'Stonewall' Star Jeremy Irvine Defends Film
Irvine says the film represents the diversity of the people who participated in the historic riots.
Trudy Ring
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/film/2015/08/11/stonewall-star-jeremy-irvine-defends-film
7 Ways To Affair-Proof Your Relationship
After an affair, couples often feel blindsided by the betrayal. “I have no clue how we got here,” one partner will say. “I can’t believe this happened to us.”
But therapists who counsel couples in such a position usually have a very good understanding of why it happened. And they also know what couples can do to stave off an affair in the future. Below, experts share seven things couples can do to minimize their risk of infidelity.
1. Don’t think you’re immune to an affair.
If you think infidelity is something that happens to other couples, think again. Accepting that an affair can occur in any relationship ensures that you’re better equipped to see the warning signs, said Alexandra H. Solomon, a clinical psychologist and the author of Brave, Deep, Intimate: 20 Lessons To Get You Ready For The Love Of A Lifetime.
“I have heard over and over again in my therapy office some version of ‘I never thought it could happen’ or ‘I am not the kind of person who cheats, but here I am,'” she said. “It’s important to stay humble. Relationships are complex and mysterious journeys. Effort and care are required, always.”
2. Recognize and tend to the needs of your relationship.
People who cheat often talk about how their affair partners simply fulfilled a need their spouse couldn’t, be it physical or emotional. To sidestep the same fate, clinical psychologist Alicia H. Clark said you need to fiercely guard the connection that initially brought you two together. At the same time, check in occasionally to make sure everything is still A-OK on your partner’s end.
“Keep tabs on how connected you feel and how successfully you are meeting each other’s needs,” she said. “Faithful couples understand the importance of physical and emotional connection and make sure to tend to these needs. This requires forging compromises that are mutually satisfying and sustainable.”
3. Define what monogamy means to you.
Talk openly and honestly about what kind of behavior isn’t acceptable outside the confines of your relationship, then set some clear, mutually agreed-upon boundaries, said Solomon. (You might think your borderline flirty behavior at dinner parties is OK; your partner may think you need a reality check.)
While you’re on the subject, discuss what sexual needs and desires you need fulfilled in order to be satisfied in a monogamous relationship, Solomon said.
“Practicing sexual monogamy requires effort,” she said. “Ask yourselves: Why you are choosing to be sexually monogamous? What does each of you need in order to feel good about that choice? What does the relationship needs in order to thrive?”
4. Close the door on old flames.
With Facebook at your fingertips, it’s all too easy to reconnect with an old boyfriend or or that girl from biology class you always had a thing for in high school. It only takes a click to add him or her but ask yourself: Is it really worth the temptation? If you’re already having problems in your relationship, your answer should be a clear-cut no, said Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist and the author of The Ripple Effect: How Better Sex Can Lead to a Better Life.
“It’s just too slippery a slope, to go from ‘but we are still friends!’ to ‘I feel that old attraction again,'” she explained. “If you or your partner want to maintain friendships with an ex great, but do it together. Go out with spouses or go out as a group — the likeliness for flirting or being too cozy will be diminished because you have other observers.”
5. Make time for sex.
It’s natural for your sex drive to wax and wane in a long-term relationship. But if you can’t recall the last time the two of you got busy, you may want to address the issue, said Clark.
“Without sounding cliché, the importance of sexual intimacy — and touch, in particular — to protecting a relationship from infidelity cannot be overstated,” she said. “The truth is, touching and sexual activity drive up chemical reactions in our brain that promote feelings of connection, attachment and desire.”
Keep in mind that sex alone isn’t always enough. “Sex has to be emotionally intimate and physically satisfying in order to promote the kinds of feelings of closeness and connection that are fidelity protective,” she said.
6. Don’t confide in someone other than your spouse (especially an attractive someone).
It’s fine and healthy to have close friends and family who listen to your relationship rants. But discuss your relationship problems with someone you’re drawn to in a physical way and you could be well on your way to an emotional affair, said Saltz.
“Discussing marital trouble with a potential interest makes him or her feel that the door is open,” she said. “And that kind of communication often brings on intimacy. When you discuss marital troubles with others, it can feel like a betrayal to your spouse. Talk to your spouse about the trouble!”
7. Actively show how much your partner means to you.
The love you feel for your partner may be more than you ever imagined possible, but don’t assume he or she knows that. Your partner wants to feel wanted; make a point to prove your feelings, said Clark.
