CBB: TOSS

Why? She's a barking mad fantasist.

Orlando: A Tribute

Cos random photos of hot guys kissing will help us heal our pain.

Gay Media: Where Am I?

1. 
   

The Duke of Cambridge (Prince William to us proles) has appeared on the front page of the gay magazine Attitude, apparently to raise awareness and campaign against bullying. While undoubtedly a great cause, something rankles about it being seen as a brave and ground-breaking move for the royal family to sit down and talk to LGBT+ people about their lives in 2016. Although it’s a coup for Attitude and a news-stand hit in troubled times for the magazine industry, what we see is yet another white guy who is heterosexual on the front cover of a magazine aimed at gay and bisexual men.

Recently black queer rapper Mykki Blanco set off a discussion about the dominance of shirtless white guys in gay media (I hesitate to call it LGBT) on Twitter. Queer people of colour joined the debate on the #GayMediaSoWhite hashtag created by Vicktor T. The general consensus was that men of colour are rarely featured on the covers of major magazines, and if we are, we're usually part of a couple or group with white men. If not that, we might even feature on an alternate cover: see Attitude’s recent choice to feature model Laith Ashley on the cover, but to also offer up an alternate Matt Lister cover at the same time. There’s also an expectation that for media visibility, black men have to be extremely conventionally attractive and muscular, in a way that white straight reality TV and soap stars do not have to be.

If we featured at all inside the magazines, it’s usually in a feature about homophobia in our communities or majority black countries – important discussions, sure, but not our main stories... 

Independent Voices.

A good piece by Marcus Stow.
.
Hilarious and predictable comments ensue!

These people will never be satified, never be happy.  And it has nothing to do with their sex or lack of it. 'These people [!!!] will never be satified [sic], never be happy...', 'God that was painful. I can tell you're bleating and whining about something but I have no idea what...', 'What a load of whining bigoted tripe...', 'Not being awkward, but what's a "CIS white gay man? You'll have to forgive me - I'm a 74 year-old lady who HONESTLY doesn't know.' etc etc.

Diddums!

And here's the case for the defence.

Some posh lady saying Prince William might help enlighten the darkies in the colonies, basically.

Guardian Cif

God that was painful. I can tell you're bleating and whining about something but I have no idea what. You do realise that the world isn't perfect don't you?

Tweet Of The Week: Take That Putin!

.@JaymiUJWorld has a special message for President Putin in his latest GT column. Via https://t.co/KTWRgsA0xw pic.twitter.com/EHIZchabBe

— Gay Times Magazine (@GayTimesMag) November 21, 2015

LOL!

GT: Seann!

LOL.

Labels are for clothes, closets are for clothes, clothes are for washing machines, socks are for feet, cliches are for rhubarb...

GT: The Next Chapter

New feel!!???

PS Gay celebrity vloggers - woo!

PPS Doesn't look like they interview Kyle Kittleson, 'the gay Youtube star', who's just come out as a Donald Trump supporter.

'Rugby Hunk': I Mean Where Do You Even Fucking Start With This Mess?!!

TATTOOED rugby hunk James Haskell poses with a rainbow splash over him as he calls for sport to accept people of all sexualities. The England star, 30, — dating Chloe Madeley — rapped homophobia in an interview with Gay Times, on sale now.

 The Sun.

Daily Star: Thunderbirds Are Gay!

The five brothers – Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John – from the iconic 1960s puppet series have had a computerised makeover for their return to ITV this Saturday.

But the bulges in their futuristic spacesuits have raised eyebrows among the gay community.

Gay Times said: “Well. What can we say? The hotly-anticipated reboot of Thunderbirds has got us a little bit hot under the collar.

“Take a look at the all-new Tracy brothers. Is it just us or is Scott packing some?”

Daily Star.

Is this news!!? etc etc.

Alan Turing Pardon: Pointless

'The pardon given to Alan struck me as being something one couldn't in any real sense object to. But it seemed odd that he'd been singled out.

'I don't want people to go away with the impression that the pardon was a bad thing. It's really hard to criticise it, but I'm not sure that it added a great deal.'

Sir Dermot Turing, Alan's nephew, in GT (ie Gay Times).

Stephen Fry and Benedict Cumberbatch - two of Fagburn's most favourite people - are backing a campaign, okay, an online petition, asking the government to; 'Pardon all of the estimated 49,000 men who, like Alan Turing, were convicted of consenting same-sex relations under the British "gross indecency" law (only repealed in 2003), and also all the other men convicted under other UK anti-gay laws.'

Again, what is point?

NB Men who have criminal convictions or cautions for consensual gay sex (or mere encounters) have been able to get them overturned since 2012. 

PS Mind you, anything that winds up Stephen Green of Christian Voice must have something going for it...



I think this is meant to be her showreel to get some TV work.

Stephen, TELEVISION IS NOT IN THE BIBLE!!!

GT Naked Issue: A Few Questions

Who on Earth and the many moons of Jupiter is this?

That beard - WTF?

Why is he trying to climb up a stepladder the wrong way round in the nud?

• GT The Naked Issue.

