October is LGBT History Month: Three Reasons Everyone Should Know LGBT History
In honor of LGBT History Month, here are a few reasons why it’s important for everyone, not just members of the LGBT community, to know about LGBT people, communities and political movements throughout history.
HRC.org
Have You Ever Seen A Closeted Friend In A Gay Bar?
Editor’s note: We’ve asked online comedian, voice actor and chest hair model Sam Kalidi to create a new meme each week for Queerty readers. This week he examines how we feel about our closeted friends. Sam looks forward to all your hate mail. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and at your local glory hole.
Jeremy Kinser
One Million Moms Have Their Pitchforks Out for the Gay Campbell’s Soup Dads
The questionably powerful American Family Association subgroup One Million Moms are up in arms over the adorable ad we featured recently from Campbell’s Soup, featuring two real-life gay dads and their son.
Clutch your most evil Christian pearls while reading their call to arms:
How confusing for this little boy and for all children viewing this commercial. Obviously, Campbell’s is sending the message that homosexual men are raising children, whom they wouldn’t have if a woman wasn’t involved, and they are ok with it.
Campbell’s Soup is glorifying this unnatural marriage. One Million Moms believes family is based on love, but this does not justify normalizing sin. 1MM does not agree with the need for Campbell’s to support same sex marriages or couples.
Companies should advertise the quality of their products. It is no longer about the product but about their cause. They should not be highlighting who is attracted to whom or who sleeps with whom. This is a marketing decision Campbell’s will regret.
This gay-inclusive commercial is attempting to desensitize viewers. There is concern about the way this ad is pushing the LGBT agenda, but an even greater concern is the way that they are attempting to redefine “family” and “real marriage.”
OMM is asking their followers (all six of them) to contact Campbell’s Soup and threaten to boycott their brands like Pepperidge Farm, Pace, Spaghetti O’s, V8, Swanson, and Prego.
So, you know what to do. Campbell’s 1-800-257-8443. Facebook, website.
The post One Million Moms Have Their Pitchforks Out for the Gay Campbell’s Soup Dads appeared first on Towleroad.
Andy Towle
One Million Moms Have Their Pitchforks Out for the Gay Campbell’s Soup Dads
Cute YolkFish makes separating eggs hassle-free and fun
When it comes to baking, one of the easiest things to do is closely connected to one of the hardest things – ruining a meringue (that’s the easy part) by messing up when it comes to separating eggs.
Even the tiniest speck of yolk means that instead of ending up with beautifully fluffy beat egg whites, it all turns into a sad, sloppy mess.
But fear not, because this cute goldfish is here to save the day – and your meringue!
Created by Tel Aviv-based Peleg Design, the cute-yet-functional YolkFish makes all other techniques – from a slotted spoon to juggling the yolk from one half of shell to the other – look a lot messier than necessary.
With it’s big mouth and round belly, the YolkFish neatly separates eggs into yolks and whites.
Simply crack an egg into a container, squeeze the fish’s belly, release once it’s ‘kissing’ the yolk and ta-da: it sucks up the yolk, leaving no trace behind.
Another gentle squeeze deposits the yolk into a different container, all without breaking it.
Slurping noises entirely optional, of course.
Available from various stationary and online retailers – including Amazon – prices clock in at around £9 (€12.15, $13.80) in European shops or $10 (€8.80, £6.51) in the US.
Watch the video demonstrating how the fish works below:
The post Cute YolkFish makes separating eggs hassle-free and fun appeared first on Gay Star News.
Stefanie Gerdes
www.gaystarnews.com/article/cute-yolkfish-makes-separating-eggs-hassle-free-and-fun/
Disturbing Video Proves Chinese Hospitals Still Using Shock Therapy To “Cure” Gayness
Chinese hospitals are still offering highly discredited (not to mention horrific) electro-shock treatment to “cure” gay people, a new BBC documentary has revealed.
In the film, Unreported World, activists go undercover to expose the psychiatrists and doctors administering the controversial therapy.
One patient is told to ingest nausea-inducing drops to make him feel sick every time he has “urges.”
“Your current conditioned reflex is when you see the same sex you feel love,” she says. “Now what I want to make you feel is scared.”
Oh, we feel scared, Doc.
She also recommends shock therapy.
Last year, a Beijing clinic was forced to apologize and pay out a fine for offering shock treatment as a way to “cure” gayness, but as the film shows, the practice has not stopped everywhere.
“It was extraordinary to spend time with people like John and Iron (Beijing LGBT Centre activists), who are doing so much to change the landscape for the LGBT community in China,” reporter Shaunagh Connaire said.
“This an issue I care deeply about and having the opportunity to document their bravery and resilience was a privilege.”
See a preview of the doc below:
h/t GayStarNews
Dan Tracer
Age, Weight, PrEP Status: Hookup Apps' Next Filtering Option
Guys on Grindr and Scruff — two of the most popular gay hookup apps — recently started seeing profiles advertising the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which the CDC last year recommended for gay and bisexual men at substantial risk for contracting HIV.
