Bette Midler at the Bathhouse

I mentioned Bette Midler and her bathhouse entertaining days in my Sewell post the other day; the excellent Gay Bathhouse Blog links to a story in the Australian (and which first appeared in The Times) where she reflects on those experiences (sadly behind a paywall) and also a piece on the PriceSource website last month in which she talks about her bathhouse days.  Well worth a read.

Brian Sewell: Outsider II

I had a pleasant day after the Christmas festivities reading Brian Sewell's new book, Outsider II: Always Almost: Never Quite.  It's the second volume of his autobiography and I can't recommend this book enough.

Sewell is the notoriously bitchy art critic for the London Evening Standard newspaper.  He's now in his eighties and has settled into being a rather lovably old queen with an acid tongue and an inclination towards painful honesty.  I never disliked him before I read this book, but I am now positively adore the delightful old queen.

His sexual escapades told with lubricating relish are a delight to read.  Early on in the book (pp 7-8) he talks of cruising, providing an important historical account for the activity in a 60s landscape (and just after the passing of the Sexual Offences Act of that year):

'...I lapsed into the opportunities for promiscuity so abundant on the towpath by the Thames between Hammersmith Bridge and the boat sheds of Putney.  There the thrill lay not only in the hunt but in the menace of darkness, for it was lit only by the moon and, until one's night vision kicked in, one could see nothing and perception was left to other senses - it is odd how much hearing is heightened in such circumstances; there was also the danger of the sudden presence of the river police patrolling in a boat with the engine shut down and all lights off, the fierce beam of its searchlight suddenly cutting through the night.  Far from running, the safest thing to do then was to lie flat and still in what small cover there might be, with one's face turned away from the beam.  Often there was no time to disengage and we lay like a brace of spoons waiting for boredom to move the boat on.  There was never much conversation, but occasionally my trophy was an oarsman who preferred to be taken home;  to my amusement, these were always sheepishly passsive, uncooperative in any foreplay, just wanting to be fucked - something to do with the repetitive action of rowing, I suppose.'

Quite apart from the amusing aspect to this recollection, the  story also beautifully conveys the environment and sensory experience of cruising which is sadly missing in many of the recollections which academic sources often turn to.

Sewell also takes us on an adventure through the Bathhouses of New York - including the arbitrary reference to Bette Midler (often a bewildering detail for my students when I recount historical tales of public sex to them in a workshop on the subject) and his stories of masturbating for Salvador Dali really do need to be read to be believed.

Another public sex story which caught my attention comes later in the book (page 150) as the interests of MI6 put pay to some of Sewell's exploits.  He recalls:

'Indeed, Harrods had to stop being a haunt for casual sodomy in the third floor lavatories, where is was from a Harrods boy in the men's department that I learned the trick of camouflaging the feet of the recipient in carrier bags so that any suspicious guardian of morals glancing under the door would see only the feet of a heavily-laden customer.'

And you wondered how Harrods built its reputation for excellence in customer care.

One of the more moving examinations of sexuality comes later still.  After Sewell has had a heart attack, and his health begins to decline; Sewell returns home from his hospitalisation and masturbates.  This followed rather unhelpful advice from a nurse at the point of his discharge from hospital.  Sewell writes (page 233-234):

'A nurse I had not seen before came with instructions not to eat red meat, chocolate or oysters, not to drink coffee, not to have sex.  'What precisely do you mean with not to have sex?' 'Well, you know...' she replied.  'No I don't - sex comes in many guises.  Am I allowed to masturbate?' To this she made the sort of whimper-cum-splutter that a maiden aunt might make and scuttled off puffing with affront'.

So it was that Sewell returned home and cautiously masturbated.  An activity which seems to have brought not merely sexual relief, but a rather wonderful sexual insight:

'I went to bed and very warily, almost enquiringly, I masturbated.  Why should this purile and much mocked activity seem so important to a man in his sixties?  I do not know: I know only that it was an indication that, in spite of the heart attack, my body was not in other aspects malfunctioning, that I was still a man and had not come a vegetable.  Why is it not to be mentioned in polite society, unless by a stand-up comic whose audience will, at the mere mention of it, fall about with laughter?  As a subject of serious discussion it is taboo; is this because it is far more common among adult men that we admit or suppose?  As all my married friends confess to it but keep it from their supposedly disapproving wives, is it still a secret pleasure in which they must not be too absorbed for fear of the wife at the bathroom foot with her, 'Darling, what are you doing in there?'  Wives can demand privacy without rousing suspicion but men cannot.  Is masturbation the real reason for the garden shed?'

