Gay dating apps pledge to do more to combat HIV stigma and promote testing
A report has been published into a ground-breaking summit that has taken place between gay dating app owners, health leaders and HIV organizations
davidh
Category Archives: MISC
Bill Clinton Knows Every Vote Counts in New Hampshire
Bill Clinton Knows Every Vote Counts in New Hampshire
Last week, former President Bill Clinton was in Manchester to attend the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson rally.
HRC.org
Was This Guy Date Raped Or Not? He Isn’t Sure.
Was This Guy Date Raped Or Not? He Isn’t Sure.
“I’ve never been in a situation where I thought I could be raped,” H. Alan Scott (pictured) writes in a blog post published on the Huffington Post. “I’m a big guy, strong, how could I be raped? Until the moment when my legs were in the air, totally vulnerable, looking into the eyes of a man insistent on fucking me, did I ponder, Am I in danger?”
Scott details how he first met the guy online a year earlier. They exchanged a few “sexy texts,” but it wasn’t until they were matched on Tinder that they finally agreed to meet in person.
“I had intended on staying in, but got that Friday night itch to go out,” he writes. “We had been texting, so I mentioned dinner. Two hours later, we met at a restaurant near my apartment.”
“During the dinner I told myself, Don’t invite him over. I didn’t feel that sexual spark. He was attractive, but not exactly doing it for me,” he continues. “Still, I studied him, thinking about if I could actually have sex with him. As we walked post-dinner, my brain was saying, ‘Don’t do it,’ while my mouth said, ‘Wanna come over?’”
So they went back to his apartment. One thing led to another and pretty soon they were naked in bed together. All the while, Scott kept wondering, “Why did I invite him over? I wasn’t lonely. I honestly just wanted dinner.”
“Ten minutes into casual foreplay,” he writes. “I noticed his obvious intention to penetrate. I said, ‘Not tonight.’ I could tell he was disappointed, so I continued, ‘I don’t usually start with that. It takes me a while to bottom, to get comfortable.’ This is where I should have said, I guess we’re not a match, it was lovely knowing you. Unfortunately, I didn’t.”
The man, Scott says, became “more dominant.”
“[N]ot exactly physical,” he says, “but contorting me into positions that were difficult for me to get out of. I’d say again, ‘Not tonight, it’s not going to happen’ … But he’d push harder, no lubrication, as I’d attempt to wiggle my way out of his hold.”
Scott began to wonder if he was in danger.
“My legs were in the air, he had my arms gripped down, I was locked in,” he writes. “I felt trapped and a little scared … I knew I didn’t like it, I wanted it to stop, but I didn’t want to be mean. Then, as he pushed harder, I felt that rush of pain, and panicked.”
Then all of a sudden, the guy yelped out in pain.
“My cat, Frasier, had bit his foot,” Scott writes.
He had been saved by a feline.
The man let go, then cracked a joke about how Scott wasn’t hard anymore.
“Sorry,” he replied, “rape is basically a boner-kill for me.”
Sadly, this sort of thing is not uncommon in the gay community. Earlier this year, a 34-year-old Canadian man in Philadelphia for an education conference was sexually assaulted at gunpoint by a man he met on Grindr. And that’s just one of many incidents in which online hookups have gone too far.
“Sexual violence against men isn’t unheard of, just not talked about,” Scott writes. “In a National Crime Victimization Survey, of 40,000 households questioned about rape and sexual violence, 38 percent of the incidents were against men.”
“Gay or straight,” he continues, “sexual violence against men does happen. As I came to learn, it’s the grey area of is this assault or just harmless aggressive behavior? is where the confusion begins.”
Related stories:
Six Tips For Online Cruising That Could Mean The Difference Between Life And Death
How Can We Keep Ourselves Safer When Hooking Up Online?
