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Summer 1973: I Meet A Teenage Indian God
When I was a kid, my Dad got a 2-week vacation every year. We would always spend the first week visiting our relatives in Indiana, and the second camping up north, usually in Minnesota. But in 1973,...
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Humphrey Bogart Comes Out of the Closet
I just watched Casablanca (1942) again, about a suave American exile in World War II Morocco who helps his ex-girlfriend and her husband escape the Nazis, and was impressed by:1. The war intrigue....
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The Best Place to Buy Testicles
My ex-boyfriend Fred grew up on a farm, where every summer the hogs born that spring would be castrated, and the testicles -- aka Rocky Mountain Oysters -- were breaded, fried, and served for...
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Jordan Dean: a Buffed, Shirtless, Homoerotic Robin Hood
If you are anywhere around Boston, check out the A.R.T., the American Repertory Theater, in Cambridge. They have a full season of traditional dramas, plus creative, eclectic performances, like The...
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The Korean Penis Park
The Korean Penis Park may be even more remote for Westerners than Bhutan, the Land of the Penis.It's officially called Haesindang Park, in the small fishing village of Sinnam, about 5 hours by bus from...
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Spring 1989: A Bodybuilding Contest in Turkey
In September 1988, everything was going wrong. I passed my qualifying exams for my Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, but my committee nixed my dissertation topic, same-sex desire in Renaissance Drama....
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Spring 1979: Why I'm Not a Novelist
When I was in high school, I thought of becoming a writer. After all, my friend Darry and I wrote a heroic fantasy novel back in junior high, I was the editor of our literary magazine, and I published...
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Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers
September 1974: My friends and I are in ninth grade at Washington Junior High, 13 or 14 years old, aspiring to be cool, hip, and intellectual. So we watch all of the hip sitcoms that would later be...
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Matthew James Thomas and Company: The Bulging Biceps of Spider-Man
Mathew James Thomas is best known for playing the alternate lead in Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark on Broadway (2011-2012). I didn't go as a matter of principle -- I hate Peter Parker in any...
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The Beefcake Empire of Ancient Crete
When I was a kid in the Midwest, I thought of Greece as a "good place," where same-sex desire was open and free, based on the My Village books of Sonia and Tim Gidal, books on Greek mythology, some...
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Fall 1998: Landing My Boyfriend's Roommate
Blake: Manhattan EliteI met Blake in the fall of 1998, when I was in grad school in New York. At first he seemed like an ideal boyfriend, with four of the five characteristics I find attractive:...
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Sid Caesar's Gay Connection
Sid Caesar died a few days ago, at age 91. I knew him as a mugging, elderly guy in some 1970s comedies, such as Silent Movie, The Cheap Detective, and Grease, but he was one of the pioneers of the...
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The Homophobic Small-Town Manhattan of "Friends"
Friends (1994-2004) was set in the same intimate, "small town" Manhattan as Seinfeld. But it lacked the New York color -- it could have been set in any big city -- not to mention the witty dialogue,...
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Your Grandfather's Beefcake: Circus Acrobats
Back before physique magazines, Johnny Weissmuller movies, and superhero comics, there were few options for beefcake: J.C. Leyendecker's magazine ads, statues of Greek gods -- and the circus.The 3...
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Giovanni Ribisi: Not Cute Anymore
I first saw Giovanni Ribisi on Friends,where he had a recurring role as Phoebe's cute, naive younger brother Frank (1995-2003). He has a relationship with his much older female teacher, and later asks...
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The Penis Park of Norway
The best way to get to Iceland is from Norway or Denmark, so before you head out to the Icelandic Penis Museum, be sure to visit Oslo. See the Viking Ship Museum, have dinner at the gay-friendly Cafe...
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Fall 1974: A Naked Man for Christmas
When I was a kid in Rock Island, Illinois, we had a number of local celebrities, like jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke, poet Carl Sandburg, and sculptor Isabel Bloom.Born Isabel Scherer in 1908, she grew...
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Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
I like the music of ABBA as much as the next child of the 1970s. Though I like them a little less now that I have discovered that they're not four drag queens, but two "very heterosexual" couples who...
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Cliff Diving in Denver
Academics go to a lot of conferences, two or three per year, and they always seem to be held in Baltimore, Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, or Washington DC. Rarely the South or the West (too far away),...
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