The other night, I was dining with someone who didn’t know their acronym from their elbow. I had to explain MSM (mice that have sex with mice; no, wait…) and had a special rant about LGBT. For the unitiated that’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. It just trips off the tongue, doesn’t it? And it [...]
Though I work in a world of addictions, I try and keep mine in the closet. But with others springing out of the closet right left and centre, I’m going to come clean. I’m addicted to rugby. Rugby is said (largely by people who see no glory in the bad haircuts and hystrionic dives of [...]
At breakfast in Bangalore this morning, I was greeted by news of Bollywood’s first on-screen gay kiss. When they’re puckerd up like this, wouldn’t you want to? But the Indian censors may not share my enthusiasm. I am Omar will be screening at the Rotterdam film festival. Check it out and see if the kiss [...]
Last week, I was trying to explain Britain’s sexual and cultural politics to a friend newly-arrived from Canada.
That meant trying to explain why nice, left-wing feminists like Harriet Harman are using their political party conference speeches to send men to a website that advertises and rates sex workers.
It’s like this. Ms Harman, who is [...]
It’s usually safe to take time off in July to move house — in a previous existence in the newroom we used to call the European summer the “silly season”. In the weeks I’ve been painting walls, unpacking boxes and not blogging, we’ve had some HIV silliness, but some good sense too.
The IAS conference on [...]
The day before the UK release of Bruno, Sasha Baron Cohen’s swish along the catwalks of homophobia, the UK’s House of Lords voted to allow Brits to criticize homosexuality. Gay groups are painting this as a victory for homophobia. Christian groups say it is a victory for free speech. I say, on balance, that it [...]
There’s enough divorce in the world without forcing it on people who want to be together…
“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
On the subject of America’s extaordinary relationship with homosexuality, I urge you to see Milk, an important film about an important era, which reminds us rather vividly that we have not come far, [...]
New HIV-infections among gay men are rising everywhere they are measured, with the sole apparent exception of Sydney. That’s in part because Sydney has not dropped the ball (and the budget) on prevention. It hasn’t swallowed the “Treatment IS Prevention” mantra that seems to be behind the rise in many other places.
If we want [...]
It’s always dangerous to mix your coms with your orgs. In China, a link from the UNAIDS site takes you to a classic sex cybersquat: it offers links to dildos, fetish and swinger sites. All because the url for the Beijing Association of STD & AIDS Prevention and Control, bjaidsass.com, has “ass” in [...]
One of the joys of 2008 was the revival of swaffelen, an old English verb that describes swinging your wabber (another fine word; penis, to the uninitiated) in the open air and bumping it against something. Such as the Taj Mahal.
The Dutch voted it word of the year. I thank Maarten Kok for bringing it [...]
