Oklahoma lawmaker files three bills targeting LGBTs

The lawmaker is taking aim at the state’s decision to legalize gay marriage, and is seeking to allow parents to obtain reparative therapy for their children and for businesses to refuse service to LGBTs

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sylviat

www.gaystarnews.com/article/oklahoma-lawmaker-files-three-bills-targeting-lgbts240115

Of LGBT Youth and Their Parents

Diriye Osman (photo by Tom Hensher)

No one who has ever come out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender to their family, particularly their parents, will ever forget that life-altering moment. The LGBT individual’s entire future hinges on the outcome of how their courage will be perceived by their loved ones. Sometimes the connective thread will be cut; other times that bond will be deepened, enriched by this new reality.

Make no mistake: coming out of the closet requires courage. By coming out of the closet, the LGBT individual in question is re-introducing themselves to an often hostile world, and most of the time that hostility stems from one’s own home. We sometimes forget that the mythology and history that surrounds the meaning of what constitutes a home is so deeply embedded in all cultures that the loss of it devastates every member of the family. When we think of home, we think of symbiosis and solace, community and kinship. This is why most LGBT men and women who are rejected by their families spend a lifetime trying to recreate through emotionally enriching friendship networks the familial solidarity they have lost. In some instances the whole enterprise devolves into an unwieldy simulacrum. In other cases, it’s nothing short of a success story of self-parenting and community-building.

The latter example is my story. Nearly six years ago, when I came out as gay to my own family, I was rejected. At the time I went to see a counsellor who had experienced similar circumstances with his own family. His advice was simple. Give it two years, he said. Your heart will break a million times during the course of those two years. After that, he said, you’ll begin to see things in a positive light. When he told me this I wanted to laugh, because it seemed like the most meaningless, homespun deception. Over the following two years, I woke up every night drenched in sweat from fighting demons in my sleep. Even though I was in a loving, fulfilling relationship, every time I listened to an innocuous pop song I struggled to hold it together. The most anodyne activities — whether it was having casual drinks with friends or reading a book – required energy and stamina that I no longer possessed. My psychological and emotional substratum had assembled a powerful revolt against any internal forward motion. I was trapped in misery for precisely two years. Gradually, the painful memories receded. I regained my confidence but I now wore my thorns. I was no longer afraid of confrontation because I knew the consequences of remaining silent. I had risked my sanity in order to come out and lead a life free of prejudice. I no longer suffered from night terrors.

There’s a flipside to this story because you have only heard my half of it. A friend of mine once said that the parents of LGBT youth often experience a variation of the trauma that their LGBT progeny go through when they come out of the closet. I didn’t believe him at the time so I asked him to elaborate. His reasoning was simple. You’re a totally different person in their eyes now, he said, and some parents experience grief for the child they feel they have lost. I dismissed this assessment as prejudice disguised as victimhood and went about reconstructing my life.

Three years ago, I was standing under the summer sun waiting for my bus to arrive. I sparked a cigarette and inhaled deeply. As I was enjoying my smoke, someone came up from behind me and placed their hands over my eyes. I did not panic. I recognized the fragrance of this individual, the feel of their palms. I turned to face my mother. She was smiling but she also had tears in her eyes. We hugged and kissed. She seemed ecstatic to see me but I was startled by my lack of emotion. I had waited for years for this moment and now that it was here it was strangely anti-climactic. We talked for about three minutes, until our individual buses arrived, before hugging each other quickly and promising to keep in touch. As I got on my bus and headed towards my destination, I realized that my mother was grieving for the son she had lost. She did not have the tools that I had, the counsellors and psychotherapists who guided me through my own grief, my ability to write and paint my way out of sadness and depression. I had healed and moved on. She hadn’t. Like the distillation of saltwater, something had been lost and something had been gained. My sadness had lifted and in its place was a congealed self-protectiveness. By then more than two years had passed since that initial rejection and the counsellor who had once told me that the trauma would subside had been proven right. Not only had my trauma subsided but I had learned to care a lot less. The connective thread had been cut.

I removed my copy of Amy Hempel’s Reasons to Live from my bag and I started reading.

—

Diriye Osman is the Polari Prize-winning author of Fairytales for Lost Children (Team Angelica), a collection of acclaimed short stories about the LGBT Somali experience. You can purchase Fairytales for Lost Children here. You can connect with Diriye Osman via Tumblr. He will be performing at The Huddersfield Literature Festival, The Polari Salon and The London Short Story Festival.

www.huffingtonpost.com/diriye-osman/of-lgbt-youth-and-their-p_b_6532158.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

'Mrs. Doubtfire' Musical Is in the Works

Hello, deary! Composer Alan Menken has announced that he and Harvey Fierstein are adapting the gay-inclusive Robin Williams film for the stage.

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Brandon Voss

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/theater/2015/01/23/mrs-doubtfire-musical-works

Why Are Whites Always the Bottom in Interracial Porn?

Ever notice how hard it is to find blacks bottoming for whites in interracial porn? With few exceptions, porn studios seem to think there is only one acceptable way to show interracial sex: The hyperaggressive African-American top and the submissive white bottom.

Is gay porn racist? Or is it a benign form of stereotyping?

If searches on the Internet didn’t lead me to those questions, my experiences while trying to make the video version of my gay sex advice book, How to Bottom Like a Porn Star, did. I spoke to several porn producers about using an interracial couple to dramatize the how-to points in the book, and they all told me it wouldn’t work unless the black guy topped the white guy.

