making our way back: reclaiming queer space in the SPRING of 2021//LGBTQIA+ Vaccine ed.

how we all holding up?

surely this will be a better year to be queer ☮️

updates? life musings? thoughtful dialogue? hookups? betrayal? creation? a path less traveled by? take a load off, stay awhile, drop in, drop out, shake it all about.

from the other thread, looking forward to a late april palm springs vacation thx to the stimmy bucks. it's already a better year than last year imo. lots of pent up energy and i have to make sure it doesn't turn sour. i have a very sweet and normal boyfriend after having 'problematic' ones and i love him dearly.

🖤 I can’t believe I missed that entire last thread! I kept thinking how much I miss you guys.

I’ve been trying to focus on music more than boys in the past three months but spring fever has officially set in. Been playing a bit with the whole daddy thing lately because it seems I’ve started to get that kind of attention which is funny.

got my first jab on Monday. I'll wait until early April before I start manhandling again -- my first attempt since March 13, 2020.

Same, despite now being married.

(I kid ... mostly.)

lol. i meannnnnn. I just feel like I need to have a sleepover stat, like for my mental health

Been playing a bit with the whole daddy thing lately

i'll just say i have mixed feelings about this. i truly despise the patriarchy on the streets but in the sheets i love being called "daddy" "sir" etc (i hate getting called sir at the grocery store or w/e). not to get too tmi but i'm the 'daddy' in my relationship and he's 9 years older than me! hehe. we might also try a little tinkering with a third or fourth in ps if we meet some friendly people. i need a romp iykwim

i am growing into daddydom, at least in the sense that my hair is rapidly graying and i’ve gained a bunch of weight in the last year (not that i intended to)

I am 33 and am always wondering when my Daddy DaysTM will start, though I shaved my beard several months ago and ppl say I look so much younger now :( otoh I hate "daddy" and calling people "daddy" I imagine I would also hate being called "daddy" so tbh I am in no rush, it's more of a curiosity thing than anything.

My boyf and I split about a month ago but are still besties and talk all day every day, we joke that it's more of a "rebranding" than a breakup, we just got to a point where we were good friends trying to force a romantic relationship that neither of us were really feeling. We were so on the same page that the actual breakup convo felt like more of a clearing-the-air formality than anything else and honestly v little has changed in our day to day behavior, if anything it feels nicer to just keep being friends w/o this weird cloud looming over everything. Also, neither of us have any desire to start dating again, so it's nice that we can keep being good friends for a while and cool things off slowly and gradually.

I just got my second vaccination shot on Monday and it was a DOOZY but I bounced back quickly, it's been surreal to think about how I can, like, re-enter the world, go run errands, take trips downtown, etc. without worrying about death!!! This + beginning of spring and springtime weather + daylight savings in 2 days feels v like R E N E W I N G and it is a feeling that I am embracing and running with

I am so fucking excited to get a haircut, you guys my hair is so so so awful rn

maybe I should shave my head again??????

congrats, Stevie. Which vaccine?

:) :) :)

xp Laura Moderna

Congrats on the vaccine, also I’m glad you are navigating your breakup in the best possible way

Hi! Work has been so busy. Stevie if I didn’t already say so congratulations!!! So exciting. Did you get your haircut

News on my front is that this guy who I had one wild night with years ago found me on grindr and asked me out. This is coming at an epic dry spell so feeling slightly excited

Surm!!! I was thinking of you the other day, specifically about how rigatoni was once your fav pasta shape and how I think I started buying rigatoni bcz of you, and whether or not it was still your favorite pasta shape.

I tried to book a haircut with the barber I saw last time but he's unavailable for A MONTH, and I can't decide if I should book a spot with the local "alternative salon" in my neighborhood that I've had great success with, or just buzz it and figure out how to make sideburns work with a buzz cut.

actually the salon is v good at dyeing and I could get a haircut + dye my hair in some fashion, which I've never done at an establishment before????

Oh you definitely have to do that. It’s a life changer. Talk about self-care! If only for the experience.

Also regarding rigatoni, I’ve had to confront this recently. It’s a tossup between spaghetti and rigatoni with spaghetti having with the slight edge. Also trying to get into penne for the first time…
🖤

I've been into bolognese a lot lately, so rigatoni is right up there on my grocery list.

