this is fyf

This weekend, "Hung" star Thomas Jane 'fessed up to being a hustler in real life when he was 18, homeless and starving in L.A. In the new times we live in, he fully owns letting "a guy buy me a sandwich" and acknowledges he was experimenting with his sexuality. What he says next ruffled some feathers amongst the commenters over on Towleroad but I feel largely sympathetic to his point.

"Jane: You're a lot more open to experimentation as a young man. And for me, being a young artist and broke in Los Angeles, I was exploring my sexual identity. And probably because of my middle-class, white blue-collar upbringing, I would have never had the opportunity to confront some of my own fears and prejudices had I not been hungry enough to be forced to challenge myself in that way.

Interviewer: So then it was productive for you in terms of self-knowledge?

Jane: Yeah, absolutely. It blew the doors off of my conventional upbringing and thinking and opened up possibilities for me that were akin to World War III. And then you actually have a choice, and I chose to be a heterosexual guy because that's what my DNA dictates and my nurture dictates that I am.

Interviewer: Then is that a choice?

I don't know. I think up to a point it's a choice. But I'll tell you what — it's not a choice until you're open enough to experience both male and female sexuality. Until you've tasted the food, you don't know whether you'll like it or not, as my mom always said."

(Emphasis mine)

His reasoning and expression of it is a bit rough, but the point I hear him trying to make is that we ultimately choose how to channel our sexuality, and I agree with him - with qualifications of course - on that point. I'd much rather stand proudly and own my sexuality as something I've "chosen" after having explored, experimented with and ultimately found a particular category that best fits me and my inclinations and desires than the passive-aggressive "It's not a choice!" which could just as easily be interpreted, "I'm a victim, here!", depending on the context.

More importantly (?), the message is you gotta try shit out first before you KNOW. I feel like this is pretty damn fundamental in every other area for Americans, EXCEPT sexuality. I also feel like this is not so true of the young generations coming up now. And - all jokes aside - I think it'll only be when they have that freedom to experiment with different expressions of themselves and their sexuality (within reason?) without condemnation that we'll truly begin to experience sexual freedom.

Image via

Things gay dudes should learn from straight dudes, part one: Dancing should be fun.

Dancing should be fun.  The physical expression of those places that music can take us should be joyful.  Gay dudes like their dancing too, but their obsession with getting their holes filled often gets in the way.

Case in point occurred just recently.  Magical cookies and rice krispie treats and smokables and other things met up with an amazing set of music.  (The deejays and venue aren't important for this example, but it was really awesome and thoughts of whipping one's hair back and forth are forever transformed.)  Anyway, this dude comes up and dances with me for awhile.  He points out some glitter that "yes, I know it's there because I put it there".  Then suddenly hands are on chest and groin is gyrating toward me.  "Dude, don't sexualize the dance," was greeted with an almost anger.  And, in fact, dude disappeared.

Now sure, our straight bros naturally have that out of the picture and can just be goofy and fun and just mess around.  Is it too much to ask our gay dancemates to do the same?  Must it always be about getting dick or can we just relax and let the music move us?  It can be the latter and we should look to our straight friends for lessons on relaxing and having fun.

Please tell us how to use this sex chair.

An FYF friend submits the above picture to our learned and expert audience for analysis.

It's an "armchair" (though I think that's a gross over or understatement depending on your sexual orientation/preference!?) made for British King Edward VII, who was purportedly a connoisseur of cunnilingus...or at least that's the most plausible explanation I can propose for the particular structure and organization of the chair.

How do you think it was used?

Additional details and clues here and here. The thought is this ride was made for three?

Tangentially, Edward (below) was kind of an archetypal bear...at least in look (he just licked the ladies, though, so far as anyone knows.).

Photo of Edward via

Faucet Queen?

"Faucet Queen Helping Hand".

Watersports enthusiasist, clearly.

Queens be READing (what they want to see, in to a commercial)...

 
Reading anything "gay" into this Budweiser ad requires quite a LOT of wishful thinking to my mind.

Astute observations regarding ad campaigns and targetting an audience aside, the post about this ad on AfterElton (that was then picked up by Towleroad and now, by FYF) gets most informative down in the comments where we get a mixture of savvy vs. naive; wishful vs. cynical comments.

For example, one commenter roundly denies that Budweiser (or any beer company) would make a "gay" ad. Um...really?! (and yes, I realize these are print ads - a whole different animal - but still.)

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Agree or Disagree: These fifteen restaurants have the most attractive wait staffs.

We're pulling quite a bit of source material from Eater today.

Last week, they posted "The 15 New York Restaurants with the Hottest Servers", and - despite the condescension of the majority of commenters on the post - we deem this information valuable stuff to know (there also seems to be an ugly homophobic campaign happening in the comments with anonymous commenters posting about a Rob/bie(SEYO) and implying he is gay and gets all the hot male waiter trade. Someone buys it, even, and says something about "all the gross homos commenting". Nice.).

