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PHOTOS: James Pianka Fills Out His Briefs In All The Right Ways
James Pianka models six pairs of casual underwear in our exclusive photoshoot below, each with simple and effective designs that stun without ever trying too hard. These underwear styles are more modern than the common boxer brief, and will always provide a more flattering fit, thanks to their silhouettes.
Photo Credit: Jerrad Matthew Exclusively for The Underwear Expert
Underwear Expert
Tunisian student jailed for being gay after lover is murdered
A young Tunisian man will spend a year in jail after confessing to having a same-sex relationship as a result of his telephone number turning up as part of a murder investigation.
The unnamed student was arrested on 6 September in the resort city of Sousse after his number was found on the body of a man he had been sleeping with.
He denied any involvement in the killing but confessed his relationship with the deceased to explain his connection to him.
Authorities believed his story after subjecting him to a medical examination but handed him over to prosecutors as a result of his confession and he was sentenced on Tuesday to a year in prison.
The maximum sentence for sex between men in Tunisia is three years in prison.
The Tunisian Association for the Support of Minorities has been calling on the government to repeal the country’s anti-sodomy laws and has accused it of using the law to intimidate the political opposition.
In 2013 the leader of the Liberal Party of Tunisia was convicted of having sex with a 20 year old man after they were allegedly witnessed having sex in a hotel spa room though many believed the charges were trumped up.
The post Tunisian student jailed for being gay after lover is murdered appeared first on Gay Star News.
Andrew Potts
www.gaystarnews.com/article/tunisian-student-jailed-for-being-gay-after-lover-is-murdered/
ReThink Review: Stonewall</em> – Don't Boycott It. Just Skip It
Controversy surrounding Roland Emmerich’s gay rights historical drama Stonewall started early when the trailer was released. In it, we see the film’s young hero, Danny (Jeremy Irvine), is the person who throws the fateful brick that shatters the window of Greenwich Village’s Mafia-run Stonewall gay bar, a moment that incited days of rioting that are widely credited as starting the gay pride movement and the battle for gay rights. While historians are not sure exactly who threw that first brick, the fact that Danny is a white, middle-class boy from Indiana drew the ire of several gay and transgender groups, who announced a boycott of the film since the trailer seemed to indicate that it would be yet another whitewashing of history, painting a handsome, white, straight-looking male as the savior while downplaying the pivotal role that lesbians, people of color, drag queens, and transgender people played in starting the riots. Watch the trailer for Stonewall below.
There are a lot of unanswered questions about the confluence of factors and people that ignited the crowd outside the Stonewall that night in June of 1969, including the identity of the brick thrower. And from some pieces I’ve read, the way that some queer groups attempt to answer these questions may have as much to do with historical accuracy as inter-group political battles and a desire to be respected and acknowledged for playing an important role in (or inciting/leading) arguably the most important moment in the history of gay rights.
As a non-gay, non-historian outsider who doesn’t know the competing narratives of this debate, I’ll punt on the competing theories of who might’ve thrown that brick and which (if any) group might’ve been more prominently in the lead that night. I also understand that fact-based movies often composite, condense, and utilize artistic license to serve the demands of cinematic storytelling, though I think Emmerich’s decision to have Danny be the brick thrower was as a bad one for reasons I’ll get into later. In general, I’m against the idea of boycotting any movie based on content that no one has seen, as was the case for the calls to boycott Stonewall based solely on a trailer.
While I sympathize with those calling for a boycott of Stonewall, I personally don’t support a boycott, especially since I don’t believe that Emmerich had any malicious intent. However, let me be clear: I don’t think ANYONE should see Stonewall. Not because of its politics or revisionism, but because Stonewall is a terrible movie. Like really, really terrible.
