first get the idea? Since I was about 16 years old, the whole idea of virginity has been overwhelming to me. I started to think about why it meant so much, and was [the meaning] actually real. So, from then until I started art school, I was constantly thinking, 'What If I desensitised the whole concept of virginity by losing mine as a performance art piece?' Because that’s what virginity is to me – a performance that has been used to value women, a heteronormative term that is constantly used to work out someone’s worth. My piece is also like one big study and investigation; has anything changed after penetration? Does it all actually matter?

For me, losing my virginity was vital. Do you think it's more hyped up from a male perspective? Yes, definitely. It's just a hyped up thing in general. It's used more as an insult to still have your virginity now, but it’s always been a negative thing and always meant so much more than it should. I feel if I was a girl losing my virginity for this piece, people would be way more angry. Which is exactly my point. Virginity is used to dictate your worth depending on which gender you are.

So you're saying sex isn’t important? Sex is important, and as a first experience it will always be remembered. But it shouldn’t be remembered as the loss of virginity. But maybe I’m completely wrong, which is why I’m doing a piece. It's about self-discovery more than anything.

How come you haven't lost it already? I don’t know... I think it took a lot of time to discover what I was actually into, sexually. I was so obsessed with losing it that I never got around to actually meeting someone to do it with.

Really? Well, there were times when I could have had sex. But it always felt like something was there stopping me. But I've realised this is how I want to do it. I want to lose it for art and I want to lose it for change.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Film: Love is All You Need.

www.loveisallyouneedthemovie.com For press/media/investing inquires contact: info@wingspanpictures.com www.wingspanpictures.com "Teen bulling and teen suicide based on someone's sexual preference is ridiculous - and this film turns the tables on modern society. What IF the shoe was on the other foot?. " --K.Rocco Shields (Creator/Director) WingSpan Pictures is currently seeking financing of the feature version of the film to bring it to a bigger audience.

Letter from grandpa.

This letter has been making the rounds over the last couple of days. It was originally posted on the Facebook page for FCKH8, an anti-homophobia clothing company. According to Gawker, FCKH8 is reporting that the letter is real.

(Sissy) Bounce: Bridging the gap between straight and gay in the hip-hop world.

Bounce, and Sissy Bounce, have been around for a while now but it wasn't until the last few years that Bounce became popular outside of New Orleans, where it originated. A collaboration between Diplo, renowned beats artist, and Nicky Da B, one of the icons of Bounce, was pivotal in bringing Bounce into the spotlight. Here's the video (sort of NSFW): 

The official Mad Decent YouTube release of Diplo - Express Yourself. Stream the full track and other Diplo releases here or show support on iTunes or Google Play. PURCHASE ON ITUNES: http://smarturl.it/DiploItunesEP PURCHASE ON BEATPORT: http://s.beatport.com/LZ7FWQ PURCHASE CD+ TSHIRT BUNDLE: http://bit.ly/DIPCD Pre-Order Diplo's upcoming "Express Yourself" EP - http://bit.ly/DIPCD Out World Wide June 12th!

Bounce, and Sissy Bounce in particular, represents a paradigm shift in the hip-hop scene, which has typically been very hostile to the LGBT community. Here's an article about Bounce from a few years ago that was featured in the New York Times:

New Orleans’s Gender-Bending Rap

[...]

Bounce itself has been around for about 20 years. Like most hip-hop varietals, it’s rap delivered over a sampled dance beat, but it has a few characteristics that give it a distinctively regional sound: it’s strictly party music, its beat is relentlessly fast and its rap quotient tends much less toward introspection or pure braggadocio than toward a call-and-response relationship with its audience, a dynamic borrowed in equal measure from Mardi Gras Indian chants and from the dawn of hip-hop itself. Many, if not most, bounce records announce their allegiance by sampling from one of just two sources: either Derek B.’s “Rock the Beat” or an infectious hook known as the “Triggaman,” from a 1986 Showboys record called “Drag Rap.” (That’s “drag” not as in cross-dressing but as in the theme to the old TV show “Dragnet.”) Just as the earliest New York rap records featured compulsory shout-outs to the boroughs, lots of bounce songs will demand (especially when performed live) audience acknowledgment of the city’s various neighborhoods and housing projects (“Shake it for the Fourth Ward/Work it for the Fifth Ward”), even those that have been razed. Otherwise the lyrics are mostly about sex and are so habitually obscene that they have helped keep bounce from spreading too far beyond its New Orleans borders. The success of bounce-tinged New Orleans artists like Lil Wayne and Juvenile notwithstanding, at least one New Orleans record-company executive speculates that major labels consider unadulterated bounce too hard to distribute, because it can’t be played on most radio stations or even sold in many venues.

