Royals Snub Gay Pardons

I like the royals and I’ve seen a lot of support for the LGBT community come from them in the past few years…when no one else was supporting us. Some of the things the Queen has done have amazed me. So I’m not rushing to judge them any time soon.

I am, however, very concerned about this petition to pardon gay men who had consensual sex but were penalized for it under an old gross indecency law. This is important for many reasons, even if the royals consider this a government issue they aren’t able to deal with.

A spokesperson for the royal couple said Saturday (31 January) it was a matter for government so they could not comment in public. 

Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Fry signed an open letter to the government calling on the two ‘young leaders’ to support the Pardon49k campaign, which has more than 100,000 signatures. 

‘The UK’s homophobic laws made the lives of generations of gay and bisexual men intolerable,’ the letter published in the Guardian read. 

‘It is up to young leaders of today including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to acknowledge this mark on our history and not allow it to stand.

I agree with Cumberbatch and Fry, but as far as I know there’s really only so much the royals can do as far as government goes. If they choose to defy protocol, more power to them. But we all saw what happened each time Princess Diana tried to do that. In this particular case, I just don’t see it happening.

You can read more here. I can’t help wondering how they would react if it were anything other than gay sex related. 

The comments are fairly well suited to the overall tone of the article.

Men Refuse to Masturbate

The thought of men refusing to masturbate probably sounds like water refusing to be wet, but this is actually interesting. And it’s not a topic we hear about all the time and I find it refreshing to read about men who do care about the topic. All men seem to have this reputation for being monkeys at the zoo with regard to masturbation and I never thought that was fair. Actually, I think it’s highly exaggerated. 

It all started back in 2011 when a mysterious thread titled “When men don’t masturbate for seven days, their testosterone levels increase by 45.7%” emerged on Reddit.

The post was published by a group called NoFap, which challenges people to abstain from watching porn, having sex, or masturbating in an effort to “seize control of your sexuality and turn it into superpowers.” The thread then challenged readers to see how long they could go without pleasuring themselves, with participants being called “NoFappers” or “Fapstranourts.”

It all started as a joke…but guys are taking it seriously. As I said, it’s interesting because it’s almost as if it’s more about self-control, building character, and self-esteem. Especially when men find they can refrain from masturbation for seven days. And I’ll bet by the 8th day the guy who does this will be a lot of fun in bed.

The rest is here. Be interesting to put this challenge into a novel some day.

Gay Rabbi on Grindr

A young gay man studying to be a Rabbi is asking other gay Jewish men to join Grindr in an attempt to socialize with them. For once, as far as I can see, it’s not about sex, hook ups, and the same old app hook up scene. If anything, it sounds completely professional.

Green, who is gay, says he first got the idea to encourage gay Jewish men to join Grindr when he joined the popular dating app during his first year of rabbinical school in Israel.

“People were contacting me saying are you Jewish? How was Israel?” Green says. “Then when I mentioned I was in rabbinical school, everyone kept asking about Kashrut [Jewish dietary laws], and Judaism!”

“It occurred to me that what happened on Grindr was speaking to a Jewish communal need,” Green says. “People wanted to talk about being Jewish and Jewish things.”

Green was awarded a grant to examine social, cultural, and technological changes gay Jewish men are experiencing…to examine through Grindr. I just hope he’s careful and he screens everyone that responds. 

Trust me, it’s worth reading the rest here. There’s a photo of Green you don’t want to miss.