Sewell also goes on to examine the importance of age for the homosexual (heterosexual too?) male, how desire specifically for youthful skin and buttocks can also result in mockery, the risk of one making a fool of oneself and the role of the rentboy.   It's all wonderful stuff, and will particularly resonate with fellow gay men.  For those in London; why not support an independent book store such as Gay's the Word?

Tom Daley: Gay Today, Gay Tomorrow?

A couple of weeks ago, a nation sat down to watch their televisions and enjoy an evening of cynical observations, self-depreciation and mild self-loathing.  London 2012 kicked off and Britain was ready for a cock-up of international standards.  It would be a naff opening, transport would grind to a halt, London would be in chaos, it would probably rain quite a lot and a host of unforeseen circumstances would conspire to ensure that everything inevitably went pear shaped.  Of course, there was the odd cheerful idiot thinking it was all going to be brilliant, but they were bonkers.  Examples of British eccentricity.  They probably did rambling or something, or ran charity jumble sales.  They certainly lived with cats.  Lots of cats.  They were always excited at such things.  They'd soon see the shambles.  Oh yes.

Irritatingly, it didn't quite happen that way.  Very early on in the Danny Boyle masterpiece (as we've come to know the opening), a nation of cynics were converted and the already annoyingly cheery optimistic folks were lifted to a plane of bliss akin to a 60s guru floating on a magic carpet of drug-induced delight.  It wasn't just good, it was bloody brilliant.

Then there was London, a city which felt pretty good.  The weather was glorious for much of the time and the gentle buzz of Olympic happiness kept everything bobbing along.

I'm still holding out some cynical hope that the pink sand strewn around London may in some way trigger skin complaints and a spate of litigation, or the prospect of the Spice Girls whizzing around on taxis could be a nod of self-mockery too far, but it looks like I'll be disappointed.  It looks like the games will be a success.  Not just in sporting terms, but in terms of showing the world and ourselves that modern Britain is a place at ease with ourself.  Confident in who we are, and both optimistic and ambitious for the future.

Add into this heady mix of a nation bemused to be at ease with itself, we throw in the athletes themselves.  It's telling that we seem excited not just by amazing Brits, but a Jamiacan runner in the form of the awe-inspiring Usain Bolt, alongside a host of athletes around the world.   Then there's 'Mo' (is a surname needed?), and of course 'Tom'.

Ahh, Tom.  Surely the nation's favourite?  A nice guy, with an amazing and powerful personal story, and a body that evokes a lustful desire among many that suggests Daley should be careful who he gets into a lift with.  Young Mr Daley has curiously been positioned in the BBC media as a 'teenager', and the BBC soundtrack that accompanied a video of him sang of a 'child in his eyes'.   Yet, despite this attempt by the media to re-position Tom as a child and thus make any 'naughty' thoughts about him verboten, a casual glance of Twitter would demonstrate they have failed.

We don't just like Tom and his beaming smile.  We want to roger him senseless.

It's not just me with a rather evident weakness for Tom, a range of high-profile journalists, celebrities, academics and unknown rampant homosexuals are rather fixated on Tom.  The outpouring of homosexual lust is itself a fascinating development.  Gay men are reminding the world via social media that homosexuality isn't just about a propensity for stylish wedding planning, it's about bonking members of the same sex.

Although some might seek to define Tom as 'metrosexual', it's not merely desire that motivates the 'gay' men fascinated by Daley, it's a belief that he is himself gay.  Not just camp, or 'gaying it up', but an authentic homosexual.  People point to his camp mannerisms, his tendency to wiggle his bum when walking from the pool to a showers (which some uncharitably have termed a 'mince'), and his fondness for camp music.  For straight credentials, folks point to his Cheryl Cole calendar and his promise last night on Twitter, that he would DM her to fix up some private diving lessons.  As women go, this is one rung down from Kylie Minogue in the butch-stakes.  

Daley does indeed seem to play to his image.  His fondness (apparently unique among competing divers) to spend significant periods between dives looking seductive under the pool-side shower led to me branding to these moments as 'shower porn'.  Here I use porn in the legal sense - images designed primarily to create arousal.  The ease with which shots are available on the web suggests I wasn't alone in noticing.

