Telling Our Stories: Bi Stories Project Launches at Comic Con
The veil of silence and shame that covers so many bisexual people will be lifted this weekend.
www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/7/23/telling-our-stories-bi-stories-project-launches-comic-con
“Looking” Stars Jonathan Groff and Russell Tovey: Our Acting Careers “Expanded” After Coming Out
From Tab Hunter to Colton Haynes, Hollywood has always been a tricky landmine for queer actors – regardless of whether they choose to come out or stay in the closet. On one hand, we have actors like Zachary Quinto and Ezra Miller wearing skintight suits in summer superhero blockbusters and TV stars like Nico Tortorella coming out as sexually-fluid. On the other, young actors like Noah Galvin may say stupid stuff, and next thing you know their show could be cancelled.
So, in a time when homophobia in the entertainment industry may not be so overt but still commonplace, Jonathan Groff and Russell Tovey should consider themselves #blessed. The stars of HBO’s Looking: The Movie, which premieres on Saturday, told Queerty that they have not had any personal experiences with homophobia in Hollywood (at least that they’re aware of). In fact, Groff and Tovey both agreed that their careers only got brighter after coming out, even if they have not ascended to the Hollywood A-list as of yet. A sentiment that has been echoed by Quinto. It’s ironic then that the actors in Looking, one of the bluest shows (both literally and figuratively), are the ones comforting us – that being a famous gay man is not always so tragic.
At the Looking red carpet in San Francisco, on the eve of the movie premier, Groff and Tovey talked with Oscar Raymundo about their bittersweet HBO finale, being out and proud in the spotlight, and what they’re really looking forward to next.
We’re so happy HBO is giving the show a proper finale, but are all the storylines going to get wrapped up in a little bow?
Groff: That’s the Michael Lannan-Andrew Haigh way (referring to the creator and executive producer) to give you your happy with your sad. We’ve always been aware of how temporary it is and how beautiful it is. I’m just grateful that we got an end. Period. But it’s sad as much as it is celebratory.
Tovey: And we’re at the Castro Theater. What a perfect sendoff for the show. It’s bittersweet that this is our last time together as a gang in San Francisco, but we’re very, very lucky that we got this film.
[To Tovey] And your character Kevin got to go blond. How does that play into the story?
Tovey: We’re seeing them six months after the end of the last season, so I wanted the character to seem like he’s had a bit of a breakdown. Like, “fuck you, I’m going to change, I’m going to make my hair different.” And when he sees Patrick [Groff’s character] he wants that to be a moment. But he doesn’t realize how immature it is.
Have you guys experienced homophobia in Hollywood?
Groff: I haven’t come across it yet that I’m aware. I came out when I was 23 right after I left Spring Awakening and opportunities for me expanded after I came out. Looking has been my favorite thing that I’ve ever been a part of. And it is very related to coming out and being open and being intimate and being honest with yourself. I never imagined when I came out that work would be better for me, that the experience of being an actor and getting work would improve. Oh sorry, I spit on you.
That’s ok.
Tovey: I haven’t experienced [homophobia in Hollywood], either, but I know others who have. Being a gay actor has actually opened up horizons for me, too, like with Looking. It has been an advantage, totally.
Groff: But I’m aware that it has a lot to do with timing. Had it been 10 years earlier or 20 years earlier, it might have been different. I was in the closet during Spring Awakening. I wasn’t lying and saying that I was straight, but we were so young that no one was asking us in interviews who we were dating.
Who were you dating?
Groff: [Laughs] Oh my god, it’s Armistead. I just have to kiss him really quick.
[At this point during the interview, Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin walks up and starts talking to the actors. Maupin introduces them to his friend].
Noah Galvin recently did an interview, and his show was almost cancelled because of it. Isn’t that weird: We want you guys to do these interviews where you’re honest and genuine, but the moment you speak your mind we drag you for it. Russell, you’ve apologized publicly before. Does it ever feel like you’re under attack?
Tovey: It makes you feel guarded because you want to say the right thing. And sometimes when you speak to [the media], things get taken out of context. Things get said that aren’t meant to be said. LGBT stuff is so important right now. With what happened in Orlando, it gives heightened importance, and it’s brought [the community] closer in a really weird way. It just felt like you knew everyone in that club.