Stonewall fails in almost every aspect imaginable across its too-long 129-minute run time. The characters, writing, and dialogue have the same kind of realism, thoughtfulness, depth, and nuance found in Emmerich’s other films, like Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow. Danny, as a character, is incredibly bland, to the point that it’s unclear what Danny understands or thinks about his sexuality, which was widely considered at the time to be a mental disorder. Is he scared, ashamed, conflicted, defiant, proud, in denial, or is he simply afraid of how his homophobic, hard-ass football coach dad might react? However, we know for sure that Danny’s 14-year-old sister, Phoebe (Joey King), is 100% supportive of Danny being gay, even though Danny doesn’t seem totally sure of it himself and a kid Phoebe’s age in that era, location, and media landscape would’ve been incapable of even imagining an out gay person (there were no gay role models) or a world where being gay was anything other than something negative.
Once Danny arrives at Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, the group of gay street kids he falls in with have all the subtlety and relatability as a giant, fire-breathing, radioactive lizard. The kids are so one-dimensional (gayness/being fabulous being their sole dimension) that I was honestly surprised to learn after the movie that Emmerich himself is gay. In fact, the way most of the gay people in the film are portrayed (especially those over 30 years old, who are mostly depicted as suspect, pathetic, or outright repulsive), I imagined that Stonewall was made by well-meaning but naïve heterosexual men who had never met a gay person in their lives and spent the writing and shooting of the film telling each other, “I’ll bet this is what gay people are like.” And when a character does attempt to speak his truth, it’s only slightly less heavy-handed than a flying saucer blowing up the White House.
In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of a single emotionally honest, moving, authentic moment in Stonewall, which is sadly impressive for a movie that’s supposed to be about the fight for human dignity and the right to love who you want, which should be universally understandable. Since we know so little about the characters, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for them. Jonathan Rhys Meyer’s character, Trevor, is a slightly older (therefore suspect) gay man who advocates a more conservative path to gay acceptance through legislation and convincing America that gay people are normal members of society. But instead of extending some sympathy to a character who, for good reason, is worried about a violent backlash against gay people if their movement is too loud, strident, and scary for average Americans, Trevor and those who share his beliefs are labeled as cowards who are “all talk”.
That’s because teenage Danny, who has lived a comfortable middle-class life in Indiana, has been on Christopher Street for less than a year, and has only nominally been out of the closet and a member of the gay community for less than that, is angrier and more fed up with the treatment of gays than the denizens of Christopher St. who have been living these indignities for years (including weekly raids and arrests at the Stonewall). As dumb an idea as that is, the film then proceeds to undercut it by showing that Danny’s true motivations aren’t gay rights, but sticking it to Trevor (who seduced Danny and quickly moved on to another) and his wimpy non-violent ways. And, more importantly, Danny discovers, in his words, “I like being mad”, which is supposed to be the culmination of Danny’s arc. Not that he sees himself and the world differently, or that he realizes something about the inherent value of a life lived with dignity. It’s that he likes being angry and violent, and in doing so, accidentally creates gay pride — or, as he screams (apropos of nothing), “Gay power!”
There are so many things both big and small that are wrong with Stonewall, from the Christopher Street set looking like something you’d find at an East Coast version of Disney’s California Adventure, the film’s failure to accurately depict how virulently anti-gay America was in the late 60s, to the fact that the film not only shows just the first night of rioting (there were several), but that it doesn’t bother to show how or why the riots changed the opinions of either straight or gay people. Who threw the first brick is really the least of the film’s problems.
As is usually the case with scripted movies based on actual events, documentaries about the subject are vastly superior. And in regards to the Stonewall riots, such a documentary already exists — the wonderful 2010 film Stonewall Uprising. Instead of boycotting Stonewall, just skip it and instead watch this great film featuring interviews with the people who were really there and can give the needed context of what America’s views on homosexuals were at the time, why the Stonewall and Christopher Street were so special and treasured by the gay people who hung out there, and how the riots went down and the lasting impression they left. Below is my review of Stonewall Uprising along with a discussion I had with Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks about the film, the history of America’s anti-gay laws, and how far we have and haven’t come.