Dangerous Liaisons: Five Gay Online Hookups That Ended In Crime
Graham Gremore
feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/TpBuyUN8NKw/was-this-guy-date-raped-or-not-he-isnt-sure-20141023
Lisa Kudrow Thinks Gay Men Are 'Superior Beings,' Praises Their Appreciation Of 'The Comeback'
Lisa Kudrow Thinks Gay Men Are 'Superior Beings,' Praises Their Appreciation Of 'The Comeback'
Lisa Kudrow aka Phoebe Buffay aka Valerie Cherish recently spoke with PrideSource about the renewed second season of her cult classic comedy The Comeback. It seems that Ms. Kudrow holds the belief that homosexuals may be the most mentally and physically exceptional humans on earth. Maybe that’s why they are so drawn to Valerie’s exceptionally uncomfortable and humorous shenanigans…
Frontiers LA reports:
“The people I work with are gay. I don’t know who I’m going to offend by leaving them out, but I need to say that I think gay men are superior beings in my mind. I do believe that.
It’s all so tricky. I studied biology and the brains are anatomically different. They just are. There’s a stronger connection with the corpus callosum (in gay men). The two sides of the brain communicate better than a straight man’s, and I think that has to be really important. They’re not women – they’re still men – and women also have thicker corpus callosums, so I think it’s the combination of those qualities that makes them like a superhuman to me.”
Kudrow offered an explanation for The Comeback‘s gay fanbase, too, citing the constant difficulties they face as a hot button minority in today’s society.
“I was watching Will & Grace once and there was this hilarious episode where Karen’s at a theater and she throws her flask and it hits someone in the head, and there’s this joke that gay men wouldn’t care ‘cause, ‘Eh, all in a day.’ (Laughs) Getting, like, smacked with something is ‘all in a day.’ So I wonder if that’s what it is – because Valerie gets, you know, humiliated – or humiliates herself – all the time. And it’s like, ‘Yeah, well, that’s the world.’”
Leave it to Kudrow (or is it Cherish?) to make light of the embarassing and upsetting moments in life. But hey, maybe getting through all of that is what makes the LGBTQ community “superhuman,” huh? Kudrow (in character as Cherish) may get a chance to bring that insight to RuPaul’s Drag Race, too; she’s been offered a guest judge position for next season:
“You know, I’ve been asked to, but I don’t know how Valerie works on a talk show or as a judge. I don’t know. I’m thinking about it. I’m trying to figure out how it works. I don’t wanna say no!
(Laughs) But she could say all kinds of – I don’t know what we’re allowed to [say on Drag Race]. I mean, she’s indelicate and gets things wrong and, you know, I don’t know how offensive she’s gonna be.”
Check out the full interview here.
Get ready for The Comeback season two, beginning November 9th.
Joseph Ehrman-Dupre
SONA: National day of outrage, isasagawa bukas ng ilang LGBT groups
SONA: National day of outrage, isasagawa bukas ng ilang LGBT groups
State of the Nation is a nightly newscast anchored by award-winning broadcast journalist, Jessica Soho. It airs Mondays to Fridays at 9:00 PM (PHL Time) on GMA News TV Channel 11. For more…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7TrmSty6tE&feature=youtube_gdata
Op-ed: Couples Invite Harm When They Don't Talk About HIV
Op-ed: Couples Invite Harm When They Don't Talk About HIV
Targeting same-sex couples could be the missing link in ending the spread of HIV in the U.S.
Rob Stephenson
www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/10/23/op-ed-couples-invite-harm-when-they-dont-talk-about-hiv
Anderson Cooper Scolds Reporter Who Asks For 'Selfie' At Ottawa Shooting Site
Anderson Cooper Scolds Reporter Who Asks For 'Selfie' At Ottawa Shooting Site
Anderson Cooper got into a verbal altercation with a Sun News contributor Wednesday night while reporting live on the horrific shooting in Ottawa, Canada.
Cooper was taking a break from live coverage when journalist Vandon Gene approached him and asked for a photo. Cooper quickly denied the request due to the circumstances, telling Gene to “have a little respect.”