Also in the comments, readers write in with some intriguing tips concerning hot bartenders and meat slicers that I'm actually kind of excited to check out.

But per the list, do we agree? Is this list accurate for gays as well as straights? While the Venn diagrams of some gay men's taste and some straight women's certainly overlap, there's often an equally wide possibility for divergence. Thus, is there a separate list for most attractive male servers vs. female (I.e. - "a gay man's list"?)? Lesbians, what about you? Do you have a favorite restaurant staff or staffs?

Give us your thoughts/lists/tips in the comments.

This ad for Manwich is so confusing/bemusing/probably highly effective.

There's others in this series that are equally stupid/heinous. The focus group sessions for this campaign must've been...interesting. Sadly, I think they pretty much NAILed it in terms of hitting their target audience.

I guess it takes all types?

Via Joe.My.God. via Copyranter (who includes a couple of links to other ignorant-and-simultaneously-insulting-to-men-in-general-and-gays-in-particular-yet-probably-super-effective-because-they-are ad campaigns.)

I rewatched "In the Mood for Love" the other night. If you haven't seen it, it's almost devastatingly beautiful (Get a sense in the clip after the jump). It's also only available to watch instantly on Netflix through the 1st (two days, people! TWO DAYS!), so take advantage if you can!

The movie (set, for the most part, in Hong Kong in 1962) left me pondering "traditional" courtship and revisiting long-held conclusions about the essence and expression of romance, dating and love, particularly as my experience and beliefs about them might contrast those of someone experiencing and thinking about them from a straight perspective.

There's much to be said about "modernity" and the freedom we have to dive in to relationships (and back out) as quickly and easily as we change our underwear. Not to mention our ability to consider something rather superficial like a blowjob (well...superficial to some and in some contexts!) anything approximating a "relationship". 

Further...for me, part of being gay means having the freedom to throw out all the time-burnished ideas about love, courtship, relationships and the like and start from scratch; to really test the conclusions tradition has handed down to us to see if they hold any water when separated from societal bulwarks like the Church.

Still, the beauty of "In the Mood for Love", with its stilted romance, gives me pause, perhaps triggering now genetically-ingrained longings for a notion of human connection that is no longer - or never was - realistic, but most certainly eliciting closer examination of what it means to be human, to seek companionship and to - however you finally conceptualize it - love. A worthy examination for anyone, methinks.

Why I gotta be your GAY friend?

YES! ...But no? Aren't we still trapped by the same preconceptions/identifiers?

Eh. At least this is shining the spotlight on widely accepted and often unconsciously projected stereotypes and in so doing, encouraging inquiry and dialogue.

 

FYF Earthquake/Tsunami coverage continues: Comprehending natural disasters.

A guy (expatriate American?) on Facebook decided we weren't seeing enough "real" tsunami footage over here and posted this video he recorded from a Japanese TV network. The video shows the incredible magnitude and power of the tsunami as it starts from just a gush of water across pavement to a raging torrent pushing everything before it in its path. What's most interesting though, perhaps, is the commentary below the video on the guy's Facebook page. Thousands of people posted anguished exhortations to persevere and remain strong addressed to the "victims" shown in the video, and wailed prayers (symbolically via typed words) to God to comfort and heal the Japanese people.

Aside from the clearly ludicrous aspects of posting your comments intended for the Japanese people affected by this natural catastrophe on a stranger living in Tokyo's Facebook page below a video he recorded from TV, I think a good deal of the poorly expressed outpourings of sympathy left below his video can be explained by reasoning the average "modern"(?) individual lacks any real experience vocalizing their reaction to something this catastrophic, and thus they resort to cliched phrases of empathy and condolence as a matter of course.

I wonder though what psychic gap - also created by lack of experience perhaps - there is in the "average" viewer's comprehension of the events they are seeing, and thus their emotional reaction to it, as there's no visual evidence of any human or other creature being hurt or killed in this video, yet commenters nearly universally bewailed the terrible tragedy and loss of human life/well-being after viewing it. Certainly it makes sense given they are extrapolating out from this particular video to the events transpiring elsewhere while it was being shot and thus including the high number of lives lost, homes destroyed, etc. in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami together. However, all of this together really makes me wonder: 

• how closely we associate the destruction of our things with our own (or others) destruction, 
• how unthinking and knee-jerk the vast majority of people's reactions to this disaster (and others) are and why (are we all numb? unthinking? not present? too quick to say, "God help them." and then tuck back into our own lives, freed of any commitment to our fellow man?) 

and, finally,

• whether these verbal/typed outpourings and proclamations of support are nearly as cathartic as they are melodramatic.

It's important to remember we gays don't hold a monopoly on suffering.

I don't think we are necessarily guilty of thinking so, but a reminder of the abuse and torture suffered by women at the hands of men is never a bad thing.