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South Dakota to pay $242,000 in fees to lawyers, gay rights group
The US state of South Dakota on Friday agreed to pay US$242,000 to attorneys who challenged the state’s ban on same-sex marriages last year prior to the landmark decision by the US Supreme Court in June this year which allows same-sex couples to marry nationwide.
Attorney Josh Newville of Minneapolis-based firm Madia Law sued the state on behalf of six same-sex couples, challenging the state’s gay marriage ban and its refusal to recognize marriages of same-sex couples who had legally married in other states.
US District Court Judge Karen Schreier ruled in the couples’ favor in January, but put her decision on hold pending appeals.
A federal appeals court affirmed the court’s ruling in August which allowed attorneys to proceed with their plan to seek legal fees from the state.
Under federal law, attorneys in federal civil rights cases can petition a court to award them legal fees if a court finds in their favor.
According to the Argus Leader, about US$182,000 will go to Minneapolis firm Madia Law and about US$59,000 to the National Center for Lesbian Rights that provided additional legal counsel in the case.
The funds would likely come from the state’s extraordinary litigation fund and not from the attorney general’s office as the office isn’t responsible for paying for challenges to the state constitution or state laws, said Sara Rabern, the spokeswoman for Attorney General Marty Jackley.
Newville was quoted as saying, ‘What this case was really about was people’s rights and treating people equally.’
‘You can’t put a dollar amount on the indignity and the harm of not treating people equally,’ he said.
The post South Dakota to pay $242,000 in fees to lawyers, gay rights group appeared first on Gay Star News.
Sylvia Tan
www.gaystarnews.com/article/south-dakota-to-pay-242000-in-fees-to-lawyers-gay-rights-group/
Check In to This Scary Hotel With The Sexiest Guys Of American Horror Story
For Season 5 of his television anthology of terror, Ryan Murphy books us a room at the murderous American Horror Story: Hotel.
Hotels are sexy — on the Strip, Grand, or by the hour — so this 13-part tale set in a 1930s L.A. art-deco brick pile called the Cortez is already turning us on. Add Matt Bomer and we’re calling down for a late check-out because he definitely likes to cuddle.
The Cortez begins life in 1930, built by psychotic and brunette Evan Peters to accommodate his mass-murdering habit; in the present day, Lady Gaga freshens the place up with some Arne Jacobsen egg chairs and a menu of ancient blood virus.
Along with shout-outs to Barton Fink, The Shining and those Cosmopolitan “just the right amount of wrong” ads, look for creepy blonde children, Darren Criss in a Silver Lake hipster cameo, and body-accommodating trash chutes. For serial-killing Peters, size matters.
Look as well for more man-time in the latest installment. With muse Jessica Lange back on Broadway, Murphy makes Hotel his muskiest AHS yet.
Here’s a portrait in some exclusive portraits of the sexiest staff and guests, plus one drill-bit-dildo-wielding Addiction Demon.
American Horror Story: Hotel premieres Wednesday, October 7 at 10pm on FX.
Enjoy your stay…
1. Matt Bomer is Donovan
Pretty boy Bomer plays Gaga’s longtime lover, and both draw blood with some Daphne Guinness-inspired chain mail gloves. The handsome one will need his platelets when a younger and, if possible, prettier rival shows up. Kathy Bates works the front desk as Bomer’s mom.
2. Finn Wittrock is Tristan Duffy
Hypersexual male model Tristan gets with Gaga at a Cortez fashion show. What about Matt?! Hello, blood-draining polyamory.
3. Evan Peters is James March
Peters gets the hair to go with his noirish, mass-murdering March, modeled on H. H. Holmes AKA America’s First Serial Killer, who built a so-called Murder Castle at Chicago’s World’s Fair in 1893. Look for more serial killers like Aileen Wuornos and John Wayne Gacy at a dinner party in 2-part Halloween Devil’s Night.