Jason Marchant, chief product officer of Scruff and one of the app’s founding partners, tells The Advocate he’s been on PrEP for two years and has listed it on his Scruff profile for over a year and a half. Marchant’s username is “Jason Scruff [PrEP].” Such is the way many Scruff users advertise their PrEP usage; including it in their usernames or in their written profile descriptions. But Scruff is about to make it easier to advertise PrEP adherence or find other users.
“Scruff 5, which will be launching on iOS devices in the next few weeks, will have two new profile metadata fields,” Marchant says. “One of them is sexual practices like top, bottom, versatile, oral, fetish, no sex, stuff like that. The second one is for safer sex practices like condoms, PrEP, and treatment as prevention.”
This will give users the option of selecting what they are into sexually and what safe-sex practices they use, if any, and displaying the informaiton on their profiles. “Once it’s filled out, it will appear prominently on your Scruff profile,” Marchant says.
This is the first time Scruff has publicly endorsed PrEP as a safe-sex practice. Grindr, which is the most widely-used gay hookup app in the world with 2 million daily users, is more vague about its plans for PrEP. Grindr for Equality, a branch of the company started in 2012 to raise awareness for LGBT issues, recently conducted research with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Center for Disease Control to poll users about their attitudes toward PrEP. They will reveal their findings in the coming months, a spokesperson for Grindr said.
Joel Simkhai, founder and CEO of Grindr, says, “I believe all sexually active gay men should be on PrEP, barring, of course, any health risks outlined by a medical professional. It prevents HIV infection. Why wouldn’t you take it?”
Since its short time on the market, PrEP has caused a lot of controversy and division among gay men. For many, the drug has changed how some interact with others when it comes to sex and dating. Many say PrEP has bridged the gap between HIV-positive and HIV-negative men, and reduced stigma about the disease.
Others, like the California-based AIDS Healtchare Foundation, the largest HIV services provider in the country, have blasted PrEP and accused it of encouraging risky sexual behavior. The president of the organization, Michael Weinstein, even told the Associated Press that he thought PrEP was nothing more than a “gay party drug.”
Carl Sandler, CEO and designer of the popular gay dating apps MISTER, Mr. X, and Daddyhunt, thinks it is high time for apps like his to endorse PrEP. Doing so, he says, will not only educate more people about its effectiveness, but will also combat the negative messages about the medication.
Eric Paul Leue, director of sexual health and advocacy at Kink.com, is a major PrEP advocate but cautions against hookup apps getting too involved in PrEP education. “Is this really the apps’ responsibility?” Leue says. “I think this education should come from the schools. The apps can be about sex, and sex doesn’t need to be a drop-down list of health terms.”
Regardless, the apps appear to be making PrEP awareness a new priority. Sandlers says that MISTER, Mr. X and Daddyhunt will soon offer a hashtag feature that will allow users to tag their pictures and profiles and search for tags among other users on the app. Since many already advertise PrEP on their profiles, Sandlers predicts #PrEP will become a popular tag. “It will allow users to meet others who are on PrEP and start a conversation about it,” he said. “Increasingly these apps are more social communities and places where guys can educate each other.”
Marchant believes that PrEP does more than just prevent the spread of HIV among gay men.
“We often see that when people say they use PrEP in their profiles, they also tend to not discrimnate other users based on their HIV status,” he says. “I think we’ll be talking in the months and years to come about how not only is PrEP a powerful tool in preventing HIV, but it’s also taking a significant bite out of HIV stigma.”
Alexander Cheves
www.advocate.com/hiv-aids/2015/10/09/age-weight-prep-status-hookup-apps-next-filtering-option
WATCH: Gay son gets mom to judge his sexy Halloween costumes
Like everyone preparing for Halloween, YouTube vlogger Jack Merridew is searching for the perfect costume and he’s getting some help from the one person who always knows best: his mother.
Calling himself ‘single as fuck’, Jack says he has no option other than hitting the clubs in what he describes as ‘incredibly sexy, slutty Halloween costumes’ – and his followers should do the same.
Dressing up as a clown, sailor, police officer and schoolboy, he walks to his mother’s door so mum can judge the costumes.
And as good as Jack looks in all of them (and he does), his mother’s reactions are even better.
Each time he presents a new outfit, she can’t contain her laughter and even takes pictures of her son to send to friends and family before rating them on a scale of one to five.
Watch the full video below:
The post WATCH: Gay son gets mom to judge his sexy Halloween costumes appeared first on Gay Star News.
Stefanie Gerdes
www.gaystarnews.com/article/watch-gay-son-gets-mom-to-judge-his-sexy-halloween-costumes/
Are We Too Hard On LGBTQ Movies?
Stonewall is tanking at the box office in wake of attacks on the film that started within hours of the trailer’s release. People are primed to hate it, as they seem to be whenever anything gay comes out (hello, Looking).
In the decade since Brokeback Mountain, there are still very few major movies that are explicitly LGBT-oriented and fewer still that are gay oriented and still fewer that are successful at the box.
