Digital Closet

Mr. Krabs!

2005-04-10T13:04:00.000+04:30

Just found Coming Out: A Collection of Stories and In the Life: The gay and lesbian online magazine. They are great. And at last I realized why I am gay: I love Spongebob Squarepants and even worse than that: I love Winnie the Pooh too!

About Being Dim.

2005-03-31T13:50:00.000+04:30

After watching Yasmin Vossoughian's Coming Out: The Youth of Iran and reading this article and the answers to it (one and two) another time I start to think how people are the same despite different cultural and educational background. I think if you ask these questions from an average bunch of youth in any country in the world the answers are the same. There are some people who think they are the only people who are right and so they are the only ones who have any kind of right and there isn't any other kind of people. Although I must confess that we are somehow tend to make ourselves dim, like wearing a magical cloak which make us invisible to them and don't forget that if they gave Tom Hanks an Oscar to play a gay man, they must give all of us the whole academy for how we act our entire life.

But seeing some people think we are not exist at all, somehow hurts!

Happy New Year.

2005-03-16T05:46:00.000+03:30

Once there was a little goldfish who lived with lots of other goldfishes in a very crowded and not so clean aquarium. He was somehow different from most of other goldfishes and so he usually went to his little corner under a little mossy stone and passed his days by dreaming about sea.

As he grew up he decided to go and find the sea. Where there is enough space for everybody, even different ones to leave in peace. Where you don't live too close to each other and so usually people don't meddle in each other lives. He tried a lot to jump out of that aquarium and someday managed to reach the sea. It's a beautiful place but as time passed he realized he missed something. He missed that little aquarium and that little mossy stone of his past. Some people said this is foolish and a silly homesickness. They say he must be rational and don't let his emotions to overcome logic and reality. Maybe because of that different part of him which make him more emotional or maybe because all his life he tried to be able to announce his feelings, to be emotional, to be silly despite what other goldfishes think and say, he still misses his home. The sea is beautiful and rational and cold. He can't call sea his home. Right now he is as alone as he was under his mossy stone. And still, like all those past years, he tries to be logical and suppress his emotions. He is a goldfish with a suitcase full of memories, in a sea full of pure water, alone.

Happy New Year.

My Dilemma.

2005-02-14T10:03:00.000+03:30

Still marking time.

Where are you Shinji?

Where are you going to?

2005-01-20T05:59:00.000+03:30

The Blue Cafe
By: Chris Rea

My world is miles of endless roads
That leaves a trail of broken dreams
Where have you been
I hear you say?
I will meet you at the Blue Cafe
Because, this is where the one who knows
Meets the one who does not care
The cards of fate
The older shows
To the younger one, who dares to take
The chance of no return

Where have you been?
Where are you going to?
I want to know what is new
I want to go with you
What have you seen?
What do you know that is new?
Where are you going to?
Because I want to go with you

So meet me down at the Blue Cafe

The cost is great, the price is high
Take all you know, and say goodbye
Your innocence, inexperience
Mean nothing now

Because, this is where the one who knows
Meets the one that does not care
Where have you been?
I hear you say
I'll meet you at the Blue Cafe

So meet me at the Blue Cafe.

Another 2004 Memory.

2005-01-06T07:16:00.000+03:30

Love Among the Linden Trees.

An old memory in a new Year.

2005-01-05T09:32:00.000+03:30

Lyrics.

MAHA 2.

2004-12-30T04:18:00.000+03:30

MAHA: Iranian GLBT e-Magazine Issue 2.

Never Saw Such Drama Queens!

2004-12-29T05:05:00.000+03:30

...

MAHA.

2004-12-03T05:18:00.000+03:30

MAHA: First Iranian GLBT e-Magazine.

Unlimited Embrace.

2004-10-26T07:15:00.000+03:30

Contact of a friend led to another friend,
supple entwinement through the living mass
Which for all that I knew might have no end,
Image of an unlimited embrace.
Thomas Gunn,"The Missing"

That's how I felt about gay weblogs. Yesterday Persianblog closed almost all of active persian gay weblogs.

"Although, perhaps he should not be worrying about what happened to the world. He could renounce the world, could resign from human race any time he wished. If he never went outside, if he never open up that door, then it would make no difference to him what the world might do or what might happen to it. For he had a world. He had a greater world than anyone outside this house had ever dreamed about. He did not need the Earth."
Clifford D. Simak,"The Way Station"

... And since it seems (at least I really hope), closed weblogs must move to Blogspot, you can find a collection of Persian templates for Blogger at Gardoon site. With these templates writing Persian in Blogspot becomes very simple.

I want to fly away.

2004-09-14T11:40:00.000+04:30

I want to fly away, fly free across the clear blue sky. I am yearning to feel sunlight washing my back, wind in my face, grass beneath my feet.

Where is my destination?

2004-09-09T05:17:00.000+04:30

In past few years people and specially my family accused me of not trying hard to reach a destination. They always think that I must become someone important and wealthy and when I say these are not things that are important to me, they accuse me of laziness (I accept that am a little lazy!). But the truth is I never envied life of those successful people that my family believe must be my role models. They always seem in hurry. They are nervous (I am nervous too, but for other reasons!). All they do is trying very hard to be more successful, wealthier and more powerful. I actually saw what these people are able to do to reach these things. Maybe I am cynical, but as far as I saw, most workplaces are more like a jungle that people will do anything to get bigger portion of the hunt. I hate to be like this. Offcourse if somebody try hard and always assume morals in his work and live free of these ambitions, he can live clean, but at least in few places that I worked, being like this is equal to being the last one in everything. Until few years ago I always modelled life as a hill that as you go higher, the weather is better and nature is more beautiful. All my efforts were centred on somehow crawling to a higher place in this hill of social status. Now I start to realize maybe the road is more important than all destinations. If I enjoy my today, insn't this more important than just sitting in my office in hope of being someone important when I am old and can't enjoy anything but my memories? For how long I want to run? How much time left for me to enjoy my destination? Can't a road be more beautiful than any destination?

... And I just love David Gerrold's works. He is a great science fiction writer and he is gay. He adopted a troubled boy and raised him by himself. I think The Martian Child is one of the greatest stories ever told.

Jumbled and Disconnected Dots.

2004-09-05T06:16:00.000+04:30

"Do you read Sunday comics? When I was a little kid, I used to put my face up close to them; I was just amazed, because it was these massive dots. I think life is like that sometimes. But I think from god's perspective everything, even this, make sense. Isn’t just dots. Instead we are all connected and it's beautiful and it's funny and it's good. From this close we can't expect it make sense right now." This is how Aaron describes the world in Latter Days. Aaron is a Mormon missionary who come to L.A. with some of his fellows to advertise for his church. But he has a little secret. His worst secret. He is a homosexual. After a while he meet Christine. A gay party boy who fell for him on first sight. He resist the temptation but as his mother tell him later, forces of EVIL are so strong! His fellows catch him and Christine with locked lips and he is sent back to his hometown in shame. His church and his family excommunicate him. His family seems more concerned about how people look at them while they go to mall for shopping than how their son feels. So he commits suicide. It's unsuccessful and he is sent to an institute to cure his abomination by things like electric shocks, ice and hard work. Through a chain of coincidences that are more like miracles, he and Christine find each other again and live happily ever after. I must confess that I love this film and specially that candy sweet, miraculous happy ending. This film is about miracles, about how god has really a plan for all of us. I just think about that greater portion of gay boys that nobody can stitch them up after their brief and disastrous affairs with sharp objects. Those boys who never hear voice of an angel. Maybe I look at world from too close to realize story of the comic book. Where am I in this story?

... And Gamespot put up first ever video of gay marriage in a computer game as far as I know.

Living Without Oxygen.

2004-09-01T14:29:00.000+04:30

I am really happy. Anoxemia reminded me the story of "5 o'clock PM". It seems holding our breaths for so long to come out and meet our friends caused a real drop off in oxygen of our blood. Maybe we must learn to live without oxygen. Actually anaerobically powered actions are possible, but we had only a little time and after that we feel very tired. Very similar to many social behaviours of me! Welcome back.