4. Cheyenne Jackson is Will Drake
You’ve already seen Jackson in one self-directed hotel production. This time, Liz Lemon’s dumb boyfriend plays a New York fashion designer looking for inspiration. Check Sarah Paulson’s room for heroin chic.
5. Denis O’Hare is Liz Taylor
O’Hare tests your beer goggles as cross-dressing Liz Taylor, a fixture at the hotel bar.
6. Max Greenfield is Gabriel
The formerly-fat New Girl star plays a platinum blond Hollywood junkie, and apparently lost 30 more pounds for what Murphy describes as the series’ “most disturbing” scene yet.
7. Wes Bentley is Detective John Lowe
Handsome Bentley moves into the Cortez on the trail of a Ten Commandments Killer. Wife Chloë Sevigny gets addled by harsh lighting.
8. The Addiction Demon
The Addiction Demon, first seen in an early and super-creepy teaser, has no eyes or mouth, but does wield a “nasty, conical drillbit dildo.” Call down for more batteries.
greg gillbergh
25 Years of Bi Life
Almost 25 years ago, we birthed a book. Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out was published in February 1991, and helped catalyze a new bisexual rights and liberation movement in the United States, a movement that linked up with others organizing similar coalitions in different countries, becoming international by the late ’90s. The book nurtured many generations of bisexuals, staying in print 25 years with an anniversary edition released during Bi Awareness Week, September 20-27, in e-book, as well as print.
In some ways things have changed tremendously for the better for bisexuals since Bi Any Other Name brought over 70 different voices sharing their bi stories in essays, poems, cartoons, and photos with the public. And in some ways, nothing much has changed at all, except that we now have credible research results that puts numbers to what we knew existed — the shocking and depressing statistics that document the exact ways bisexual people are disproportionately stigmatized, discounted, and hurt.
Still, the children of today grow up in a different world than the one we elders entered. It is no longer as stigmatizing or as alienating and isolating to be bi, at least in some areas of the country sometimes. And there are some other encouraging social changes in the culture and the society as well. As we wrote for the new introduction for the 25th anniversary edition of Bi Any Other Name:
“How could we have imagined when we were teenagers that, in the new century, thousands of triumphantly out LGBTQ people would walk boldly through the front doors of the White House as invited guests at Stonewall Pride receptions and governmental meetings? As youth we had no idea what the first early organizing efforts for U.S. gay rights in the 40s, 50s and 60s would portend. We certainly didn’t know how dizzying the language changes, how culture-wide the debates, would become.
… Living both inside and outside the sexual and social [gender] paradigms, we bisexuals, queer people, polysexuals, fluid people, pansexuals, by every name we call ourselves — continue to subvert gender assumptions and explore naming ourselves — by every other identity, to no-identity-needed-or-wanted at all. This anthology has served as a coming out primer for generations of newly-out bisexuals of all ages, their families and friends. It catalyzed the U.S. bisexual rights and liberation movement and was heralded as a groundbreaking landmark. Called the Bi Bible, it became both organizing manual and reference book in classrooms, libraries, counseling centers, in pulpits and doctors’ offices.
… What’s most important is respecting each person’s self-identity and being recognized and understood for who we are. Eventually perhaps the word bisexual will go the way of homosexual and fall from favor. Meanwhile we live and work with all the words we have. In the end, identity doesn’t matter to a heart in love.”
What’s encouraging is that in 18 years, Celebrate Bisexuality Day has grown from one day (September 23) to a whole week (September 20-27 this year) in the past few years, and that Celebrate Bisexuality Day/Week has sustained itself as a totally volunteer improvisational grassroots effort, so that there are now hundreds of events all over the country in big cities and little towns, on campuses and in independent bookstores, at conferences and other events. What’s also heartening is that mainstream gay organizations like the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the National LGBTQ Task Force have all become more bi-conscious in the past two years.
