You rarely see something return from the dead as many times as this magazine pulls itself back but to our surprise XY.com and XY Magazine are back in 2011.  XY has been gone so long that it makes me wonder if the latest “generation” knows about XY magazine or if they would even buy a magazine.  The magazine has always had a great focus of great articles geared towards gay youth and sparking their interest by feeding them soft porn.  It actually does a service helping gay youth feel better about themselves and making the rest of us feel older.  Thanks XY.  I think the domain name XY.com itself could be worth a few million and am shocked they did not sell out to a big domain broker or a corporation.  I am surprised AOL did not buy XY they seem to have bought everything else that has been collapsing online and they used to have a big partnership with XY Magazine inside the slow AOL software you would just type keyword XY and the teen zine would pop up. Neato Frito!

We are excited to see this mag makes its comeback and who knows maybe they will learn how to make money with the iPad in existance as we are seeing other magazines and newspapers make comebacks on the digital pad.  If there is an app for the XY teen publication then they may be “into it” otherwise it will probably just bomb and go bankrupt or disapear once again.  We did notice one neat thing in their new format is they have a blog on their XY site now and a magazine cover maker where you can put your pic on the cover once you upload it puts the image over you and your name. 

See our suggestions on gay apps for your iPad or iPhone and read our articles on XY Magazine here.  IF you are a gay teen then check out our reads on gay bullying and what you can do about it.

Here is an email we received from a LGBT 16 yr old concerned about the recent gay suicides:

My names Kendall, I’m 16 and I am a lesbian and I have been ever since I can remember. I grew up in private school my entire life and I started to realize that I did like girls when I was 11.When I turned 12 I started going to a private Lutheran school and I made some good friends throughout my time there, that were actually in the closet and I didn’t even know it. Then 8th grade hit. I texted a girl saying, ‘I wanted her in my bed’ when I was completely joking and she told everyone that I was gay. I was literally mortified because 1. I could have gotten kicked out of school. 2. It was my secret, and I didn’t even fully admit it to myself by then. 3. Kids would ridicule me. Throughout that year I was pushed into walls and lockers, called lesbian, gross, weird, ect. ALL the time, spit on once, whispered about when I walked by, and laughed at. I literally didn’t want to go to school anymore. I went through a depression but put on a happy face every single day. I contemplated suicide because I thought if they can’t accept me, who can? Maybe if I die then I’ll come back as someone else. But I pulled through when allot of my friends started coming out to me. That rumor, well true rumor, helped them realize that they weren’t alone and that they can trust that at least one person wouldn’t judge them for who they are. It completely changed my outlook on things. Me being gay is a good thing, others being gay is a good thing, and you being gay is definitely a good thing. My close friend is actually going through issues with her mom right now because she found out she was gay, and she won’t accept her. I kind of blame myself for it sometimes because I made her realize she was gay, and made her comfortable enough to share it with people. Now her life is hell. It’s those moments where you start to think yourself that maybe being gay is wrong and it does hurt people. But no, it’s her mom’s fault; she’s doing the wrong not my friend who accepts herself for it. It hurts me when people can’t accept themselves or has someone that’s supposed to love them unconditionally that just won’t even try to. Even if you think you don’t “hate” gays it’s just as wrong to say ew when you see two guys kissing. It’s judging either way. If you can accept someone who has sex before marriage, who judges, and who disrespects their parents, then you can accept people who are gay. Just because some book says it’s wrong doesn’t mean that you can go out and drive people kill themselves for it. It’s just as wrong and even worse morally. If a person doesn’t love you, or doesn’t accept you for something you can’t help, they’re the ones who are wrong. I still don’t really understand why it’s so weird and wrong to be gay or why it’s not acceptable.. But I guess our society isn’t developed enough yet. Kids, teens, parents, people of the world, if we just work together to make this world a loving, place, we can save a lot of lives. I’m not judging people who judge me, so they shouldn’t judge me for liking the same gender. These suicides, the bullying, and the judgment NEEDS to stop. If you’re thinking about suicide, remember that you are not alone. There is always someone there to help.

Keep the stories coming in we want to hear from you!

