Category: Dan Savage

Gay Model Sues Starbucks; Dave Savage Goes After Mike Huckabee; Hillary Is Big On Grindr

Gay Model Sues Starbucks

I’m actually one of those people who think the courts are already overcrowded with frivolous lawsuits and I support any legislation that will reduce this. However, in this particular case I think it’s a great example of making a clear point that gay men are tired of being treated like inferiors. They’re tired of being the subject of hetero snark…whether it’s blatant or passive aggressive. And most of all tired of humiliation in public.

Male model and former boyfriend of designer Marc Jacobs,  Harry Louis, plans to sue Starbucks after an allegedly humiliating incident that left him feeling inferior. The Starbucks in question wasn’t open yet and he asked if he could get a cup of coffee.

But as the Starbucks wasn’t open at 7am, the model asked a worker setting up when he would be able to get a coffee. He claims the employee told him if he wanted one, he should go ‘put on an apron’.

 ‘I said no, it wouldn’t be a good look on me, and she snapped saying “Become a man and then I won’t offer you my apron!”.’

Speaking to UOL, he said: ‘I felt humiliated, because there was a line of people watching the scene.’

You can read the rest here. Be interesting to see how this turns out. It’s not possible to comment without knowing everything.

Dan Savage Goes After Mike Huckabee

Savage is considered a “controversial” sex columnist and LGBT activist. In a highly self-promotional article he did with Playboy Magazine he recently told Mike Huckabee to “suck my dick.” He didn’t stop with Huckabee.

‘Dr Laura is a vile piece of shit,’ he said. 

What about Dr Phil? 

‘He’s part of the advice-industrial Oprah complex. I’m not a big fan of telling women that when their husband looks at porn it’s a form of cheating. That’s what you say if you want to drive the divorce rate up even higher than it is.’

I’m not that familiar with Savage so once again it’s hard to comment. But I do think Dr. Laura is a piece of shit and I think Dr. Phil is FULL of shit…along with Oprah and her best friend Gayle. These are people who are remnants of the last century who learned how to gain power and wealth through exploitation in the most passive aggressive ways. They feed on it.

You can read the rest here. Is Savage too strong and too offensive? Probably. But are we (gay people) tired of being so silent and letting everyone walk all over us? Definitely.

I’d like to personally interview Savage on cultural appropriation with respect to the way some straight people take over gay men and try to speak for them…while doing this for monetary gain. That’s been going around lately and in the past few years and no one seems to notice it…except the gay men who are being silenced in the bold name of “support.” I realize that I lost most of you with that last sentence. But I know some of you get it and there will be more to follow eventually.

Thank you, Dan Savage. At least we know we’re not alone anymore.

Hillary Is Big On Grindr

Yes, I’m talking about Hillary Clinton. And she’s not actually on Grindr. She won the support of people who are on Grindr and is considered a great LGBT ally now. I’m not sure how that works, being that Hillary didn’t even support same sex marriage up until everyone else started to see it was going to pass through the court system. I’m not sure how great an ally she is because she remained absolutely dead silent on the issue of gay marriage right up until recently. However, people are interesting and politics sways and moves with the wind. So this really doesn’t surprise me. I’d probably support her if she ran…as the lesser of two evils.

In any event, here’s an excerpt. I do agree with the other votes. Putin sucks and I love Sam Smith.

In contrast to the support Clinton received, Russian President Vladimir Putin was voted ‘Enemy of the LGBT Community’ – no doubt for his championing of Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law. 

More than 1,100 Grindr users in the US, UK and Australia cast their votes between 21 November 21 and 1 December. 

Singer Sam Smith, still fresh off getting six Grammy nominations last week, won in two of Grindr’s categories: ‘Best Coming Out Story’ and ‘Best Song of 2014’ for Stay With Me.

You can read the rest here. It’s interesting to note that many of the votes were calculated from UK and Australian users, so I’m not all that sure it counts with respect to a potential candidate running for US President.

Side note: Chelsea Clinton is a great ally to the LGBT community. That’s on record and I wish she’d run. But here’s a link to an article that explains why it’s hard to consider Hillary or Bill Clinton great supporters.

 But like her husband, Hillary has also flip-flopped on LGBT rights — so much so that the Economist described her “belated conversion” to supporting marriage equality as “cautious to the point of cowardice” back in March 2013.