... And I just love Katie Melua's The Closest Thing To Crazy.

The Memory Remains.

2004-08-30T08:35:00.000+04:30

I just came back from land of great memories. Do you remember Palikar, donkey of Perrine and Dog of Mr. Petybel ? Or Nik and Nikoo and Fourhand or Huch the honeybee or how Baller sometimes blushed without no apparent reason ?

Ye Lads of grace and beauty.

2004-08-29T12:44:00.000+04:30

Athens Olympic was really fantastic. As hard as I try to be a good boy and don't adore these beautiful guys, but it's helpless. Despite that sad start by Iranian team, they ended up quite well. Persian youth really need these little happy moments. I just wish someday soon Persian girls can also play in all games. I wish someday our girls and our boys can laugh, scream and be alive like others in these games. We lived without Cupid for so long.

Back to guys. 25 centuries ago Pindar described these beautiful lads in his Olympian Odes. Their glory didn’t cease during all these centuries. They will stay unworn as long as light exists and earth endures.

... And Fable went gold. It seems Lionhead didn't censor option of being gay. Even more than that, there are several gay characters in game!!! That's fantastic. Thanks Lionhead.

Abstraction of Love.

2004-08-18T14:37:00.000+04:30

Luis Crompton in preface of his gloomy gay history masterpiece: "Homosexuality and Civilization" writes: "Whatever the vocabulary, two elements are present- the sexual fact and the possibility of human love and devotion. for many centuries in Europe, homosexuality was conceived principally as certain sexual acts. This is because it was viewed theologically and in the light of the legal system this theology spawned- that is, as a sin and a capital crime." I think most of straight (and unfortunately even gay people) equalize homosexuality with sodomy. The great (and FACT based!) comments in Radio Hambasteghi Program about gay Iranians (MP3)(Thanks to PGLO) about how we can cure homosexuality with controlling our anal muscles! and electrotherapy, have their roots in this dehumanisation of homosexuality and more general than that sex. I start to feel really sorry for these people and their wives. It seems our problem is not lack of familiarity with sexual techniques, it's lack of understanding what is love and what is the difference between pure sex and a sexual act that roots in love. Sex cannot be the ultimate feeling of beauty unless love accompanies it. Sex isn't just relieving a pressure, in most cases it's not even a pleasure that one seeks for himself, but it's making pleasure in your partner. That’s why they call it "Making Love". And in most cases sex is not the main issue at all. I don't know how to describe it but love is something completely different. Listening to that program, I became more convinced that it's not problem of our government that they persecute and execute gays. This lack of understanding lies in roots of our society. That's why I don't think life of gay Iraqis is better after America attacked Iraq. Their (and our) main problem is our fathers, mothers, families and friends and being a sodomite from their point of view.

... And after reading how thousand of gay men and boys were killed during history of our civilization I am in a really bad mood. I agree with Andrew Holleran: "if you tend to view the human race as a bunch of murderous, paranoid, bullying baboons, Homosexuality & Civilization will not dissuade you."

Boys Like Us.

2004-08-16T05:38:00.000+04:30

Coming out is like telling a story. There is a new story of a persian boy like us. It's great.

... And you can read parts of "Boys Like Us" Along with many great articles about being a gay boy at ARGTOCSEXUALITY: livin' da life... page.

Growing up from season one.

2004-08-14T09:12:00.000+04:30

I saw last episode of season four of Queer as Folk about a month ago and I still think why I don't like it? Why even though I loved season four and think it's the best season after season one, I can't relate to it. In one of reviews of QAF author compared Brian/ Justin love scenes with mythical love stories of Greece gods. Why they didn't seem like that anymore? I think the reason lies in the slogan that Showtime tried so hard to view in season one, but gradually deleted it: QAF is about lives of a group of gay man and isn't portrait majority of homosexual community. Season one of QAF is more like a fairy tale than a real life story.

But despite Showtime slogan I think this fairy tale is part of lives of every gay and even straight boy. There is a period (And there must be a period) in every boy and girl life that they live like a fairy tale. The happily ever afters in happily ever after stories usually don't last long, but even those small moments of extreme beauty and extreme foolishness, are moments that fuel rest of our lives. They made our stories and a life without stories isn't a life at all.

Brian descends from his godlike character; Justin isn’t an innocent angel anymore. In a year or two Brian/Justin will be another Ben/ Michael. Their worries will be marriage, adopting a child and building a secure life. They will become old, but moments like season one let them be young forever. They always have stories to tell. Stories to remind them of days of fairy tales.

In fairy tales people assume that their dreams are all fulfilled. They just dance, kiss, smile and make love forever. They don't worry about everyday life. And they don't dream anymore. Sex and love are just small parts of big scheme of our lives. But in order to be able to understand wasteness of this scheme, in order to see our own scheme in universal portrait of humanity we need to pass this fairy tale period. We need to get free of childhood dreams to be able to make our adult dreams. We need to have our own stories. I think the reason that many closeted gay boys (me included) is frozen in dreaming about life like season one of QAF is lack of having our own stories. We lack fuel of fairy tales and fairy loves to get past our boyhood and become a man. I think Paul Monette described this at best in beginning of his National book award winner autobiography "Becoming a Man: Half a life story": "Everybody else had a childhood, for one thing-where they were coaxed and coached and taught all the shorthand. Or that’s how it always seemed to me, eavesdropping my way through twenty-five years, filling in stories of straight men's lives. First they had their shining boyhood, which made them strong and psyched them for the leap across chasm to adolescence, where the real rites of manhood began. I grilled them about it whenever I could, slipping the casual question in while I did their Latin homework for them, sprawled on the lawn at Andover under the reeling elms. And every year they leaped further ahead, leaving me in the dust with all doors closed, and each with a new and better deadbolt. Until I was twenty-five, I was the only man I knew who had no story at all. I’d long since accepted the fact that nothing had ever happened to me and nothing ever would. That's how the closet feels, once you've made your nest in it and learned to call it home. Self pity becomes your oxygen."

... And I just discovered Out of the Closet Television. A magical kingdom of online gay videos about gay life. Ted Trent's welcome to out of closet video is so heart breaking, yet so familiar.

... And The California Supreme Court voided the nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages sanctioned in San Francisco earlier this year. It seems there is still a long way to go.

... And it seems animals are going to come out of closet too!

... And a great QAF music video from Sandstorm.

... And a great Gay literature website with collection of online books.

... And maybe I become crazy, but isn't this Whale song cute?! (Results of reading David Brin's Uplift Saga!!!)

An unlikeable child.

2004-08-01T09:46:00.000+04:30

I just finished watching Before night falls. It's story of Cuban gay writer Reinaldo Arenas. During his life in Castro regime he was persecuted for his books and being a homosexual. He finally fled to US and suffering from AIDS, committed suicide. How much lives in opposite corners of this world are alike. "My Lover Sea" is one of his poems which is read at the end of movie on images of Renaldo as a kid, abandoned in an open grave, to play his life by himself. I think it describe life of many of us. I cried at the end of the film.

My Lover Sea
By: Reinaldo Arenas
Stolen From: Iranian Gay Doctors Website!

I am that child
with the round, dirty face
who on every corner bothers you with his
“Can you spare a quarter?”

I am that child with the dirty face,
no doubt unwanted,
that from far away contemplates coaches
where other children
emit laughter and jump up and down considerably

I am that unlikeable child
definitely unwanted,
with the round dirty face
who before that giant street lights or
under the grandams also illuminated
or in front of the little girls that seem to levitate
projects that insult of his dirty face

I am that angry and lonely child of always,
that throw you the insult and warns you:
if hypocritically you pat me on the head
I would take that opportunity to steal your wallet

I am that child of always
before the panorama of imminent terror
imminent leprosy, imminent fleas,
of offences and the imminent crime.

I am that repulsive child that improvises a bed
out of an old cardboard box and waits,
certain that you will accompany me.