So, we leaves the question to you, Queerty readers: Are We Too Hard On Gay Movies?
Rob Smith
feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/hb6lp5JL-WA/queerty-query-are-we-too-hard-on-gay-movies-20151009
Same-Sex Domestic Violence Remains on the Down Low
Every Monday morning Alex (name changed for anonymity) and I met for breakfast at our favorite dive in Boston’s Harvard Square.
I would notice visible bruises and cuts on his face, arms, and legs, but assumed the black and blue marks were simply par for the course for a guy who enjoyed the rough-and-tumble adrenaline high that come with playing weekend scrimmage football. I don’t recall a time when Alex didn’t have a knot on his head, a cut on his lip, a bite into his skin, welts on his arms, or stitches. I did notice over time, however, that the teddy bear sweet guy who sat across the table from me with a smile as wide as the Charles River looked beaten up rather than injured. When I began asking Alex about his bruises he shrugged off my queries and talked about something else. Some Monday mornings he would call me at the last minute to cancel or he wouldn’t show up at all.
One morning he called me to cancel, telling me he was in Mount Auburn Hospital. His partner had stabbed him, injuring him severely.
October is Coming Out Month, and it is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Within lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities of color, not enough information and statistics come out about domestic violence. And neither does attention, education, intervention, and advocacy to prevent it.
The topic lives so deeply on the “down low” that I missed the signs from Alex.
It’s estimated that 25 percent to 33 percent of the LGBTQ population will experience some form of partner abuse or domestic violence in their lifetime. The Inter-Personal Violence study conducted in 2011 stated that LGBTQ communities of color are one of the demographic groups experiencing a high incidence of domestic violence. However, it’s often hard to determine accurately how prevalent interpersonal violence is in these communities because of social stigmas and cultural taboos that prevent people from accurately reporting abuse. Other forms of oppression and discrimination figure in this as well.
What also prevents the gathering of accurate data in these communities of color is that same-gender interpersonal violence is clouded with myths. There is a belief that because the victim and the abuser are of the same gender, and are also in a consensual sexual relationship, the battering that occurs starts out as a mutual act of S&M. Another myth is that same-gender sexual abuse is not as bad because men and men and women and women are on equal playing field when it comes to defending themselves. Sadly, these untruths still abound among many health care workers and law enforcement officials.
Domestic violence is not only an act of physical violence; it can also be an act of sexual violence as well as mental violence such as threatening and stalking.
Because Alex wasn’t out to his team, his partner — an effeminate male who couldn’t simply be introduced as just a buddy without suspicion — could only watch him play from a distance. Alex’s partner’s eyes turned suspicious as he witnessed friendly, innocent pats on the butt during games. And he began stalking Alex. On the morning we were to meet, his partner accused him of an affair and a fight ensued.
Alex was seen several times for his scrapes, cuts, and bruises in the same emergency room at the same hospital. However, with violence associated with young black males, the protocol and treatment for domestic violence-related injuries in inner-city hospitals for these patients are rarely introduced or followed up.
Another major problem is the lack of police intervention.
The police were called to the house several times by both Alex and his partner. If they came at all, they were coming to the call of an interracial couple in distress. However, when the cops looked at Alex — African-American, 6 foot 2,’ and 200 pounds — and then his partner — white, 5 foor 9, and 160 pounds — judgment was rendered as to who was the abuser.
In same-race relationships, many victims will often not prosecute their partners for fear of community abandonment, isolation, and scorn. Rather, some rationalize the violence as the root cause of persistent micro and macrolevels of racism their partner encounters.
But not all LGBTQ people of color feel that way.
“People of color are expected to stay silent in the face of violence and as part of the LGBTQ community the silence becomes louder when law-enforcement, judicial, and political figures ignore our calls for help,” Sean Smith wrote in his 2013 article “Imprisoned by Violence: Domestic Violence in the (Black) LGBT Community.” “Not having power over our own behaviors and emotions causes us to exert dominating and violent attitudes within our community and toward our partners.”
Resources and services have to be made available to LGBTQ communities of color. And this is the time to reach out to us. Everyone deserves a safe, loving, healthy, and violence-free relationship.
REV. IRENE MONROE is a writer, speaker, and theologian living in Cambridge, Mass.
Reverend Irene Monroe
www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/10/09/same-sex-domestic-violence-remains-down-low
REVIEW: Ultimo – Seminyak, Bali
The Seminyak district of Bali is awash with lots of restaurants to choose from – everything from simple street food to high-end dining. There really is something for everyone and every mood.
In our large family party we had a couple of kids who felt like a change from the Indonesian spices so we opted for Italian.
Ultimo is a large, modern Italian restaurant. We were there on a Thursday night and we were relieved that we had reserved a table – it’s a big space but it was totally rammed with diners.
It was all okay without being amazing.
If you are really craving some Italian food while you are in Bali then this is not a bad option, but if it was up to me I would stick to the restaurants serving up the spicy Indonesian specialties.
The post REVIEW: Ultimo – Seminyak, Bali appeared first on Gay Star News.
Gareth Johnson
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