That’s why visibility is so important. Gay teens are going to be stealing their parents’ HBO Go passwords and finding Looking for years to come.
Groff: That’s one of the things I love about the Looking movie is that it explores male intimacy not just with sex but with men relating to each other in an intimate way, whether it’s relationships or friendships. It’s something that we need to see more of. Sorry, I spit on you again. I’m so sorry.
[To Tovey] You want to spit on me too?
Groff: Male intimacy, here it is.
It comes with the job. I read that the Looking producers were envisioning the show going for six seasons. Where would you like to see gay characters on TV be in five or six years?
Groff: As more gay programming comes out, and the torch gets passed and new shows are created about the gay experience, we got to see Patrick in the beginnings of a relationship, but I would like to see him in the real thick of a relationship. Years and years into those complexities. How you keep it alive and where do things go when you stay for a while.
Looking closes a chapter in your career, so I would like to know: What are you really looking forward to next?
Tovey: I’m starting filming Quantico on ABC next month.
Groff: I’m working on Mind Hunter now. It’s David Fincher’s show for Netflix about the birth of criminal profiling in the FBI. I was just filming in Pittsburgh until two in the morning last night.
Well, I was at a Pride party until four in the morning last night, so I totally know what that’s like.
‘Looking: The Movie’ premieres tonight at 10PM on HBO.
Oscar Raymundo is the creator of Confessions of a Boy Toy.
Former Male Sex Worker Looks Back On His Career With Pride
“I first became involved in sex work after traveling to London for a job interview and losing my ticket home,” Paul Lowell tells Vice in a fascinating new article about retired sex workers.
Lowell’s career started while he was walking around the West End and noticed a man cruising him.
Related: Male Sex Workers Reveal The Truth About Their Lives And Clients
“I asked him the time, and his comically cheesy response was, ‘I have the time and the money,’” he recalls. “I had no qualms about taking him up on his offer, and felt empowered by the fact that I was able to use my only possession, my body, to earn enough cash to buy breakfast and another train ticket.”
Lowell, whose mother left him and his four siblings to be raised solely by his father, says poverty and a general sense of desperation played into his decision to enter into the sex trade.
“Add to that the psychological effects of abuse and a troubled school life that produced no qualifications,” he says, “and it’s easy to see why I went down the road of prostitution.”
He found most of his clients at gay bars and clubs and in cruising areas.
“Alcohol and drugs added a rosy haze to everything,” he says. “They were a crutch that made life bearable and helped me to remain optimistic.”
Related: What I Learned From Diving Head First Into The World Of Dom/Sub Sex Work
Lowell continued the work for some time, even after finding a regular, full-time job.
“I still didn’t quit because I didn’t trust my ability to keep it,” he says. “I had more faith in maintaining my regular customers than in remaining legally employed.”
He finally gave up sex work, he says, after falling in love.
“I was so smitten that I wanted to give my new relationship 100 percent,” he recalls. “The biggest difficulty lay in revealing the truth. But without question, I was accepted.”
Today, Lowell is happily married to a man who supports him. He says he doesn’t miss the money he made from prostitution, nor does he feel ashamed of his past.
“I’m slightly proud, if anything,” he says. “I used what I had to make an interesting life for myself, never stole from people or hurt anyone, and entrusted my destiny to karma.”
Related: ‘Mostly Straight’ Male Sex Worker Opens Up About Being Gay-For-Pay And Much, Much More
5 Queer Episodes From Star Trek History Worth Revisiting
Star Trek Beyond, the latest installment in the adventures of the reimagined original crew, flies into theaters today and will bring with it the franchise’s first gay character in the form of helmsman Hikaru Sulu (played by John Cho).
But while this is uncharted territory for Star Trek’s official cannon (queer characters have been included in several Star Trek novels), the franchise’s various TV series did touch on a few LGBT issues with some clever story lines and allegories during their runs.
Join us as we take a look back at the five queerest Star Trek episodes so far.
1.) “The Outcast” from Star Trek: The Next Generation
In one of the strongest LGBT allegories in Star Trek history, this season 5 episode of The Next Generation finds the Enterprise crew encountering the J’Naii, a race of genderless people. However, when Riker is sent on a mission with a J’Naii named Soren, he learns not all J’Naii identify as genderless and some feel attraction to one gender or another. Yet, they are considered sick by their society. Riker and Soren share a kiss, which is witnessed by another J’Naii and Soren is reported to the authorities where Soren delivers a powerful speech about the need to accept those who are different before Soren is taken away to the J’Naii version of reparative therapy.