The overwhelming majority of bounce artists are, of course, straight. But 12 years ago, a young drag queen who goes by the name Katey Red shocked the audience by taking the mic at an influential underground club near the Melpomene housing project where she grew up, and in that star-is-born moment, a subgenre of bounce took root. It is a sad understatement to say that homosexuality and hip-hop make for an unlikely fusion: hip-hop culture is one of the most unrepentantly homophobic cultures in America, surpassing even its own attitudes toward women in bigotry and smirking advocacy of violence. But New Orleans’s tolerance of unlikely fusions is legendary, and today Katey Red, along with a handful of other artists — Big Freedia (who grew up four blocks from Katey and started out as one of her background vocalists), Sissy Nobby, Chev off the Ave, Vockah Redu (who was captain of the dance team at Booker T. Washington High School) — are not just accepted mainstays of the bounce scene but its most prominent representatives outside New Orleans. Katey recently received a New Orleans consecration of sorts when she appeared as herself, unidentified, in an episode of the HBO series “Treme,” with her song “So Much Drama” playing in the background.

Read the rest here.

And here's a fun recent documentary (sort of NSFW):

New American Noise. New Orleans. Bounce Music.

Student proves gay marriage unnatural by using magnets.

 From the International Business Times (and reported elsewhere):

Homosexuality Is Unnatural, Claims Nigerian Student Who Uses Magnets To Prove Gay Marriage Is Wrong

A student at the University of Lagos in Nigeria has conducted a study in which he attempts to present homosexuality and gay marriage as unnatural, by drawing an analogy to identical poles of magnets that cannot be attracted to each other.

Chibuihem Amalaha, a postgraduate student at the university, claimed, based on his observations of magnets, that a man would only attract a woman, according to the laws of nature. A man cannot attract another man or a woman cannot attract another woman because they are the same, he claimed.

“In recent time I found that gay marriage, which is homosexuality and lesbianism, is eating deep into the fabric of our human nature all over the world and this was why nations of Sodom and Gomora were destroyed by God because they were into gay practice,” Amalaha was quoted by This Day Live, a Nigerian news website, as saying.

The news about the controversial research comes on the heels of a recent threat by the U.K. to cut foreign funding for AIDS and HIV outreach programs if Nigeria proceeded with legislature to ban gay marriage in the country and frame a law under which gay rights supporters could be sentenced to 14 years in prison.

“I asked myself why should a man be marrying a man and a woman marrying a woman, does it mean that there is no more female for a man to marry or there is no more male for a woman to marry?” Amalaha said. “And recently, Britain told Nigeria to legalize gay marriage of forfeit international aid. I thank God for our lawmakers who refused to sign the bill legalizing gay marriage.”

According to Amalaha, the staff at the University of Lagos praised his work hoping that he would win the Nobel prize one day for his research, as what he has done is “real and nobody has done it in any part of the world.”

“I used two bar magnets in my research. A bar magnet is a horizontal magnet that has the North Pole and the South Pole, and when you bring two bar magnets and you bring the North Pole together you find that the two North Poles will not attract,” Amalaha said. “They will repel, that is, they will push away themselves showing that a man should not attract a man.”

