Category: ultragay

Subsisting on Snacks

“Lots of snacking does not make a satisfying meal.” Every once in a while I manage to phrase a little pearl of wisdom just right. If only I were as good at paying attention to the good advice I dole out. That pithy little bit came up in the midst of an e-mail exchange in which I was talking about how disappointing it is to live someplace where sex is easy enough to find, but more substantial company is not. In the words of another pundit, “A little experimenting here and there can be fun, but mothafucka! I don’t think it’s fun no mo’.” I agree totally.

I’ll admit that I go through periods of carnal self-indulgence (usually fueled by frustration or boredom), but in the end I’m a big ol’ softie whose primary goal is not short-term adventure. Not only do random hook-ups rarely give me the boost of sexual self-confidence I’m craving, but they tend to undermine the things about myself that I really am confident about, ‘cuz those qualities just don’t matter in that particular game.

Romeo, Romeo, where the fuck art thou?

Hmmm, you’d think it was a year or so ago that the long, slow, excruciatingly painful process of me getting dumped began. Or something. Granted, that was an inevitable result, considering how ill-suited he and I were for each other. We would have realized sooner or later that we’d managed to confuse one another for the idealized, fictionalized memories we had of each other from the first time around. But damn, what a gruesome way for it to have happened.

Can you tell what kind of mood Sparky’s in today?

I Really Dig Leather

But you might have guessed that. I like the feel of it, the look of it, the smell of it, the way it can conform so easily to the body beneath it, and all that other stuff that you can read at any of a million other web pages out there. This shit turns me on, but it’s such a delicate balance. I can’t buy into the whole notion of an attraction to leather (OK, I’ll say it — a fetish) being synonymous with S&M or or any of the other rigorously codified culture that seems to have sprung up around it. I love creative and intense sex, but all that’s just not my scene. [Ed. note, circa 2024: Seems like I just needed time to embrace a more comprehensive approach to kink and fetish, which. took a little more time.] I can get past the goofy anachronism of a lot of the standard leather “look” because something about it still works, but so many guys go so over the top that it backfires. Leather can go from zero to cheesy in about two seconds if a guy’s not careful. Or it can go from zero to damn sexy in about as much time.

Did I have a weird, supressed childhood fascination with the Fonz? With Roddy McDowall as the Bookworm on “Batman”? Do I have some issues with either latent or coveted machismo? Was I subjected to contraband Tom of Finland drawings at an early, impressionable age? Maybe it was those Ghost Rider comic books. Who knows? I sure as hell don’t. I just like to revel in it once in a while. And anyway, if think this is extreme, you should hear about my inexplicable fascination with nerdy, skinny guys with glasses.

Continue reading “I Really Dig Leather”

Drat, Foiled Again

So much for ambiguity. Alas, I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. It’s usually pretty obvious when someone’s not as into you as you’d like him to be. What a pain, though, when it IS really obvious that he thinks you’re cool and fun. So you know you’re going to be friends — possibly even good ones — but you have to deal with all the weird stuff until your disappointment fades away. And I thought I was on to something this time, too. Damn.

Lifestyles of the Queer and Famous

Minor Celebrity Sightings of the Week: I was out at The Cock last Saturday and saw internet personality Jonno, who’s cute but stockier than I thought. I also touched Rufus Wainwright’s butt as I squeezed out of the bar.

Aside from that I guess it was a busy week socially, but I’m feeling a little down about it because of the ambiguous goings on with the first really interesting guy I’ve met in a while. I hate when shit like that brings me down. It seems like such a silly thing to throw me into such a big funk that gets me all lazy and depressed.

Not to mention the ever-looming school tuition issue. That’s a real spirit-booster. Wow, I can’t wait to go thousands of dollars further into debt so I can take a few more classes. This master’s degree better be worth all the hassle and the debt. But ask me about it again when I’m in a better mood and better able to rhapsodize about the importance of education.

Thank goodness I finally bought the South Park soundtrack. Thats’s been making me quite happy. “It seems that everything’s gone wrong since Canada came along. Blame Canada! Blame Canada!”

Continue reading “Lifestyles of the Queer and Famous”

The Minefield of Aggressive Language (Part 1)

Subject: Re: AN OPEN LETTER
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:44:32 -0400
From: Daniel Rhatigan <Sparky@inch.com>
Newsgroups: alt.zines

Shantia wrote:

> and faggy is not an insult.

