Alec Mapa Talks Cruises, Comedians And His “French” Family

It was on an LGBT family friendly Carribean cruise that Alec Mapa and his husband decided to adopt.

And it’s easy to see why: R Family Vacations goes out of it’s way to make sure everyone is having a good time, whether happily single, looking for love, or a member of the growing community of same-sex parents raising children.

Join R Family’s next adventure, with Olivia, no less, the LGBT Family & Friends Hard Rock Vallarta Resort in Puerto Vallarta.

In honor of the cruise, Queerty chatted via email with the funny man about R Family, his favorite family outings, raising an African-American kid, and his all-time fave comedians…

Tell us about your first R famaily cruise ? Where did you go?

I was booked as a performer on a Carribean cruise in 2007. The Carribean is always a welcome destination but going on an LGBT cruise with families and their kids was like meeting a thousand best friends all at once. On the R Family cruise my husband and I met our tribe, and it was because of the cruise that we decided to become parents. After meeting people who looked like us and had kids, we decided that it was time for us to start a family as well.

How does your son describe his family to his friends?
We told our son that our family was special because we all looked different from each other. We said “Papa is Cajun, which means he’s kind of French, I’m Filipino and you’re African American, but what makes us a family is that we love each other.” On his first day of Kindergarten another kid asked why he had two dads and he said “Because we’re French!” We go to a school with lots of LGBT parents , so honestly we’re not that exotic.

How do you find family friendly travel in the “gay scene” given that a lot of it is about bars and apps?
I think the mistake a lot of people make when discussing the LGBT community is that there’s only one “scene.” We are a rainbow community comprised of as many scenes as you can imagine. On an R Family vacation all those scenes converge and everyone is welcome. I’ve seen party boys rock out with lesbians with kids and I’ve seen gay dads give twinks a run for their money on the dance floor. There’s more to us than bars and apps. At least I hope so.

Now that marriage is legal everywhere, how do you think that will add to the options for gay-friendly destinations?
What, like we’ll all be going to Alabama next? I think the gay friendly places will become friendlier and the unfriendly places will become so undesirable they’ll either stick to their guns or grow up and join the party.

You’ve traveled often with “all gay men” and with a “mixed crowd with gay and lesbians.” How do the experiences differ?
The all gay men excursions aren’t really designed to be family friendly and that’s what make them enjoyable to folks without kids. However, the R Family guest isn’t all that different from an all adult cruise. I’ve gotten just as drunk on R Family as any other cruise. The biggest difference is we’re all there to celebrate with our families and that’s a completely different kind of fun.

Do these vacations reflect your own life? (men, women, gay, straight)
Our son’s favorite baby sitters are transgender show girls and drag queens so it’s fair to say our life is pretty diverse. So yeah, the vacations look like a tamer version of our home life. But not that much tamer.

What comedians do you love?
Can’t beat old school Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Redd Foxx or Moms Mabley.What are your three favorite jokes?

• I’ve watched so much gay porn. Every time I eat a banana, I spit on it.

• I’m Asian, my husband is white and our son is black. We look like the last two minutes from It’s A Small World.
• Gay people want the same things as straight people. The only difference is we’re gay, so we want nicer things.

Chris Bull

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Artist Spotlight: Ron Amato

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Christopher Harrity

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/art/artist-spotlight/2015/09/05/artist-spotlight-ron-amato

BBC star claims Strictly Come Dancing rejected him because he wanted to dance in a same-sex couple

A gay quizzing star on the BBC has claimed Strictly Come Dancing rejected him because he wanted to dance with a man.

Eggheads’ CJ de Mooi, who claims he was being considered for the show, said he would appear but only if he would dance with a male professional.

Jeremy Vine, the presenter of Eggheads, was chosen as a contestant.

Speaking to the Mirror, he said: ‘I can’t believe they picked Jeremy over me. I’m quite upset. It’s because I wanted to dance in a same-sex couple.

‘Someone at the BBC told me at least for the foreseeable future neither Strictly Come Dancing or the US version Dancing With The Stars will have a same-sex couple on. How disappointing.’

He also claims pro dancer Robin Windsor had been axed because he wanted same-sex pairings. He had told GSN earlier this year that it would be a ‘great thing to happen’.

De Mooi said: ‘Robin was pushing for same-sex couples, suddenly he’s not in it.’

In June, former pro dancer James Jordan said same-sex partnerships on the show would turn it into a ‘joke’.

