Gay Guy Admits To Raping Straight Guy At Las Vegas Pool Party

Gay Guy Admits To Raping Straight Guy At Las Vegas Pool Party

lvbanegasA Florida man has admitted to raping another male who passed out during a booze-fueled pool party in Las VegasThe Smoking Gun reports.

22-year-old Gustavo Banegas (pictured) pleaded guilty to felony charges associated with an attack that happened last August in a bathroom at the MGM Grand Hotel. Both he and his victim, a married man from Utah who was vacationing with his wife, were attending the hotel’s “Wet Republic” pool party.

According to police, they received a call when a hotel security guard walked into the bathroom and discovered “a Hispanic Male Adult who appeared to be attempting to have anal sex with an unresponsive White Male Adult.”

Related: 15-Year-Old Kentucky Boy Gang Raped By Five Men In Videotaped Assault

According to Banegas, he found the victim passed out drunk and “sitting on the toilet with his shorts pulled down to his ankles.” After lifting him off the pot and onto the floor, he became excited when he “saw the unconscious male’s penis.” He told police he became “immediately turned on” and “began to masturbate while standing next to the sink.”

As his excitement grew, Banegas said he became “so turned on sexually he stepped toward the unconscious male and knelt down next to him” to perform oral sex for “approximately 10 seconds.” Had the security guard not walked in, he said, he likely “would have sucked on the victim’s penis for a couple minutes more.”

Banegas admitted that he knew his actions were wrong, but he was so “turned on” by the “attractive” victim that he just “couldn’t help himself.”

This doesn’t quite jibe with what the security guard reported, however. According to him, when he walked into the bathroom, Banegas’ swimsuit was around his ankles and he had “a full erection.” The guard added that Banegas was “appearing to begin having anal sex” with the man.

The victim, who remained unconscious throughout the attack, says he is “unable to recall any other incidents that took place inside the restroom.”

Banegas is scheduled to be sentenced in August after pleading guilty to attempted sexual assault and coercion charges on April 14. He remains free on $100,000 bond.

Related: Dude Gives Cabbie A BJ In Exchange For A Ride, Wonders If He Was Raped

Graham Gremore

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Weekend Movie Review: 'The Avengers: Age of Ultron'

Weekend Movie Review: 'The Avengers: Age of Ultron'

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Chris Hemsworth’s Chest. Its Own Special Effect.

BY NATHANIEL ROGERS 

Movies really ought to be seen (and reviewed for that matter) on their own terms. But what if their very terms are — “it’s all connected!?”

I had the exhaustive if qualified pleasure this week of attending “The Ultimate Marvel Marathon,” in which select theaters across the nation played back-to-back screenings of all 11 of Marvel Studio’s films. Those take you from Iron Man (2008) through to the latest superheroic orgy of mayhem known as The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Between the screenings (20-30 minute breaks) were interstitials selling the television program “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD” that frequently reminded us that it was ‘all connected’.

Does the latest film THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON satisfy all on its own? My early guess — only time will tell — is “not so much” but then, is it really intended to? 

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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Seeing the movies back-to-back threw their problems into sharp relief: the movies are ultimately formulaic, disinterested in women, have weakly conceived villains (an oddity given that good villains are such a comic book staple), and betray an unfortunate tendency to end with a battle in which large inanimate objects frequently collide or crumble, mistaking mass destruction as the highest form of entertainment when the figurative character beats as well as, yes, literal character beatings are nearly always the most pleasurable moments.

Blackwidow-horrorOn the plus side, the marathon was a great reminder of why blockbuster culture has been stampeding all over more intimate cinematic triumphs for a long time now: they feel like “events” even when they aren’t very good. The audience was cheering the arrival of every major character as they returned in Ultron and who wants to miss a party that everyone else will be going to?

The close proximity of the movies also threw hot spotlights onto the films that felt the most complete in and of themselves. They number four if you’re feeling generous: The first and third Iron Man films maybe but definitely both Captain Americas. The First Avenger and Winter Soldier are the jewels of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (by which I do not mean those blueball-inducing infinity stones — Jesus the amount of times these movies tease those stones and that story won’t be over until 2019 after several more movies!!!). The Iron Mans and Captain Americas, despite the fact that they’re enriched by connections to other films, feel more or less like their own movies and not “Previously On” / “To Be Continued” television episodes which won the billion dollar budget lottery. 

Marvel’s super powered stable began getting the live action screen treatment as early as 1977 on television but it wasn’t until 2008 when Marvel began to take back cinematic control of their own characters (the ones they still held the rights to at any rate). Though they’ve been entirely too resistant to evolving (still no female led movies – even though Scarlett Johansson is quite literally more bankable outside this franchise than all of her male co-stars save Robert Downey Jr) they have done a superb job of long-term strategizing and growing ever since. In 2015 Marvel practically owns the world. That’s an ideal deed to own, if you constantly wish to threaten and then rescue that same planet.