Uh-oh, we’re digging deeper into that thorny “use of language” issue
again.

I find it pretty hard not to find “faggy” an insult here. (“…quoting faggy bands like the Flaming Lips.”) The defamatory sense of the word is pretty clear. And the defamatory point of the word is to malign someone or something by implying it has the quality of what is perceived as standard gay characteristics.

That’s not an insult? If the point is to say that the Flaming Lips are admitted homosexuals and no one cares about it anyway, it’s still a callous way to put it, considering that all the taunting that’s made use “fag” and its derivatives over the years. If the point really is to say that the Flaming Lips aren’t that good, then the insult to us fags seems pretty clear. The intent behind the word always means something. And that’s why people need to be responsible for their use of language.

And I don’t mean “responsible” to be steering clear of offensive or impolite words. “Responsible” means use your language carefully, and say what you really mean. Or people might think you mean what you are only saying. Swear like a sailor! Push people’s buttons! But make sure you know what you’re doing, and do it for a reason.

There are a couple of zines out there like “Teen Fag” and “Single Faggot” that are using the words with great care. They’re trying to push some buttons, and throw the word back at the public that might otherwise use it as an insult. that’s pushing some artistic boundaries. Just tossing the word “fag” around liberally by somebody who’s not thinking about the implications isn’t breaking any new ground, it’s just crossing over the same tired ground.

Same deal with this ongoing debate about rascism. Careless use of the word “nigger” isn’t automatically pushing artistic boundaries just because someone has the right to use it. Sure someone has the right use it, but also the responsibility to face criticism for it. I don’t think the post that started all this hoopla used it any way that was going to make people question their own position on rascism. Not do I think it was meant to spark a healthy debate on the subject. It was just thoughtless. And hence insulting to anyone who ever got called a nigger and had a reason to get pissed off about it.

Just like “faggy” is an insult to anyone who ever got called a fag and knew that it wasn’t meant as a compliment.

So even if I am a man-lovin’, limp-wristed, lisping, cocksucking, buttfucking, gerbil-chasing, popper-snorting, disco-dancing, pink-wearing nancyboy, but — and I quote Joe Jackson — “don’t call me a faggot, not unless you are a friend.”

Dan

Plan Nine from Chelsea

Gay Black

To the best of my knowledge, this book was not really written by Ed Wood the filmmaker, nor is the gentleman featured on the cover a gay black. My guess is that “Ed Wood” was chosen at the time as a nom-de-plume by the author back in the days when Ed Wood was still something of a cultural obscurity. But I could be wrong. I do know for a fact, though, that the photograph on the cover is not supposed to represent Charlene, the hero/heroine of the book who escapes a tortured youth as a sharecropper to go an become a cross-dressing bitch for a series of con men and thieves.

This little example of vintage “erotica” turned up in a yard sale in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, one day. I really got a kick out of seeing how dirty stories were written back in the good ol’ days of the year I was born. I almost feel a pang of regret that contemporary smut has lost that sense of the hero being really deviant and indiscrete: it seems a lot more thrilling than than the explicit, happy rainbow crap that gets churned out these days.

Macho Men

We all remember the Village People and their unique portrayal of a number of standard sterotypes and fantasy characters from the swinging gay New York City of the ’70s. My question is: Why should we let them remain the end-all and be-all of kooky stock character types? Why, when there are so many other pigeonholes waiting to be filled and acknowledged!

Here is your chance to “show your Underalls” by identifying your six Personalized Village People for these swinging fin-de-siecle times. What sorts of guys do you usually go all ga-ga over? What does it take to tickle even the mildest and most innocuous fetish you have, or at the very least, what do seem to fall for over and over again, good judgement be damned?