Nigeria is considered one of the world’s most anti-gay nations. Homosexuality and same-sex marriage have been barred in the country since colonial days. And, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Nigeria face unique legal and social challenges, which are not experienced by non-LGBT residents in the country. According to a 2013 study by the Pew Research Center, 98 percent of Nigerians believe society should not accept homosexuality as a way of life.

South African LGBT website Mambaonline has criticized Amalaha’s claim, while calling the article published on the This Day Live “embarrassing.”

“The uncritical and uninformed article is likely to add to the ignorance and prejudice surrounding homosexuality in Nigeria,” Luiz DeBarros of Mambaonline said.

DOMA struck down.

This is a huge day in the States. The Supreme Court ruled that the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA), banning same sex marriage, is unconstitutional. This means that the federal government will now legally recognize same sex marriages. While this is a massive victory for gay rights at the federal level, it still leaves room for individual states to write their own laws regarding gay marriage. As it stands, 30 stated have amended their constitutions to forbid same-sex marriage. So the battle will now be taken to the state level.

Not surprisingly, this story has been all over the news. Here's a sample from the Huffington Post:

Supreme Court DOMA Decision Rules Federal Same-Sex Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

WASHINGTON -- The Defense of Marriage Act, the law barring the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages legalized by the states, is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday by a 5-4 vote.

"The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. "By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment."

Justice Kennedy delivered the court’s opinion, and was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito all filed dissenting opinions. Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia's dissent in whole and parts of Alito's opinion.

As Kennedy read the majority opinion from the bench, cries were heard in the courtroom when the justice delivered the verdict that DOMA violates the Fifth Amendment. A number of same-sex couples sitting in the audience looked up at the ceiling, while others wiped away tears.

DOMA, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, prevented same-sex couples whose marriages were recognized by their home state from receiving the hundreds of benefits available to other married couples under federal law. During the Obama administration, the Justice Department initially defended DOMA in court despite the administration’s desire to repeal it. But the Justice Department changed course in early 2011, finding that the law was unconstitutional and declining to defend it any longer. (The majority opinion slightly criticized that decision on Wednesday, writing that the "failure to defend the constitutionality of an Act of Congress based on a constitutional theory not yet established in judicial decisions" had "created a procedural dilemma.") House Republicans have since spent hundreds of thousands of dollars taking over that defense.

Read the rest, plus tons of video and photos from around the web, here.

Exodus International shuts down.

This story just blew up, following Exodus International's annual convention on Tuesday, and an announcement published on the organization's website.

Exodus International has been at the forefront of conversion therapy since the 1970s. At it's largest, it was affiliated with over 120 ex-gay ministries here in North America and another 150 in other parts of the world. It is now recognized that EI has done irreparable harm to many people around the globe. Perhaps the darkest moment for EI was its role in shaping Ugandan laws against homosexuality, which represent a severe violation of human rights (e.g., death penalty).

Many of the leaders of EI, who claimed to be cured of their same sex sexual preference, went on to be kicked out of the organization for getting back into same-sex relationships. The history of EI is spotty, to say the least. Read about it here.

After almost 40 years, EI has shut down, and their leader, Alan Chambers, has issued a public apology. Here's what he had to say:

Three years ago, Leslie and I began a very public conversation with Our America’s Lisa Ling, from the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) regarding some of our deeply held beliefs about Christianity and the LGBT community. Today, we have decided to carry this public conversation even further. While this conversation has and may well continue to be met with many different responses from supporters and critics, it is our desire to keep having these honest discussions in the hopes of arriving to a place of peace.

Several months ago, this conversation led me to call Lisa Ling to take another step on this messy journey. I asked if she would, once again, help us add to the unfolding story by covering my apology to the people who have been hurt by Exodus International. Our ministry has been public and therefore any acknowledgement of wrong must also be public. I haven’t always been the leader of Exodus, but I am now and someone must finally own and acknowledge the hurt of others. I do so anxiously, but willingly.

It is strange to be someone who has both been hurt by the church’s treatment of the LGBT community, and also to be someone who must apologize for being part of the very system of ignorance that perpetuated that hurt. Today it is as if I’ve just woken up to a greater sense of how painful it is to be a sinner in the hands of an angry church.