A BBC spokesperson said they never approached CJ to participate on this year’s series of Strictly Come Dancing, adding that CJ’s agent ‘gave us the opportunity to consider him but there was only one person we ever wanted from Eggheads and that was Jeremy Vine’.

‘Strictly Come Dancing is a family show and we’ve chosen the traditional format of mixed-sex couples,’ they added.

‘At the moment we’ve no plans to introduce same-sex couples.’

Gay comic Julian Clary, who competed on the second series of Strictly Come Dancing, has also called for same-sex couples dancing.

He told Press Association: ‘I think it would be fun, first of all, to watch a same-sex couple dancing.

‘I’m aware that there are difficulties with the lifts and the mechanics of the dancing. But there are gay ballroom dancing clubs around the country, so they’ve found a way to make it work.’

The US or UK have yet to feature a celebrity with a same-sex professional dance partner. Israel’s Dancing With The Stars was the first version of the hit franchise to feature a same-sex partnership, with Austria following in 2011.

The post BBC star claims Strictly Come Dancing rejected him because he wanted to dance in a same-sex couple appeared first on Gay Star News.

Joe Morgan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/bbc-star-claims-strictly-come-dancing-rejected-him-because-he-wanted-to-dance-in-a-same-sex-couple/

PHOTOS: Rugby Star Sam Stanley Looks Great Playing The Guitar Naked

England Rugby Sevens star Sam Stanley made international headlines this week when he came out as gay. He’s the first English professional rugby union player to come out publicly, and, naturally, it immediately sent our hearts into a tailspin.

Not only is 23-year-old Stanley a great athlete (he’s represented England a total of five times internationally), courageous enough to come out publicly in a homophobic sport, but he’s super cute to boot, with his olive complexion, honey brown eyes, and full head of curly hair.

Oh, and did we mention he’s a pocket gay who he sings and plays guitar?

Scroll down for photos and videos of our latest crush…

A video posted by Sam Stanley (@samstannerz) on Jul 16, 2015 at 11:11am PDT

A photo posted by Sam Stanley (@samstannerz) on Jun 28, 2015 at 7:21am PDT

A video posted by Sam Stanley (@samstannerz) on Mar 30, 2015 at 8:17am PDT

Graham Gremore

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Five Philippines cops suspended over alleged extortion of gay couple

Five police officers in the Philippines have been relieved of their duties after they allegedly took part in the extortion of a gay couple they pulled out of a taxi.

Manila Police District Chief Superintendent Rolando Nana told a press conference on Friday that an investigation was underway into allegations against SPO1 Renato Ablaza, PO3 Ruel Aguilar, PO2 Patrick Guevarra, and PO2 Ronald Robles.

The complainant Michael Hingpit says that he and his boyfriend were riding in a taxi around 1am on 28 August when it was stopped by officers who then claimed they had been carrying a sachet of methamphetamine, known locally as ‘shabu.’

The officers then took them to the V Mapa precinct station where they were searched and cash was allegedly taken from them.

Hingpit alleges that he was then assaulted by Aguilar and Ablaza who slapped and punched him.

The officers are then alleged to have ordered Hingpit and his boyfriend to perform oral sex on each other in order to humiliate them but they refused.

The police officers allegedly told Hingpit that he would have to pay them 25,000 Philippines Pesos (around $US500) before they would be released.

Hingpit called his sister and asked her to bring whatever cash she could but she could only produce 4,500 Philippines Pesos when she arrived at the station.

Chief Superintendent Nana told the press conference that the officers’ firearms had been confiscated and their precinct commander Senior Inspector Rodolfo Ronald Leechui had also been relieved of his duties while the investigation takes place.

The case came to prominence after the victim contacted a columnist at the Phillipine Daily Inquirer.

The post Five Philippines cops suspended over alleged extortion of gay couple appeared first on Gay Star News.

Andrew Potts

www.gaystarnews.com/article/five-philippines-cops-suspended-over-extortion-of-gay-couple/

Lawyers For Kim Davis Vow To Appeal Contempt Order

After a legal showdown Thursday that resulted in her incarceration for civil contempt, Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who has made headlines for her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is expected to remain in custody for at least a week as her lawyers plan an appeal.

Addressing members of the media Friday outside the detention facility in Grayson, Kentucky, where Davis is in custody, the chairman of her legal team said she remained “in good spirits” after her first night behind bars.

“Kim Davis slept well last night,” said Liberty Council’s Mat Staver, according to The Washington Post. “She slept with a very good conscience.”

