Many of us have come to rely on the smart phone in our pocket for far more than phone calls and text messages. Software options expand the smart phone to make it a functional work tool and an entertaining toy. While you might have already added Twitter ability to your phone, figured out how to update your Flickr and learned to check your Facebook on the go, you can bring more personality to your Palm or Android phone with applications specific to the gay community.

A quick search of the Android marketplace on my Droid Eris revealed 10 applications specifically geared toward the gay community; however, others may be a useful addition to your social life. There is a text based chat application called Gay Chat available; however, it is rather poorly rated. A more popular and more useful application is Michael Quach’s Bars & Clubs. Use this application, available free in the Android marketplace to find the closest gay bar. It will also guide you to adult book stores, happy hour, and wine bars. If you’re looking to dress up your phone with pretty pictures, image applications including Martin Mazza AdultStar and The Horniest Guys offer a low cost option. Ringtones are widely available for your Droid smart phone, regardless of your preferences. Great Lakes Development Little Black Book is a free application that allows you to manage a busy social life. Organize your dating contacts, send everyone else to voicemail when you’re on a date, and enjoy password protection for an affordable 99 cents.

The best addition to your Palm smart phone is David Demchuk’s highly rated Little Black Book organizer. Designed to be inclusive of gender and sexuality, this application allows you to keep your social life in order and avoid unwanted awkwardness. Gay city guides are available for some cities on the Palm OS, making navigating gay bars and finding the right neighborhoods for socializing easier than you might think. Add a rainbow or gay theme to your Palm Pre to give it a bit of color and style or coordinate it with your phone case.

We’ll be fair and say that the gay application options are somewhat few and far between for your Android or Palm OS phones, at least in comparison to the iPhone. Those of us without an AT&T contract probably deem it quite worthwhile to skip access to GayCommunity or Grindr in exchange for better service and our preferred smart phones.

I could think of a few worse things that could happen in life. Maybe a tax on jeans or shoes that would really hurt us. You have to admit that the gays will get hit hard by any kind of tanning or cosmetic tax because we like to stay beautiful.

In a way to make funds to pave the way for the new Healthcare bill our Congress has came up with a creative gesture with a 10% tax on tanning services. This could help create over 2.5 Billion in tax revenues that our government would not normally see but in a span of ten years.

Tanning is something that is similar to our sins that we do not really need. Although some doctors argue that we need it for Vitamin D, but that would only be in certain tanning beds and only for a few minutes a week versus spending every other day in the tanning bed. The light from outside is much more beneficial but only in certain parts of the US and certain times of the day.

Ten percent is really not too bad of a tax on tanning and you have to say that lots of teens spend too much money freely on things such as tanning that they could be spending on better things. Well if they are not spending it on tanning I guess they could spend it on clothes or a new iPhone or music. But we know they will probably trade sin for sin and spend it on cigarettes or beer. Tanning could be made more sexy the more it is regulated.

The indoor tanning industry is already consolidating at a rapid pace as the belts are tightening up with the recession. With companies such as Planet Tan and Palm Beach Tan with many more soon to follow they are worried about the impact of even higher costs in their salons.

Botox treatments were another cosmetic treatment that was being thrown around to be taxed or not. This was going to be called the BoTax which has the potential to generate over $5.5 billion over ten years. This supposedly could generate more than tanning taxes but the American Academy of Dermatology Association and the AMA both opposed the 5% tax on cosmetic procedures. Although, Botox and most cosmetic procedures do not have the skin cancer risk of tanning beds.

They certainly want to tax something related to this industry so we are not sure what it will be yet but what do you think? Do you think tanning salons deserve this new tax or people trying to look younger?

That big day is coming up and it is not a wedding. It is that day you wear red and pretend you are in a relationship. Valentine’s Day is one of the grandest days when it comes to finding a good excuse to take someone out for a romantic dinner… but you need that lover first.

