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The Balcony: Jean Genet's Play of the Gay Underworld
Like Yukio Mishima and Quentin Crisp, Jean Genet belonged to the old school of gay writers who thought of sexuality, especially gay sexuality, in terms of darkness, disease, and corruption. Our Lady of...
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The Naked Run of Roskilde
I love running, but I wouldn't want to do it naked. Too many things flapping around unattended. Somebody is going to get whiplash.But I would like to see the Roskilde Naked Run.Roskilde, Denmark,...
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Burr Tillstrom: The Gay Puppeteer of 1950s Children's Television
Before The Cartoon Network, before Sesame Street, even before The Mickey Mouse Club,in the earliest days of television, kids (and adults) rushed home every afternoon to see the adventures of Kukla,...
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Fall 1974: A Pilgrimage to Mecca
When I was a kid, I kept looking for a "good place," where boys held hands and kissed, and lived together throughout their lives. In eighth grade, my boyfriend Dan and I somehow decided that Saudi...
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Kullervo: The Tormented Gay Youth of Finnish Myth
Growing up in a predominantly Scandinavian town, you learn a lot about Scandinavia -- Vikings, runestones, Ibsen, Hans Christian Anderson, Hamsun, Kierkegaard. And especially the mythology.I never...
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10 Gay Facts about "Psycho"
If you haven't seen Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), get it now. It's a suspense classic, a precursor of the psycho-slasher genre, and over-loaded with gay texts and subtexts. (Spoilers below.)1.It...
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The Most Homophobic Statement I Have Ever Heard
"What do they think causes it?"I've heard lots of homophobic statements over the years, ranging from the ignorant (mostly from "friends"):"Are you the boy or girl in your relationship?""What do they...
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Amiri Baraka: From Gay to Homophobe in 20 Poems
I was depressed when I heard about the death of former New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Imamu Baraka (1934-2014). More depressed when I found out what he'd been up to lately.I first heard about him in...
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Cousin Buster: Growing Up a Stranger
When I was a kid, I wasn't close to most of my cousins. They were mostly teenagers or grownups, like my Cousin Joe (who I saw naked when I was 7). Or little kids, like my Cousin Tracy (born when I...
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The Midsummer Night's Dream Ballets
I love Shakespeare, the original gay poet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favorite play. Fairy king Oberon fights with his wife over a boy that they both want -- can you get any more explicit?...
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The 12 Hottest Border and Castle Guards
I love men in uniform, especially the uniformed guards at country borders, and at monuments, castles, and public buildings. They're always so serious, certain that they have the most important job in...
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Dr. Spock: The Kids Are All Right
Parents of the Baby Boomer generation were the first in history to be almost universally aware of the existence of gay and lesbian people, and almost universally terrified of their kids "turning out"...
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Las Brujas de Zugurramurdi: Two Spanish Screen Hunks Finally Kiss
One of the highlights of the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival last month was Las Brujas de Zugurramurdi (2013), released internationally as Witching and Bitching. It's about two divorced...
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Koloman Moser: The Male Nudity of "Wayfarers"
When I was growing up in Illinois, teachers and professors kept inundating us in Scandinavian culture, from Icelandic sagas to the the bawdy Seven Brothers to the dense psychodramas of August...
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N.C., Andrew, and Jamie Wyeth: 3 Generations of Gay Art
N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), who incorporated male nudes into many of his children's book illustrations, was very conflicted about same-sex desire. His youngest son Andrew (1917-2009), one of the most...
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Summer 1971: The Sanderson Boys Get Naked
I never understood the Lionel Ritchie song "Easy like Sunday Morning." In our house, Sunday morning was a flurry of activity, as five people rushed through breakfast, fed the dogs, put the potroast in...
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Midsummer Night's Dream on Stage
You probably thought that only the ballet versions of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dreamfeatured significant beefcake or gay subtexts. Not by a long shot.The original play is rather subtle in its...
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Kristjan Raud: Male Nudity in Estonia
Kristjan Raud, the founder of Estonian art, memorialized the Estonian spirit through a series of paintings and drawings of nude, muscular men, leading one to wonder if he was gay.Born in 1865, he...
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The Hard Times of RJ Berger: A Teencom Where Size Matters
Would you watch a tv series about a high school nerd who suddenly becomes popular with the ladies when they discover that he has an enormous...um, you know?Even if it was on MTV, not well known for its...
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13 Public Penises of Hungary
My dream trip to Eastern Europe starts in Krakow, the old university town in Poland; heads west to Prague and Brno, Czech Republic; soutn to Bratislava in Slovakia; Gyor in Hungary; and finishes up...
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