Read the rest here.

And part of his letter to the LGBT community:

Recently, I have begun thinking again about how to apologize to the people that have been hurt by Exodus International through an experience or by a message. I have heard many firsthand stories from people called ex-gay survivors. Stories of people who went to Exodus affiliated ministries or ministers for help only to experience more trauma. I have heard stories of shame, sexual misconduct, and false hope. In every case that has been brought to my attention, there has been swift action resulting in the removal of these leaders and/or their organizations. But rarely was there an apology or a public acknowledgement by me.

And then there is the trauma that I have caused. There were several years that I conveniently omitted my ongoing same-sex attractions. I was afraid to share them as readily and easily as I do today. They brought me tremendous shame and I hid them in the hopes they would go away. Looking back, it seems so odd that I thought I could do something to make them stop. Today, however, I accept these feelings as parts of my life that will likely always be there. The days of feeling shame over being human in that way are long over, and I feel free simply accepting myself as my wife and family does. As my friends do. As God does.

Read the rest here.

And part of the statement from EI:

“We’re not negating the ways God used Exodus to positively affect thousands of people, but a new generation of Christians is looking for change – and they want to be heard,” Tony Moore, Board member of Exodus. The message came less than a day after Exodus released a statement apologizing (www.exodusinternational.org/apology) to the gay community for years of undue judgment by the organization and the Christian Church as a whole.

“Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism,” said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus. “For quite some time we’ve been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical.”

Chambers continued: “From a Judeo-Christian perspective, gay, straight or otherwise, we’re all prodigal sons and daughters. Exodus International is the prodigal’s older brother, trying to impose its will on God’s promises, and make judgments on who’s worthy of His Kingdom. God is calling us to be the Father – to welcome everyone, to love unhindered.”

For these reasons, the Board of Directors unanimously voted to close Exodus International and begin a separate ministry. “This is a new season of ministry, to a new generation,” said Chambers. “Our goals are to reduce fear (reducefear.org), and come alongside churches to become safe, welcoming, and mutually transforming communities.”

Read the rest here.

Geoge Takei responds to anti-gay-marriage protesters.

George Takei is best known for his performance as Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman of the USS Enterprise on the TV show Star Trek. He's also very active as an advocate of human rights, specifically gay rights and Japanese-American relations. Mr. Takei is also a pretty funny dude. From 9gag (click to make larger):

Gay bomb.

From Box Turtle Bulletin:

Air Force Lab Suggests Development of “Gay Bomb”: 1994.  In a scenario that sounds more like a Monty Python skit than an actual proposal for warfare, an Air Force lab suggested the development of some highly unusual non-lethal chemical weapons. According to a memorandum dated June 1, 1994, he Air Force’s Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, sought the development “Harassing, annoying, and “bad guy” identifying chemicals.

Three classes of chemicals were proposed. The first consisted of “chemicals that attract annoying creatures to the enemy position and make the creatures aggressive or annoying.” Rodents and stinging and biting bugs were suggested as suitable targets. The second class of chemicals would “make lasting but non-lethal markings on the personnel,” making them “easily identifiable (by smell or appearance) weeks later, making it impossible for them to blend with the local population.” If the chemicals had an irritating or annoying factor, so much the better. But it was the third category that was oddest of all:

Category #3: Chemicals that effect [sic] human behavior so that discipline and morals in enemy units is adversely effected [sic]. One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior. Another example would be a chemical that made personnel very sensitive to sunlight.

The brief memo conceded that such chemicals did not currently exist and “would need to be created. Manufacturing techniques would need to be developed for chemicals needed in large quantities.” Decontamination measures would also need to be developed. The entire development and testing program for all three categories of chemicals was projected to cost $7.5 million over six years, which was small potatoes for defense programs, even for 1994.

When news of the program broke in 2005, Marine Captain Daniel McSweeney told reporters that the memo was among hundreds of suggestions for non lethal weapons sent to the Pentagon each year, and said, “‘Gay Bomb’ is not our term. It was not taken seriously. It was not considered for further development.”

