I last posted about it here, and here I am again. Sadly, I’ll be posting about it again in the future too.

Michael Specter’s Higher Risk (in the 5/23/05 issue of The New Yorker) is the latest reminder of how fast we are losing the war against drugs in the gay community.

The meth problem isn’t going away. It’s actually getting worse. H.I.V. infection among gay men who are methamphetamine consumers is out of control.

In Shoptaw’s office at U.C.L.A., he and Reback showed me a slide that said almost everything one needed to know about the relationship between H.I.V. and methamphetamine use: it summarized a survey of how likely certain gay men were to be infected with H.I.V. If the men in the study said that they had used methamphetamine in the past six months, there was a low but significant chance that they would be infected. For men who used it once in a while, the figure was twenty-five per cent. When the researchers interviewed chronic users, the number climbed to forty per cent. Sixty per cent of users in outpatient treatment programs were infected, and for users in residential care the number is nearly ninety per cent.

“You know that slogan from the Clinton campaign?” Reback said. “We have paraphrased it many times: ‘It’s the drug, stupid.’ When you are talking about H.I.V. infection among gay men, it’s the drug.”

And why is that? Here are some reasons:

“The difference between sex with crystal and sex without it is like the difference between Technicolor and black-and-white,”

Yes, if you stop doing meth, you won’t have mind-blowing sex with everyone you sleep with. It sucks. But you get to keep your brain and your life.

“And one shouldn’t forget that crystal methamphetamine also acts—at first—as an antidepressant. People talk about ‘Will and Grace’ and how accepting America is now of homosexuality. That is simply not true. America has come a country mile, I agree. Still, in the state I just left”—Georgia, where the C.D.C. has its headquarters—“almost four out of every five adults recently voted to deny gay men and lesbians the right to even have a civil marriage. We have an awful lot more work to do.”

Seems it does matter what other people think. It matters enough that many are willing to take life-threatening drugs to forget how they are treated in this society.

You can find mind-blowing sex without meth. It’s gonna take more time, but you’ll have the time if you’re alive. More rights and better treatment in society? I hate to say it, but that’s gonna take a while too. However, it’s never going to happen if we manage to kill ourselves off. Meth use is rising in lesbian circles too. It’s “cool.” Everyone’s doing it. Everyone wants to be cool. It’s sad.

More:
*Facts of the Day at 2blowhards.com
*New York’s gay center launches crystal meth campaign
*Concern as gay HIV rate rises
*The Tragedy of Today’s Gays

A queer classic returns in NZ.

Controversial “Queer Classic” Returns to the Stage

Nearly forty years after the “Stonewall Riots”, which many say mark the beginning of the modern gay movement, Auckland’s Silo theatre brings Boys in the Band back to life, 15 June - 2 July.

This ground breaking play became a lightning rod for public discussion after its first performance off-Broadway in 1968. Boys in the Band was the first play to portray gay men and deal realistically with homosexuality before a mainstream audience.

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Rev. Jerry Falwell claims that the domain name www.fallwell.com borders on theft and is confusing to those looking for his website. Too bad he doesn’t know how to read. If he did, he’d be able to read this:

This website is NOT affiliated with Rev. Dr. Jerry Falwell or his ministry. If you would like to visit Rev. Falwell’s website, you may click here.

From TimesDispatch.com:

RICHMOND, Va. - A Web site critical of the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s views on homosexuality engages in constitutionally protected noncommercial speech and should be allowed to keep the domain name fallwell.com, a lawyer for the site’s owner told a federal appeals court Thursday.

Paul Levy, an attorney for Christopher Lamparello of New York, urged a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a judge’s ruling that Lamparello violated federal trademark law by using a common misspelling of Falwell as a domain name.

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Today’s somewhat daily quote is taken from fallwell.com.

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

. . . Susan B. Anthony

Thanks to Sue for passing the news on.