You know, I've never been fond of standard spaghetti. We were an angel hair household growing up but apparently angel hair is unanimously hated??? I still love it though. I've also become quite fond of bucatini, which I imagine, surm, you would love

Angel hair has to be cooked for no more than about 7 seconds for it to be good.

and is imho best served with a v light accompanying sauce, like diced tomatoes and garlic and fresh herbs

i finally acquired the family “gravy” recipe recently and i just about die of pleasure every time i make it

literally hundreds of pasta shapes out there, it’s mind boggling. i had this kind recently from a takeout place near me that were shaped like little envelopes! stuffed with creamy ricotta. bonkers good

I mean, since we're on the topic: POLL: Which is the best basic Italian pasta sauce?

Omg

I mean rigatoni Bolognese is one of my favorite meals literally of all time
Also as you can imagine I have all the thoughs on angel hair and bucca. Love both! But both very fickle. You’re in for a challenge if you fuck with spaghetti.

Angel hair: good in soups

I love pasta talk

Today I got a surprise FaceTime from a man I adore who lives far away with whom I hooked up years ago and he told me he just got vaccinated and wanted to know where I was and he said conspicuously proposition-y things and etc.

We had a moment of fantasizing about driving mopeds around Italy and that was the FaceTime

I will be up to full power in three weeks.

Nice!!!!! Great news

XP, that sounds lovely. I also had a moment of fantasy with a new beau last night and the fantasy took place in Italy ...

There's been a lot of wistful reconnections over the past year! Next week I'm going to Montreal to visit my ex for his birthday, gonna be staying in the house we used to share (and where he still lives)

It is kinda crazy, he and I would've celebrated our 18th anniversary this month had we stayed together. Maybe we'll get back together before our "20th"

trying to figure out why i ever thought lockwood51 was cool. "stay queer as fuck" okkkkk it's not like i have to try???

lol i get sponcon from them on FB a lot and most of it looks pretty bad to me

'sponcon' - a perfect word haha

I only just realized that the inversion of "holy shit" is "shitty hole"

Or maybe devilish douche.

i'm feeling gay today.

i was in the leg equipment section of the gym today and goddamn i have never seen so many rudely staring motherfuckers in my life. like cats eyeing each other.

can i be a little bit insufferably edgy and say that this is like really hot?

Taken in 1967 by Rocco Morabito, this photo called “The Kiss of Life” shows a utility worker named J.D. Thompson giving mouth-to-mouth to co-worker Randall G. Champion after he went unconscious following contact with a low voltage line https://t.co/vW6QidVvA4 pic.twitter.com/6kpu1N6j52

— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) March 26, 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOqxI97CoDM

watched this the other night, a documentary about Glitterbox, which is a clubnight based in Ibiza but travels all over the world. First five mins and last five mins are standard "woo our club is the best" hagiography, and some of the material about the birth of disco and Larry Levan feels too familiar for anyone with a passing interest - but I otherwise really enjoyed this. It's about the dancers and their personal journeys as LGBT+ individuals, and it's got Billy Porter talking about how clubbing saved his life.

Oh cool, thanks for sharing. Saving for later.

That looks amazing

Just put a hefty down payment on my trip to fire Island this summer, I think it’s so weird that I am becoming a fire Island person,
But I am feeling good about it

Appointment with J&J on Thursday

i have some questions about basic suburb gay fashion

does volcom code as gay?
does hurley code as gay?

do they mean gay-but-not-out? gay-but-trying-to-pass?

so y'all gonna require tricks to flash their jab cards before inviting them over

jab card 4 jab ONLY

mask4mask

i'm not on them anymore but i heard it's a thing on the apps now, stating whether or not you've been vaxed. not happy about that development tbh.

we exist in a world that tells us as non-heteronormative people: that we are unacceptable, that we should be constantly vigilant of our own safety, that our narratives of struggling for peace and tolerance are so common to be entertainment tropes, that we are not worthy of being taken seriously or affording respect towards. I don't think it's self-destructive to feel challenged and defeated and nihilistic as a result of trying to navigate through a world that sometimes seems designed to set us up for failure.

Very much agreed. Lately I have been thinking about self respect, and what its ties are to one's experience in life. If u didn't go through life with the knowledge that you deserve respect and a fair shake, what is that journey like? How do you find your voice? I guess for me it's finding people "like me". I feel happy to have found some of those ppl in NYC, which is why I moved here in the first place. But it was years until that happened. Like 35 years. Which, u could say, is the origin of this thread, seeing as its first iteration when Dr Morbs was around was "I have like, no gay friends in town" IIRC. cycle of life. And I'll make sure to pour one out for Morbs tomorrow.