Whether Daley ever finds himself being bonked into oblivion by some chap in the not-to-distant future is largely irrelevant.  Daley is and probably always will be a homosexual in the minds of many.  He's an example of identity being formed in isolation from sexual acts.  When we say Daley is gay, it's not merely wishful thinking.  After all, whether he is gay or not makes rather minimal difference to the chance of most of us discovering whether Tom really is the much believed power-bottom some regard him as.  Yes, there is perhaps a sense of ownership, claiming him as 'one of us', part of the clan.  A cute homo to inspire a generation.    After all, look at Matthew Mitcham, comfortably gay and camping it up with aplomb in the Aquatics Centre last night.

No, we believe Tom is one of us.  Not quite in the Tom Cruise stages of alleged denial but at the point of eager discovery.  This creates ridiculous pressure on Daley.  An experimental mutual masturbatory session with another guy would leak to the tabloids with depressing predictability.  So too, an appearance on Gaydar or a furtive visit to Plymouth's gay scene.   Coming out for Tom is extraordinarily difficult.  Never mind coming out to a wider population, coming out to himself is next to impossible.  The formative experiences that can confirm, or define identity are next to impossible.

Thus, whether he is or is not gay, we may not know.  He may not ever know either.  So, we are in all probability locked in this dance of believing that he is with roughly the same certainty that we know we'll probably not know.

At a time of apparently transformed legal sexualities, it is perhaps worth noting these cultural barriers that remain not only in seeing somebody else's sexuality but in coming to understand our own.

Pride in Conversation

The Guardian carried a really interesting piece on Saturday featuring a conversation between Peter Tatchell and Julie Bindel on pride. There was much in what both said that I found myself agreeing with, but I probably came down supporting Tatchell overall.  I was particularly struck b his comments in relation to marriage. There are some who have been puzzled by his support for same-sex marriage given his queer philosophical roots - and his comments here reflect my own squaring of queer theory and a pro-same-sex marriage rights stance.  Check out the piece here.

Puzzlingly, the Guardian also featured a World Power List 100:  The Most Influential LGBT People in 2012, but it doesn't appear to be on their website.  Number 1 was Jane Lynch, Lord Alli comes in at number 2, Gok Wan at 3, Barney Frank at 4, Tammy Baldwin at 5, Tim Cook at 6, Ian McKellen at 7, Martina Navratilova at 8, Ellen DeGeneres at 9 and Clare Balding at 10.  The whole list is celeb-heavy with no academics featured.  One current lawyer - Daniel Winterfeldt - makes it to the list.   Although I'm not sure this is a fair list, it probably does say about the visibility of power - and our collective understanding of influence.  For me, the teacher out in the classroom influencing the lives of countless children through their simple existence is more influential on those children than a distant celebrity.  Those fearful of queer power have long recognised this.  Meanwhile, gay activists are all too often seduced by the glitz, glamour and illusion of power and influence which celebrity often offers.

I Woke Up Gay

Chris Birch appears to have a dead skunk on his head.  This was my opening thought to the much-hyped BBC Three documentary which hit UK screens this last week.  The programme received a huge amount of attention in the media and on social media, following earlier such media feasts when the story was covered in the tabloids. The documentary, I Woke Up Gay, featuring 'Kris' (he creatively changed his name) and his boyfriend Jak (the Telegraph noted this odd aversion to the letter 'C') as he tries to prove that it was a stroke that turned him from a heterosexual into the homosexual media seeking performer he is today.   Most reactions seemed divided between whether people believe him or not.  His boyfriend doesn't, and if the man who in all probability has been intimate with Kris's bodily fluids, doesn't believe him, what chance for the rest of us?  Certainly the academic who put him through a test to find out (it involved a computer but it could have been showing an endless stream of porn for all the viewer could see) also concluded that he was probably born gay.

My conclusion - for what it's worth - is I don't know.  I'm not some moral crusader, convinced he is a self-deluded fibber, or knowing schemer.  Nor do I fully buy his story.  I generally believe that that the categories 'gay and 'straight' are flawed with people generally capable of some fluidity around these labels.  It seems likely that the stroke - whether chemically or psychologically - had some impact on moving him within this fluid labels but some latent homosexuality was always there - as it is for many.