Russia outlaws gay propaganda.

From the Guardian:

Russia passes law banning gay 'propaganda'

Law will make it illegal to equate straight and gay relationships and to distribute gay rights material.

Russia's parliament has unanimously passed a federal law banning gay "propaganda" amid a Kremlin push to enshrine deeply conservative values that critics say has already led to a sharp increase in anti-gay violence.

The law passed 436-0 on Tuesday, with just one deputy abstaining from voting on the bill, which bans the spreading of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors.

The law in effect makes it illegal to equate straight and gay relationships, as well as the distribution of material on gay rights. It introduces fines for individuals and media groups found guilty of breaking the law, as well as special fines for foreigners.

Minutes after passing the anti-gay legislation, the Duma also approved a new law allowing jail sentences of up to three years for "offending religious feelings", an initiative launched in the wake of the trial against the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot.

The two laws were widely criticised by Russia's marginalised liberal and human rights communities and come amid a wider crackdown against independent civil activity in the country.

"I have sincere contempt for the Duma's deputies. All, including the so-called opposition. You have now brought fascism to my country," wrote Yelena Kostychenko, a journalist at the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

International rights groups have called the current situation in Russia the worst human rights climate in the post-Soviet era.

The two laws vastly boost the power of the Russian Orthodox church, a religious body that professes total allegiance to the state. Putin, who often makes a show of his faith, has increasingly called upon the church to fill his own ideological vacuum following a contested presidential election last year, accompanied by unprecedented protests against him.

Read the rest here.

And from George Stroumboulopoulos at the CBC:

Russian Lawmakers Pass A Bill Making It Illegal To Tell Children Homosexuality Exists

Russia's lower house of parliament has passed a law that imposes fines on anyone who provides information about homosexuality to people under 18.

The bill, approved by the State Duma, will officially become law once it's approved by the upper house and President Vladimir Putin, which is basically a formality, BBC Newsreports.

The bill's co-author, Yelena Mizulina, is head of the Duma's Committee for Family, Women, and Children. She says the idea is to protect Russian children from information that rejects "traditional family values."

"[The bill prohibits] the spreading of information aimed at forming nontraditional sexual attitudes among children," she said. "Secondly, [it prohibits] the imposition of information about nontraditional sexual relations that may cause interest among children."

10-year anniversary for Canada's first married gay couple.

From the CBC:

Canada's 1st Same-Sex Marriage Couple Celebrates 10 Years

Michael Stark and Michael Leshner are celebrating 10 years since they became the first same-sex couple to be legally married in Canada.

That was June 10, 2003, and their union came after the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling to legally allow such marriages.

The Toronto couple reflects on the significance of that historical day.

Go see the video here.

Choice?

Street interviews conducted by Travis Nuckolls and Chris Baker in Colorado Springs prove that asking the right question can be more important than anything you can tell someone. Travis: http://www.linkedin.com/in/travisnuckolls Chris: http://www.ilovechrisbaker.com

Love the sinner, hate the sin: Redux.

Gay rights has become one of the pivotal social issues of our time, pitting those who strictly follow religious doctrine against religious moderates and secularists. It has become one of the primary grounds of the culture war between social conservatives, and both libertarians and liberals.

Organized religions that subscribe to the view that homosexuality is a sin, an illness and a perversion, have found themselves backed into a corner. They have been accused of being bigots, cherry-picking parts of religious texts to suit their prejudices, and have been compared with those who chose to deny rights to ethnic minorities in the past (i.e., in the US, those who fought against the abolition of slavery). Many of the people who are members of these religions have found it extremely difficult to try to reconcile their religious beliefs with their desire to be good, nice, non-hateful people (this is a classic example of cognitive dissonance). This has led to a lot of mental gymnastics on their parts to try to justify their beliefs. Probably the best example is the idea of loving the sinner but not the sin. In other words, as someone who follows strict religious doctrine, you love the homosexual as a person, but not his/her behaviour (as its sinful). This allows them to speak out against homosexuality (and actively fight against gay rights, in many cases) and still feel good about themselves.