PS Please can you send me a free GIANT Chris Mears poster?

Attitude: The Body Hair Issue

Nick Jonas has admitted that he doesn’t feel the need to “wax or shave” his body hair.

The Chains singer said that he thinks being naturally groomed is “the beautiful part about being a man”.

He told Attitude that he was surprised by the reaction to some of his recent photoshoots, which have seen him show off chest and back hair.

He said: “It’s funny, I never even really thought about it; that that would be an issue. I think that I’ve never even tried to like wax or shave my chest hair or anywhere else.'

Attitude are really selling me their 8-page interview with Nick Jonas on their website.

Who knows what thrilling insights they're holding over for the print edition?

Sexy Nick on his nasal hair and toenail clippings?

Or has a guy ever hit on him? How much exactly does he love his gay fans - on a scale of one to ten? Which male celebrity does Nick think is the most good-looking? What's his workout regime? Has he ever dreamed about being pissed on by a burly fireman? etc etc etc.

Nick Jonas's rainbow crotch-grab: Especially for you.

I'm not just taking the piss here. I really am concerned as to why certain gay media can put such love and effort into their publications, but fill their websites and their tweets - major portals for the real thing - with such banalities. 

See for example...

Such a nice story. World's second strongest man comes out: http://t.co/0XnvjrO6Qv
— Gay Times Magazine (@GayTimesMag) November 10, 2014

If I wanted 'nice stories', I'd follow Enid Blyton. 

GT: JB!

No idea.

Maybe he's in Stereo Kicks or something.

Gay Times: The Naked Civil Servants

The Times' diary.

Twit Of The Day: Oh God Just Make It Stop!!!

Why Tony Blair is a gay icon, argues @benjaminbutter http://t.co/J6REvJ56Tk pic.twitter.com/f3zKJ3EQPe
— Comment is free (@commentisfree) September 26, 2014

Forgive me, for my eyes kept sliding off the screen, but I can see no declaration of interest here by Miss Butterskips.

You're a leading New Labour hack, are you not?

x

PS And finally... no disrespect to Benjamin Butterworth [Clue's in the name] or 'GT', but as I've said here before, any journalist who uses the term 'gay icon' - sans irony - is a clueless twot.

Full disclosure: Fagburn joined the Labour Party, back when it had this on the back of the membership cards.

But I never got beyond provisional membership, cause the first communication from the local ward was inviting me to a 'summer garden barbecue party'.

There and then I realised the Labour party was fucked, and decided to go back to being a communist.

Tony Blair: Don't Laugh!

Daily Telegraph.

And now let's take a quick look at today's Telegraph cartoon...

GT: Satire!

Asked my mate Darren to mock this up for a larf.

Don't worry, it's not real!

As if anyone would choose this neo-Thatcherite god-bothering cunt and unconvicted war criminal as the greatest gay icon of the last 30 years.

PS You can always trust Independent Voices to come up with the gay wet liberal hackneyed goods.

What's that you say?

The man who wrote that runs the Labour Campaign For LGBT Rights?

I find that very hard to believe.

GT: FS!

I am going outside, I may be some time...

*sound of gunshot*

Gay Times: They Are A-Changin'

After a hard day being proud yesterday, Fagburn rushed to the shop after hearing the Guardian had a 'special supplement' The Scene: Rainbow Years - Celebrating 30 years of Gay Times that wasn't available online.

After this spread galloping through the history of GT, you get 30something pages of ads, 'sponsored content' and advertorial, about cosmetic surgery, teeth whitening, fitness drinks, adoption agencies, careers with the police, travel agents, estate agents, West End musicals, gay wedding venues, underpants etc etc etc.

Best £2.50 I ever spent

GT: Fingerless, Gloves

GeddiT?!!??

Thank god shoppers at Tesco have been spared the horror of 'some bloke from Towie' flipping the finger.

PS Plymouth has a population of over 250,000.

Tom is also good with his fingers.

Michael Alig: Them Were Rotten Days (Honest)

"None of us was using drugs to have fun. It wasn't like, oh, let's do cocaine and go dance! It was more like we need another line of cocaine to never have to face the truth that we were very self-conscious and uncomfortable in our own skins. And the irony is that we were spearheading this youth movement where the tagline was 'love yourself'."

A lengthy interview with Michael Alig in Guardian Weekend draws inevitably towards this mea culpa 'Drugs BOO!' quote by way of a conclusion.

Worth noting how Michael's story is so often framed as a 'the wages of sin are death' parable, as if Ecstasy is but a gateway drug to smashing someone's head in with a hammer and then dismembering their corpse.

It's by their star interviewer, Emma Brockes, who notoriously manufactured a libellous hatchet-job of an interview with Noam Chomsky. 

Why she's still working for them is anyone's guess.

Fagburn wonders if Brockes made-up any of Alig's quotes?

PS Michael is GT's new star columnist! He gets two pages, rather than the standard one. But I guess it's hard to argue with a convicted murderer.

Michael Alig, pictured in happier times, from a new exhibition of John Simone's Club Kids photographs, Legends of NY Nightlife.