The lack of engagement with these potentially more complex - and more rewarding - ideas was disappointing but the disappointment didn't end there.  The programme revolved around Birch changing his 'personality' post stroke.  There was no reference to a sudden desire to be pounded into oblivion by a hard cock (or to do so to someone else).  Nor was there even the faintest curiosity to fellate another male, or taste another man's semen.  Yet these, surely, are the things that might indicate one may be a gay male.  That and running for a therapist at the prospect of cunnilingus.   Instead the programme - and Birch - resorted to odd characteristics to distinguish between 'old' (straight) Chris and 'new' (gay) Chris.  Old Chris was beer-swilling and thus obviously straight (which does raise some serious questions about the French) whilst new Chris is a hairdresser.  Old Chris was Chavvy, new Chris is erm, dressed like a twit?  No, fashionably turned out I think is the phrase. There are no gay chavs apparently.

He also now takes an interest in his appearance, which will puzzle many a heterosexual male, and also curiously erases metrosexuality.  This interest extends to the insane act of receiving a botox treatment although I got the feeling this may have been so he could perform for the camera rather than reflect his common practice.   The programme also emphasised that he was in a  small Welsh village, suggesting that by definition he was 'odd'.  You expect screaming homes in the metropolis but imagine in a  small town...the scandal...or at least so seemed to be the sub-text delivered with the subtly of a mallet.

The thing that drove me nuts more than anything was Chris and his blooming 'memory box'.  This has been put together by Chris to help his memory as he has no memories before the stroke.  If this is true - and it clearly isn't completely true, given his remembrance of various things - then how does he know he was straight before?  Given he has forgotten lots of things, maybe he has forgotten that he was in the closet?

I do think Birch enjoys the limelight, and I do think he's milking this story for all it's worth in that perilous quest for celebrity.  I don't blame him for this but it does make me less likely to believe a story apparently motivated by profit.

Scenes such as the immensely private writing of a letter to his estranged Mum are performed on camera, and he reads out the content.  This seems about creating good television rather than genuinely reaching out to his Mother.  When he says "it's quite difficult to write this letter", I find myself disbelieving him - and like a dodgy witness, his whole testimony is thrown into doubt.

We see him develop a stack of old films which show the 'old Chris'.  He seriously waited until now to develop those pictures, even though they were in his 'memory box'.  Again, I great this revelation with utter disbelief.  If he was really about establishing credibility to his story, he would surely have prioritised getting film developed before tabloid exclusives and then BBC documentaries.  He might have woke up gay, but I'd like to know what he was dreaming about.

Check out the programme on the BBC iPlayer here.

Tom Daley (not in a kimono)

Gay Times carries a refreshingly honest if frankly odd interview with Tom Daley in the new May issue.  It accompanies a big feature with Matt Cardle half dressed (straight) and Pasha Kovalev (sexuality avoided but he's straight isn't he?) so the homosexuals, Adam Lambert (back sporting eye liner and the 'over-groomed' look sported by many a orange homosexual), Ian Watkins (fretting over his 'swimmers' in an LA fertility clinic) and Julian Clary (feeding chickens in a silk kimono) are cast as slightly bonkers side characters.

The Daley 'interview' is actually far from it.  Instead it turns out that PR moguls turn Tom Daley into shark bait and hurl him into a pool of journalists.  The questions and answers in GT seem to have been overheard questions posed by a lady from Sky Sports.   Sexuality doesn't come up (there is a question about screaming girls) and Daley does seem fixed on defining himself and any potential actor portraying him as being tanned with dark hair.   We learn little - other than about his sponsorship deal.

It's interesting that GT devote two pages to an overheard interview (with official Adidas picture of Tom in his sponsored Adidas trunks).  The appetite for Daley as a celebrity continues and the appetite for Daley as a homo celebrity is certainly there despite his continued utter lack of sexuality (other than appearing as camp as a row of pink tents).  When GT do catch Tom briefly to themselves (to shake his hand) they take a photo which is 'one of the most unintentionally camp photos ever' and describe it as 'our fault, sorry Tom' but sadly the said image isn't published.  The truth is its in Daley's commercial interest to remain a symbol of sexual curiosity - and he may not know himself yet.  Daley will however, be someone who negotiates his sexuality in the public and commercial arena - at least for as long as the general populace wants to have sex with him.  He's such a bottom right?      

Lambert, the Sexual Homo

I don't think I've ever listened to Adam Lambert sing.  I've certainly never been one of those men who lust over the American Idol star but he is a global celebrity and successful musician.  He's also done much to clearly position himself as an out gay man.  No small thing in the American marketplace.

