John Waters: Is It Porn Or Is It ART?

A mood of nostalgia permeates the exhibition. I ask him to explain an image of a crab. “There’s no such thing as crabs any more because young people don’t have pubic hair any more. So where did they all go? They’re extinct! So I had to bring them back.” He stands back from the image to get a better view. “It’d take a brave collector to hang that above their couch. I’d rather have crabs than bedbugs. You can get rid of crabs in a day.”

Waters is not just nostalgic for being hated then, but nostalgic for old school STDs. Another piece called Poultry consists of covers of old gay porn novels with the word “chicken” in the title and depicting young, nubile gay men in various states of rudery. Each book is from Waters’ extensive collection. “I guess nobody says chicken any more in that context,” says Waters wistfully. “Now the gay slang is twink.”

And then there’s the stroller I stumbled across when I entered the show. The restraining straps look like they’re from a bondage fetishist’s closet, and the seat is decorated with the names of gay clubs including The Toilet and Blow Buddies, the latter with its striking logo of a penis in mid-ejaculation. If only, I think, the gallery had a gift shop, this baby buggy would be a top seller.

This stroller, too, is nostalgic. “Those are all real places that existed in the 60s and 70s. But today in those neighbourhoods, like the Castro district in San Francisco, you see gay couples with strollers with kids. Who’d ever have thought it would happen?” Blow Buddies, I’m happy to relate, still thrives in San Francisco. “So I’m just putting them both together to celebrate the gay world and show things change and become even more confusing.” ...

The Guardian

The interview is titled John Waters: I want to be despised.

Must be frustrating then that these days he seems universally adored.

The exhibition Beverly Hills John is at Sprüth Magers, London.

Tweet Of The Day: Thunderbirds Are...

Thunderbirds are twink pic.twitter.com/SiDg8pEIen
— Matthew Mulligan (@_mattuna) January 15, 2015

Yes, I know other people saw this picture from the new Thunderbirds TV series and tweeted that they looked a bit gay/camp/queeny/
boyband, but this was done with far greater wit and brevity - so don't write in.

ATeen: Twinkitude

Attitude have published a 'special edition teen magazine', aTEEN.

It features the gay one from Union J, some gay bloke from Towie, and something about Tom Daley.

Digital-only, it could become a quarterly print magazine.

Christian Guiltenane, the assistant editor of Attitude, told Guardian Media he wanted to create a publication that he would liked to have read as a young gay man.

“There was nothing that appealed to a 16-year-old outside the metropolis – the established gay mags tended to be aimed at an older audience with a large income and a lifestyle far removed from my own."

Fagburn wonders if he had any particular magazine in mind.

One Direction: Holy Twinks!

It's probably not a big surprise that there are gay men who lust after the guys in One Direction (who are all the ages of 18 to 20), but openly gay Bravo TV executive Andy Cohen, 44, may have gone too far by calling One Direction "a room of twinks." "Twinks" is gay slang for young, boyish-looking gay men, usually between the ages of 16 to 24, who are used as sex objects by older gay men. Because of the meaning behind the word, many young gay men find it offensive to be called a "twink." Cohen made the remark on live TV on November 13, 2012, while he was being interviewed in a celebrity gossip segment on NBC's Today... 

In his Today interview, Cohen described accidentally seeing One Direction in the Today green room: "This morning, I went into the normal green room that we typically go into. I barged in, there are all these people in front of us. Oh, it's all the leftover One Direction fans. I barged right into a room of twinks: One Direction! Security was not exactly too tight, with all due respect. I barged right in. It was crazy!"

In case he didn't make it clear enough that he sees One Direction as gay, Cohen tweeted on November 12, 2012, minutes before his "Today" interview: "No joke just walked right into One Direction greenroom!! The blond dude was shirtless #HolyTwink."

US website examiner.com via Towleroad - who notes wryly it's clearly a slow news day. It was soon picked up everywhere.

Does calling someone a twink mean you think they're gay? 

Probably not the best example, but the Bel Ami boys are twinks and, according to legend, most of them are straight.

It's a look, not a status.

Whatever it's a compliment, surely?

PS Cohen later tweeted; "Misused word earlier — I just meant they’re cute. #1D"

Update: Liked this - 'In defense of the word "twink"' Gay.net

Things We Learned Today: Top Ten Sex-Related Searches Online

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XY Magazine: The Young and The Naive

"The U.S. Federal Trade Commission [FTC] has warned two people associated with a now-defunct magazine and website for gay teens and young men that they would violate the privacy promises the publication made to subscribers by selling their personal information during a bankruptcy proceeding," reports the IDG technology news service.
That magazine was XY Magazine, which billed itself as "the premier magazine for young gay men, ages 15-29."
And this is clearly a pretty scary story - private information must stay private.
It's also a big story - it was the lead item on the BBC News website Technology section earlier today.
"A row has erupted in the United States centring on the ownership of a gay teenagers' database.
"The owner of XY Magazine and its associated website - which catered for young homosexual boys [sic] - filed for bankruptcy earlier this year."
Founded in 1996 by its British ex-pat editor, Peter Ian Cummings, the twink title went under in 2007.
In a letter from the US FTC (available as a PDF here), the only significant asset cited in Cumming's bankruptcy notice was the magazine's "customer list, personal data and editorial and back issues of XY Magazine and XY.com."
The FTC letter also states Cummings has "names and street addresses of about 100,000 subscribers" to XY - worth a lot to advertisers or anyone looking to set up a new magazine.
That figure has been quoted in almost every new story about this case - but where has this figure come from?
In a 1997 interview Cummings compares XY's sales with the two largest circulation gay magazines in the US.
"There's a thing called the Audit Bureau of Circulations, and they have a thing which they publish twice a year which is the audited circulation of the magazines. Out magazine is 78,554 news stand and 40,938 subscription and The Advocate is 17,530 news stand and 56,813 subscription... Right now, we're doing about 30,000 news stand and 5,000 subscription."
Did XY Magazine not just overtake Out and Advocate in subscription sales, but outsell them both by two to one?
Heaven forfend that a gay magazine would greatly exaggerate its sales figures in say a press release or some bumf sent out to potential advertisers.
IDG also tells us that; "XY.com told prospective subscribers that their magazines would be mailed in shrink-wrapped black plastic so that subscribers' parents couldn't tell what they were getting."
Erm, exactly how many closeted gay teenagers do you think would sign up to have a gay magazine sent regularly to their mom and dad's house?
Even - no, especially - if it was coming "in shrink-wrapped black plastic".
It's just a hunch, but Fagburn suspects that many of the 5,000-100,000 subscribers to the famously photo-heavy XY Magazine, may not have been twinks and teenaged gay men, but their somewhat older admirers.