There was another gay suicide in Oklahoma near OU this week and it getting worse and worse. We need more gay teens who can shaire their story. It is good sometimes to write and let it all out rather than to leave things inside you. Feel free to use our blog to share your stories by sending us via email gaysitedude @ gmail.com or writing a post. If you are a gay, bi, transgender, lesbian, or are friends with a teen and you or your friend has debated suicide and you prevented it let us know your story needs to be heard.

We want to hear from you about anything and everything. If you would like to post a blog on here let us know get your voice out there. Our community must come together stronger. We can do this and end the suicides!

Gay Teen Suicides
How to Respond to Bullying in Schools
We have support of some wonderful people

Kathy Griffin speaking up about the recent gay suicides. The comedian gets serious for a minute to make some good points that if you live in a Republican blue state that you are not alone being gay and should not feel lonely you have someone and the reasons for sticking around and seeing change. One gay person to idolize is Suze Orman and that is so true Suze is everything to be and the perfect role model and she is a lesbian.

This is a message to my fellow gay teens and college students.

The teen and college years are hard in many ways because we want to fit in so bad.  Try not to care so much about what everyone else thinks.  There is only one person who is in charge of things and that is you.  Do not ever let anyone bring you down.  It is easy to say and takes a lot of strength sometimes but you have to get away from letting the bullies put negative thoughts in your head about you.  Bullies are unhappy people even though they seem like they are better than you they are NOT.  You must believe in yourself and know you can achieve more than them.

If you are bullied things to do-
1. Tell everyone what happened. If they don’t believe you seek unlocal advice.
2. Call 1-866-488-7386 @TrevorProject
How to Respond to Bullying in Schools

Keep strong, Be Hugged
1. Find friends ask them for a hug now and then. People need to give more love and show more support.
2. Don’t ever let yourself get too weak. You do not want anyone to think you are vulnerable. Show your strength.

Even in the gay community we have bullies and like when I signed onto Grindr the other day some guy said some damaging things to me but it shows hes a bitter mean spirited and hate filled person. My success shows much more strength than the weapons he is using to hurt me. You just have to accept that NOT everyone is going to like you. This was a guy that has hated me for 3 years or so. Poor thing with his hate. No one has everyone like them there will always be critics and people who are jealous. Lady Gaga, Madonna, and newer stars such as Adam Lambert you can see just in the media what kind of hate they go through but you may not see their more closer friends and communities that show hate for them that hurts them more than anything. If you look at the Youtube comments that people leave on anyone’s video you will see how mean people are to anyone.. especially gays but we can build strength in that.

Don’t Listen to the Hate, They are not Happy People
People like Sally Kern (R) in Oklahoma who preach hate help the bullies in their journey to beat us down but if you looked inside her life more closely you will most likely see a very saddened woman who has no love for anything. She says she has a love for God but I really don’t think she knows what Jesus stands for or realize that God made everyone. I mean when you think of people like Sally or Rush Limbaugh you think man these bullies need to get laid don’t they? Which is what the bullies in school are probably dealing with they have had girls turn them down then they take things out on YOU to make themselves feel better.

Life is like that people focus their hate on someone to make their lives easier just like the media focused on Britney Spears for so long it made them money, made all the couch potato sports obsessed hypocritical families feel better about themselves when they looked in the mirror at night, and turned us all into hypocrites. Britney came out ‘Stronger’ even after all that hate geared towards her. I am sure she thought of suicide but then thought hell no I want to show these people. People were taking bets on her suicide. That is how cruel people are but that is how the world turns and you have to fight back with your own success or happiness.

Stay Proud, Stay Fabulous. Give Hugs. And remember LOVE is a greater power than hate and fear.

These are just some thoughts designed to make you think:

There will always be a controversy about the age of models appearing in gay porn. I am talking about the younger models here of course, as anyone who can prove that they are over 18 years of age may appear in pornography if they so chose, straight or gay, and heaven knows I’ve seen enough retired men and women making some pension-boosting money from appearing in porn movies.

But, if someone has proved that they are over the minimum age, why should there be a controversy? We’ve seen, in the past, some well known models (or those who went on to become well known) get themselves caught up in a ‘scandal’ for one reason or another. Lying about their age at the time is a common one, and unscrupulous producers knowingly using under-age models is another, though thankfully less common, reason.