It was therefore interesting to read over the weekend that Lambert is soon to release his new album entitled 'Trespassing' in which he aims to create some controversy.  Given this is his second album, it's perhaps inevitable that he should seek to drum up some publicity and so he reveals that: “Cuckoo is about me acknowledging I’m insane and celebrating that fact. “And Shady is a sleazy, disco funk about cruising for sex, so it will be interesting to see how Middle America interprets that.”

Yes Adam, it will.  Quite what he means by cruising is interesting - is he talking coming over (if you pardon the phrase) all George Michael and producing a video with spinning urinals and restroom disco balls?  I suspect not.  Yet, even if he means cruising as a broad term - to merely denote behaviour that might be regarded as that of a sexual predator - it is an important step in positioning him not merely as a celebrity homosexual but as a celebrity homosexual who has sex with men.

We often forget about the whole sex business in the modern social and legal construction of the homosexual and so it will be interesting to see how 'middle America' react to the reminder/realisation that Lambert's homosexuality is not merely expressed by an excessive fondness of eye liner.

Check out the full story in that most illustrious of British organs *cough*, the Daily Star.

Benjamin Cohen: It Gets Better

Channel 4 correspondent and Pink news founder, Benjamin Cohen has produced a nice little video as part of the It Gets Better Project in which he talks about being gay and Jewish (not to be confused with the straight, rugby playing, anti-bullying campaigner and homo pin up  - Ben Cohen).

I know these videos have attracted some criticism from within the LGBTQ 'community' for simplifying things, for suggesting that things 'get better' when perhaps they don't but I think the message is an important one - and you can explain that things can remain complex but also that they do get better.  The message is simply one of hope, and heaven knows we all need that in our darkest moments.

Check out the lovely Benjamin below (and watch out for Krishnan bobbing around in the background):

Why Does Hollywood Hate 'Gay' Sex?

Absolutely fascinating piece in the Daily Beast about whether Hollywood is terrified of gay sex. The piece argues that 'as Hollywood portrays it, the homosexual man is, astonishingly, sexless.'

Read the article in full here.

The Metrosexual Arse

Remember Philip Oliver? He's an actor who made his name in the British soap Brookside, and went on to appear in many calendars that men, women and those who find young sexy men half naked attractive devoured (he's depressingly just 2 months younger than me but you wouldn't think it). Well, he's straight. He's repeatedly said he's straight in all the gay magazine interviews (of which there are many) that he's done. In 2005, he was a national judge on Mr Gay UK and he's appeared at various gay pride events and in 2010 appeared in a BBC soap, Doctors, playing a gay yoga teacher so he's a straight guy who likes playing with the gay boys.

This is a metrosexual who has apparently made some money from the gay community and so it perhaps helps if men keep thinking there's a possibility of some sexual liaison. In that sense, he is the professional cock tease. He is very very good at it.

It's wasn't therefore a total surprise to learn of his latest 'escapade' (pictured below). He's on Twitter as @officialoliver and had been interacting with out gay Coronation Street (huge Brit soap tv show) actor Charlie Condou via twitter. A curious thing to do you might think, but happily the Charlie Condou fan site 'Charlie Condou Confidential' caught the relevant tweets.

Oliver later tweeted: 'Noooooooo! Note to self. Stay

away from twitter when intoxicated. Noooooooooooooooo! xx'.

Condou replied: Charliecondou: @officialolivier 'Mate, can't wait to see that photo in Heat xx'.

Heat is a big UK celeb gossip magazine. It's all a bit odd. Metrosexual banter perhaps? Heaven help us. it can only be a matter of time before such confident heterosexuals start posting pictures of them being mounted by a very well endowed porn star whilst fellating his best mate. "Just for the craic like'

The T-Shirt Row

What silliness! Pink News reports that CJ de Mooi, 'star' (if that's the word) of BBC 2′s Eggheads, has revealed that he was banned from presenting prizes to the winners of the British Chess Championship because he was wearing a Stonewall ‘Some people are gay. Get over it’ T-shirt.

My reaction was 'and?'. Had I been running the chess competition I would have done exactly the same, just as I would have done if someone was wearing a t-shirt about race, disability, religion, a political party or any other politicised slogan. It's not a political event and the message detracted from what it was about. It's not homophobia and getting carried away with silly incidents like this merely serves to diminish real homophobia. Get a grip folks.

