Category: ultragay

Pink Minx

Gay Shame 1

Having grown up with a life-long concern about being perceived as a sissy, largely due to a long childhood being called a called a sissy or being told not to be one, I opted to participate in Gay Shame (this year’s theme: A Festival of Femininity) by confronting my neurotic aversion of wearing pink for fear of looking too girly, and by trying to look like quite a big sissy. I succeeded, and had tremendous fun.

Gay Shame 2

[Incriminating photos from the lovely Mr Green, who wore white, not pink.]

The ladies and gentlemen of the ACLU LGBT Project also wore pink at last week’s Pride festivities, or at least bright fuschia t-shirts I designed for them. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

On the other hand, it was down with drab for do-gooders. The ACLU’s fuchsia T-shirts with green Statue of Liberty crowns: simple yet sublimely multicolored.

ACLU Pride

I still hate wearing pink, but I am quite proud — no, I am quite pleased — to be a big ol’ nancy homo fairy who likes to kiss and hold hands and stuff with other dudes.

And in case you didn’t get it, this post’s title is a shameless reference to Pink Mince, a little zine thing I’ve started publishing. Why haven’t you ordered a copy yet?

Candy store

Most of my medical stuff happens at the sexual health clinic rather than a GP’s office, so the vibe in the waiting room is always a little weird. In the town where I used to live, this meant there were lots of nervous college kids, sketchy guys, and kinda trashy girls. There are lots averted eyes and people actively trying to state at the telly instead of anything else.

In the middle of London, however, this means that everyone is almost eerily hot, and mostly gay — including the staff. It’s hard to ignore the distinctly cruisy vibe in the room. Even if folks aren’t actively cruising, they’re definitely inspecting everyone else. It’s a totally different kind of awkward, much more like my doctor’s office back in Chelsea in New York.

Is there a socially acceptable way to ask someone out at the clap clinic?

Judge not lest ye be judged

This is a snippet from a fascinating little documentary called Dressing for Pleasure by John Sampson. (Unfortunately the site that used to host the whole thing has shut down, and this is all I can find at the moment.) I totally lack the energy to combine this barrage of related links into a proper post right now, so just think of this as sort of a pervy brain dump:

Edwardian masher

While I’m on this Joe Orton kick, here’s another great bit from the diaries:

Saturday 15 April

Watched Doctor Who on television. Rubbish, but there’s a young boy in it who’s worth looking at; like an Edwardian masher at a Gaiety show, I mentally undress him. I’m sure the BBC would horrified if they realised that even a science fiction series can be used erotically.

Judging from the date, I’m assuming that the episode in question was part of “The Faceless Ones“, and that the alluring lad in question was probably young sailor Ben Jackson, played by Michael Craze.

Ben Jackson

“Edwardian masher at a Gaiety show” is my new favorite phrase, by the way. And though Orton is a good enough writer for that quip to feel very off the cuff, it’s actually the one instance in his diaries where I spotted him re-using an earlier joke. On the 24th of January, 1967, Orton paid a visit to meet Paul McCartney and Brian Epstein to talk about writing a script for the next Beatles movie. During the course of the evening, a pop group called the Easybeats drop by, about whom he says:

…about five very young and pretty boys trooped in. I rather hoped this was the evening’s entertainments. It wasn’t, though. …After a while we went downstairs. The Easybeats still there. The girl went away. I talked to the leading Easybeat. Feeling slightly like an Edwardian masher with a Gaiety Girl.

The Easybeats

One more thing about Orton

You know, there are lots of other things that have been happening that might be better to write about (Travel and work abroad! Fetishwear spending sprees! The waxing and waning of various flirtations!) but all that stuff always takes so much time and effort that I ought to be devoting to things that actually help pay my bills. But since I’ve just started reading The Orton Diaries on today’s bus/tube/plane/train trip, I’m thinking again about a certain ex and all the similarities between him and Orton’s carefully constructed public persona that just seem too perfect to be a coincidence. And the intro of the book also reminded me that Orton’s diaries and letters are held at my old university, in the library where a certain someone also used to work.

Also, Orton is still really sexy and smart and funny. But kind of a jerk, just like a certain someone always was.

Prick up your what now?

Joe Orton

I’ve just finished the original book, and am now finally watching the filmed version of Prick Up Your Ears, the biography of playwright Joe Orton. I had a nagging sensation while reading the book that there was a lot about Orton that reminded me of an ex of mine with whom I had one of my more melodramatic relationships. Twice.

Gary Oldman as Joe Orton

Watching the film now, I’m convinced that Orton — and particularly Gary Oldman’s performance as Orton — fed into this guy’s personal mythology, and certainly his kit bag of posturing and affectations. He was, like Orton, a guy from a fucked-up working class background who picked himself up by his bootstraps using a fistful of natural intelligence and talent. Like Orton, he was also sexy as fuck and kind of a smug, self-satisfied cock. I don’t recall him ever mentioning Orton — I guess by the time we’d met he’d moved on to other literary obsessions. Actually, it would be more in character if he’d decided that Orton wasn’t much to think about from a literary standpoint, no matter how much he played up the same kind of romantic rebel schtick.

Growing pains

Now that I’m “back on the market” and “fresh meat” and assorted other euphemisms for single and generally prone to sluttiness, I’m discovering something new about myself. Or perhaps it’s something new about how other guys respond to me. I seem to have cruised into this phase of my life where I’m the age that young guys who are into older guys are into me. It’s not bad, and I say that as someone who’s often into older guys as well. In fact, I’m finding that I’m more attracted to younger guys than I would have guessed, at least if they’re clever and a bit wise for their years. Lately I’ve been finding myself in the company of more cute, interesting guys in their 20s than I did when I was in my 20s. I guess I should enjoy it while it lasts, if I can.

Battlestar Barbarella

Barbarella Galactica.

When worlds collide, eh? I love both Barbarella and Battlestar Galactica, but for very, very different reasons. Seeing them mashed together for a promo shoot makes my head hurt a teeny bit. If I were more of a straight persuasion, though, this would make me all tingly, though.

Of course, Apollo or Helo done up as Pygar would certainly do the trick.

Barbarella — The Bob Crewe Generation

Pygar’s New Wings — The Bob Crewe Generation