... And Mahshid wrote a great deal about Stockholm pride march. Including three radio programs. They are great.

Je n'ai plus de souffle.

2004-07-19T13:54:00.000+04:30

Je Cours
By:Kyo

Fais moi de la place
Juste un peu de place
Pour ne pas qu'on m'efface
J'n'ai pas trop d'amis
Regarder en classe
C'est pas l'extase
J'ai beaucoup d'espace
Je suis seul et personne à qui le dire
C'est pas le pire
Quand la pause arrive
Je n'suis pas tranquille
Il faut que je m'ecclipse
Ou alors, accuser le coup
Où dehors ...

Faudra que je cours
Tous les jours
Faudra-t-il que je cours
Jusqu'au bout

Je n'ai plus de souffle
Je veux que l'on m'écoute
Plus de doutes
Pour m'en sortir
Je dois tenir et construire
Mon futur
Partir à la conquête
D'un vie moins dure
Sûr que c'est pas gagné
Mais j'assure mes arrières
Pour connaître l'amour
Et le monde ...

Faudra que je cours
Tous les jours
Faudra-t-il que je cours
Jusqu'au bout
Pour connaître le monde
Et l'amourIl faudra que je cours
Tous les jours

J'voudrais m'arrêter
J'peux plus respirer
Dans ce monde parmi vous
J'voudrais m'arrêter
J'peux plus respirer
Dans ce monde parmi vous
J'voudrais m'arrêter
J'peux plus respirer
Dans ce monde parmi vous
J'voudrais m'arrêter
J'peux plus respirer
Dans ce monde parmi vous
Faudra que je cours
Tous les jours

Faudra-t-il que je cours
Jusqu'au bout
Pour connaître le monde
Et l'amourIl faudra que je cours
Tous les jours

Fais moi de la place
Juste un peu de place
Pour ne pas qu'on m'efface
Fais moi de la place
Juste un peu de place
Pour ne pas qu'on m'efface
Fais moi de la place.

Do you care? If I vanish into thin air.

2004-07-12T05:38:00.000+04:30

A month passed since my last post. Back then I decided to quit writing here for a while. My reason was fear. Some of this fear was from myself and some of it was from the new Iranian Internet law. I was afraid because I realized that here I wrote about things that during 26 years of my life I didn't tell to anybody. I realized that my feelings became like a dam with 26 years of solitude behind it and a little crack in this dam didn't just relieve some of the pressure. The crack started to grow and the dam is in danger of falling apart. But stakes are high and so I tried to force myself back to my closet and somehow damp this crave for friendship. And yesterday I ended up chatting with L.E.O., The chatting robot of Lion Head Studio! The subject of our chat: Gay marriage in Fable game! I told him (it told me, it doesn't have a gender, but I think Leo is a boyish name) about myself. When I told him: I am gay, what do you think about it? He answered: What do YOU think about it? He just repeated my question, but I think that's the best answer I ever heard for this question. When I told him I feel lonely. He answered: Talk to your friends. I told him I never had a friend. He answered: "Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery, Today is a gift...which is why it is called the Present." I don't know which word in my question triggered his Case Based Reasoning system for such an answer, but I am thinking about this since then. For how long I want and I can live in my past? For how long I want to sacrifice my present in fear of what will happen in future? For 26 years, I was what my family wants. Am I feeling happy? Perhaps I can pretend to be what they want for another 26 years. I will be a 52 years old, married, possibly successful engineer. Will I happy then?
The Second reason of my silence was the recent Iranian Internet law. According to this law people can be tracked and persecuted by law for almost any kind of online activity. Writing a gay weblog certainly is a great crime from our judicial system point of view. I think that’s crazy, but in my dear country many things are crazy. And arrest of twenty gay men in Shiraz for being in an online gay chat room and also arrest of two university students for writing a porno weblog, made my fear even worse. Last month I heard that Iranian government censored Blogspot and many other Internet sites. I know how simple is tracking someone in Internet and how dangerous some of our government people can be. Last May Persianblog closed all of gay weblogs. Their crime: Writing about inappropriate matters. This time it seems they targeted bloggers instead of blogs. Maybe I am a little too paranoid but I afraid of them. When Abandoned Island deleted all his posts and just wrote: "I want to stay alive." I remembered how Max said exactly the same sentence in Bent when Nazi soldiers arrested him and his gay friends and sent them to Dachau. Despite all his efforts for staying alive he killed himself at the end of movie. I don't understand why we can't wear our pink triangles without loosing our life? When I read Bent reviews, some people wrote: now is the era of sexual freedom and making films about persecution of gays during World War II is useless. They said portraying gays as victims is inappropriate. Maybe it is. It seems we live in different worlds. (You can watch complete DVD version of Bent here, it's about 80Mb and 1h45m and you need Real Player(Warning: This film rated NC-17)). When in the beginning of movie Mick Jagger sings "Street of Berlin", I thought how we can sing exactly same thing about "Streets of Tehran". I hate politics, but why some people think they have the right to decide for every body else?
After thinking about all of these, I thought: so what? I always moaned (in past for myself and then here) and blamed other people for don't understanding me. I always knew I would not be welcomed, as my true self, in my family and society. I always knew about danger of being gay in Iran. But the problem is that I have no choice. I am what I am. Either I can eat it, enjoy the taste and live my life or deny everything I am, live a lie and hate myself every step of my life. It's a decision like any other decision. With consequences: both positive and negative. As Ed said: People cannot gain anything without sacrificing something, you must present something of equal value to gain something.

Streets of Berlin.
By: Mick Jagger
Music: Philip Glass
Lyrics: Martin Sherman

Streets of Berlin
I must leave you soon,
Oh, will you forget me
Was I ever really here,

Find me a bar on the cobble stone street
Where the boys are pretty,
I can not love for more than one day
But one day is enough in the city,

Find me a boy with two ocean blue eyes
That show no pity,
Take out his eyes he never needs to see
How they eat you alive in the city,

Streets of Berlin
Will you miss me?
Streets of Berlin
Do you care?
Streets of Berlin
Will you cry out?
If I vanish into thin air,

If I vanish into thin air.

... And do you know what Orkut means in Finnish?

... And Mrs. Parsipour in her review of Dr. Shamisa's book "Gay relationships in Persian literature" wrote that she thinks Persian people are among first gay people of world(Thank you very much!). She wrote that Gilgamesh and Enkidu love story is the first account of gay love in literature. But then she wrote three things that I found very amusing: First she thinks flourish of gay relationship in ancient and middle age Persia was due to easiness of access to boys and also because they can't get pregnant! She also thinks, satisfaction of sexual needs of men by boys is somehow responsible for oppression of women in Persia. I agree that women condition was completely unacceptable during our history, but blaming it on boys is a little unmanly (or unwomanly!). And I just wish none of those fanatic religious people read this article. In last section she point to the prophecy that a "bearded woman" will kill Mahdi and commented that maybe they mean a gay man by this comparison. FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!!!

... And I think Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is best Harry Potter film until now and is a real masterpiece. Harry starts to grow up and fortunately the atmosphere of film also changed with him. This film is much darker than first two parts and since it assumed that we know everything about characters, the story progress much faster. I think Alfonso Cuaron did a great job in directing this film and really captured what makes Harry so great. Cuaron last film, And Your Mother Too was somehow a gay film. It's story of how two teenage boys find out about love, world, straight sex and offcourse gay sex. At the end of the movie they ended up kissing each other on the lips and then go bed with each other. It's a great film.

Kesenai Tsumi.

2004-06-09T13:49:00.000+04:30

People cannot gain anything without sacrificing something,
You must present something of equal value to gain something,
That is the principle of equivalent trade in alchemy,
We believed that was the truth of the world when we were young.

Edward Elric,
Full Metal Alchemist.

Kesenai Tsumi(Unerasable Sin)
By:Kitade Nana

Even if nobody else sings along?