Here's a good explanation of why this problematic, from John Corvino:

John Corvino explains the problem with the standard "Love the Sinner/Hate the Sin" line, while also rejecting simplistic distinctions between homosexual orientation and homosexual conduct. He concludes with a message to religious conservatives who want to express their love for LGBT people while still maintaining that same-sex relations are sinful.

The following article is the next step in this approach. The mental gymnastics are more convoluted and the writing is intellectually inspired, but the purpose is still the same. Instead of love the sinner, hate the sin, it's that sexuality shouldn't really be that important to an individual (and that individual's identity) and therefore there shouldn't really be any fuss about the church's doctrine declaring homosexuality a sin.

From Patheos:

No Longer Anonymous: Why I Decided to Come Out as a Gay Priest

Bravely facing the applause of a world in love with labels, and just in time for the release of a second edition of his new book “Hidden Voices, Reflections of a Gay, Catholic Priest,” Fr. Gary M. Meier came out today and declared himself openly gay to the notoriously unsympathetic Huffington Post.

Bless the man, may the Lord keep him, let His face shine upon him and give him His peace. He’ll be attacked by idiotic Catholics, whose quotes will undoubtedly be used in his up-and-coming “This Has Been Difficult” op-ed. But the sins of hatred will hardly puncture his popularity. I am attacking — with trident and with fire  – his philosophy and his easy critique of Church teaching that will win the blank-eyed nods of every other person who doesn’t give a damn about reading what the Church actually teaches.  He says:

…that’s precisely the message our Church is sharing. LGBT youth are hearing that they are disordered, diseased, defective, damaged goods, wrong when they should be right.

If they are being give this message, it is not by the Church. The message the Church has been consistently giving to LGBTQ youth is the same message she gives to heterosexual youth — you are not your genitals. Stop introducing yourself with your penises.

We take offense at the Church when she says that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” (CCC 2357) but only because we put her words through the mind-numbing blender of reductionist thought which defines people as being their sexuality, as being heterosexual, being homosexual, being a lesbian, being pansexual, etc. The LGBTQ movement is so concerned with developing and refining their plethora of scientific labels by which to reduce human beings to a word describing their genital behavior that they — and the culture they own — have forgotten a very simple fact. You are not what gives you a boner.

[...]

No, homosexuality is not a gift from God, and neither is heterosexuality, metrosexuality, omnisexuality, asexuality, or any of the spreading, metastasizing barcodes by which we categorize unique human beings into sections and subsections and sliding-scales until we can finally sleep at night, comfortable that there is a place for everything and everything in its place, and that we, accurately labeled heterosexuals or homosexuals, belong. I’d sooner set myself on fire than be so comfortably placed, for these “sexualities” don’t exist. Sexuality has no existence apart from people. Sexuality is eminently, beautifully, and incredibly personal, a radical adventure in becoming the self that we are, a self that is neither ghost nor corpse but a synthesis of body and soul, an inseparable union we call the human person. It is not a label, it is a challenge, but we’re so frightened of living as the body and soul that we are — and thus becoming Saints — that we’d much prefer to reduce ourselves into the dust from whence we came, to drift as ghosts inhabiting bodies we can hardly stand to live in.

So Meier will misrepresent Church teaching, The Huffington Post will applaud, Macklemore will write a few more songs, and the labels will multiply like loaves under the hands of Christs. But you, reader, defy. Abolish within yourself the inhuman effort of reduction that would have you cowering like a slave. Take up your cross with that joy that castrates fear and become the embodied self who you are.

Read the rest here.

Samesies.

A parody (NSFW language!):

An early tribe deals with a population problem. Written and Directed by John McKeever (@johnnymckeever www.mckeevercomedy.com) For Behind the Scenes Photos: http://www.ironpotato.com (Script will be posted soon!) Director of Photography: Mat D'Avella Production Coordinator: Chason Sordoni Production Assistant: Tyler Wolf Produced by: Two Vances

Genitals.