Call for Submissions

Queer: Four Decades After Stonewall
Editor: Maria Angeline
Contact: queerbook@dailydoseofqueer.com
Deadline: September 1, 2005

Queer: Four Decades After Stonewall

Daily Dose of Queer is currently seeking original and unpublished novellas and short stories of Queer Culture between 10,000 to 25,000 words in length.

Guidelines:

• Submit short stories, novellas, essays and other prose at our submissions page.
• Poetry will be considered, but poetry submissions are not encouraged.
• Unpublished authors will be considered.
• Previously published material will also be considered, provided you have retained your rights; please submit previous publication information (and the terms of your copyright agreement) in these cases.
• Each submission should be a maximum of 25,000 words.
• You may submit two (2) different pieces of writing.

Contributing writers will be paid $65 at the time of publication and receive two free copies of the anthology.

About:

Where is queer culture as we approach four decades after Stonewall? What are the stories, ideas and theories, values and fantasies that presently shape your life? Queer: Four Decades After Stonewall seeks to represent the many facets of queer culture today and tie them together to present the world we live in now. Pieces on how those who identify as queer define the term are also welcome.

We are especially interested in pieces on the following topics (but will accept submissions outside of them):

• Religion and Spirituality
• Legal Marriage
• Sex, Gender and Identity
• Erotica

For questions or more information contact Maria Angeline at queerbook@dailydoseofqueer.com.

Jen sent me Why bi guys aren’t for me, a piece by Nick Burns over at MSN Dating and Personals.

I would never comment on how people shouldn’t block off entire groups from their dating world. That one would get back to me way quick! So I agree that Nick shouldn’t have to date bi guys (or sporty guys or short guys or older guys) if he doesn’t want to. At the same time you gotta wonder about all the energy he’s putting into his opinion of them, and his reasoning behind it too.

1. A bi guy isn’t sure of his identity. It confounds me to think that some people can hop from side to side without tripping over the fence. Frankly, plenty of bi guys will eventually come out on one side or the other and reveal that they never really liked the neighbor’s garden. “I don’t date bi men because they are usually just gay but haven’t coped with the fact that they’re really gay,” says my friend Harry. “They have a lot of baggage that I don’t want to deal with.” Harry’s thoughts are common for gay men, and that’s why bi guys are often not fully accepted in the gay community.

Maybe some bi guys aren’t sure about their identity (and will come out as gay one day), but I’m sure some are. If the gay community doesn’t accept a guy while he is questioning his identity, he may just decide that gay isn’t for him out of fear that he’ll never be accepted. And what about men who identify as gay and still sleep with women every now and then? Does it make a difference if someone behaves as bi as opposed to identifying as bi? As for the baggage, everyone has a ton of it.

2. He sleeps with women—yuck! Ask most gay guys if they’d date a bi man and you’re met with the response: “Oh no, you don’t know where they’ve been!” Well, we have an idea where they’ve been; we just don’t want to think about it. Gay guys (including myself) get squeamish when conversation swerves into a discussion of hetero sex and the accoutrements of a woman’s birthday suit. Perhaps we never outgrew the idea that girls have cooties, and we’re afraid that we’ll catch them from being with someone who plays on both sides.

Yuck? Plenty of straight people think the sex lives of gay men are “yucky” and “gross.” I can’t see how it helps the queer community to continue on with immature and hurtful your sex life disgusts me talk.

3. He has twice the opportunity to cheat. If I did I end up in a monogamous, long-term relationship with a switch-hitter, he’d have to sacrifice more than most—starting with an entire gender. Bi men have a larger dating pool, which means a larger cheating pool, too. Sending a gay boyfriend out into the night with his girlfriends is fine, but when he’s bi, any friend he spends a lot of time with is a potential threat. So you can understand why I’d be left with a hefty case of paranoia that my man is stepping out on me. I’m sure that there are plenty of bisexual people in happy relationships, but I know just as many couples that have broken up because the bisexual partner decided to sniff the flowers across the way.