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Which brings us back around to Ultron, the latest Global Destruction threat. The new film begins before Ultron is born with a hunt for Loki’s powerful scepter, so it’s something of a red herring. Writer/director Joss Whedon worked a miracle with The Avengers (2012) making the first superhero team movie that felt like a team movie (sorry X-Men movies but you don’t cut it because you’re constantly reducing down to Wolverine & Magneto when you have such a lively array of character to work with) so he can jump right in this second time around. There’s no dull ‘getting the band back together’ business so we get to the big ‘Avengers Assemble’ money shot you’ve been seeing in every commercial (above) as fast as a new enemy gets around — which is to say, very fast.

In the fictional city of Sokovia, we meet two mysterious new threats in the shape of twin “enhanced humans”. The Avengers don’t have the advantage of having seen their own trailers and read their own comics so they don’t yet know if the magical Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) or her super-speedster brother Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are friend or foe or merely misguided Sokovian orphans with unusually sneaky gifts. The Avengers do just fine with this mission except for the part where the twins throw them off their game. Cue: one of the movie’s repeat catch-phrases.

“You didn’t see that coming.”

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As with the first team-up movie, the surprises are difficult to find in the A storyline so the joy comes mostly from the best action and acting moments.

Whedon’s best contribution to the Marvel Cinematic Universe has undoubtedly been his two-fold gift for juggling humor with character beats while simultaneously offering up complex team dynamics and real gravitas underneath that thin surface of jokery. His initial claim to fame (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) may have been named after one character but it was a true team series, of dramatic and comic pleasures, from the first episodes. Age of Ultron‘s first act is basically one long doozy of a set piece, which manages to give us time alone with every principle character and give them some connective tissue in battle together, too. There’s even a non-invasive welcome detour by way of a quiet moment between The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and The Black Widow in which we realize that their relationship is heading away from the platonic and to the romantic. (The Black Widow did not attend the Ultimate Marvel Marathon or she would have seen The Incredible Hulk from 2008 and known that Bruce Banner is too scared to have sex — the rising heart rate, you know.)

The title story only comes to the light in the film’s second act when Iron Man makes a foolishly swift decision about his long-shelved “Ultron program” (essentially peace-keeping robots to guard the earth) which leads to one very pissed off sentient robot, voiced quite memorably by James Spader, who takes his digital beef with Tony Stark out into the real world of flesh and blood. In one of the film’s best scenes he introduces himself to them in lurching incomplete form (made from remnants of an Iron Man form complete with metallic Jack O’ Lantern creepiness). He catches them off guard because they stupidly haven’t realized that they’ve still got an hour of movie to fill. 

From then on though, the movie devolves into an increasingly cluttered mix of globe-hopping action spectacle and occasional quiet moments. Whedon smartly frames the catch-your-breath moments around the most-human and thus the most vulnerable Avengers: The Black Widow and Hawkeye. Hawkeye in particular becomes something of a meta figure, channelng fan disinterest in his least powerful and least popular character into a kind of verbalized self-doubt and purpose-seeking. It’s so on-the-nose that I feared they would give him the super-power of breaking the fourth wall and he’d start speaking directly to anyone he saw yawning in the audience.  The other self-aware business is much more successful. The movie makes great use in particular of Captain America’s old-fashioned qualities for a running gag about his distaste for profanity. 

Chris Evans continues to be adorably innocent sex on a stick and as steely heroic and self-sacrificing as ever. Total husband material. He can even chop firewood if you’ve lost your axe.

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Fans of the individual heroes will have plenty of amusing beats to look forward to. After the bone crunching vulnerability of Daredevil over on Netflix and Winter Soldier where the blows seemed to actually hurt in all of the action set pieces, much of the action here feels stakes-free. One big slow-mo climactic moment with ALL of the heroes and new characters in frame (that’s a lot of people) obviously intends to be the movie’s biggest money shot (a shout back to that circling camera in Times Square from the first team up?)  but it feels muddy and weightless, an abstract kaleidoscope of shifting colorful costumes rather than an actual brawl with fists, power blasts, kicks, and magical hammers.