2004-06-01T10:38:00.000+04:30

Yesterday I was watching TV along with one of my friends. In one of channels there was an interview with a man and he suddenly started to talk about his boyfriend. My friend (he is completely and as far as somebody can be, straight) told something about how disgusting are gays. I said something like: everybody has right to love anybody that he likes and we can’t judge people like this and changed the subject of our conversation. During night I was thinking about this and felt really ashamed of myself. The coincidence was that exactly yesterday, thanks to recommendation of Arash, I bought DVDs of "Get Real" and "Beautiful Thing" and watched them. There is a scene in "Get Real" that John's (The boy who afraid people know he is gay) friends find out his boyfriend, Steven putting his face in John’s cloths and so they start to beat him. When John arrives, he sends his friends out and beat his bag while Steven pretends to getting beaten and fakes screams. Suddenly John's friends realize that one of teachers is approaching the locker room and run to inform john. They enter the locker room at the same moment that john and Steven are about to kiss each other. But when john sees his friends, he really throws Steven on the floor and kicks him. (This scene is completely in japanese version of Get Real trailer(It's in English with Japanese subtitles)).

During last night I was asking myself what did I do if I was at John's place? After watching the film, I was angry about John’s behaviour and loosing such a lovely boy as Steven. But how much courage somebody needs to be someone like Steven? I can be brave here. I can tell I am gay and I am not ashamed of it. But can I go to my friends and family and tell them: Hi guys, you know, I am gay. As Steven said: I am sick of being totally alone, hiding, feel sad, scared. But god, this is so difficult.

... And as I told, yesterday I watched "Get Real" and "Beautiful Thing". They are masterpieces. They remind me of "Billy Elliot". I must confess that I prefer British productions to their American cousins. American version of these two films is perhaps “Edge of Seventeen” (trailer). You can find more trailers of gay films along with a great compilation of gay short films at Online Cinema of Planet Out. Also I think "Get Real" is more realistic than "Beautiful thing". "Beautiful thing" is a fairy tale. Your neighbour boy is such a lovely lad. You fall in love with him and guess what: He is also gay and in love with you! And his father has no problem with this and even more: your mother loves your boyfriend! It's one of those films that make you feel warm and good for months. There is a scene in “Beautiful thing” which after going to a gay pub for the first time Jamie and Ste running between trees and play with each other and at last kissing each other while “Mama Cass” sings "Make Your Own Kind Of Music" in the background. I think although it's lovely, but jungle of "Get Real" which Steven and John found the only place for making love, is more realistic. When Steven's father asks him "Don't you think maybe one of those faggots might molest you in that jungle?" he answer: “Where else can WE go?”

Make Your Own Kind Of Music
By: Mama Cass Elliot

Nobody can tell ya
There's only one song worth singing
They may try and sell ya
Cause it hangs them up
To see someone like you

You gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind music
Even if nobody else sings along

It can't be nowhere
The loneliest kind of lonely
It may be
Just to do your thing is the hardest things to do

You gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind music
Even if nobody else sings along.

... And Episode 407 of Queer As Folk was even sadder than episode 406. Funeral of uncle Vic, testicle cancer of Brian and Ted's confusion. Theme of death and mortality oozing from every scene. But I can't complaint. A few minutes ago I told that I prefer more realistic things to fairy tales. THIS is reality.

PS: What a sad post. After watching those fantastic films, I want to write about how we can find beautiful things everywhere. How I just loved Steven and Jamie. But it seems stream of my conscious sings its own song.

Written in blank space between lines.

2004-05-29T11:45:00.000+04:30

During Iraq war I, like many others, read Where is Raed?, weblog of an Iraqi man whose account of Baghdad during war was humorous, beautiful and far realistic than BBC and CNN. Soon thousand of people read his weblog daily. After war Salam Pax became famous. His weblog was published as a book and he got a movie deal. During reading his weblog I always sensed something familiar in his sentences. Yesterday I found out that the most famous blogger of Iraq is gay! For me it's at least the sixth or seventh time that I loved someone's work and then realized he is gay. I read somewhere that every story has another story within it, which is written in blank space between lines of it. A story that author wrote for him/herself. And it's a far more beautiful story. I wanted to write about politics in Middle East in this post, but it seems useless. Every time I think about this part of the world it remind me of this peace pigeon picture. As hard as she try to reach to her destination, she is bound to her background, for eternity.

... And I think the logo of Gay Arabs Yahoo group is really beautiful. Sometimes simplicity of an idea make things far more amazing than what a vast combination of entities can do.

... And Ebrahim Nabavi's "Forty years from now" program, this week has a piece about gay divorce in Iran! I think that's quite funny.

A Portal to the Land Beyond Rainbow.

2004-05-27T13:49:00.000+04:30

Perhaps the best thing that happens to Persian youths is Internet. I am very happy to see that dear Persian gay boys also use the power of file sharing to download a portion of their dreams. One of the reasons that I write in English (despite my bad English) is that English is the only medium that I can read about and watch people like me. When I was 14-15 years old, I almost read every book that find in libraries or bookstores. I loved stories, but couldn't sympathize to most of them and specially the love stories. First I assumed that it's my problem and no great author writes about love of two boys. But there are also vague notes about Andre Gide, Jean Genet and Oscar Wilde. I know that there must be something that I missed. Then I found a copy of one of Genet books: "Our lady of the flowers". I can only understand few words. So I picked up a dictionary and start to read. Word by word, I translated every sentence for myself. Then I find a battered copy of "Different: An Anthology of Homosexual Short Stories" and then "Homosexual Handbook" by Angello D'Archangello from Ophelia Press. And I read and read. I learned that if I want something, must search for it. No one found a treasure without search. My first access to Internet was one of my most fearsome experiences. I was reading "Dhalgren" of Samuel R. Delany back then and after finding out he is gay, I was dying to find his other books. A few weeks before that I became familiar with a phenomenon known as Web. A portal to other world. Where you can type "Samuel R. Delany" and it find name of his books, his biography and everything else about him for you. I remember how awful I felt back home with a diskette that contains three text files about Delany books. How afraid I was (and still am). How I almost shook and bathed in sweat when first searched for "GAY". How I knew about "queer". Later I found a web browser for windows 3.1 which supported web pages that contain photos. And I saw an image of two men kissing each other on lips for the first time. I save it on a diskette and watched that photo for hours that night and maybe a thousand times during next months. Then I found gay video clips. At first they were all porn. But gradually I learned tricks of search engines and found REAL things about myself. I started to search for "Queer" and learned about a TV series, which just showed in UK. A show about queer men. I found out there are thousands of gay authors, thousands of gay films. Now we can download everything that we want from this magical portal to heaven. First it was Morpheus but they closed it. Then Kazaa and then Bit Torrent, Overnet, Gnutella and hundreds of other programs. But anyway I am really happy to know that other Persian gay boys can see these films.

... And although I don't like girls sexually, I always appreciated them. At first glance many of them look like some intolerable, spoiled things. But after knowing them more, I think perhaps in many aspects they are better than boys. Quite a while ago I watched a very funny music video named Gay Boyfriend. Which is about two girls and their gay boyfriends! I really loved this music video and think in many cases girls (Not those "Look how much I am pretty, worship me please" kinds) can be gay boys best friends.

Anderwelt.

2004-05-25T14:16:00.000+04:30

Whenever my daily meals of music become mostly consist of Enomine or other hard pop/rock/dance groups, I realize there is something wrong with me. During past week most of my days passed with my headphone in my ears and with such a loud volume that I didn't hear normally for minutes after taking the headphone off. I don't know what's wrong with me but I also had (and have) a nasty headache.

... And first simulation game with official same-sex relationship support is released. Singles – Flirt up your life is a relationship simulation game. This game has a pink mode, which includes one gay and one lesbian character. The storyline is really shallow but graphics are in complete 3d and very detailed. As you can see in screenshot (sorry for nudity), unlike SIMS sexual relationship is completely graphic in this game. The full game is available for download at Gamespot. But for playing more than four hours you must buy a registration key.

... And official website of Dreamfall the sequel to one of the greatest games that I ever played: The longest journey, is launched.