The way I see it, when you end up in a monogamous relationship you have to sacrifice all genders. That’s what being monogamous is. I don’t see how this is different for a gay man, a bi man, a lesbian or anyone else. We all give up the same thing, and that is everyone else. If a partner is going to cheat, they’re going to cheat. Man or woman, the message is the same: they don’t want a monogamous relationship (well, they don’t want to be monogamous anyway).

I’m gonna continue refusing to date most of the population for one reason or another, but that doesn’t mean I think anything about anyone I don’t feel compatible with is yucky.

Alleging discrimination, Shirin Merchant (name changed), says she was barred entry to Seven, a Bandra nightclub, because she is a lesbian.

She said that on May 18, Samson Stephen, the club’s general manager stopped her and three friends from entering. Shirin says she first went to the club — located on the sixth floor of Shoppers Stop — on May 12 with a group of lesbian friends.

Continue reading Lesbian banned for club kissing

Even if you really don’t give a shit, you do need to click over for the illustrations. Trust me.

I find it odd that there are nipples in the third, but not the first, picture. Was it colder in the club at that time? Oh! Maybe it’s because she was outside when she was refused entry.

It was only a matter of time. The stars of TransGeneration (debuting on the Sundance Channel with a one hour premiere at 9 p.m. on Sept. 20) are four college students who are mid-transition. Their ages are unknown to me (and I’m curious as to what the reaction will be if they are all of average college age - an age where many feel one isn’t mature enough to make such a serious decision). TV Squad says trannies are so hot right now. I agree, but I’m not sure what the reasons behind this hotness are and I’ll bet they’re not all good.

“I was watching this amazing American show called The L Word, and I thought ’surely that lifestyle doesn’t exist, it’s just television’,” Loos says.

She says the term ‘Power Lesbians’ refers to glamorous, successful women who are well and truly ‘out and proud’. “I’m bisexual, so I’m attracted to other women, and since it’s still really secretive and undercover in the UK I thought it would be great to go out to LA and see what happens,” she says.

“I was very eager about it, plus it was a great opportunity to go and meet some gorgeous women,” she says.

Loos, who has just flown out to Fiji to take part in the much-hyped UK TV series Celebrity Love Island, admits that coming to terms with her sexuality when she was younger wasn’t a walk in the park.

“I was quiet about it at first, but when I did open up to a few school friends I found they then wouldn’t dress in front of me any more, and little things like that, so you soon learn,” she explains.

In Giving Homosexuality a Thought Mwende Mwinzi questions how she would feel if her husband was to be attracted to another. Another male. She also examines the ignorant views on homosexuality that surround her and gives us our somewhat daily quote:

Homosexuality is probably the foremost thing that heterosexuals don’t understand yet interestingly, find necessary to judge.

‘Transgender and gay Americans deserve the same clear protections against hate crimes as other Americans,’ said HRC President Joe Solmonese.

WASHINGTON — The Human Rights Campaign lauded the planned introduction in the U.S. House of a federal hate crimes bill with explicit protections against crimes based on gender identity and sexual orientation, scheduled for this Thursday, May 26. HRC worked side-by-side with lead sponsors Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.; John Conyers Jr., D-Mich.; Christopher Shays, R-Conn.; and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., on this legislation, which is explicit in its coverage of the transgender community. The legislation would update our federal hate crimes laws to provide local law enforcement with assistance with hate crimes based on gender and disability.

“Transgender and gay Americans deserve the same clear protections against hate crimes as other Americans,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “We’re proud that for the first time legislation will be introduced that explicitly covers the entire gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community and the community will have an unambiguous shot at equal protection under hate crimes law. We thank our coalition partners and especially our allies in the House of Representatives for their work in securing this language.”

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What else ya got for me? This:

*Log Cabin Republicans Run TV Ads Condemning Anti-Gay Amendment During NC GOP Convention
*Maryland governor vetoes gay rights bills
*Missing Gay Sons Connect Mothers
*Spokane mayor won’t quit in gay Web scandal
*Gay Book Ban Threats Spread