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The Homophobia of "American Horror Story"
I've been watching American Horror Story since the beginning. The anthology series, using a troop of actors to play different characters in different historical settings, has always had a strong gay...
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My Grade School Bully Grows Up
December 21st, 1984, a Friday night. I am teaching at Lone Star College, in Houston, Texas, the loneliest place on Earth -- I've had no dates all semester, except for some very weird one-night...
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How to Survive Gym Class
During the six years of Junior High and High School, I was in gym class every day -- that's about a thousand days. And I still have no idea what it was for. It was technically called "physical...
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Tom Cruise: All the Wrong Moves
If I were to compile a list of the gay community's biggest enemies, it would include the usual suspects, the preachers who want gays killed, the politicians who want them classified as subhuman, the...
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The Jackson 5: Beefcake Brothers of 1970s Soul
In 1964, the Jackson Brothers, consisting of Jackie (age 13), Tito (11), and Jermaine (10), began performing r&b and soul in their hometown of Gary, Indiana. Five years later, they added younger...
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The Naked Ghost of Hylton Castle: A Gay Murder Mystery
Hylton Castle in Sunderland, near the Scottish border, is closed now, but for centuries staff and visitors reported seeing a naked teenage boy wandering the hallways. When they approached him, he...
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My First Hookup
I figured "it" out during the summer after my high school graduation, and immediately started looking for gay people in Rock Island. Not for sex or dating, necessarily, just to find someone to talk to....
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Noah Fleiss: 1990s Child Star Homophobia
Gay teens in the 1990s liked teenage Noah Fleiss for the beefcake: he appeared in his underwear in nearly every movie, often in the midst of autoerotic activity.They disliked him for his roles as...
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"The Crazies": A Gay-Free Hollywood Iowa
In order to get my mind off Christmas, last night I watched The Crazies (2010), which at least has nothing to do with egg nog, wrapping paper, or Saint Nick.That's the only good thing I can say about...
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December 2015: Who Can Hook Up the Fastest?
The other night, I was complaining about my infinite attractiveness to twinks to my friend Gabe. a recent graduate of the University, now a barista at the gay-friendly coffee house."Aren't you...
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Naked Nazarene: The Catholic Bear's Bulge
When I was a kid, the Nazarene church taught us to:1. Pity "heathens," the Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims who hadn't heard the Gospel.2. Be suspicious of "liberal so-called Christians," the Methodists,...
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My Worst, Best, and Most Erotic Christmases
I hate, hate, hate Christmas! It's big, crowded, glaring, noisy, uncomfortable, loaded down with gut-busting cookies and candy and growling, nasty people who call you a Grinch if you're not ecstatic...
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The Shea Brothers and Charlie Brown
In the 1970s, American mass media couldn't get enough of blond preteen boys. Not toddlers, but boys in late childhood, old enough to be cast as adventurous, daring, and mischievous in "boys will be...
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A Ginger Boy for Christmas
Wednesday, December 24, 1986:I'm 26 years old. living in West Hollywood, but back in Rock Island for the holidays, staying in my old room. At 6:00 pm my brother and his family and my sister's...
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Allan Kayser: the Bodybuilder of Mama's Family
In the 1970s, a series of sketches on The Carol Burnett Show featured the young Vicki Lawrence in old-lady drag as the abrasive matriarch of a dysfunctional Southern family. In 1983 she spun off into...
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Getting Naked after Christmas: The British Boxing Day Dip
In Britain, Christmas is traditionally a time for caroling, exchanging gifts, going to pantomimes...And plunging naked into the frosty Atlantic Ocean. Porthcawl, Wales, has been holding an annual...
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What We Do in Shadows
What We Do In the Shadows (2014) is a mockumentary about four vampires sharing a flat in contemporary Wellington, New Zealand:1. Viago (Taika Waititi, who also wrote and directed), a Byronesque...
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Summer 1976: On My Knees in a Cute Boy's Bedroom
June 1976, MinnesotaEvery year the family spends a week camping somewhere in the northwoods, fishing, swimming, hiking -- and, on Sunday, finding the nearest Nazarene Church.Even when it's in Brainerd,...
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Looking for Muscles on the Carol Burnett Show
Variety shows are out of style now, but in the 1960s, they were all the rage. At least among the adults. In 1969, they could watch 9 hours of variety per week: Leslie Uggams, Carol Burnett, Red...
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Fall 1979: Death in Venice
My sophomore year in college revealed the world of Winnetou and Bravo magazine, but my junior year was oppressively heterosexist: gay-free Modern British Novel and Modern American Literature, and in...
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