You’ll know when it’s time to start seriously looking for a partner, but maybe you don’t know where to go? If you live in a city, a cosmopolitan area or town then you’ll probably have access to clubs, bars and social groups to join; you could try gay speed dating or the small ads in your local or national gay paper. For certain people, in certain areas of the world, finding a partner is made easy.

But what if you don’t live in one of these places, what if you don’t like bars and clubs and what if… well, all kinds of ‘what ifs’ can be barriers to finding that perfect match.

In these cases you turn to on-line dating and partner finding. The only problem here is deciding which site to choose? There are loads of them out there but they do tend to fall into three camps: 1) What I call Hook Up sites where guys (and this also applies equally to women) are simply looking for sex, often via a shared niche or fetish. That’s another topic so we’ll pass it by for now. 2) Sites that are for folk who are seriously looking for a relationship only, perhaps staring with finding a friend first and seeing what develops. And 3) sites (such as gaydar.com) which combine the two elements of casual sex and partner finding, depending on how you write up your profile.

Back pedal to type number two: A site where you can join and search out your perfect partner. This is searching for a LTR instead of that one night stand. One site stood out called mypartner.com which is very different from the ones in camp one and three, above. It has a page explaining the system that it uses for matching you with ‘him’, it is basically a matchmaking service using a unique ‘dating experience’ cross-referencing system. It also offers two levels of service; an on-line dating one and a private one. The first you do yourself and the second they do for you.

The tour of the site takes you through the five step process as you decide what you want from your future, you learn more about yourself and ‘him’, the search starts and then you take it to the next level, the communication level, and see where things lead from there.

Start with the free trial by creating a username and entering some information; name, date of birth etc. Next you are asked for your country and, although the site seems to lean towards the USA, every country in the world is listed. This page gets you started with the age and location of your perfect partner and, after clicking ‘next’ an email is sent directly to you. This is a handy list of how everything works and a link to login (as soon as your account is activated.) The basic rules of dating sites apply: be honest is the most important one – no point saying you’re young and slim and in the USA if you’re not! Be safe too – arrange meetings in public places; only give out your phone number if you are sure of someone and so on. And, from here on in, it is up to you.

I can’t say how successful this site is compared to the many others that are out there but I can say that this is a very simple one to use, it looks good and you get good help and support if you have any problems using it. They take your searching and date finding seriously and you should too. If you want some casual sex then look around for Hook Up sites but if you really want to try a new way to find Mr Right, then MyPartner.com looks set to put you on the right road.

This relationship oriented site has also recently added Lesbian Matchmaking to its offerings.

The female divas have been taking over lately and we know what that means it must be time for the boys to step in and take the stage. Every four years or so it seems we have a Boy Band resurgence or something close to that. Where would they get prom songs if it weren’t for Boy Bands? Well hold on no longer…

Perez Hilton, Jamie King, and Simon Fuller the American Idol Creator are bringing you a new show called Boy Band Search (boybandsearch.com).
Jamie King, is THE MAN of this group and a someone any boy band would die to work with. King happens to be the director of Britney Spear’s 2009 Circus Tour, Madonna’s Sticky and Sweet world tour which was just named Top Tour for 2009 by Billboard Magazine. But get this Jamie King is also the director of Madonna’s record-breaking Confessions world tour – which in my opinion was the best concert of all time and has not YET been topped by anyone. Remember the concert where she came down from the cross?

If you are between the ages of 13 and 21 years old and think (we mean KNOW) you are an excellent singer or dancer then you better submit your video for this soon. Make sure you have a unique voice to be a teen boy band idol. Think N’SYNC, 98 Degrees, Backstreet Boys, and NKOTB (New Kids on the Block). I’d go back and take some notes from these groups before applying and make sure you offer something unique. See what each boy band such as Westlife offered or N’SYNC offered that Backstreet boys or NKOTB did not.

We had a highly popular thread not long ago about XY Magazine and its fate. There has been concern over issues that never came in the mail and if the magazine was still even around. Now we see that the main website of xy.com, a prime domain name and listed in the top 600k sites in the world is down. Xy.com featured personals, chat, and listings of clubs and businesses.

