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Going to Bed with the Boy Next Door
Rock Island, November 1968. A Thursday, two days after my eighth birthday. Mom isn't feeling well, so she's in bed already. Dad made macaroni and cheese for dinner. My brother and I are in our...
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The Bed-Switching Freshman at the Chocolate Moose
I was saddened to learn that the Chocolate Moose, a landmark ice cream place on Walnut Street in downtown Bloomington, is going to be demolished to make way for a generic office building. The...
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The Quest for the Shirtless Superman
When I was a kid, I read Harvey Comics, the Disney ducks, the Gold Key jungle comics, and occasionally an Archie -- but not DC: Superman, Batman, and their ilk.Who could follow the never-ending story...
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Uncle Sam Wants You: the Gay Connection of America's National Symbol
I'm not very patriotic. I hate all of those companies that try to sell you lawn mowers or shoes with red white and blue logos and yells of "Freedom!" and "Liberty!"Wilkes-Barre has a Freedom Farm,...
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The 4th of July in the Straight World: Fireworks, Cruising, and Searching for...
Plains, July 2016In gay neighborhoods, we never went to 4th of July Fireworks. Deliberately watching loud, flashy explosions? More of a heterosexual thing. Besides, gay people were criminals in 23...
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The Boys of Lassie 3: Skip Burton
Of all of Lassie's boys, Skip (later Robert) Burton was the oldest, and had the fewest gay subtexts. But at least his adult roles featured substantial nudity, and his package was checked out in the...
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In Search of Australian Aboriginal Men
Brisbane, Australia, July 2002In 1986, I followed an Australian cowboy to his home on Kangaroo Island, with only the briefest of layovers in Sidney before going on to visit Alan in Japan.This summer,...
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Summertime Beefcake at the Dunking Booth
Among my favorite summertime sights are the dunking booths at festivals, county fairs, Celtic games, school carnivals, summer camps, and various parties.They are descended from the old dunk tanks used...
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The Phantom and Son
When I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, all of the good comic strips appeared in the Times-Democrat, across the river in Davenport, Iowa. Our Rock Island Argus featured a few lousy bargain-basement...
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My Celebrity Boyfriend, The Director, and the Cute Young Thing
West Hollywood, March 1987The Celebrity and I have been dating for over two months, and I still haven't met any of his friends! Friends always want to meet a new boyfriend, to make sure he's good...
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Leonard and Larry
I moved to West Hollywood in 1985 in the midst of a Renaissance of gay comics. Humor and not-so humorous strips were appearing in Frontiers and the Advocate, in the Gay Comics magazine, and in the...
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Our Date with the Teenage Beach Boy
In West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s, hooking up was unheard of. You dated -- you met someone, then planned a full evening of social activities five or so nights later. Even when you were...
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The 9 Worst TV Series Finales in History
If you watch every episode of a 100-episode sitcom, you've spend 2300 minutes, not including reruns. That's the equivalent of 19 feature-length movies or 11 novels (at the average adult reading...
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Lane's Bear Boyfriend and the Cute Young Thing
West Hollywood, January 1995Lane was a big fan of a gay comic that appeared weekly in Frontiers, about an assimilated couple: they lived in a straight neighborhood, had mostly straight friends, and had...
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The Beefcake Paintings of Nikos Engonopoulos
Nikos Engonopoulos (1903-1985) was a Greek painter of the surrealist movement, a colleague of Max Ernst, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali. But the work of other surrealists rarely depicted beefcake (even...
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The Homophobic 1980s of the Beastie Boys
I barely heard of The Beastie Boys until last January, when their song "Shake Your Rump" was performed on The Goldbergs. All I knew was that they were a boy band from the 1980s, probably British...
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Country Boy Hookup #1: The Nebraska Football Player
Summer 1995, OmahaThe Great Redneck Roundup of 1995 yielded 20 hookups in 20 days, but, surprisingly, few actual "rednecks."We were looking for country boys:1. Heavy-set, not fat but thick around the...
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The Most Underrated Sexual Act
The most underrated sexual act is the one that everyone engages in, but no one admits to.I guarantee that each of these three guys does it three to five times a week. But if you ask, they'll deny...
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The Gay Symbolism of Betty Boop
Around 1980 or 1981, the PBS tv series Matinee at the Bijou, which tried to recreate an old-time moviegoing experience, broadcast an old black-and-white cartoon, "Minnie the Moocher" It starred a...
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Visiting Dustin: Hookups, Sharing, and a Bathhouse Surprise
Minneapolis, July 5th, 2016I arrive in Minneapolis at 3:00 pm on a Tuesday to visit my sort-of boyfriend Dustin.Dustin is 21 years old, an animation major at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design,...
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