Six Pieces Of Life Advice For Our 20-Year-Old Selves A Decade Later

Every wish you had a “time machine“? There are so many things we wish we would have said or done differently when we were younger.

Here are six pieces of life advice we wish we could give our 20-year-old selves 10 years later…

6. Be nice to the guys you hookup with

It can be tempting, after you’re lost interest in a dude, to simply ignore his texts until eventually he gets the hint. Just don’t. If you’re not into him anymore, just say so, kindly. Otherwise, one day, years from now, someone’s going to do the same thing to you and it’s going to make you feel lousy and like an idiot for ever believing it wouldn’t. And if you’re really unlucky, you’re going to find yourself standing behind your one-night-stand-from-five-years-ago-who-you-totally-blew-off-afterwards in line at the grocery store and you’re going to feel like a real jerk for the way you treated him. (Not that this has ever happened to us!) And you should. Because you were a jerk. And he didn’t deserve it. In fact, he looks kinda hot right now.

5. You’re probably not going to marry the guy you’re dating right now

Sorry to break your heart, fellas, but your 20s are a period of profound growth and self-discovery. You’re going to meet a lot of people, sleep with a lot of people, date a lot of people, and break up with a lot of people, and each time, we promise, it will get a little easier. And, yes, we are aware that there are occasionally couples who meet fresh out of high school and somehow manage to live happily ever after, but the vast majority of us have to kiss quite a few frogs throughout our lifetimes, and that’s OK. Sometimes kissing frogs can be fun. Assuming they’re good kissers.

4. Stop obsessing about getting “old”

Let’s not forget it was only a few short years ago that you couldn’t legally walk into a bar and order a drink. You’re not “old.” And even if you are “old,” or “older,” who cares? It’s better than the alternative, right?

3. Go easy on the credit cards

Just because your bank gave you a $5000 credit limit doesn’t mean you actually have to spend it. Remember, it’s credit. Which means you’re borrowing it. Which means you have to pay it back. With interest. And that shit adds up fast. Think of it like this: The average interest rate on a credit card right now is around 15 percent. So every time you make a purchase with your Visa, mentally tack on your interest rate to the bill. That crappy Zara faux leather jacket might seem like a steal at $100, but not so much at $115, compounding monthly interest until it gets paid off or simply abandoned and your credit ruined for seven years.

2. Call your mom

It can be easy, during the daily craziness of your 20s, to conveniently “forget” to return your mom’s phone calls or to answer your dad’s emails. But they’re just your parents, right? They’ve always been there and they always will be there. Until they’re not.

Your folks could die unexpectedly at any moment. And when they do, it’s going to be more awful than you could ever imagine, and you’re going to wish you had spent more time getting to know them and supporting them when you had the chance. Suddenly that overpriced plane ticket home that you didn’t buy won’t seem so expensive, and you’ll feel a sharp pang of regret whenever you think back on those times you ignored your mom’s call because you were too busy with your latest trick to talk to her for ten precious minutes.

1. Everything will work out in the end

Perhaps one of the most agonizing parts of being in your 20s is not knowing what the hell you’re doing with your life. You look at people in their 30s and wonder: How did they get to where they are? How did they decide on a career path? How did they make it all work?

The truth is, they were once just as lost and confused as you are, maybe even more so. (Some may still be huge messes, actually.) Rest assured, you’re going to be fine. Things may not work out exactly the way you had hoped or planned. In fact, they probably won’t. But assuming you follow our advice, there’s a decent chance that, a decade from now, you’ll be in an even better place than you ever imagined, and you’ll look back on your younger self and you’ll think: What was I so worried about?

It all worked out in the end.

Related: An Open Letter To Ageist Gay Men

Graham Gremore

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PHOTOS: City Boys

city_boys_leadx400.jpg

Christopher Harrity

www.advocate.com/media/2015/08/22/photos-city-boys

Senegal jails seven men for having gay sex

Seven men have been jailed for six months in Senegal.

The men were caught having sex during a raid, police told a court in Dakar.

According to a BBC report on 22 Aug, the mother of one of the accused told the authorities her son was gay, but did not show up as a prosecution witness at the trial.

Defence lawyer Abdoul Daff was quoted as saying that the mother’s failure to appear in court should have caused the case to collapse.

‘There was neither material evidence nor testimony in order to corroborate the claims,’ he said.

Under the laws of the west African country, where the population is more than 95% Muslim, ‘acts against nature’ are illegal and punishable up to five years in prison and fines of up to US$2,50o.

Last month, a well-known Senegalese journalist Tamsir Jupiter Ndiaye was sentenced by a Dakar court to six months in prison for gay sex.