... And thanks to people at Seventh Dimension Sci-Fi Club the complete Persian translation of DaVinci Code by Dan Brown is available for download. The Persian translation is really great. I personally prefer Foucault Pendulum of Umberto Eco or even "Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the sacred, Blood of the damned" game by Jane Jensen, but Dan Brown book has a fast paced story and is quite entertaining.

... And episode 406 of Queer as Folk and specially death of uncle Vic was really sad. We never appreciate the value of ones that we love or things that we have (specially our health) as much as we wish we had after loosing them.

From This Moment.

2004-05-18T10:51:00.000+04:30

Today is a very important day. First legalized gay weddings are started in Massachusetts. Watching video of these weddings bring tears to my eyes. I feel like the day that I first watched Brian and Justin dance in Justin's prom. Wishing for the right to officially be known as a partner of someone you love is perhaps one of the most basic rights of every human being. We don't want much, just the right to live like other people. And as I wrote yesterday, I think being the first state in US (Canada legalized gay marriage a few years ago), which accept our rights is somehow because Massachusetts is best educated state in US after DC.

... And episode 405 of Queer as Folk is breathtaking.

Vigils of Silence, Love and Death.

2004-05-17T05:51:00.000+04:30

Last night I watched "Death in Venice" by Luciano Visconti. I read Thomas Mann's book back when I was a teenager and it made me so sad. But watching the film is another experience. Dirk Bogard is really great and I think the film is a masterpiece. The film tells the story of a great composer who went to Venice to regain his creativity. He saw a beautiful boy named Tadzio and became obsessed with his beauty. He tried to draw Tadzio’s attention and followed him everywhere, eventually to his death. The real theme of movie is about appraisal of beauty and reaching wisdom through love. For understanding underlying meanings of this film you can read Barry Stone's great Death in Venice page and this article about Gustav Mahler which this film is based on his life. But After watching it, all night I thought about one of my old questions. I remember when I was younger; when an older man made a sexual gesture toward me I really felt bad and also sad for him. I think many of us remember those gazes, those fatherly pats on our heads or tights, those pressure in crowded buses and those offers to riding us back home when we waited for taxi. I always thought, are they, as some not so beautiful men, have right to love us as beautiful boys? I think one of greatest aspects of gay love is that it isn't all about sex (sorry Brian!). In most cases what we call gay history and be proud of it is love of older men for beautiful youths. Source of inspiration for Persian poets, renaissance painters and even ancient Greece gods lovers are all beautiful boys. And I think it isn't completely a sexual feeling. It's more a source of inspiration and a path for reaching perfection. When we think about love between a man and a youth usually picture it as a seduction, a one-way relationship which one partner taking everything thing from other partner and somehow contaminating his purity. Is it really this way? Don’t older men have something in exchange for the things they got from us? Can’t their wisdom, support and guidance somehow elevate us? Can a beautiful mind make an old body lovely? I can't find an answer for these questions, but I think if we understand each other instead of hating in first encounter maybe we can find something beautiful in everybody. But this film made me really sad. Age is really the most impure of all impurities. (Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony which used as Death in Venice theme is a masterpiece.)

... And new trailers (first ,second) of Full Metal Alchemist are really fantastic. Fortunately the voice acting in English dub seems to be good.

... And I found two old articles (first, second) about homosexuality in Iran by Sam Ghandchi. I didn't know that Allan Turing, father of computer science, was actually gay and prosecuted and committed suicide after his relationship with another man was discovered.

... And today is first day of legalized gay marriage in Massachusetts. It's really great. Don't you think it's somehow because Massachusetts is highest educated state in US after DC?

... And new trailer of The Incredibles is incredible!

Somewhere I Belong.

2004-05-15T15:20:00.000+04:30

Yesterday was the last day of E3 2004. E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) is largest annual event of digital game industry. This year's E3 was great. Although many games such as The Roots and Legacy: Dark Shadows (First computer game featuring a lesbian hero) and Dream fall(sequel to longest journey) weren't shown, there are many other great games. Star Wars KOTOR 2, Prince of Persia 2, Xenosaga 2 and Final Fantasy XII are just few of these new titles. Unfortunately it seems we will not see Xenosaga 2 and Final Fantasy XII until 2005. The new 6 minutes trailer of Xenosaga 2 is breathtaking. But from a gaymer point of view there are two new games that I anticipate very much. First is famous SIMS 2. A few months ago EA officially announced that in SIMS 2 we can have marriage and all emotional relationships betweens same sex characters. Second game is Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines. The game is too much gory for my taste, but: first the developer is Troika games, same studio who created Temple of Elemental Evil with it's famous gay marriage plot and second I must confess that I loved Vampire Masquerade: Redemption. Also the game will take place in Los Angles, and who knows a better place for a gay themed game? (Just a wish!). Also it seems that future of RPG gaming is MMORPG games. Actually from a gaymer point of view it's great. We already have great gay guilds for games such as Ever Quest, City of Heroes, Star Wars: Galaxies and many other games. So if computer games let players decide about stories and quests, I think in future we will see MMORPG will play the role that currently chatrooms and online groups play: as a meeting place for people with same interests. Cyber World is one of few places that everybody can be him/herself, without fear of social restraints. Every body can be somewhere he/she belongs. Somewhere he/she is a real person, not an image. I think it's not important that this place is a virtual world.

... And yesterday when I was channel hopping I stumbled upon Oprah program. Actually I didn't like her so much but because of subject of the program I watched it. And what an astounding experience. The program is about children who want to change their gender! She talked with two 14 and 11 year old girls who want to be boy and a little boy who knew he is a girl from when he was 6 years old. It's so amazing that I also watched today Oprah program which is about men who undergo sex change operation after their marriage. And with support of their wives they become what they really are. One of the quotes from these men (or women! sorry) is very important for me. Daughter of one of these men describes how her father (now a woman) actually became a better character now that he was a woman. How her father who used to be an alcoholic, unsuccessful, angry man now is a kind and understanding woman. When Oprah asked the father why, he told her when you make an unreal image of yourself for community, most of the times you are so absorbed in that image that you forget who you are. You are not a human anymore, you are just an image. If you want to be a successful human, first you must be yourself and then and only then you have the ability to concentrate on other things. Being an image is such a heavy burden that sometimes your only task in life seems to be keeping that image.

... And after Oprah I watched Dr. Phil’s program about teenage suicide and depression. It seems I had and have a severe case of depression and I must committed suicide back when I was a teenager! Actually many gay (and even straight) Iranian boys that I know seems to have same problem. But really his program and specially interview with friends of these teens who committed suicide is really sad. Sometimes I think our world is too bad for kids to live in. Gradually they will learn to accept it and be as bad as it, but they will loose that precious innocent smiles and angelic looks and become humans.

... And Persian Gay and Lesbian Organisation's new website launched. It's a great work.

This is My Sanctuary.

2004-05-11T10:22:00.000+04:30

Dear Diary, Hi. Do you like your new look? Actually you are quite lucky that I came back to my senses. Yesterday I made a fabulous template with all sort of flash icons, background images, nifty fonts and shiny colors, with possibility of adding background music and video!! But then I realized that you are a weblog not a flamboyant drag queen in pride parade. So although I loved that super queer template, I deleted it and picked up a new template. Then I wanted to add this image as template’s background. It does somehow remind me of what closet really means to me.

But then I thought that it's sort of gloomy and picked this simple lighthouse template. A lighthouse, standing alone on pick of a rocky hill, sound of raging waves, this is my sanctuary. (From Queer as Folk Season 4 Soundtrack)

... And Justin and Cody in episode 404 of Queer as Folk really shocked me. In episode 403 when Cody offended Daphne I thought Justin must prevented him. Maybe they want to show Cody and Chris Hobbes has no difference. But I really didn't like this part.

... And Sin's Resolution is just amazing. In Neil Gaiman's "American Gods",(which is one my favourite books) there is a love story between a djin and a man. But Sin's story is something else.