For a civil contempt order to be dissolved, a litigant must simply comply with it, at which point the court could order the litigant’s release. Davis could also resign and end the matter.

But Staver said at the press conference that Davis “has no intention to resign,” and that “she will continue to serve the people of Rowan County as she has done for so many years.” In a recent court filing, Davis’ lawyers contended that it was “factually impossible” for her to comply with an order to issue licenses to same-sex couples.

Deputy clerks in Rowan County began issuing marriage licenses early Friday.

Buzzfeed News reported that at least one of the same-sex couples who received a license on Friday wondered about its validity because Davis’ name didn’t appear on it. According to WLKY, though, both an attorney for Rowan County and lawyers for the same-sex couples who obtained licenses Friday said the documents were valid.

To Davis’ legal team, however, the licenses are “not worth the paper they’re written on,” according to The Courier-Journal, a Kentucky newspaper.

It’s not immediately clear whether Davis’ lawyers will succeed in their challenge to Davis’ incarceration. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Bunning declined to certify the contempt order for appeal, and legal precedent or other limits may stand in the lawyers’ way.

According to ABC News, Davis is expected to remain in jail for at least a week as the judge monitors the compliance of Rowan County deputy clerks who have agreed to fill in for her.

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Ukrainian tennis pro Sergiy Stakhovsky says no gay male players in top 100

The 60th ranked player on the men’s pro tennis tour claims there are no closeted gay players among the top 100 but there are ‘a lot’ of lesbian players.

Sergiy Stakhovsky of the Ukraine made the claim before being eliminated from the US Open on Friday (4 September).

‘If there are 100 guys, or 128 guys, I mean, if somebody’s different, he falls out, doesn’t he?’ Stakhovsky told reporters. ‘In a locker room, where half the guys walking in towels are naked, yeah, you definitely would see something different, no?’

No male pro has ever come out as gay during his career or even after his career has ended. In contrast, former number one players Martina Navratilova and Amelie Mauresmo were out during their careers as were doubles players Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs.

Stakhovsky caused a flab at Wimbledon earlier this year when he told a Ukrainian media outlet that half of the women on the Women’s Tennis Association tour are lesbians and because of this, he would not want his daughter to play pro tennis.

He now claims his comments were misunderstood but did not back away from his belief that there are many lesbians on tour.

‘Through my years, I have a lot of great relationship with WTA players. So I do know how the WTA locker room is like,’ he said. ‘It’s not like we’re going to mistreat somebody in the locker room, it doesn’t matter [if that] person is a homosexual or not to me. We live in a world where everybody has the right to be what he wants to be. Nobody can say anything to me, it’s my life, I can do whatever I want with it.”

Stakhovsky added: ‘For me, I don’t think the community in tennis would discriminate a gay if he would turn up.’

The post Ukrainian tennis pro Sergiy Stakhovsky says no gay male players in top 100 appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/ukrainian-tennis-pro-sergiy-stakhovsky-says-no-gay-male-players-in-top-100/

Truvada Protected 100 Percent Of Study Participants From HIV

A study of 657 people taking PrEP, the daily pill that can prevent HIV, has found that not a single person contracted the potentially deadly virus over two and a half years of observation. 

The research showed that despite rising rates of STIs in the group, as well as a decline in condom use, the pill was able to protect everyone involved from HIV. The study was conducted by doctors from Kaiser Permanente, a managed care company based in Oakland, California.

“What our study shows very reassuringly is that PrEP works in a real world setting,” said lead researcher Dr. Jonathan Volk of Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center. “HIV prevention in 2015 is very exciting because we have several tools that are available for reducing risk, and PrEP is one of those tools.” 

PrEP, which stands for preexposure prophylaxis, is sold under the brand name Truvada. It has been on the market for HIV treatment since 2004, but wasn’t approved by the FDA for HIV prevention until 2012. However, a survey of half of America’s pharmacies found that only about 3,000 people had begun taking it as of March 2014, as opposed to the half-million Americans the pharmaceutical company estimated would be good candidates for the drug. 

Volk’s finding is significant because it comes from one of the first “real word” studies of PrEP use, as opposed to clinical trials. The researchers hope that while the drug seems to be well-known to the gay community (99 percent of study participants were men who have sex with men), more work needs to be done to reach other high-risk men and women including transgender people and injection drug users. 

“Interest in PrEP in our experience has been lower among those groups, and we want to make sure we’re reaching all individuals who are at risk for HIV,” said Volk. “When you look at who is getting infected with HIV, we still have work to do.”