In 2014, a gay couple in Dakar was sentenced to six months’ jail in what was said to be a rare conviction of a gay couple on criminal charges after after neighbors alerted police to their home.

The post Senegal jails seven men for having gay sex appeared first on Gay Star News.

Sylvia Tan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/senegal-jails-seven-men-for-having-gay-sex/

One Million Moms Goes After 'I Am Jazz'

The right-wing group wants Revlon to pull ads from the reality show about transgender teen Jazz Jennings.

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Trudy Ring

www.advocate.com/media/2015/08/21/one-million-moms-goes-after-i-am-jazz

Gay couple jailed for blackmailing married man on Grindr

A gay couple have been given jail terms after they blackmailed and threatened to expose a married man they met on a gay hookup app.

Daniel Edwards, 29, and Kristofer Wagner, 30, was jailed for two years and 10 months, and one year and eight months respectively.

They admitted blackmailing the man whom they met on Grindr.

Swindon Crown Court heard Edwards exchanged explicit pictures and messages with the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and then asked if he was married.

When the victim said he was married to a woman, Edwards demanded £2,000 or he would forward the messages and pictures to his wife.

The man agreed to pay £1,500 and arranged to meet Edwards who was accompanied by Wagner in a car.

The victim called police soon after.

Following the sentence, Kate Lewis, senior crown prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service in Wessex, said the case shows that ‘homophobia can exist even in a situation where it is least expected.’

‘The defendants understood the sensitivity of the victim’s situation and cruelly used this against him,’ she was quoted by the BBC as saying.

‘There is no doubt that Daniel Edwards specifically targeted his victim, first by going on a gay dating website and secondly by determining whether the victim was married in order to blackmail him.

‘The CPS according to its policy treated the case as a homophobic hate crime because Daniel Edwards threatened to ‘out’ the victim if he refused to pay the sum of money demanded.

‘He knew the harm it would cause to the victim and his family.

‘We considered the case as a homophobic hate crime because of the perception that the defendants were motivated by hostility towards the victim because of his sexuality.’

The post Gay couple jailed for blackmailing married man on Grindr appeared first on Gay Star News.

Sylvia Tan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/gay-couple-jailed-for-blackmailing-married-man-on-grindr/

Here's Why it Makes Perfect Sense that Josh Duggar Cheated
Now can we stop? Please? Can we please stop acting as if Conservative, right-wing “Christians” make any sense or are even “good” people? Any extreme is bad. Any. And that goes for people who call themselves “Christians” and it goes double for anyone who calls him or herself a “fundamentalist” anything.

Of course Josh Duggar was on Ashley Madison. Of course he has an alleged penchant for strippers. Can we please stop pretending that religion can somehow alter human nature? Humans are animals. They are sexual creatures. If you cage them, they will claw their way out or claw themselves to death or claw the eyes out of those they purport to love.

I could not feel any sorrier for Josh Duggar. He has desperately needed help for so long and his parents were so busy worrying about their image and their TV show and their commitment to a “religion” that blames the victims of sexual abuse rather than the abusers that they couldn’t be bothered to get him the help he needed. Instead they swept it under the rug and “prayed.”

Let me be clear here. He sexually assaulted his sisters. He’s a criminal. He belongs behind bars for those crimes.

But the Ashley Madison account? The affairs? The strippers? I only have one thing to say on that front — Duh.

Of course he behaved that way. He was kept from a normal life, a normal childhood, a normal upbringing. He was raised to believe that the natural, healthy feelings he was having about sexuality were wrong. He was taught that there shouldn’t even be any kissing until marriage. Are you kidding me? Think about that for a minute — telling an adolescent that they are to bottle up all of their healthy, happy sexual feelings because they are “bad” and “wrong.” It’s sick. It’s dangerous. And, obviously, it’s escalating all around.

In fact, I believe it was that very upbringing that lead him to the criminal behavior with his sisters. He was taught that victims were to blame. He was taught that women were put on this earth to serve men. He was taught that life barely existed outside of the four walls of his family home. What on earth did we expect to happen?

How many more examples do we need? Seriously. If you teach nothing but abstinence, girls get pregnant and contract STI’s. If you damn homosexuality, young people run away or kill themselves. If you teach a child that sexuality is bad or wrong or dirty or only for married people in love making babies, they go on the DL. They join Ashley Madison. They visit prostitutes and strippers. They do untoward things because they are not “allowed” to do perfectly healthy natural things.

I truly believe that if Josh Duggar was taught the scientific truth about human sexuality (and about evolution, while we’re on the subject), if he had been allowed to date, if he had been taught about the health and joy of masturbation, if he had been respected and supported as a human male, none of this would have happened. None of it. Including the molestation of his sisters.