... And god. This new blogger just love to save a null page every time I change my template. If I didn't listen to Uncle Snobby's advice and didn't save a backup of my template, I must start from first step. Thanks Uncle Snobby. And to everybody who read this: BACK UP YOUR TEMPLATE NOW.

Mmmmmmm, New Toys.

2004-05-10T12:31:00.000+04:30

Sorry. This site is under destruction. I try to play with new blogger and as if it isn't enough, I also try to change my template and also see what all these new little things will do to my blog. So if I don't see you again my dear dairy, I apologise from depth of my heart, but although most of the time curiosity is source of destruction, I can't control myself. So although I am quit satisfied with your current look, I want to pick up scissors. As grand Homer Simpson might say in such a situation: Mmmmmmm, new toys, let's play. Bye.

Happy Mother's Day.

2004-05-09T13:53:00.000+04:30

When I was a kid Iranian TV loved to broadcast Japanese cartoons. In most of these cartoons, either a kid was searching for his lost mother, or already knew that his/her mother is dead and was in a very depressing mood. So I think kids of my generation felt a little weird about their mothers. Twenty years later I saw another kind of mother in TV. Debbie Novotny. Meg Allen describes Debbie this way: "Debbie Novotny is a bit like every mom. She's certainly a lot like mine. Strong, bigger than life, and never afraid to speak her mind, even when she knows she's wrong". But how much it's important that our parents (specially moms) understand us. Today is mother's day. In one of my past posts I described my mixed feeling toward mothers. I think they are so brave and really bigger than life. No matter how much sometimes they make us crazy with their love, with their feeling that our life belong to them, they are always our best friend. The only friend who is ready to sacrifice everything for us. In an interview Sharon Gless described how when gay kids see her in the street, they just approach, take her in their arms and cry on her shoulders. Maybe one of deepest desires of many of us, is to somehow be brave enough to tell her everything and cry on her shoulders. I think everyday is mother's day. They are such an amazing things.

Women's Closet.

2004-05-07T11:07:00.000+04:30

During past few days I was reading Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey by Alison Wearing. It somehow made me ashamed and at the same time proud of Iran. The book is about journey of Alison, a Canadian journalist, along with her gay roommate (they pretended to be a married couple in their honeymoon), to Iran in mid 90's. During her journey she met all sort of Iranian people, from fundamentalist to modern ones. Despite her poetic vision she described many of our problems realistically. Especially as this is one of best descriptions of life under hejab means for women, after reading it I realized what a horrible kind of leaving it is. I always thought leaving for queer boys like me is worst kind of social nightmare, but reading Alison along with other women groups of Iran, I confess being a woman in Iran is much worse. One of other things that made me feel really bad is how an Iraqi prisoner described tortures in Abu Ghraib. He told reporters: "They wanted us to feel as though we were women, the way women feel and this is the worst insult, to feel like a woman". I think one of the reasons of Persian men hatred toward gays is this hatred toward woman. Their sacred manhood and its importance for whole universe. Actually I think the first and most important group that need to come out of their closets in Iran are women. Until this majority didn't understand and defend their rights, minorities like gays had no chance of acceptance in Iran.
And I just wish Ian, Alison gay friend, also wrote something about his journey in Iran. I love to see Iran through a queer eye. But anyway thanks to Alison for portraying my country as it is. And thanks for thinking Iranian boys have effeminate gestures!

... And Beyond Divinity is released. As I wrote before it's prequel, Divine Divinity, was one of few games that let you choose to be gay. For me it wasn't important that the occasion was in a brothel. It made my day. But Beyond Divinity has some cons. First of all is terrible voice of Death Knight. It's really like Kermit the Frog and doesn't suit the dark and suppose to be powerful character of Death Knight. Also there are some problems in game play and I prefer the graphic of previous game. What a pity. Nowadays RPG games with deep stories and believable characters are so rare that missing a good game means waiting another year, and wishing to see something comparable to Planescape: Torment. I just wish they added some gay scenes in this one too. Perhaps a queer Imp! But anyway starting a slash on a boy hero and the Death Knight is not a bad idea at all. What a sick mind!

Mundian To Bach Ke!

2004-05-05T06:34:00.000+04:30

A very very great news. Queer as Folk picked up for fifth season. Thank you Showtime, for giving us such an amazing show. Season four is one of best seasons of Queer as Folk. Until episode 403 stories, cast and production is really fantastic and as I finished watching episode 403 I really can't wait to know what will happen next.

In the Far Beyond Rainbow.

2004-05-02T13:48:00.000+04:30

Gren is one of my favourite characters in Cowboy Bebop. When Faye met him for the first time, she told him: "Instead of feeling alone in a group, it's better to be alone in your solitude.", He answered: "You just got scared of losing them. So you distanced yourself from them." Yesterday I was thinking maybe that’s my case. That's why I always prefer to be alone. Loving someone is so hard. Most of boys who I know are so bold to approach girls and seems not afraid of loosing anything or breaking a heart, whether it's theirs or hers. But I afraid. I afraid of loving, I afraid of not Worthing my boyfriend. I afraid of breaking a part of my and someone else’s heart. I think every time a heart breaks, a stone replaces the broken part.

See You Space Cowboy
By: SeatBelts & Yoko Kanno

Since I thought everything was over
Closing my ears
What you're telling me is floating away
Towards tomorrow there is no comfort
When the night even prays it disappears
What do you believe and where are you going?
The shooting star is the color of tears, is like laughing, passing away now.
There's nothing. Don’t change.
You cannot extinguish this love
To live eternally.
Even if the dream is hiding in the darkness
I got a rainbow
In my hands...
I got a rainbow.
In my hands...
The voice goes passing in my deep mind.
The morning I pray in front of the truth
There are some things that never change.
Love will be coming back here again.
Love never dies
Love never feigns
Love never ever fades away
Love never dies
Love never feigns
Love never ever fades away
This love won't be faded away.
You can't fade away this love
Which means leaves forever
Breaking darkness
When you pass the phantom
Freeze in the passing time
Then love is waiting
In the far beyond rainbow
You got a rainbow
You got a rainbow
Rainbow in your hands...
Rainbow in your hands...

... And I think comment section of Nightly's interview with a Persian gay boy (with 500 comments) become a mirror of what Iranian people really think about us. I must confess that it doesn't seem promising. I think most important thing that these comments show is that most of these people seems to not having any idea what being gay is about! I think our problem is actually a far more general problem. A traditional uneducated society, which doesn’t like to read or learn and love to judge everything, based on something close to nothing, and I think that’s a universal problem. Even seems that American gays share this problem with us (That's one of the reasons that I think Queer as Folk is so important. It shows people what it means to be a gay man). But actually some of the comments seem promising. Some people came back and defend their idea and these debates seem very promising. Same thing happen in Hamjensbaz weblog. The comments for his last post became a place for talk about what really is being GAY about. Even our religious friend seems to learn things that he didn't know. Mahshid in comment section of old version of Nightly interview with a Persian gay boy writes a memory from late Saviz Shafahi. She wrote: When Saviz came to Stockholm for Pride parade she meet him and marched beside him. A day after that Saviz had a speech and during that march he gave people announcements for this speech. There was a group of people who curse at marching people. Saviz went toward one of them and gave him an announcement. That man ripped the announcement and cursed Saviz. Saviz gave him another one. This act repeated for more than ten times. At last that man became tired and put the announcement in his pocket. Mahshid told Saviz that he would not come. Saviz said: he will. And he came."

... And at last something really crazy. First time I listened to Yeti Song, I thought what a foolish thing. But I ended with listening to it for a few hours!!!! and smiling. I think it's one of those little things like Muppets Mahna Mahna, which people always smile when remember them. Who cares what is Mahna, Mahna?!

Sitting Upon Moonbeams.

2004-04-28T05:25:00.000+04:30

Episode 402 of Queer as Folk is just amazing. I want to be a fairy!

The Fairies
by Rose Fyleman
From: Gay Gardener

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
It's not so very, very far away;
You pass the gardner's shed and you just keep straight ahead -
I do so hope they've really come to stay.
There's a little wood, with moss in it and beetles,
And a little stream that quietly runs through;
You wouldn't think they'd dare to come merrymaking there-
Well, they do.