NCLR lit up with Twitter with history, education, and health facts that Evan Rachel Wood and many others are retweeting up a storm with this week. The Movement Advancement Project released a great new report and HRC launched a bisexual topics page in honor of bi awareness week. HRC’s September 17 release highlighted the heightened risk for health issues that bisexual adults face and urged everyone to close the knowledge and care gap for this half of the LGB population, a substantial portion of which also identify as transgender and gender fluid.
And Monday, the Obama administration hosted the first Bisexual Policy Roundtable, involving almost 100 local and national bi activists/leaders and a collection of federal officials from various agencies and departments. They engaged in active dialogue on a variety of policy recommendations that the Bisexual Leadership Roundtable, a coalition of national and local bisexual groups, worked developing the past few months. This was a historic occasion, the first policy roundtable on bisexual issues ever hosted by a U.S. presidential administration. Two years ago, on September 23, 2013, there was a preliminary event in Washington, D.C., hosted by the White House and held at the Executive Office Building, that was an off-the-record listening session between a smaller number of individuals. That meeting laid the groundwork for the one this week.
Bisexuals still suffer disproportionately. But the hate, the hurt, the misunderstanding, the suffering, the erasure, the callous disregard, the contempt, the discounting, the stigmatizing has not stopped. We have a lot of work to do.
LANI KA’AHUMANU is often regarded as the strategic political architect of the U.S. bisexual movement. She has a 40+ year career instigating and mobilizing social justice actions, campaigns, street theater and cultural events while challenging bisexual invisibility and ignorance within the HIV/AIDS and health industries.
LORAINE HUTCHINS co-edited Bi Any Other Name with Lani Ka’ahumanu, co-founded BiNet USA: The National Bisexual Network and the Washington, D.C. group, AMBi, The Alliance of Multicultutural Bisexuals. She teaches inter-disciplinary sexuality courses at a community college near Washington, D.C.
Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka’ahumanu
Kim Davis Gets An Award For Breaking The Law To Discriminate Against Gay People
WASHINGTON — Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who went to jail this month for refusing to follow the law and issue a marriage license to a gay couple, was given an award at Friday night’s conservative Values Voter Summit.
Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, presented Davis with a “Cost of Discipleship Award” that compared her with Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincoln because, like them, she “pursued justice at great personal cost.”
“In today’s conflict over the meaning of the irreplaceable civil institution of marriage, one elected official, Kimberly Davis of Rowan County, Kentucky, has inspired millions of her fellow Americans,” Perkins said, reading aloud from her award. “As her words and actions attest, she has proceeded with an unshakeable blend of humility and determination. In doing so, she has reminded us we must remember to kneel before we dare stand.”
Davis got several standing ovations as she stood on stage. She cried each time, and received a bouquet of flowers as Perkins read the text of the award.
“I feel so very undeserving,” Davis said, choking up. “I want to start by thanking my lord and my savior Jesus Christ. Because without him, this would never have been possible. For he is my strength that carries me.”
Davis said she’s realized through the challenges in her life that Jesus will “show up at just the right time. His time is always perfect.”
She didn’t speak long. Her quivering voice turned to shouting by the end of her remarks, when she concluded with, “I am only one, but we are many!”
Davis left the stage to another standing ovation and, bizarrely, circus music.
— 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.
Bisexual Visibility Week: Excerpt from 'Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out!' on the 25th Anniversary of Its Publication
“Out”line of one man’s polymorphic liberation — excerpt
By ben e factory (AKA Binyamin Biber)
Becoming conscious of my sexuality and finally coming out began with my involvement in religious youth activities: Summer camp, retreats and then conferences turned out to be hotbeds of hetero- and homo-eroticism with all of the multi-bunk rooms, open showers, hand-holding partner-switching folk dancing and those quiet wandering paths.