Y'all got coming out stories? I'll share mine.

I came out to my dad the night of my grandfather's funeral. His whole extended family had converged at my grandparents' house, and we were allotted a space to sleep on the floor.

He said, sympathetically, that he'd always worried that I might be, but hoped I wasn't. Because it meant that I was going to have a very difficult life.

I didn't know how he'd react. He was a volatile, moody and temperamental guy who could be incredibly tender at times. On other occasions previously, he'd told me that he always wanted me to have a difficult life. He'd also given me reason to think he'd take this particular news very poorly.

I don't think we ever discussed it again. A couple of years later he had a massive stroke and lived the rest of his life in a compromised state.

That night he was on the tender side, which was a huge relief.

I don't even know if i'm gay anymore, or wtf I am. Not that there is any interest in the opposite sex, more like I'm schizoid or something.

Not to diminish the struggles of others, which I've also shared in. But when I think of what my dad said, I feel like gay would have been a lot easier than whatever the fuck this is.

💜 I'm so glad you're posting here
I too have no idea where I stand on the sexual meridian anymore
Going single and getting started on the first years of my life as an independent and reinvigorated adult only to be sequestered off to an isolated existence while my x moves into the Brooklyn equivalent of a mansion with his new boof, while at this point old news, has put me in a limbo of sorts with sex, identity and whatever approximation of self actualization in supposed to be fighting for
You're not alone 💙

anyway, i know i'm among the youngest on here but....

any suggestions for coming out to the 'rents? within the next few days it is happening, and while i'm not too nervous at this point, they aren't the most...fag-friendly people around.

― the table is the table, Saturday, October 20, 2007 4:21 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

why in the next few days?

a) sick of them asking if i've met any nice girls
a1) sick of tip-toeing
b) it is fall break, and i happen to be at my parents' house for a few days

the thing is that my parents are very loving, wonderful people in a lot of ways, and i'm certain things will be fine within a few months. it's just that there were some...uh...'struggles' when i was younger about being gay, and we haven't talked about it since because i've been afraid of upsetting them. now i'm not. (i also figure that telling them last fall that i had been seriously thinking about killing myself was the upset of a lifetime). given this fact as well, i'm confident that they won't display too much upset for fear of upsetting me? who knows.

― the table is the table, Saturday, October 20, 2007 5:41 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

an update:

post-dinner, i told them. and after the expected conversation ("at least it's easier now," "you need to be safe," "how do gay people have kids," etc), we all went outside and smoked cigarettes and made jokes. and i was the only one who cried.

― the table is the table, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 5:48 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

so in other words, it was much better than i could have ever anticipated.

:-)

― the table is the table, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 5:49 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

it took me a long time to find that thread, but I did.

In any case, I didn't really need to come out to my friends. It was really my parents I was worried about.

I do think my mom still holds out hope for grandkids.

But T and I have been together for ten years, we own a house together, we have two dogs, under most metrics we're pretty "normal," lol...

WELCOME

I'm not a big fan of the concept of "coming out" in that it implies once I've done it that's it complete. Every time I start a new job or similar, I need to do it, and for all it's not fraught with anxiety and tension the way it was when I was 15, it's still something I'm cautious around. I might be secure in my own identity and I might know rationally that I should be telling anyone with a problem with it to simply fuck off, but there's always that element of risk that it's going to alter the way I'm perceived and treated.

When I started at uni, I became quickly aware that for like 90% of people I met, I was the first real-life gay man they had ever encountered. I was quite casual about it - I did all my horrible awkward stuff years before that - and learned to quickly treat as "oh by the way I like men" as opposed to making it a big deal. But... it still has to be done, doesn't it?

On my 17th birthday my friends gave me some joke presents and one was a copy of a gay magazine. I got home and tossed it under my bed and didn't think anything of it. My stepdad found it a few weeks later, hit the roof and threw me out for two days. I came home after my mother calmed him down. My parents stayed together for another year after it. He basically told me that I could be gay but not "in your face," to tone down my mannerisms and not to ever be seen with a guy or bring anyone home to meet them. He was more concerned with the embarassment of what his friends might think than any of the pain and shame and fear I felt. My mother stayed with him another year, I hated him even more than I did before and cemented my plans to move on as soon as possible. I'm nearly the age my parents were when this happened and it's only really as I get closer to it I realise just how shitty this whole thing was, I try not to be bitter and angry but it's a struggle.