2.) “Rejoined” from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
The first romantic same-sex kiss in Star Trek history was a complicated one. Jadzia Dax and Lenara Kahn are both from an alien race known as the Trill – a species that exists as symbionts implanted in host bodies. Dax and Kahn were once married back when Dax was inhabiting a male body. Turns out they still have a thing for one another, despite the fact that Trills are not supposed to rekindle their previous hosts’ romantic relationships. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop the two from sharing a passionate lip lock and their undying love for each other.
3.) “Chimera” from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Odo, a changeling whose natural form is puddle of liquid, has an eye-opening moment when he meets a being named Laas from his own race who does not share Odo’s need to “pass” as a species with a solid form. Odo is confronted with the prejudices of others, even some of his friends, who claim to be okay with changelings – just as long as they don’t have to see them change form or exist as anything other than humanoid.
4.) “The Host” from Star Trek: The Next Generation
Dr. Crusher falls in love with a Trill diplomat named Odan. But when Odan is fatally wounded and must transfer his symbiont self into a new female host body, Crusher breaks off the relationship saying she can’t deal with “these kind of changes.”
5.) “Stigma” from Enterprise
With obvious parallels to the real-life story of AIDS in ‘80s America, this episode of the final Star Trek series (which takes place 100 years before the days of Kirk and Spock) finds T’Pol, The Enterprise’s Vulcan first officer, contracting Pa’nar Syndrome. It’s an ailment that is spread through mind melds – an act that is considered unnatural in Vulcan society during this era and is believed to be practiced by only a few degenerate telepaths. Because of this stigma, Vulcan doctors are unwilling to supply research, medicine, or discuss preventative measures about the spread of the disease. The Enterprise crew soon find themselves battling one of their most difficult enemies they’ve ever encountered – Vulcan prejudice.
How One Tiny Gay Bar Offers Refuge In The Most Homophobic State In America
Mississippi may not be known for its progressive politics or its welcoming attitude towards gay people or its willingness to change, but it is still home to many members of the LGBTQ community.
A fascinating article published by the Washington Post takes readers inside WonderLust, a one-year-old gay bar in Jackson that bills itself as the city’s “hottest LGBT nightclub.”
Related: This Mississippi Teen Is A High Schooler By Day And A Drag Queen At Night
Jesse Pandolfo, a 32-year-old lesbian, is the owner the bar, which is located inside a nondescript one-story concrete building on a deserted side street on the north end of town. Originally from Boston, Pandolfo calls living in the delta “kind of a time warp.”
“You have to live kind of an edited version of your life,” she says.
Which is precisely why WonderLust is so necessary. The bar regularly hosts dance parties, drag shows and karaoke nights, providing an outlet for a community living on the frays of society.
Mississippi state law offers no discrimination protections for LGBTQ people, nor does it address hate crimes based on gender identity or sexual orientation, and lawmakers seem to constantly be looking for ways to further marginalize the gay community.
Related: Federal Judge Rules Mississippi Can Begin Legal Discrimination July 1
WonderLust patron Sham Williams tells the Washington Post that Mississippi is perhaps “the most racist and bigoted state in America,” adding “when I walk out that door I have three strikes against me–I’m black, gay and a woman.”
But despite all that, she has no intentions of leaving.
“Mississippi is home,” she says, “even if it doesn’t always feel like it. I don’t want to go anywhere else.”
It’s a concept those who have never actually visited the state or felt the pull of the land or seen the many good things amongst all the bad will likely understand, but it’s a sentiment shared by many.
“I stay here because I’m from here and I love it,” Rob Hill, who works as the state director for the Human Rights Campaign, says. “I’m 41, and I want the best for this state and I fight for it. I think we’re better than what our legislators have demonstrated.”
Check out a gallery of images from inside WonderLust.
The Furry Haunched Fauns and Wild Boys of Todd Yeager
www.advocate.com/art/2016/7/23/furry-haunched-fauns-and-wild-boys-todd-yeager
Attimi di ordinaria erotica follia
Dante Farricella – Studioieffe posted a photo:
foto Dante Farricella
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