Chase of a Christmas Dream

 
 

Hump! Straight Dudes Gay Porn; Gay Twincest Porn; Cop at Utah Gay Pride

Hump! Straight Dudes Gay Porn

In 2005 Dan Savage organized the Hump Film Festival. Savage is a sex columnist and founder of the “It Gets Better Project” I mentioned a few weeks ago with regard to Hachette Books in a post about Hachette and Amazon, and Oyster E-Books. The basic premise behind the Hump festival is interesting. Average people film their own five minute sex scenes that are shown at the festival. They compete for prizes, and this year Savage decided to do a Hump Tour in the US with 20 short films by these amateurs.

The most important thing I read was this, about straight men watching gay porn:

The gay sex scene was so hot Rick Santorum would get hard watching it, yet for every explicit moment or funny joke, there was an intimate moment that balanced the scale, allowing hearts to warm as well as genitals.

Best of all, the festival taught straight dudes to get down with realistic gay and lesbian porn. One guy, Ben, saw gay porn for the first time at the festival.

The second most important thing I read was something I have always tried to do with gay erotic romance/fiction. I’m talking about making it funny, or sexy and intimate. And sometimes trying to find a balance between the two. I’ve written a lot of intimate love scenes in books. But I also go for funny or silly…even though a lot of my critics have missed that point over the years. They actually think I’m being serious. But it’s hard to blame people who don’t have a certain amount of sophistication. You really can’t blame someone for not knowing the bread plate is on the left at a dinner party. You can only try to show them politely.

The most difficult thing to do is combine funny and sexy…or intimate.

Tim, another audience member, told me his favorite aspect of the festival was that “the films were both sexy and funny, which is hard to achieve—it’s usually one or the other.” This is what Savage was going for. “The films were meant to be both sexy and funny, which is how sex really is,” he explained.

I couldn’t agree more. When I wrote the one sex scene in one of the Virgin Billionaire books where Jase and Luis had “literary” sex and laughed about all the worst literary sex phrases in books ever written I wasn’t doing that by accident. Sex is a serious thing, but it’s also a funny thing, too. Or it can be funny if handled the right way. And what two people in a book do (or even in real life) in the privacy of their own bedrooms is often joked about.

In any event, it’s an interesting festival and article. You can read more here. They get into more details about sex toys, sex advice, and how people can actually learn new things from these short films. And straight guys can learn that gay sex films can be both sexy and funny, depending on how they’re executed.

Gay Twincest Porn

In an unrelated piece about the darker side of porn, a straight ex-con, Taleon Goffney, who did gay for pay porn with his identical twin brother, Keyontyli, when they really needed money is turning his life around. The article talks about why he did gay porn…twincest…and what happened afterward.

Even after shooting Mark and the Twins, money was still tight for the brothers. So they resorted to burglary. In February 2008, they were arrested in Philadelphia after Taleon broke into a beauty salon and stole $10,000 from an ATM while Keyontyli stood watch.

During the trial, Keyontyli pleaded guilty to being an accomplice to his brother’s crimes and, in the process, cut a deal with authorities to implicate his brother and avoid major prison time for himself.

Taleon is going to write a book, and try to help others now.

There’s more here.

Cop at Utah Gay Pride

A cop who refused to ride in the Utah gay pride parade in Salt Lake City recently resigned. I find it interesting because my brother-in-law, Tony’s brother, and his family live in Salt Lake City and they tell me it’s very different from living on the east coast near New York and Philadelphia, but they find it gay friendly and they aren’t even gay.

The officer, whose name has not been released, had cited his religious beliefs for balking at the assignment that called for him to be among the Salt Lake City Police Department officers riding in front of the parade.

His attorney said he felt uncomfortable with that role, did not want to be seen as a gay pride advocate, and asked for another assignment.

I know he’s claiming religious reasons. But I’m starting to wonder about that. It sounds more social and political than religious to me. No one asked him to support gays. They only assigned him to ride at the parade…part of his job. And aren’t we all supposed to be objective and professional at certain times in all of our careers? I doubt anyone would have thought he was a gay advocate…I don’t think anyone would even have cared or noticed him.

To have that much hate in your heart that you’re willing to lose your career just baffles me. I wonder how he’ll feel when he realizes that the world will continue to grow and move forward in spite of him, and that allowing gays equal rights didn’t do a thing to harm or change his life. He did it to himself.

You can read more here. I would imagine this is going to wind up in court and it should be interesting to see the outcome.

 

 
The Virgin Billionaire’s Dream House by Ryan Field