I'm not a big fan of the concept of "coming out" in that it implies once I've done it that's it complete.

It does? No snark intended, but I know no one who thinks this way (even if the month enforces it).

coming out to my family was a slowly unfolding, years-long nightmare that i'd rather not go into. as documented elsewhere on here they're basically very far removed from my life at this point.

i understand what boxedjoy is saying, though it would make sense that it happens less and less when your social milieu becomes more or less settled, which it is for me at this point.

lots of dysphoria these days and no one is alone, hang in there everyone <3

I think that anyone who has lived the experience of being gay knows it's not an accurate narrative of in/out binary division, and I think straight people find it easy to understand once they think about it. It's just, they don't really have to think about it because they don't have to live it. Narratives about "coming out" (especially in mainstream media) still often frame it as a decision and a process, rather than an ongoing navigation through social situations.

I've known a lot of gay men who've been out in certain areas of life and closeted in others and exist in a weird liminal zone. Being out to family and friends is different to being out to colleagues and different to being out in the sense that you can casually refer to "my boyfriend" in everyday small-talk. I know that I push and pull myself in and out of my perceived sexual identity constantly. Just last week I caught myself referring to a "flatmate" instead of my boyfriend because it felt uncomfortable to do so in that specific situation but I wouldn't say I'm "not out."

I didn't feel fully unclenched until I told my parents nine years after my bros knew, and even so, as my link explains, it took another four years for them to wake the fuck up, which took an ultimatum.

it's true, there are definitely people i don't want to come out to. i feel like if i don't have to see them again and they're obviously conservative or even predatory (like cops) then it's best to pass or leave it unspecified if possible.

i still get a little uncomfortable when we drive through small-town utah. i was pleasantly surprised when we stopped in a coffee shop in green river and the owners made a point of making us feel relaxed and welcome. (then a little less pleasantly surprised when they complained about the push to raise the minimum wage.)

my way of 'coming out' to conservative people i don't have to see again is being a grumpy bitch to them, lol

i still do the thing where if we're driving through small towns and we stop at a gas station, i keep a studied distance from my boyfriend.

so i never actually came out to my parents, in the sense of sitting them down and telling them "so, um, i'm gay." i love my parents and get along with them* but we've never really had a "sit down and have a heart-to-heart" kind of relationship. they ended up figuring it out for themselves when i brought a "friend from college" (ie my first bf) home with me for thanksgiving and my mom walked in on us cuddling. i later learned from my mom's now-ex-best friend that she spoke to her about it shortly after it happened, and i guess my mom expressed some worry, to which her friend countered "but even if he was gay, he's your son, and you still love him no matter what, right?" and she said "well, of course." my dad was more emotionally reticent and we never really explicitly talked about it but he was never anything other than welcoming and loving to my now-husband. to this day i feel i was a little bit cheated out of the experience, even if i know that i was relatively fortunate and that that process doesn't go great for a lot of gays (will always remember my college roommate's very turbulent coming out to his conservative texan parents).

before my parents found out though, i came out to my friends on livejournal when i was 17 lol

*dad's now deceased going on two years but couldn't think of a non-awkward way to refer to both my alive parent and my dead parent here

Thanks surm and everyone for the reassurance xx

Coming out for me was significant mostly in that marked the end of a long period of a sort of denial. There was a point where it became undeniable, and the reaction from friends at the time was "yeah, we've known that for years already, what took you so long?"

It's been about 6 years since I even halfheartedly looked for a date. There's no formal diagnosis, but it seems likely that I have ScPD. My insatiable need for alone time has strained relationships of all kinds. Most friends have given up calling me, at this point. I almost never wanna hang. There is still a yearning for some kind of companionship- I've developed a very animistic world view.

Good posts, boxedjoy. Ongoing navigation is OTM. I think it's okay to be bitter and angry. You're not wrong for what you feel.

Obviously have empathy for what y'all are talking about, particularly as I now have to navigate life with a sexual zone off-limits due to cancer, but while I don't mention it at first meeting or whatever, it hasn't been my experience to code-switch or that coming out is a process. Maybe I've just been lucky or maybe I just don't care, or maybe a bit of both. If someone has a problem with me being gay and married to my partner, then that's their issue.