For example, my Personal Village People would have to include:

  • The Architect: Always so fashionably but simply dressed, with a very precise haircut. A workaholic like me, and able to discuss design theory. Has great modernist furniture.
  • The Rudeboy: Such a fun-loving imp, channelling all that physical aggression into jumping around and skanking. Wears cheap suits, but knows how to work ’em with just the right hat and shoes. Appreciates bad band name puns.
  • The Funky Geek: Understands dorky computer junk, but more importantly wears cool glasses and knows where all the good local thrift stores are. Appreciates my finely-tuned pop culture sensibility and is insecure enough to really appreciate a good thing when he finds it.
  • The Hipster Leatherboy: Scruffy or skinhead, often with goatee. Thinks of himself as thoroughly modern and liberal, if not downright revolutionary. Has artistic ambitions, and oozes sexual potency. Could also be identified as the Gen-Y rebel. (Johnathon Schaech in “The Doom Generation” is a good example.)
  • The Inaccessible Foreigner: Smart, creative, and devilishly good-looking, with sharp verbal wit and a creative profession. Seems perfect except for those visa problems and steep airfares. Has accent that could charm a rabid doberman.
  • The Bike Messenger: Maybe he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but with those legs and that ass who cares? And funky tattoos. Stamina is also a plus, and he probably follows a lot of hip local bands and reads zines.

Other classic archetypes that one might consider:

The Randy Farmhand

The Randy Farmhand

 The Mighty Gladiator

The Mighty Gladiator

 The Old-Skool Leather Daddy

The Old-Skool Leather Daddy
The Curious Sailor

The Curious Sailor

 The Skinny Hipster

The Skinny Hipster

 The Deap-Sea Diver

The Deap-Sea Diver

I have HAD It!

One of the recurring themes of my sad, sorry life is my inability to find that ideal sidekick who’s just the right combination of brainiac, goofball, sidekick, hipster, nerd, sexual dynamo, little kid, and muse. Granted, I’m pretty fussy, but I can’t be the only fag in the world whose criteria are so inconveniently eclectic, can I?

Are you wondering if you’re the kind of fella I might like? Browsing around here in the RumpWeb will certainly give you some idea of the kinds of things that capture my interest. Of course, you probably wouldn’t even be considering all this nonsense if the things here didn’t strike a chord with you already. As far as the looks and style issue is concerned, see if you fit the bill by checking out the next page for some visual references.

NOTE TO THE OLD-FASHIONED: If you don’t want to think about this sort of thing, DON’T GO LOOKING AT IT! I’m not saying there’s anything smutty
ahead — there’s definitely not — but there is some pretty strong imagery best left to the eyes of those who care for it, and I don’t want to hear any clucks of
disapproval because you’ve got a hopelessly fifties attitude about my penchant
for other guys.

Continue reading “I have HAD It!”

The Rumpus Room Manifesto

Originally written in February 1994.

I tend to feel disenfranchised, outcast, eccentric. I’ve got feminist sensibilities that make me feel guilty because I’m a man. I feel like my manhood is skewed because I’m not a straight man, so I can’t buy into the whole straight, white male cultural elite mindset. I feel alienated from the gay community because I can’t fathom or play the social/power games I see all over it, I bristle at a lot of its affectations, and can’t understand its rituals and customs. I feel separated from my friends for being too weird or not weird enough. I have no lover, so I don’t feel like I belong to a cozy twosome. At work I feel too young or too powerless and impatient.

My vision of the Rumpus Room . . . is to define my place, my sensibilities, my ideas. Ideally, others will respond, but this project is too personal for me to make concessions for the sake of popularity. I want to use Rumpus Room to explore my philosophy, my humor, my politics, my aesthetic, my abilities.

My vision for the magazine (my marketing vision, my conceptual vision) is to give other people a chance to respond to what’s in Rumpus Room, not allow it to become so half-assed that it becomes accessible to the lowest common denominator.

The rumpus room is a place to gossip, to gab, to argue, to tell jokes, to watch TV, and to play cards and stuff. It’s the rec room, the family room, the living room.

Imagine you’re hearing a low wolf whistle

If you’ve come this far, you should know right off the bat that I’m not holding out for some unearthly hunk that’s so far out of my league that I may as well be playing another sport altogether. Attraction is a delicate balancing act of looks, personality, wit, style, and all that other junk. It’s too hard (and it would be too misleading) for a simple guy like me to try and come up with a bulleted list of stuff that makes me all hot and bothered and sappy and mushy. Of course, I also know what will make me lose track of what I’m thinking if I see it walking down the street. So to give you some idea of what sets my hormones a-raging (as far as purely external qualities go), here are a few quick things to look at.