Volk and his team recruited 657 people who were interested in taking PrEP as part of the study. They measured the participants at baseline for HIV and other STIs, and then checked up on them again every three months.  

Volk notes that based on data from a different PrEP trial with a similarly high rate of STIs, he would have expected an HIV rate of 8.9 cases per 100-person years in his cohort. Instead, the HIV incidence rate was zero.

Some HIV/AIDS experts are critical of Truvada, arguing it promotes irresponsible sexual practices and may be responsible for declining condom use and rising rates of other STIs. Indeed, Volk’s study found that after six months of PrEP use, 30 percent of participants had at least one STI, ranging from  chlamydia to gonorrhea and syphilis. After 12 months, that percentage increased to 50 percent of participants.

Additionally, 188 PrEP-using participants also responded to a survey about their sex lives six months into taking the drugs, and reported that while most didn’t change the number of sex partners they had, 41 percent did decrease their condom use. 

However, Volk emphasized that this behavioral data isn’t rigorous enough to establish a causal link to Truvada use. For instance, this data doesn’t assess HIV risk of the participant or their partners, and it doesn’t take into account whether people are “PrEP sorting” — choosing to forgo condoms if their partner is also taking PrEP. And, of course, there’s no control group to assess how PrEP did or didn’t change people’s sexual choices.

“Without that more nuanced understanding of when and how people are using condoms, it’s really difficult to make those determinations,” he said.

One limitation of Volk’s study is that it took place in San Francisco, a city with higher rates of HIV than others in the U.S. This means there are also higher rates of HIV treatment and thus viral undetectability, and Volk suggests that his findings may not be generalizable to other cities. 

“It really extends the very impressive evidence we have from randomized controlled trials and demonstration projects and provides us with very exciting news: that this medication can be delivered effectively in a real world setting,” Volk concluded. 

Volk’s research was funded by a Kaiser Permanente community benefits research grant and published in the Oxford journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.  

— 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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See video and vines of Harry Styles waving and wearing rainbow pride flag onstage

During One Direction’s concert in Buffalo, New York, on Thursday (3 September), Harry Styles showed that he has pride.

The 21-year-old walked onstage with a pride flag which he wore as a cape then waved as he sang.

His gesture has resulted in plenty of vines and videos like the one below and scored Styles points for his very public gesture for LGBTI equality.

Styles made a similar gesture with a rainbow pride flag at a concert back in July at a concert in Vancouver.

Twitter exploded with support. A sampling:

The post See video and vines of Harry Styles waving and wearing rainbow pride flag onstage appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/see-video-and-vines-of-harry-styles-waving-and-wearing-rainbow-pride-flag-onstage/

Liza Minnelli Bids Adieu To New York, New York; The World Stops Spinning

Stop reading about Kim Davis for just a moment and try to think of the superstar who is most synonymous with New York City. Frank Sinatra? Ol’ Blue Eyes is more closely associated with his hometown Hoboken, New Jersey. Barbra Streisand? The Brooklyn-born entertainer has spent the past four decades on the West Coast. Let’s go with that singular sensation Liza Minnelli, who has called the Big Apple her home since the 1960s and spent countless nights hobnobbing with Andy and Bianca at Manhattan’s most notorious hot spot Studio 54. Anytime the city needs to boost its spirit, you can count on Liza with a Z belting out the anthem she made famous, “(Theme from) New York, New York.” To many people, Minnelli is New York City.

But that’s about to change. The EGOT-winner has just sold her posh Upper East Side pad for a cool $8.37 mill (check out the amazing photos here) because she hasn’t been spending much time in the building, which was also home to Joan Crawford at one time.

The lady is heading west to live in eternally-sunny L.A., where she was raised as show biz royalty as the daughter of Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli.

Take a moment to process that information. Liza Minnelli will no longer live in New York City. It’s a sign of the Apocalypse, we tell you. However, before you batten down the hatches, be aware that Liza will return to Manhattan on occasion.

“Liza Minnelli will always consider New York City to be her home although she’s recently been spending more time in Los Angeles for work and to be closer to her family and friends,” Scott Gorenstein, Minnelli’s longtime publicist told the New York Daily News. “While she may have sold her apartment she still plans to spend a lot of time in the city and will be here in the upcoming weeks to rehearse her new show, Great Day.”

Start spreading that news, New Yorkers. In the meantime, behold the razzle-dazzle of Liza performing her signature tune in 1982 with some assistance from the New York Yankees.

Jeremy Kinser

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