In the USA there is a code called Title 18, section 2257, sometimes simply known as ‘2257’. This is a requirement of producers of adult material to be able to prove the legal minimum age of their models at the time of photography, or filming. You will see this at the bottom of many pages on most porn sites, certainly all those produced in the USA should carry a link to a page, or information, where anyone can find out the address of the producer/keeper of records, and make an enquiry into the age of a certain model. If an enquiry is made then the company must be able to produce documentation backing up and proving their claim that their models were over 18 when filmed. That’s the simple version of the code. And it means that, in the USA, producers must have copies of things like driving license, ID, etc. on file, by name of model, showing that they were legally allowed to appear in porn at that time.

That’s good, it’s something that all good and respectable porn producers would want to have, and insist on having before they get a guy naked. But it actually only applies to the United States. So, when you find a company from, for example, Europe, stating their 2257 information, it actually doesn’t mean anything, legally. It has been taken as good practice by good producers, no matter what their country of residence and business. (Other countries have other laws, some have no laws at all.)

But it’s always interested me to notice that many a ‘teen’ and even ‘twink’ site that carries content featuring ‘just 18’ etc. boys will have their 2257 address of records in a place like Cyprus, or Prague. Are they really based there? Is this just a way of avoiding the legalities? And if so, why? And what happens if you are based in the Czech Republic but your servers are in America and your content comes from Spain? Where do you stand legally then? It’s a bit of a minefield.

And there is another one. What about those sites (I won’t mention names here as I don’t want to get caught up in the fuss) that feature young looking models. What’s the difference between someone who is 18 or 19 but who looks 16 or 17 appearing in a movie, as opposed to someone who is actually 16 or 17 appearing in one? Obviously it’s not legal, in most countries, to show under-age nudity and it’s probably not moral either, although that point could me argued on a personal level. And yet there are many sites around where the models look younger than they are, and we’re told that they are ‘just 18’ etc. to start with.

It looks like there is a fine line between under-age porn actors and porn actors who look underage.

Just as a final, slightly unrelated thought, I’ll leave you with this. A couple of years ago there was a controversy because a famous actor, who was then 17, appeared naked on stage, in London, in a play. You could go and see him nude live on stage, but you couldn’t show photos of him nude on the web – though people did.

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.

One of the biggest issues facing the schools, from elementary through high school, is bullying. Unfortunately, much of this bullying is focused on issues of sexual and gender identity. The Supreme Court has ruled that schools are obligated to protect students from sexual harassment, and sexual bullying constitutes sexual harassment; however, many communities are not including sexual orientation or gender identity in their anti-bullying policies or legislation.

Several children have committed suicide due to bullying of this sort and almost 25% of students who have been taunted, teased or bullied because of being perceived as gay or lesbian have attempted suicide. Even more disturbingly, this type of bullying is most severe during the later elementary and middle school years. While the schools must address these issues and are working diligently to do so, the gay, lesbian and transgender community should do so as well. What can we do to help these kids and improve acceptance in the schools?

The gay community can assist with this critical issue in several ways. First, gay and lesbian centers across the country should be actively providing support to gay youth. Offer youth groups and make sure they are as accessible as possible to young people. Work with school Gay-Straight Alliance groups whenever possible to share knowledge and resources. A good social support system can reduce the risk of suicide among GLBTQ teens and reduce the impact of bullying.

Consider offering your support services to local school boards to share information about the struggles and challenges of gay and lesbian youth. You may even want to consider visiting the schools and providing information via an assembly or classroom presentations. Gay, lesbian and transgender youth are not the only ones victimized by this sort of daily torment. In fact, four heterosexual students report name calling and accusations of a sexual nature for every gay or lesbian student. Contact your school boards and legislators about the importance of anti bullying legislation that specifies sexual and gender identity protection.

Responding to harassment in the schools is more challenging if you are the one being bullied. Ignoring the bully, surrounding yourself with supportive friends and responding with humor can all be helpful strategies if you don’t feel like you are at physical or emotional risk. Know your school’s discipline policies and work within those policies and with the assistance of your parents, teachers and administrators to stop the bullying.