I think the only thing that's changed for me in Philly is I don't dress like as much of a total slut, but that's also because I'm older and the east coast has very different mores about this stuff than the west, from my experience.

My coming out story involves me being shitty and my ex moving my kids halfway across the country after our divorce so I don’t really like to think about it

Although my parents are already much nicer and warmer to my new male partner than they ever were to my ex-wife so that part of things was not a problem, although I guess when your kid is about to hit 50 and has been effectively self-sufficient since graduating college, there’s not all that much you can do about how they’re going to live

xxp i kind of want to hear more about west coast vs east coast social mores tbh.

I always thought it was the other way around honestly, like I can tell you that New Yorkers on the whole are very eager to shed our winter layers, and will do so the moment the thermostat hits 72. It's like a cathartic thing, almost. Maximum skin exposure from the first nice day in April as a rule.

I haven't spent enough time on the west coast, but my sense is that in Southern California it's mostly just the tourists who dress that way in milder weather. Californians might have fewer opportunities to wear that favorite sweater or jacket.

I got ugly stares and called an ugly name when I wore my DICK BINGE shirt with cut-off sleeves on the east coast. I'd wear that shirt into shopping malls in conservative parts of California and no one would look twice. Sometimes I'd even get a compliment!

There are other personal anecdotal tales, I just find that people on the east coast are much more likely to straight up call me a faggot to my face if I dress a certain way, and I literally had that happen once, maybe twice, the entire time I lived in California.

That sucks :(
NYC isn't going to be the most representative sample of the east coast as a whole. New Yorkers are famously desensitized to pretty much whatever and anything more conventional than a bologna sandwich as hair accessory (at least 1 documented occurrence) is unlikely to turn heads.

I def experienced quite a bit of that in Long Island when I visited friends in the 90's, not that I wore anything too out there. But I later lived in a couple of pretty conservative towns in northern Nassau County (and one very small town that's really hippie) and it wasn't an issue. I don't know if times changed, or if it's the age difference.

So I know what you mean, it totally sucks, it's just been a while since I personally encountered that so maybe I've become overly optimistic about the state of things.

Actually living in these quite affluent parts of Long Island, my lifestyle and living conditions were very incongruous, more or less like a squatter. Car-free, at other times heat and plumbing-free also. I probably looked more 'different' than I realized at the time, but it was very conspicuous in other ways too, and I was constantly surprised at how tolerant the neighbors were.

To what extent I encountered resistance... It was mostly young kids who were obnoxious.

grew up just outside nyc and lived there for a time before moving to LA. pretty sure the first time anyone ever called me a faggot was when i was visiting SF for the first time.

i tend against ostentation generally but i've thought a lot about my clothes this year and how boring they all are and how i want to change that. but i also find clothes shopping fundamentally stressful - i know some people love it and are super-good at it but i have never really been one of those people. i just want some fun, stylish, durable clothes that are like...not fast fashion but not bank-breaking either.

What's convenient for you to get to in terms of stores? What general silhouette r u thinking?

It's summer y'all

texting with a beautiful boy I met at a friend's political debut

I see - and what age does boy mean nowadays?

Anyone know what this one's about?

holding poppers while posing for pictures with pop starts isn't a personality but y'all really stay in love with a mediocre white man who said racist shit in the past

— the morally corrupt juan barquin (@woahitsjuanito) July 19, 2021

from a followup tweet: this guy (no, me neither):

lol @ dumb bitch jordan firstman being a super spreader https://t.co/0htv0ZNYFS

— the morally corrupt juan barquin (@woahitsjuanito) July 19, 2021

lol that Tweet's by a friend/former student/local film writer

(no, me neither)

Truly.

Apparently it's this https://www.distractify.com/p/jordan-firstman-tweets

tbh I'm just glad I'm old now

Hello! Do we have a summer thread yet? Cuz it's summer y'all, and "my hair is comin' down" (name the movie and actress without googling and win a fun gif of what I think best represents your posting style! 🌈💰

hi surm! i have no idea but i'd appreciate a gif

New thread?

yes plz

is there a new one

haha you do it i suck at titles

Lucky for you, I got all these daddy issues: Queer Summer, 2021 (LGBTQQIAAP+++)

fill er up!