But when he wouldn’t back down, Cooper didn’t hold back.
“No, I will not take a photo with you on a day where someone was killed,” Cooper said firmly. “It seems wildly inappropriate.”
Gene continued to press Cooper on Twitter Wednesday night for refusing to take a picture with him.
“I can’t believe CNN would employ you when you SWEAR to your fans,” he tweeted. Adding: “I simply asked for a photo. YOU are exploiting this tragedy by flying to Ottawa from NYC. I just got out of a 12 hr lockdown.”
The tweets have since been deleted, but were captured in a screen grab:
I wonder if @SunNewsNetwork is aware of the conduct of their employee @vandongene here? pic.twitter.com/zsbEgRTVSk
— Chris Alexander (@ChrisAlexand3r) October 23, 2014
And Cooper responded:
.@vandongene dude, you were rude and asking for a selfie near where a soldier was killed. It was completely inappropriate. Think about it
— Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) October 23, 2014
.@vandongene I can’t believe any station employs you, and if you want to be a journalist, learn how to behave when covering a story
— Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) October 23, 2014
Gene apologized early Thursday morning for the incident, though not to Cooper directly:
I unreservedly apologize for my actions yesterday. It was completely inappropriate, disrespectful, and distasteful.
— Vandon Gene (@vandongene) October 23, 2014
H/T Mediaite
5 terrifying and fun adventures in South Africa
5 terrifying and fun adventures in South Africa
Go tête-à-tête with a great white shark or overcome your fear of heights zip-lining across the canopy of a forest… just a few thrills in the Rainbow Nation
jeanpaulz
www.gaystarnews.com/article/5-terrifying-and-fun-adventures-south-africa231014
Smith College Students Continue to Push for Trans-Inclusive Admissions Policy
Alliance Defending Freedom Claims Anti-gay Idaho Wedding Chapel Never Sought Non-Profit Status – VIDEO
Alliance Defending Freedom Claims Anti-gay Idaho Wedding Chapel Never Sought Non-Profit Status – VIDEO
Anti-gay Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has posted a response to a letter from the city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho relating to the litigation group’s discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a local wedding chapel, reports Joe My God.
Donald and Evelyn Knapp, the owners of Hitching Post, a wedding chapel in Coeur d’Alene, claim in the lawsuit that the city’s ordinance prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians is unconstitutionally forcing them to violate their religious beliefs by performing same-sex marriages.
Back in May, the Knapps said that they would rather close their doors than perform same-sex wedding ceremonies.
The letter sent by the city to ADF on October 20th makes it clear that, although the Knapps registered their business as a religious corporation early this month, “based on the facts and their corporate status at the time [the couple refused to perform a same-sex wedding],” Hitching Post comes under the city’s non-discrimination order.
However, ADF has posted a response on its website backtracking on claims that Hitching Post has in fact been registered as a non-profit religious organization. ADF has attacked the city’s “disingenuous waffling” and is now arguing that the Coeur d’Alene intends to “prosecute a for-profit business.”
“The city has said explicitly, repeatedly, and publicly that it would prosecute a for-profit business. That’s what the Hitching Post is, and it has never claimed to be anything other than that.
“While the Knapps do operate a ministry, they charge a fee for the ceremonies in order to be able to make a modest living. Therefore, the city, in its letter and elsewhere, is admitting that it would prosecute these pastors, who are clearly under a present threat of being sent to jail, fined, or both.
“The city has had months to figure out its own ordinance, and our clients have years of incarceration and devastating fines hanging over their heads. The city’s disingenuous waffling is indefensible.”
Earlier this month, the ADF began lobbying Slovakia’s constitutional court to allow activists to place a referendum on the country’s ballot that would reinforce the current bans on gay marriage, adoption, and domestic partner protections. The ADF’s efforts in promoting bigotry abroad were profiled in Human Rights Campaign’s “Export of Hate” report last month.
Watch an ABC report on the case, AFTER THE JUMP…
Jim Redmond