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
They often have a dance on summer nights;
The butterflies and bees make a lovely little breeze,
And the rabbits stand about and hold the lights.
Did you know that they could sit upon the moonbeams
And pick a little star to make a fan,
And dance away up there in the middle of the air?
Well, they can.

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
You cannot think how beautiful they are;
They all stand up and sing when the Fairy Queen and King
Come gently floating down upon their car.
The King is very proud and very handsome;
The Queen--now you can guess who that could be
(She's a little girl all day, but at night she steals away)?
Well -- it's Me!

I Wanna Touch the Sky.

2004-04-23T11:21:00.000+04:30

First of all Gmail seems better than Yahoo and Msn. Offcourse there is a privacy problem, but most of people don't use free email services for their official works. I think one of reasons that Yahoo and Msn services became so popular is their communities. During past years Yahoo and Msn groups became the ultimate meeting place for people with same interests around the world and I personally receive much news about various things from these kinds of groups. So I think next step for Google for expanding use of it's services, is to add a community building service without limitations of Yahoo and Msn. Anyway thanks Google for Gmail and offcourse more than that thanks for supporting Blogger service.

... And thanks to some great guys (actually ladies!) at last I saw episode 1 of season 4 of Queer As Folk. It's really fantastic and is much better and faster than last season. Also watching clips from next episodes shows that a great collection of dramatic stories and events await us. Pink Posse, death of uncle Vic, Brian's testicle cancer and marriage of Michael and Ben and adaptation of Hunter are just some of these stories.

... And at last thanks to great Myrna I watched complete VH1 goes inside Queer As Folk. It's beautiful and I specially loved Mark Hall and Prom sections.

... And a few days ago I started to read "The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant" by Dan savage. It's story of how he and his boyfriend decide to adopt a child and during the course of story he discussed various aspect of being gay and how it can affect your life in positive and negative ways. I started it out of curiosity and hooked on it. It's a great tale with great sense of humour and you will not see the world the same, after you see it through the eyes of Dan Savage. I must confess once I saw image of myself (as a gay boy) in his mirror, I start to feel much better. Thanks Dan. (You can read few pages of book online at Amazon). I think it's really a dream: You have a beautiful boyfriend, adopt a child and start to get fat! Also I think it's a great thing for kids to have one daddy and one papa!

(Image is from Jon and Michael Galluccio website)

So we could make the dream come true.

2004-04-20T06:34:00.000+04:30

I think Xenogears and Xenosaga soundtracks are among greatest game soundtracks which ever composed and it’s really disappointing that Yasunori Mitsuda will not participate in Xenosaga 2. Although I must confess music of both trailers of Xenosaga 2 are great (Subtitled version of new Xenosaga 2 trailer). My favourite tracks in Xenosaga and Xenogears soundtracks are three songs by Joanne Hogg. "Small Two of Pieces" from Xenogears and "Kohoro" and "Pain" from Xenosaga. They are just beautiful.
My bleeding heart begins to race
When I turn to see your face
I remember that sweet dream which you told to me.
I wanted just to be with you
So we could make the dream come true
And you smiled at me and that was the beginning.

... And at last season four of Queer as Folk started. The new intro is great (Thanks to Myrna). I just wish that really great person, who put wmv files of last season on Internet, starts his/her work with new season as soon as possible!!!! (PLEEEEEASE!!!)

I’m Still your Fag.

2004-04-19T08:58:00.000+04:30

Last week I was totally paranoid. I wrote three posts and then I thought that maybe they cause trouble for me and didn't post them. First, after reading this post in Zananeh-ha weblog I want to write about how being insistent on using respectful words for gays actually can be harmful for us. We can even be Proud 2BA Fag. Also I wanted to write about my feeling toward the word "Hamjens-gara" and how every time I use it, it makes me feel somehow old and straight. I always loved to find a word for translating Gay or even better than that Queer to Persian. Actually I prefer "Shahed-bazi" to "Hamjens-garai", but it can’t be used as a general word. I love the words Queer and Gay over Homosexual. A few years ago after watching Queer TV’s interview with Dan Savage about using words like Fag or Queer, I even start to like faggot. Of course these faggots are not for burning. The second post that I wrote is about sex. One of my problems with the word "Hamjens-garaa" is that it seems to be emptied from any sexual aspects. I always think that sex in Iran become a little too absurd. Every time anybody speak about sex, people think what an impolite person. Every time I think about sex or watch something sexy, I feel ashamed of myself! Sex is one of our most humanly behaviours and so it's dirty and sometimes ugly in it physical form. But I think it's one of the most spiritual experiments of human life. And so even though sometimes sexual frenzy of Iranian youth in chat rooms becomes disturbing, having sex is great and even Plato had more than Platonic love. After all we are men and our “every nine seconds” is inevitable. The third post is about the picture of Baha’i temple of Wilmette and this song from Xenosaga.

I always loved mysticism and I think churches can be so much like places in fairy tales. Every time I saw a church or a mosque I remember elven stories and fly to land of dreams. That's one of most beautiful aspects of religion for me. But temple of Baha’i in Wilmette is most magical building that I ever saw and it seems straight out of a fairy tale. After finishing these posts, I didn't publish them. Because I thought that maybe they cause me some trouble from several aspects and it take me about a week to straighten! these matters for myself. I thought they might somehow present an image of me that I don't want other people to see. I think one of greatest torture of being an Iranian is that, even when we are not aware of it, we are always worry about how people will think about us. We always try to present a complete and ideal image of ourselves to our community, and my experiments showed that most of the times these images are completely false. We always compared ourselves with other people, and try to seem as successful as them, without noticing that maybe definition of success is different for everyone. Part of these is because of our family and our society. We didn't learn to be straight! Even with ourselves. As I talk with Iranians, I realize something about half of the FACTS that they told me are actually things that they made up or are things that they wish it to be. I love stories but you must know how much you can trust a FACT. I think one of the reasons that we are this much suspicious to each other is that in depth of our hearts we knew how much WE sold our tales as reality. But one of the reasons that I write this weblog is that at least come out to myself in my little closet. So lets be straight!

… And GLAAD, in private emails, replied to Queer as Folk fans and blames Showtime of didn’t letting Randy Harrison and Gale Harold to participate in Out Image award. I must confess that I prefer a public and official answer.

… And Xenosaga 2 release date for Japan is June. Last year trailer makes waiting really hard.

GLAAD: Fair, Accurate and Inclusive Representation!

2004-04-14T12:05:00.000+04:30

At last the winner of the first people's choice (!) award in GLAAD Media Awards history, the Favourite OUT Image of 2003 Award, announced yesterday . "Eden Riegel" won the award for "All My Children". As someone who voted in this award and followed the online poll, if I was not blind, until last day "Randy Harrison" for playing Justin in Queer as folk was at first place with 23% of votes and "Gale Harold" for Playing Brian was at second place with 22% of votes. I don't know what happened in back stage but now I have some doubts about fairness and accuracy of GLAAD. Queer as Folk was winner of GLAAD best drama series award in 2001 and 2002, and so I don't want to have prejudice and convict GLAAD before they answer us why this happened (And I also must confess that I appreciate GLADD activities and efforts and sort of like them). But I think despite everything Queer as Folk is our OUT IMAGE. Despite all of its flaws, it is the only show that portrait us as real humans. And that is the reason why even when official Showtime website doesn't permit visitors from outside US to view it's content, Queer as Folk has one of greatest online communities. Justin is Out Image of our generation. We learn from him to be great queers, whether they like it or not.

Its Not Easy Being Green.

2004-04-12T13:19:00.000+04:30

When I was about 4 or 5 years old I had an Ernie doll. He was my best friend. Over past 20 years they tried to convince children (or perhaps their parents) that Bert and Ernie are not gay lovers. But I still think that it's a little ridiculous to assume that they are any thing but queer. Specially my lovely Ernie.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some chose to believe it.
I know they're wrong wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Gay Marriage in Computer Games.