Two videos from Davey Wavey: 

Lesbians have a lot to say about penises. See what gay guys think about vaginas: http://youtu.be/Bd3gw3caSEk Special thanks to (in order of appearance): Hannah Hart: http://www.youtube.com/myharto Morgan: http://www.youtube.com/cherrygrrltv Natasha: http://www.youtube.com/natqtpie8 Anna: Twitter/Instagram - @AnnaRGoods Stevie: http://www.youtube.com/sassibob Megan: Instagram - thrasher03 Taryn Southern: http://www.youtube.com/TarynSouthern Arielle: http://www.youtube.com/ArielleIsHamming Add Davey Wavey on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/OfficialDaveyWavey Like Davey Wavey on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DaveyWaveyOfficial Davey Wavey tumblr: http://www.thedaveywaveyofficial.tumblr.com Davey's Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TheDaveyWavey Davey's second YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/DaveyWaveyRaw Davey's Fitness YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/DaveyWaveyFitness Davey Wavey Apparel: http://daveywavey.acmeprints.com Davey's fitness blog: http://www.daveywaveyfitness.com Davey's Website: http://www.daveywavey.tv Davey Wavey, Inc.

As it turns out, gay men have a lot to say about vaginas. If you love this, share it on your Facebook timeline.

Time Magazine covers.

How things have changed...

Signs from the DOMA/Prop 8 protest.

Currently, the US Supreme Court is hearing a case that could reshape marriage laws across the entire US. The case began in California, where changes to the state constitution made gay marriage legal. These changes were repealed due to majority support for ballot proposition 8 (Prop 8). Prop 8 was challenged in California court, and the case then made its way to the US Supreme Court. Federally, the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) restricts marriage to men with women. The Supreme court has the option of overturning DOMA, although they'll likely wimp out and only address the case in California. There have been protests outside the Supreme Court all week by both sides in the battle for marriage equality. Taryn passed along a link from Buzzfeed featuring the 60 best signs from supporters of gay marriage (thanks!). Here are a selection:

See the rest here.

Corey.

Via Reddit.

Dad's letter to gay son.

This has been making the rounds this week:

Gay-for-pay.

In the porn industry, gay-for-pay refers to actors that identify as straight, but appear in gay porn. There are three explanations for this phenomenon:

1. In straight porn, male actors are paid much less than their female counterparts. Male actors in gay porn are, on average, paid more. Also, male actors in gay porn are much more likely to become stars than male actors in straight porn, where they're overshadowed by the female actors. For these two reasons, there's an incentive for straight actors to do gay porn. Criticism from gay actors has led some gay-for-pay actors to claim that they're bisexual to legitimatize their gay porn careers.

2. In gay porn, story lines that feature supposedly straight men being seduced into sex by gay men have become extremely popular. There is the allure of the unattainable, and power associated with being the first to sleep with a straight-identified man. For this reason, actors who market themselves as straight (regardless of their orientation) are sought after, and are a valuable commodity to agents and producers.

3. Gay-for-pay actors are actually closeted or bisexual, and the porn industry provides them a platform to experiment with their sexuality, or a stepping stone to coming out, under the guise of a career.

The following two clips are of a gay-for-pay actor named Aaron James. The first clip is from his appearance on the Tyra Banks Show (I can't believe I'm linking to the Tyra Banks Show - there goes what credibility I might have had). The second clip is from a promo for a porn site (and for Aaron).

The Tyra Banks Show - ''Men who are 'gay for pay''' (Recorded Jan 22, 2009, WWOR)

More clips from the Tyra Banks Show episode on gay-for-pay here: part 1 part 3 part 4 part 5

And yes, Tyra's 'interview' style is embarrassingly bad. There's some interesting commentary in the comments section from an article on this episode here, at Queerty.

So which theory (or theories) seems most credible?

I imagine that all three are somewhat valid, although given the specificity of male sexual response, the third theory probably accounts for more cases. But, without data, it's impossible to say for sure.