Pink News and the NOTW Legal Entanglement

Media and legal eyes will be on the News of the World tomorrow as it closes after 168 years. The paper is going out with a fond recollection of all the great stories it has published in the past, but I wonder if it will include the gay celebrity rumour mongering it has engaged in? Pink News reminds readers this evening of a curious entanglement of the two publications a few years ago which Pink News entitles: 'How the News of the World threatened PinkNews after Ashley Cole expose.' Check it out here.

Ricky Martin

The guardian carries an interesting article today with the singer Ricky Martin. A gay celebrity isn't that surprising, but a gay celebrity who is latino is. Read the full interview here.

Carry on Cruising: George Michael Hits Back

Hurrah for George Michael. There was much coverage in the media this week following his press conference in which he appeared to re-launch his career by reverting to nice George, the George granny could pop around and visit without fearing she might accidentally sit on a butt plug and get stoned on the tea and cake.

He appeared to apologise for his behaviour that enabled the media to run homophobic stories, and this was interpreted as apologising for his public sex behaviour and drug use. Young people it seemed, needed only gay role models who looked decidedly straight and were the artificial clean-living shells that the media seeks to perpetuate.

An example of this media commentary can be found in this piece in the Guardian which Michael subsequently singled out for attack. His Twitter feed yesterday made great viewing. In the space of seven tweets, he clarified his position:

1. Hey everyone....something important to say......

2. WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!

3. This is why I love twitter! MEDIA PAY ATTENTION!

4. I HAVE NEVER AND WILL NEVER APOLOGISE FOR MY SEX LIFE ! GAY SEX IS NATURAL, GAY SEX IS GOOD! NOT EVERYBODY DOES IT, BUT.....HA HA!

5. I apologised for my driving accidents and the homophobic language that they induced in a HOMOPHOBIC PRESS!

6. The GUARDIAN of all newspapers should know better. AMELIA HILL. Shouldn't you be working at The Daily Mail?

7. You see people, if you want the facts without distortion, COME TO TWITTER!!!!

Michael, whose various public sex exploits were celebrated in the song Outside, and who continued to feature in the media for his cruising activities is the closest we've come to a public sex celebrity advocate. He has a partner but it appears to be an open relationship. In truth, his relationship and sex life is just as true as Elton John's. For all the gay men embracing civil partnerships and surrogacy and the heteronormative, there are many more of us who prefer to shun those institutions and be, frankly, slutty.

That Michael explicitly defends his sex life, and makes it clear he wasn't apologising for it, provides a high-profile confident celebrity that people can look to for an alternative approach, and re-assure all those young people that do cruise and visit public sex environments that they are OK, and we shouldn't lose site that it's the queer-bashers and homophobes who visit these venues that should be the focus of police and community concern, not the men that use these spaces discretely for sexual purposes. That's real queer pride.

Portas on Sexuality

Today, the Guardian carries a fabulous interview with the kick-ass Business guru Mary Portas. The memorable bit of the interview for me was her observation about Homebase. Oh I hear you Mary. However, the more important aspect for the purpose of this blog are her comments about her sexual identity. Portas is in a Civil Partnership - having previously being married to a man. She is regularly held up as a lesbian icon but she challenges these fixed labels in her interview with a rather brilliant quote:

"Errrr . . . when you look at female sexuality it's very different. Lots of women have been in love with men and then women and vice versa, it's just not so defined and I couldn't explain it in black and white. Have I loved men? Yes. Have I loved more than one woman? No. But did I know that I'd had crushes on men and women in the past? Yes. So it was never like, oooh! But was I happy in my heterosexual relationships? Yes. That's the way it just happened. I certainly wasn't a suppressed lesbian thinking, 'God, I can't wait to get out of this marriage', cos that would be just awful, awful, awful. No, my ex-husband and I know what we had, and it was great, some of the best years of my life, really some of the best. We just grew apart, and that happens. And I happened to fall in love with a woman."

Read the original Guardian story here and see Pink News' take on the story here.

Tom Daley: The Response

The Guardian Magazine features just two letters on the Tom Daley article from last week. The two pieces seem to express the two predictable responses of 'disgraceful', and "oo, err" banter. Read them here. The fact there wasn't a more overt outcry is itself fascinating.

Re-read my thoughts on the original piece here.

Fry and the Whole Silly Stick

Stephen Fry has returned to link to a blogpost about the recent fuss about his comments I blogged about earlier in the week. Check out his post here. Also look out for 'twatty prune' - I need an excuse to use that description soon.