Additionally, we (male) gays are sometimes guilty of misogyny ourselves ("Ew, fish!" is probably just the mildest of betrayals of some of our true feelings about the opposite sex.). Reducing a human being to nothing more than an unpleasant smell may be harmless enough, but the dehumanization of women in other areas of the world is far more extreme.

Should gays be allowed to marry if (and who) they wish? Absolutely.

Should women be able to marry if (and who) they wish without fear of reprisal via acid attack or burning? Undoubtedly.

Our common cause binds us.

Via.

Cruise ships, explained.

A friend recently embarked on one of the "Gay Cruise Ship" voyages.  To me it's a way of travelling in an insular bubble to foreign lands where you learn nothing of the people or region to which you are travelling.  It's the traveller as gawker, pointing out from a safe distance, "oo, pretty".  Me?  I'd rather cruise the Seine at 4 in the morning, or have coffee with a stranger in Giza, or talk about the economics of being a drug dealer in Mexico City.  It's about the adventure, not just the relaxation.

Then this news came out, and I was, like, oh, I guess that could make it okay.  

("Noah's Gay Wedding Cruise" by Paul Richmond)

We love Alexyss Tylor not beating around the bush about "Penis Power".

Watch here.

Can you spot the differences between these booty-shake videos? (Let's hope this is easy.)

I have watched about eight times trying to catch any major departures from the original (aside from the intended one). The synchronization is kind of sick!? Messrs Solarte and Campos are herewith chosen to shoot an answer video, forthwith.

More "Spot the difference" puzzles here.

This .GIF of the Winklevii is many things. All things, even.

Something about their Gawker-dubbed ultra-homoerotic interview (and maybe those suits??) at The Daily here.

Oh yay! This is just the first in a three-part video series!

FYF Friend (and favorite librettist) Tony Asaro has a rather distinctive voice; a gay one, apparently.

He also characterizes himself as a monkey (he can certainly howl?) - a relentless one, even - thus dubbing his website "The Unrelenting Monkey" and his weekly posts to Crazytown "Monkey Business".

His post this past week delved into the au courant yet timeless assimilation vs. segregation debate as it concerns friendly advice he receives urging him to make his work "universal" rather than "too gay". His points are compelling, his argument taut; I encourage you to read the full post, here.

On a rare visit to a Hell's Kitchen nightlife establishment recently, a small party of gays debated the merits of "blending" vs. flamboyance. Homosexuals have traditionally been credited with adeptness at both, depending on context. Our context for this conversation was one where flamboyance would ostensibly be welcomed, yet blending seemed the modus operandi for the surrounding randy horde. 

Is this progress? Is it decline? Does it indicate anything other than evolution/adaptation?

While some don't care (or have no reason) to differentiate between the right to same-sex marriage and full equality (in all regards) for homosexuals, many of us do, in keeping with our individual position on the assimilation/segregation continuum. For me, change needs to happen in people's minds and whatever motivates that change deserves my support and participation. Flamboyance, ACT(ing) UP! and "OUT & PROUD", in your face demands for recognition remind people we exist and challenge them to rethink their assumptions concerning what it means to be human (and humane). Blending, while frequently more "blanding" than compelling, may underscore the commonalities we all share as humans. It's only logical that, together, these different approaches stand to create change in more people than either one on their own. The question then becomes, how to support both viewpoints without undermining/creating conflict with either? Can we do it?

This Super Bowl Snack Recipe results in some delicious balls

The above are mighty tempting to this Buffalo Wing afficionado...and the whole thing - courtesy of Thrillist - is ripe for punnery...a fact they (per usual) haven't failed to pick up on, ending their blurb with, "Use this recipe and your balls will be intercepted more times than Eli Manning"

Intercepted?? Come ON Thrillist!? UrbanDaddy would've taken these balls and run with them!

More of Thrillist's suggested snacks from around the nation here.

Spicy Buffalo Wing Balls ("MmmMM! I CAN'T keep them out of my MOUTH!") recipe by Daniel Holzman of The Meatball Shop after the jump...

All the Queens leave after rockets are shot.

The cruise ship Queens Victoria, Mary 2 and Elizabeth depart in unison today from New York Harbor where - at approximately 6:30 - they'll be sent on their way by a fireworks show.

How is it the BRITISH are less uptight about male nudity then we are!? (possibly NSFW)

This mostly is - and could be here - an awesome campaign (other than the cheesy title.), but can you imagine any male American celebrity/sports figure getting naked?

That said, surely there are some who would be down!?

Maybe they just haven't been given the opportunity. Mr. Nardicio is doing all he can to increase the number of male celebs appearing naked, but maybe it'd be easier were it for a "good cause", like this.

Also. You can totally see his d-ckhead.

Making the homoeroticism in Professional "Wrestling" overt...

 

'Cuz it might not have been??

(Still, this is amusing/somewhat arousing.)