The latest gay bullying comes from Queens, New York where Jack Price, 49, had left a deli after buying cigarettes in College Point, when he received a number of antigay comments and was attacked. No matter whether you are young or old you have to be on the lookout for anti-gay remarks and slurs and be able to get away from attackers. We can only hope that Obama will keep his words spoken at the HRC Equality Dinner and sign into the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill that will be on his desk soon. See safeschoolscoalition.org for more information on anti-gay bullying.

I walked out to the mailbox today and was in shock when I opened it. I thought I was timewarped to the 1990′s when I was 16 years old and was at the bookstore and sneaked away from my family to look through the pages of a XY Magazine. Back then it was a great magazine that helped us deal with being gay and coming out. It also brought happiness to us by seeing the pics of the hotties and read stories about them instead of seeing the girls and girl talk you read in most teen magazines.

Although, It has been maybe a year or at least several months since I received an XY Magazine in the mail with a letter attached to it asking for a donation. I think I paid for a subscription to support the magazine as I do many gay magazines (advocate, OUT, Instinct, etc.). You can add Men’s Health, GQ, and Details to the list if you think those are gay.

The problem is that most gay teens in the year 2008 do not know about XY.com or XY Magazine. If you type in gay teen personals into Google you will get an AOL site that comes up first. Then if you type in gay teens in google you get Chadz Boys (chadzboys.com) which offers support and may be a good resource online. ChadzBoys is ranked 324,716 in Alexa above XY which is ranked 352,041.

XY Magazine used to be so popular that you could type in the keyword “XY” or “Gay Teen” and get it to come up in AOL. You know the old software version of AOL that used to bog down your computers that is all but extinct now (just like most magazines and newspapers).

The XY site online says in the title it has been around since 1996 and that is not true. This magazine has been around longer than the AOL Keyword days and we know that was way before 1992. I would just drop the been around since from the title of the site because the youth could care less how long something has been around. They want something that is around now… not a fallen hero.

The fact that About.com (owned by the New York Times), Wikipedia.org, and Student.com own the results in Google for the term “gay teen” that is very sad. It is sad because these are mostly corporate owned companies and not owned by the gay community. Wikipedia is an exception but it should be on page two or so on this term since its a freaking encyclopedia and is NOT a resource for gay teens who are searching for help or comfort online.

The website over at XY.com ask most to be a member before stepping inside then you go inside for non-members and barely see five articles. I mean what kind of resource is this. As for personals, this site is not too bad and its free but cannot compare to myspace or facebook where you get to know quite a bit about anyone before meeting them.

You have to give XY Magazine props because they were able to get themselves seen in bookstores at a time of gays not being accepted. Especially with covers you would see on girl’s teen magazines but aimed at boys and that is just something that does not happen much. So I give credit to Peter Ian Cummings for a job well done back in the day. I just think here in 2008 that XY.com and Gay.com have both lost their ways and lost their focus.

I have been an investor in Planet Out which owns Gay.com and Out Magazine. Jim Cramer a year or two ago talked about Planet Out stock and said they need to make their content free. Well they sort of did but their site is so hard to navigate that it would not even matter. They also set up some blogs and you would think they would be making more money now but I cannot even tell you what their stock price is… my investment was lost from what I can tell or their ticker was changed – I will have to look into that more!

Gay.com should have made chat easier and personals free. Gay.com is not a niche site it is a very popular site that should all be free with advertisements. They could have incorporated the ads on the chat with a better, improved chat but nothing has been improved on that site in several years. I was in Paris and no one was using Gay.com chat they were all using Manhunt and GayRomeo.com.

So those of you asking What Happened to XY Magazine? or Why isn’t anyone on Gay.com personals anymore. It is because the gays youth have went over to the corporate-owned sites such as About.com and Myspace. If you want them then re-invent yourself. Take notes from Madonna bitches because she knows how to reinvent herself!

UPDATE:  I have to give XY Magazine credit for their article on gay teen killing in Iraq.  These kids were 14 years old and killed so cruely and I am so glad that XY Magazine brought this to light.  Iraq and Iran are killing off the most beautiful souls that exist in that tragedy of a place.