Even master jugglers have their limits and Whedon starts dropping balls with this overstuffed movie. Now he’s got twice as many characters as the original film and even more franchise sequels to prime in plot diversions (future Thor and Black Panther movies are the most ill-fitting skin-grafts and the next Avengers the easiest to imagine and most organic). There’s so much of this that Ultron, who initially feels like the best villain Marvel Studios has ever come up with, begins to recede. He’s far more threatening on his own when he looks like a junkyard than when he grows stronger and replicates. How could that happen? In the end his army of selves become suspiciously like body doubles for the anonymous alien villains at the end of The Avengers (2012) – computer-generated images for our heroes to easily rip apart in their world-saving duties. 

This is a shame because with a tighter focus on Ultron and (even better) his counterpart sentient machine The Vision (Hello, Paul Bettany!), who is best left to discover in the movie, this spectacle could have been truly spectacular.

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Nathaniel Rogers would live in the movie theater but for the poor internet reception. He blogs daily at the Film Experience. Follow him on Twitter @nathanielr.


Nathaniel_R

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Flannel Is Not the Enemy

Flannel Is Not the Enemy
In April, a group of students at McGuffey High School in Claysville, Washington County, Pennsylvania organized an “Anti-Gay Day” in response to the National Day of Silence. LGBTQA students in McGuffey’s GSA had organized a local Day of Silence as part of their ongoing work to build safer schools. In photos that went viral, some participating youth wore flannel shirts to promote “Anti-Gay Day” which was a source of some eye rolling and dismay among flannel wearing lesbians (and others.)

As a counter-response, community leaders opted to organize a show of support for LGBTQA youth, using the hashtag #TakeTheHighRoad which is a play on McGuffey’s mascot (a Highlander) and the need to stay focused on what was best for the youth themselves. Flannel shirts were encouraged, but optional.

The youth in Pittsburgh-based queer performing arts group Dreams of Hope took our #TakeTheHighRoad message of support to McGuffey High LGBTQA students a few steps further — producing this lovely video with their own unique messages.

For McGuffey High from Dreams of Hope from First Take on Vimeo.

Kudos to Dreams of Hope for reminding us that flannel is not the enemy and the value of supporting other students.

What can I add to their message? You might still want to post your own photo and make a modest donation to the crowdfund. All funds will be used by the Washington County Gay Straight Alliance (a 501c3) for student programming, including taking the youth to the upcoming queer prom as well as their after school activities. This GSA is a community group that has been on the ground working with McGuffey School District for months. They will be there when the dust settles and the public eye turns elsewhere.

For more information, please visit the Stop The Hate at McGuffey Facebook page.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Gay Party Group That Only Charged Over-40 Crowd Says It’s “Deeply Saddened” By Allegations Of Ageism, Denies Everything

Gay Party Group That Only Charged Over-40 Crowd Says It’s “Deeply Saddened” By Allegations Of Ageism, Denies Everything

Screen-Shot-2015-04-23-at-9.47.20-AM-360x222The South Florida chapter of The Impulse Group, a non-profit that “focuses on the sexual and overall health of the gay community” by hosting and promoting swanky shindigs, was recently accused of age discrimination after requiring anyone over the age of 40 to pay a $50 age tax “donation” for entry into a pool party in Miami.

Related: Gay Party Group Accused Of Age Discrimination For Only Charging The Over-40 Crowd

This week, the group issued a defense saying ageism “played absolutely no role” in its decision to charge anyone over 40 a fee to attend the event, then said promoters were “deeply saddened and stunned” by the amount of hatred and vitriol they received, calling attacks against them and their volunteers “unacceptable.”

That’s right. The club promoters, not the people they discriminated against, are the real victims here. And shame on you for accusing them, a non-profit organization, of being ageist when all they’re trying to do is help raise awareness to HIV prevention!

Related: If You’re Over 40 You Should Stay Out Of Gay Bars, Says Ageist Blogger

Unfortunately for The Impulse Group, its plan to shut people up seemed to backfire.

“Why can you not adopt the simplest solution: charge all or charge no one?” one person commented in response. “You have already stated on your website and other places on this very page you are ‘funded by AHF and private donors.’ Therefore, you don’t need an over-40 surcharge.”

In the long term, you cannot alienate the community at large even if it gets you what you want for now,” another person wrote.” Later on you might need us oldies, and you will [have] lost us.”

“There is no real apology, for they continue to state they did nothing wrong,” someone else commented. “Too bad, for any hope they could have had for healing this rift is over. Maybe they should have someone over 40 make the responses.”

Here’s the defense in full:

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Graham Gremore

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WATCH – 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Jar Jar Binks Trailer

WATCH – 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Jar Jar Binks Trailer

Binks

A month late for April Fools pranks, but this parody trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens featuring the CGI abomination that is Jar Jar Binks is a pretty clever little joke.

Now if I could just get those horrific images out of my head… 

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP

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Kyler Geoffroy

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