Strictly Lesbian

I do enjoy Strictly Come Dancing but despite its weekly serving of a large dollop of camp and queerness, the performers all find themselves in a heteronormative narrative of two dancers - one male and one female. It's depressingly out of sync with modern society. I therefore greeted some news from Israel yesterday with a loud "hurray". Dancing with the Stars - the international version of Strictly has a show in Israel and the current series includes out-lesbian Gili Shem Tov, a TV sportscaster, who has been teamed with Dorit Milman, a professional dancer assigned by the show to perform with her.

The BBC - owners of the format - apparently also had to give the Israel show the go-ahead. This presumably sets a precedent that it's OK for the British version too so let's get someone openly gay in this country strutting their stuff with someone of the same gender in the next season. Then we can get to grips with trans dancers too...

You can watch a bit of their dancing and read more here.

Lip Service Finale Party

Lebilicious reports that the BBC Three Drama Lip Service will be having a finale party in Glasgow with 'the Cop' (which is kinda cool, shame no Tess who is my fave) on 16 November.

Heather Peace isn't just an actress, she'll also be revealing her musical skills in a short acoustic set, followed by a DJ set of Grrrly classics by Pretty Ugly DJs – the Guardian Guide’s pick as Glasgow’s best club night.

Tickets are free but you have to obtain them in advance from www.greatlezbritain.co.uk

Stephen Fry

Oh deary dear. My Attitude subscription lapsed this month and because I didn't realise it was about to expire I didn't get this months Attitude magazine. As is the way of these things, that issue (already sold-out online) will surely now be sold-out in stores as it is the source of an almighty row and the wonderful Stephen Fry has gone and vanished from Twitter leaving fellow twitter geeks (myself included, follow me @lawandsexuality) worried as to whether he will ever return. His Twitter feed which can be viewed here, was last updated yesterday with 'Bye bye'. An hour earlier Fry had tweeted: 'So some fucking paper misquotes a humorous interview I gave, which itself misquoted me and now I'm the Antichrist. I give up'.

I'm tempted to point out that Fry can use the word fucking in his tweet feed and still be a hero of the nation, someone for children and middle-class men alike to aspire to be. If I used the word I'd probably get dirty looks off the Dean. Such is life. I say tempted to, I think I just did tell you. Sorry - cantankerous ranting is just another facet of my personality so it seems fitting to reflect it in my blog.

Anyway, back to this Fry strop. As a fellow stropper, it seems to me to be a rational reaction to a miss-quote that then led to some groups turning their fire on him. Poor Stephen. The Observer - apparently the must read for feminists sipping their soya milk fueled drinks on a Sunday morning (I'm being ironic, easy tiger!) took some umbrage to Fry's 'humorous' remarks that women don't like having sex - that it is the price for a relationship. The Observer wrote:

'"For good reason," he declares in a candid interview in the November issue of Attitude magazine. "If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my fucking rocks off', or they'd go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush. It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."

To make matters worse, they then get a quote who runs off with the cottaging angle and then displays her utter ignorance of the topic whilst attacking the ignorance of Fry. It's a media frenzy driven by an odd mixture of shock, outrage, ignorance and practised by those with an apparent humour-bypass. Boycott was quoted as saying that Fry's comments were: "kind of rubbish. Women are just as capable as men are of enjoying sex. We don't go cruising or cottaging on Hampstead Heath because we don't need to. Cottaging on Hampstead Heath is presumably a hangover from the days when, sadly, [homosexuality] was illegal… Women have other ways to get our thrills, and we can go and get them in bars or clubs. Having said which, we probably also do it in parks sometimes too. It's just that we don't call it cottaging. I'm sure I've done it in parks in my time."

Pink News covered the row and included a response from the Observer following Fry's tweeted complaints at the story which seemed to portray him as the 'anti-christ', commenting that:

'We have faithfully and fairly reproduced Stephen Fry’s quotes in his interview with Attitude magazine. It fully and accurately reflects the opinions he expressed. He has no grounds for complaint against this newspaper.”'

For any feminists still reading, I agree with Fry that for some women this is probably the case; however I'm pretty confident (I'm a single gay man so I'm getting out of my depth at this point...) that many women love love love sex. Fry's comments were in that sense absurd but I do think the media need to develop a sense of humour. Read the Observer piece here, and make up your own mind. For what it's worth, I think we all need to find our sense of humour and get a grip. Ooo errr.