“If you want to satisfy your partner’s needs, show him or her the attention, affection and appreciation they need in order to feel valued,” she said. “Look for ways to say ‘thank you’ and cultivate gratitude. This can help maintain a healthy mindset that promotes happiness and satisfaction, further protecting your relationship from the inevitable pitfalls of frustration and disappointment that can lead to infidelity.”
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Margaret Cho, fan of ‘tasteless, garish stuff,’ happy to be a part of revamped Fashion Police
Margaret Cho will be one of the new faces on E! channel’s revamped Fashion Police when it returns to the air later this month.
The comic will be part of a panel to also include NeNe Leakes, the show’s producer Melissa Rivers and returning co-hosts Giuliana Rancic and Brad Goreski.
‘I’m excited,’ Cho tells columnist Michael Musto. ‘There’s a nice mix of fags and fag hags on that show. That’s what the show is — fags and fag hags talking!’
Cho is ready to stand up for looks that are more offbeat than the heavily styled outfits that dominate red carpets these days.
‘I’m coming at it from a totally different point of view,’ she says. ‘I’m so heavily criticized for my own looks. Joan (Rivers) was always making fun of the ridiculousness of my outfits. I once wore a dress with arrows and she said, “She looks like she’s been shot by 12 gay Robin Hoods.” But I like tasteless, garish stuff. I like Bjork’s swan dress. The crazier, the better. And I’ll bring that point of view on the show.’
The show had stopped production last fall when Joan Rivers unexpectedly died shortly after the Emmy Awards edition aired. Production resumed in January with a Golden Globes edition with new panelists Kathy Griffin and Goreski joining returnees Rancic and Kelly Osbourne.
But the show imploded during its Academy Awards episode.
Rancic got into hot water when a joke written for her about actress Zendaya’s dreadlocks. She said they made the Disney star look as if she smelled ‘like patchouli oil’ or ‘weed.’
Rancic apologized on the air and it was later revealed that editing took the joke out of context and make Rancic look even worse. Osbourne, who had been outraged by the Zendaya incident, quit the show after five years as a panelist and Griffin quickly followed her out the door.
‘I was disappointed that Kathy Griffin left the show, so I took the job!’ Cho says.
‘All those bitches were fighting. But I’m the one that smells like pot and patchouli.’
The post Margaret Cho, fan of ‘tasteless, garish stuff,’ happy to be a part of revamped Fashion Police appeared first on Gay Star News.
Greg Hernandez
Patti Smith Memoir 'Just Kids' Soon to Be a Showtime Limited Series
The singer’s memoir is often called a eulogy to gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
Gina Vivinetto
My Transgender Life: The Lost and Found
For so many years I had no idea how lost I really was. I think this may not only be true for many trans folk, but it just might be true for almost everyone too!
By all outward appearances I was pretty successful. I was married for 25 years, raised 3 fabulous kids in an upper middle class suburb and thought I was living the American dream of the boomer generation that I was part of.
Yet, I knew there was something missing, as I knew that all of this was not enough. No, not really that it was not enough; because, after all it was plenty and more than most ever get to have. It was something very different. There was always the inner battle with gender variance. I was aware of that seemingly forever, although – with various degrees of difficulty – was able to keep it in check.
This all seemed to be working. Until……
My marriage ended after 25 years. The details of this are not important here. My internal battle with gender was a total secret and never, never, an open issue, although what it was doing to me internally at the time, I had no words to describe.
I was already lost in elementary school. By the second grade I did not know where I fit in. I did not have any friends in my classes that I would see after school. The boys seemed to talk about playing ball, and I had no idea how to do that. Growing up in a 2-room apartment in a big apartment building in Brooklyn, ball playing to me was playing “hit the penny” with a pink rubber ball. This is where a penny is put on a crack between 2 “boxes” on the sidewalk and you try to hit. My father kept making fun of me saying I threw like a girl – while he never taught me how to throw. This made me mad on so many levels.
In third grade, the boys played softball after school and one day I was asked to join them. I had no idea what I was doing. I learned what it was like to be the last person picked as sides were chosen. This made me mad on so many levels.
Inside me, there was so much anger, and I felt so lost. I had no idea where I belonged. I did not know how to “play” with the boys. I just wanted to watch TV, but I had to belong with them, I really did. But there were the days with mom’s dresses too. I was so confused, so lost. All this made me mad on so many levels.