I emailed a few emails I had on hand for the staff over at Xy and had no reply. I assume either someone has purchased the site from the magazine’s owner or they can simply not afford hosting anymore. With the dismiss of many websites and news organizations in 2009, we are not sure what to expect.

Some of the traffic on Xy goes over to YGA Mag, which stands for the Young Gay America Magazine. This is a magazine that I have not seen printing that often and not getting the circulation that XY once had in bookstores across America. The neat thing about XY is that it was at the Barnes and Noble in Mid-America where that gay youth could find something to feel good about and give them hope. It was great to be able to find a treasure like XY at a local bookstore in nowhere, America.

Now that we’ve all recovered from the joys (or horrors) of the holiday season, thoughts turn once again to politics. What is on the gay agenda for 2010? Elections, court cases and international issues all loom in the forefront of the gay rights movement this year.

2009 saw the passage of the Matthew Shepard Act on a federal level, creating an inclusive federal hate crime law. While we can’t particularly expect a lot of growth or change on the federal side of things, there is hope for the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or ENDA in 2010 according to Barney Frank (D-Mass). Opinions are mixed on the possibilities of a repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) in 2010.

The New Jersey Senate has defeated a gay marriage bill in that state, but supporters are already planning to head to the Supreme Court. New Jersey offers civil unions for gay couples; however, marriage remains out of reach.

Supporters of gay marriage in California may have another chance to be heard at the ballot box. Speculation suggests that the issue may see the ballot this November rather than in 2012. All three possible Democratic candidates for California’s gubernatorial race support full gay marriage rights, making 2010 seem the year to try and try again in California. Gay marriage may also be on the ballots in Colorado and Maine this year.

Internationally, news of anti-gay laws in Uganda have worried many in the gay community worldwide. These laws show the clear influence of fundamentalist Americans, of the type to support the “pray away the gay” theory. In their original form, Ugandan law would have put gays at risk of execution; however, as the law stands now, the penalty for homosexuality is life in prison. International pressure reduced the penalty, but this news provides a harsh glimpse of reality for many of us. Take the time to phone and write your senators and representatives to express the clear need for the US to condemn this and similar laws worldwide.

While objections to labels abound, and with good reason, many people do opt to claim labels for themselves or simply may find it helpful to understand the labels that others are claiming for themselves. The G in GLBTQ clearly stands for gay. While this identifier is claimed by many men who are romantically and sexually attracted to men, some may even eschew this label. Bisexual and queer men may claim other labels within the gay community, even if they personally do not identify as gay. Moreover, within the gay community, there are many more labels that may be used in a number of ways, ranging from personal ads to social groups. Some labels imply social roles, while others are specifically sexual.

Social identifiers in the gay community are about both attitude and appearance. Some of these terms may be used in a derogatory context both in the gay community or outside of it, or may be claimed and embraced. Either way, knowing what these mean can help you navigate your local bar or local Craigslist ads at least on a surface level. Twinks are known for good clothes, perfect hair, and an impeccable tan. Stereotypically, they are young, thin, and pretty. Bears are their polar opposite, being older, hairier and bigger bodied. Within bear culture, you will find cubs, otters, and polar bears. These distinctions can refer to physical size, body hair and build. Many bears date within their own social group. Queens may simply have a bit of a diva attitude or may be active in the drag scene.

While some people may opt to claim the social identifiers discussed, you may find it even more helpful to understand sexual identifiers and labels. The words top, pitcher and power top all imply someone who is dominant in the bedroom, most often in relation to penetrative sex. A power top does not bottom, at all. Bottom, catcher, and power bottom refer to an individual who prefers to be penetrated during sex, and may also imply a more submissive role depending upon the context. Individuals who are more sexually flexible in terms of roles will often identify as versatile or a switch. Knowing where you fit on this continuum can help you avoid sexual incompatibility or embarrassing first date conversations.