“You’d be breaking an unwritten rule in gay porn,” one producer said. “Most of the white guys who watch interracial porn want the fantasy of submitting to a tough street thug.”

“Well,” I said to him, “I like interracial porn, and I’d like to see more versatility.”

The producer insisted I was in the minority and that my video wouldn’t go viral if I insisted on having a white top.

“But what about African Americans?” I asked. “Are you telling me there isn’t a black guy out there who wants to see white tops?”

“Not our market,” he said. “They don’t buy or rent interracial porn anywhere near the amount that whites do.”

And there you have it, the reason it’s so uncommon to find porn that presents black men in full sexual versatility, according to porn studios: The buyer is white, and he doesn’t want to see it. He wants the Mandingo experience: a forceful submission to a hypersexual, superaggressive, hung-like-the-Florida-Panhandle street thug.

Like all stereotypes, there is a degree of truth in that characterization of gay white men. My friend Mike, who’s African-American, recounts many a disappointed look in the faces of white guys who hit on him. Mike looks a lot like the black guy many whites fantasize about having sex with: he’s good-looking, tall and big. But once they hear him speak, a lot of white guys lose interest, because Mike is highly educated and doesn’t exactly talk like a tough guy from the streets. Seeing their thug fantasies evaporate, these white guys lose interest and walk away.

Are Porn Studios Right? Whites Don’t Want to See Black Bottoms?

Before we go any further, it must be stated that there are porn studios that feature African Americans bottoming for whites. But even porn producers admit it’s uncommon. There are two questions that come to my mind. First, are porn studios right that whites don’t want to see black bottoms? And second, if it’s true, why?

While there are no surveys (that I know of) of white preferences in interracial porn, I seriously doubt that the full glory of sexual variety stops at interracial sex — that whites want to see blacks in one and only one role. As for the second question — why so many whites want to see the Mandingo version of interracial sex — there are some intriguing possibilities.

First, the nature of topping. It’s often about power and domination. If you were going to build the ideal top, you’d probably say he has to be bigger than you are, in terms of height, weight, and package size. And you might say that since topping is about exerting control, he should also be more aggressive and take-charge than you are.

Enter the black stereotype.

He’s taller, weighs more and has a bigger dick than white guys. Hence, if you’re going to show intercourse, as almost all porn does, then it makes sense that the top is going to be the black guy. The thing is that that’s a stereotype that is empirically not true. Blacks aren’t taller than whites. They don’t weigh more. And they don’t have bigger dicks. Consider these stats from the CDC for non-Hispanic white and black males between the ages of 20 and 39 (the most likely age of porn stars):

Black:
Mean weight: 85.9 kg. (189 lbs.)
Mean height: 70.0 in. (5-foot-8)
Mean BMI: 27.1

White:
Mean weight: 86.2 kg. (190 lbs.)
Mean height: 70.2 in. (5-foot-8)
Mean BMI: 27.1

And to completely upend the stereotype that blacks have bigger penises, I invite you to look at the latest penis-size study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine:

Black:
Mean penis length: 14.66 cm. (5.77 in.)
Mean penis circumference: 12.29 cm. (4.83 in.)

White:
Mean penis length: 14.18 cm. (5.58 in.)
Mean penis circumference: 12.25 cm (4.82 in.)

The difference in length and circumference between the races is statistically insignificant. The study found that characteristics such as race or sexual orientation weren’t good predictors of a man’s penis size. The study is relatively consistent with the results of prior surveys.

The Power of Stereotypes

Fiction is more alluring than fact. Even when presented with empirical data that blacks aren’t bigger than whites — in any department — the stereotype persists. Since most white guys haven’t had a wide variety of African-American partners, their perceptions are almost completely formed by porn, which only shows performers with penises so big they’re mixing drinks in the next room.

Porn studios claim that they’re only catering to what the market wants, but in reality they’ve created that market by systematically perpetuating the idea that blacks are bigger than whites, even though it is demonstrably not true.

Colby Alexander, a writer who happens to be half-white and half-black, wrote a remarkably candid “Open Letter to Gay Porn Studios,” in which he shows how porn producers can make a simple tweak in their videos that would revolutionize interracial porn. Will porn executives listen?

Probably not. So if you want to see more versatility in interracial porn, you’re going to have to spend hours on the Internet finding it. Or you can click here to see a list of interracial porn videos showing African-American men bottoming for white men. (This link does not take you to porn sites; it merely identifies where you can find the videos). It took my team three hours to assemble. Out of the hundreds of videos featuring interracial porn, we could only find about three dozen with white tops (10 to 15 percent of the total).

There is hope for versatility in interracial porn. A relatively new, small studio specializing in fully versatile African-American performers, Harlem Hookups, has emerged. Hopefully other studios will follow and make our list obsolete.

www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-alvear/why-are-whites-always-the_b_6503674.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Federal judge strikes down Alabama's gay marriage ban

Attorney General plans to appeal but marriages could begin Monday since judge did not place a stay on decision

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gregh

www.gaystarnews.com/article/federal-judge-strikes-down-alabamas-gay-marriage-ban240115

Federal Judge Strikes Down Alabama Marriage Ban

The decision was not accompanied by a stay, which means same-sex couples could start marrying as soon as county clerks’ offices open.

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Sunnivie Brydum

www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2015/01/23/federal-judge-strikes-down-alabama-marriage-ban