The Duggars are creating monsters. They may mean well. They may be equally brainwashed and ignorant and sheltered and mislead. But they are creating monsters.

Extremism creates monsters. We have to teach science. Not fantasy. We have to respect the reality of humans and their development. Not promote puritanical myths of purity.

The Ashley Madison hack may have been the Godsend we have been needing for so long, the pulling back of the proverbial curtain. Look at the facts. Looks at the history. This shit goes on — the lying, the cheating, the molesting — because we are refusing to accept reality. People are claiming monogamy and cheating all over the place. When are going to stop turning a blind eye to all of the truths that are right there in front of us?

Sex is wonderful. People have sex. Sex is healthy. There is nothing wrong with sex outside of marriage between two enthusiastically consenting adults. Young people are sexual. If we don’t give them information (real sex ed) and an outlet (facts about masturbation and sex before marriage) and support (a sympathetic and knowledgeable ear when they have questions about what they are feeling and experiencing), things are going to go badly. Very badly.

Every sex scandal exposes these truths — the Senator and his aide, the sexts between boss and intern, the golf star and his stable of strippers, the preacher and his addiction to meth and male prostitutes. If we keep people from healthy sexuality, they will pursue it in an unhealthy way. That’s all there is to it.

It’s almost too simple really. We could stop nearly all of this with a little honesty and education. All we have to do is give up on the lying and the religious nonsense and the pretending. And so I am asking, once again – –

Now can we stop? Please?

— 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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Oregon bakery fined for refusing to make cake for gay wedding sends cakes to LGBTI groups

The owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon refused to bake a cake for a local lesbian’s wedding – and got fined $135,000 for it – but they want the LGBTI community to know that they ‘love’ them.

Melissa and Aaron Klein sent cakes this week to 10 LGBTI organizations which read: ‘We really do love you!’

‘We came up with the idea of sending cakes to express that we really do love them,’ Melissa Klein tells The Oregonian.

The couple, who are appealing the fine, cite their religious beliefs as the reason why they would not bake the cake for a same-sex couple.

Along with the cake, the couple also sent a copy of the film Audacity along with a $25 restaurant gift card provided by the film’s producer, televangelist Ray Comfort. According to the film’s website, the movie ‘delivers an unexpected, eye-opening look at the controversial topic of homosexuality.’

To promote the film, Comfort plans to fly rainbow-colored banners that include #LoveWins! over 11 US cities and has said: ‘We are like doctors with a cure for cancer. This movie is made for the lost, so one way to get the lost’s attention is to fly a four-story-high banner across San Francisco.’

The Los Angeles LGBT Center, one of the organizations to receive a cake, replied on its website: Nothing says “We really do love you!” like a little frosting-covered hate mail. And, while we have no trouble telling Comfort to get his hands off our rainbow, hashtag, and inalienable rights, we’re not quite as sure about what to do with the cake.

The post Oregon bakery fined for refusing to make cake for gay wedding sends cakes to LGBTI groups appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/oregon-bakery-fined-for-refusing-to-make-cake-for-gay-wedding-sends-cakes-to-lgbti-groups/

STUDY: Homophobia Rampant in U.S. Sports

The study found a stark contrast between how gay men and lesbians come out to teammates and coaches.

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Dawn Ennis

www.advocate.com/sports/2015/08/21/study-homophobia-rampant-us-sports

The Joys Of Blowhole Sex

What two consenting dolphins do in the wilds of nature is their own business, and if you had an orifice on top of your head, you might enjoy it, too.

Blowhole penetration is just one of the subjects we delve into on this week’s Weird News podcast. We sent Noah Michelson — co-host of the fabulous Love & Sex Podcast — to New York City’s Museum of Sex and he got natural with the animals.

If you think threesomes, wild masturbation rituals and all sorts of recreational pleasure are reserved for humans, you simply haven’t spent enough time in the jungle — and Museum of Sex curator Sarah Forbes sets us straight (even if you’re gay).

In the end, the only thing weird about animal sex is wrapped up in our own human hangups. Admit it: If you had an elephant’s trunk, you’d involve it in your self-stimulation, too. Wouldn’t that be fun?

“All conceivable sexual partnerships and sex acts exist,” the museum concludes, “from foreplay to post-coital cuddling: animals engage in kissing, hugging, self and mutual stimulation, oral sex and every kind of penetrative intercourse imaginable.

“Sex in the animal kingdom is as nuanced as it is in the human realm; and sex-for-pleasure, it seems, is not just restricted to Homo sapiens.”

Isn’t nature great? Listen to the podcast  for more. 

Special thanks to our producer, Katelyn Bogucki and sound engineer Brad Shannon. Check us out on iTunes, Soundcloud and please give us a review. We love you!

— 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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