Topeka, Kansas, 1974, is, believe it or not, where and when I first touched another naked male and felt that sexual “thang.” A religious youth conference brought us to Topeka, where several of us somehow ended up in a gym or health club. There in a steamy steam room, I discovered myself leisurely lounging about with a few chums, all of us naked. We filled this little room with our contacts — visual, verbal and physical (shoulder to shoulder, rubbing elbows and knocking knees). This was the first time I was conscious of wanting to touch another boy in a sexual way.
At 14 I found myself signed up for Compulsory Heterosexual Monogamy 101: dating, kissing girls, then caressing and massaging their backs, breasts, legs and buttocks. I noticed compulsory heterosexuality caused me to become stiff. I began to develop my male character armor. Checking out Mom’s Playgirl magazines, I oozed desire for real emotional and sexual relations with other boys, something unavailable in this course.
Sweeeeet 16… mm-hmm. Right after graduating from high school, I smoked pot for the first time with my best friend, Andy, then felt relaxed enough to finally tell him that I loved him and would like to physically express my affection with him. He said he loved me too, but wasn’t into sex with guys. Frustrated in my unrequited love, but not feeling rejected, I went off to the University of Iowa. There I met Karen, who accepted my love and my “bisexuality” (I finally knew that Elton John and I were not alone in the world). Karen and I joined the Socialist Party USA and several other campus and community activist groups, learning more about heterosexism and liberation as we grew together.
The summer of 1978, I roomed with Bill, a friend from high school. He was the first male to accept my offer to share forbidden fruits. We continued off and on for a couple of years till he moved back to Kansas City. “Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll,” we took a walk on the wild side and began to free ourselves from the domestication and colonization which caged and collared us. Being with him, I experienced a marvelous insight: We could really listen to each other, feel each other to be intimate equals and we began to see through our male conditioning. When Karen returned at the end of the summer, I heard her in a new way, as an equal with whom I struggled toward mutual liberation.
— 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.
Margaret Cho on Kim Davis: ‘She’s so gross’
Margaret Cho has vowed to marry one same-sex couple at every stop of The psyCHO Tour which kicks off on 1 October.
So far, there are no tour stops in Kentucky where Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has been fighting the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples because of her religious beliefs.
‘She’s so gross,’ Cho says of Davis in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter posted on Friday (25 September).
‘I don’t understand — she acts like she’s some kind of freedom fighter, as if she deserves some sort of accolade for not upholding the Constitution and breaking the law.’
Davis served five days in a Kentucky jail earlier this month for defying a federal court order that she not interfere with the licenses being issued.
Upon her release, Davis was greeted by a rally organized by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and attended by US Senator Ted Cruz.
‘It’s really insulting to the heroic people who have gone to prison for their beliefs,’ Cho said of the spectacle.
Among the stops on Cho’s comedy tour is San Francisco where she will play two shows on 15 October at The Castro Theatre.
She will be performing marriages in the city where she officiated her first ceremonies back in 2008. Back then, she performed marriages inside San Francisco City Hall which is where the late civil rights leader Harvey Milk was murdered 27 years ago.
Says Cho: ‘It’s a place where literally the most tragic event of gay politics happened, so to go back there and celebrate marriage equality there was such a triumph, and I wanted to bring a bit of that energy to these shows.’
The post Margaret Cho on Kim Davis: ‘She’s so gross’ appeared first on Gay Star News.
Greg Hernandez
www.gaystarnews.com/article/margaret-cho-on-kim-davis-shes-so-gross/
Kick Off Folsom With These Awkward S&M Family Photos
In his series Boy and his SIR: BDSM and the Queer Family, Kevin Warth photographs constructed realities in which BDSM practices coexist with domestic and familial rituals.
Warth writes:
“This body of work stems from my disidentification with moderate gay politics, which primarily concerns itself with the legalization of gay marriage and adoption. In response, I question if this normative family structure is a desirable goal for queer relations, or if other modes of kinship are more suitable.”
Oh, and happy Folsom!
Dan Tracer
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