Over time, I learned to play ball with the boys. I learned to grab the ball first and lead, and worked myself up from being the last pick to the one who was team “captain” who did the picking. I belonged there with the boys, but inside I had lost so much of myself. I led most of my life not really knowing my true self, fighting what I thought was the good fight, having a successful career, getting married, raising a family. Deep down, I knew I had lost not only the sense of who I was, but also the ability to feel. I could fake it, and certainly did for so long, but it was only after my marriage ended did I stop blaming others for what I lacked, and dared to look for what I lost so long ago.
Some may call it courage. To the best of my knowledge that word never entered my mind. Looking back on that time it felt more like being trapped in a locked room and there was only one door to get out. I had to go deeply inside to escape the trap I found myself in. There was no other choice!
So much has changed for me since I discovered that place. I am no longer lost as I have found so many of my lost parts and have chosen to live as my authentic self. There is no trapped room with only a single way out. I am free in the world!
I’ve gone back to my Lost and Found many times since that day. I know there are still many lost pieces of me to discover and become friends with. I don’t really have a plan as to when I go, or what I am looking for, but find so much joy — yes, a feeling, in each new discovery of a lost part of me. I hope that I do not lose any other parts of me as I continue my journey, but if I do, now I know where to find them.
— 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.
Eddie Redmayne: ‘I can totally see that other people see a femininity in me’
Eddie Redmayne could find himself in Academy Award contention again less than a year after his Oscar win for The Theory of Everything.
The 33-year-old actor plays transgender pioneer Lili Elbe – one of the first known recipients of sexual reassignment surgery – in The Danish Girl which will hit theaters in late November.
‘I found it profoundly moving,’ he says in a new Out magazine cover story. ‘I knew nothing about it going in. It felt like it was a piece about authenticity and love and the courage it takes to be yourself.’
Photos of Redmayne in character show him to be quite convincing as a woman – something that doesn’t necessarily surprise him.
‘I can also totally see that other people see a femininity in me,’ he says.
Redmayne sought out the advice of real-life trans women while researching the part.
‘People were so kind and generous with their experience, but also so open,’ he says.
‘Virtually all of the trans men and women I met would say “Ask me anything.” They know that need for cisgender people to be educated. I felt like, I’m being given this extraordinary experience of being able to play this women, but with that comes this responsibility of not only educating myself but hopefully using that to educate [an audience]. Gosh, it’s delicate. And complicated.’
The film, set in the 1920s, tells the story of a painter named Wegener, who was persuaded by her wife, also a painter, to pose in women’s clothing for her. This opened up a whole new world for Wegener, who later began her male-to-female transition and changed her name to Lili Elbe.
Elbe traveled to Germany in the 1930s to have gender reassignment surgery, which at the time was virtually untested. After a series of operations, Elbe died when her body rejected a uterus that had been transplanted with the goal of allowing her to have children.
Redmayne says he learned a lot about gender identity because of the role.
“That it’s fluid … and also that it needn’t be labeled. My greatest ignorance when I started was that gender and sexuality were related. And that’s one of the key things I want to hammer home to the world: You can be gay or straight, trans man or woman, and those two things are not necessarily aligned.’
The post Eddie Redmayne: ‘I can totally see that other people see a femininity in me’ appeared first on Gay Star News.
Greg Hernandez
Mexican Supreme Court Rules Gay Adoption Ban Unconstitutional
Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that banning same-sex couples from adopting children violates the nation’s constitution, with only one justice dissenting from the majority opinion.
The Mexican Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled a law in the state of Campeche that bans same-sex couples from adopting children is unconstitutional.
The 9-1 decision comes against the backdrop of the debate over marriage rights for same-sex couples that continues to gain momentum in the country.
The post Mexican Supreme Court Rules Gay Adoption Ban Unconstitutional appeared first on Towleroad.
Sean Mandell
Mexican Supreme Court Rules Gay Adoption Ban Unconstitutional
Ohio Judges Can't Refuse to Wed Same-Sex Couples
A judge who cited his ‘personal and Christian beliefs’ in refusing to marry gay couples is told by Ohio’s Supreme Court Board of Professional Conduct he doesn’t get a choice.
Dawn Ennis
www.advocate.com/marriage-equality/2015/08/11/ohio-judges-cant-refuse-wed-same-sex-couples
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