2004-04-11T09:59:00.000+04:30

Yes. It's true. As Clive Thompson wrote in The Game of Wife: Gay marriage comes to video games, there is actually a gay marriage in Temple of Elemental Evil. In one of my past posts I wrote how much I became excited when I realized that I CAN approach and marry to a farmer boy in Fallout 2 and how that game became a life experience for me. And I am sure that I am not the only who search, furiously and desperately, to find my images in computer games. There is a large community of gaymers. Matthew D. Barton in his Gay Characters in Videogames seems a little shocked to find a gay character in a RPG. I think his solution to create an avatar for all sexual preferences and body types is perhaps the best thing that can happen in computer games. From now on you can choose to rescue the PRINCE and marry HIM and live with HIM ever after. That's really a dream come true. With release of SIMS 2, we actually can have same sex marriages , so it's time for fantasy world to change. Maybe someday we can play as a Frodo who's in love with Sam!

I Need a Little Room to Breathe.

2004-04-10T12:25:00.000+04:30

The Undertoad is wicked during past few days. I am in sort of a Linkin Park mood.

I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless lost under the surface
Don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes.

I hate growling, but I just can't tolerate lying so much about myself and even recently to myself. I think that even when you try your best, you can't go on alone. Somewhere I read: Life is like a Bridge game. If you don't have a good partner you better have a good hand. I think even if you have a good hand playing alone become a torture after awhile. Life without someone to share with and to rely on is so hard. One of greatest thing that they didn't teach us (actually denied from us as hard as they can) when we were kids, is how we can love someone. How we can share our life. How when we felt like falling, reach for help. This as an art and we must learn it from childhood. All that things which we learned at school is nothing compared to art of being social, art of communicating with other people, the ability to not always be suspicious to other people, and capability to love someone more than ourselves.

And I’d, give it all away, Just to have somewhere to go to
Give it all away, to have someone to come home to.

And one question: how Mark Hall or others like him can be so powerful?

I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way
I know it's not all right.

PS: What happen if "Chester Bennington" screams lesser and sing more like "My December"?

... And always when I feel so lonely, listening to Lady Cher's The Song for the Lonely help me feel better.

... And as we approach April 18, thanks to great Andrea, there is a large collection of clips from season 4 of Queer as folk at Sandstorm Website.

... Also there are some clips from VH1 going inside Queer as folk at Nummy Treat. (Thanks to Wendy). (I just wish somebody upload the whole show!)

((Image is from QAF Addiction website)

... And new Spiderman 2 trailer is breathtaking.

Dear Diary,

2004-04-05T05:29:00.000+04:30

Sometimes life seems a little absurd. Do you know why?

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
~Louis L'Amour

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.
~Christina Rossetti

All you have to decide is what to do with the time that was given to you.
~Gandalf the White

... And Kinja gay Section. A great way for seeing updated gay weblogs.

... And Bard's Tale trailer is out. It's a great cliche with a twist!

... And Ben Jelen's new single Come On is great. Isn't he cute? of course from a brotherly point of view!

And then tell him how much I love him.

2004-04-03T13:11:00.000+04:30

I never liked sports very much and yesterday after watching this fantastic trailer for Sydney Gay Olympic 2002 ~~(downloadable version)~~, I tried to figure out why? Back when I was a teen boy, I used to buy sport magazines and watch sport shows (specially wrestling and gymnastic) to saw beautiful guys. But despite efforts of my family I never became an athlete and even in school, sport is the only class that I afraid of it. Actually I remember most of the times I used my high scores in all other classes as an excuse to not participate in sport classes or find a physiologic, pathologic, psychologic or any other kind of excuse to tell our teacher that I MUST STAY IN CLASSROOM AND REALLY CAN'T COME TO GYM. For most of the kids sport classes were their best times, but for me they were nightmares. I, like other gay guys who understand beauty of male body, like to be beautiful and fit (Unfortunately working so much behind computer is worst thing for fitness). But I think one of the reasons that I afraid of going to gym or pool is my own gazes! I think people can read each other’s mind and emotions in their eye contacts. Many times even before speaking with him, I knew a gay guy as soon as our eyes met. Maybe I am weak, but I can't hold my eyes from that great bodies! Wrestling is somehow our national sport, and many times I wonder what if gay wrestlers can express their emotions to each other? What if we can have a gay wrestling club in Iran?

... And every time that I find someone that can see some aspects of myself in him; I just forget the time and place. Its like stories that you put yourself in place of the hero and live his life. Last night I read fantastic weblog of a Pakistani gay guy for almost entire night. Venial Sin writes really great. Also thank you for thinking Persian boys have perky butts!

... And website of The Root is updated. It seems a very promising game.

Watching with Hope.

2004-04-01T08:12:00.000+04:30

"All minorities are watching movies with hope". They hope to see themselves in them. They hope to see that they are not the only one of their kind in the world. They hope to not be alone anymore. They read between lines of dialogues. They create their own stories. I remember when I was a kid, every gaze, every gesture, every laugh in movies have personal meanings for me. Last night after watching Celluloid Closet (trailer), a documentary about history of gay and lesbian characters in cinema, I remembered my own interpretations of movies. According to this documentary there was a great censorship in portraying gay characters in Hollywood. After watching Celluloid Closet it seems that many of my dreams are really true. There IS actually a gay interest between Sal Mineo and James Dean characters in "Rebel Without a Cause". There ARE gay references in Ben Hur, Spartacus, Maltese Falcon and many other famous movies. That's great. It seems there are other people who share my fantasy world with me.

As I look back to history of Iranian cinema, I realize that we have the same procedure for portraying gay characters. In most cases effeminate characters are just for fun and their gayness never become serious. The most well known case in this category is "Snowman": about a man who becomes a woman to get American visa.

But when a case become a little more serious, everything become so vague that you can interpret the scene in anyway that you want. Such a scene is in Abbas Kiarostami's Palm D'Or winner film "Taste of Cherry". Maybe I am crazy, but you can read many things from behaviour of that young soldier, when Mr. Badii offer him a ride and ask him if he can do something for him and receive some money.

... And I think I can understand Ehsan's yesterday post. There are moments in your life when you thought that you can't continue anymore. My solution for these moments is to take refuge in dreams: computer games, films and books; and to keep away from falling in love. But beware that this kind of life become harder and harder as you grew older. Land of dreams has a high toll price. Very high.

... And Sacred is really a great game. Nothing new, but they create a Diablo II as it should be.

... And am I become crazy and see gays everywhere or really there is a gay kiss (at 1:36 M) in Alex Lloyd's "beautiful" video?

... And We are here, We are Queer, Get used to it by Hossein Khiabanian.

... And Homosexuality in persian literature.

We can't see each other, But we can feel.

2004-03-25T04:59:00.000+04:30

After reading recent Being straight with queers By "Golnar Shirazi" and Don't straighten the queers By "Afsaneh Najmabadi", I must confess that despite being a queer myself I think Mrs. Najmabadi's view, at least in Iran, seems a little unpractical. I think despite the fact that many social norms are foolish, but denying all of them at once will not work. That's why I appreciate recent Persiangayboy.com approach of just defending gay rights and don't meddle with political matters. From academic point of view this debate, at much larger scale is between supporter and opponents of Queer Theory. Some references can be found in Rictor Norton's A Critique of Social Constructionism and Post-modern Queer Theory. Mrs. Najmabadi chose her title from Prophet Mohammad quote that "Woman is crooked [being born from the rib of Adam]; don't straighten her, she will break.". Another slang for queer people is Bent. As bent boys, I think we are flexible enough so that at least straighten a little in front of THEM.

... And in the middle of search for a BENT photo I stumbled upon two great sites:
first is a Queer Lord of the Rings Fan site with great collection of articles, galleries and interviews(Specially the one with Sir Ian Mckellen).
and second is Bent. A great film about holocaust of queer people during Nazi era. It has a great trailer: small version and big version. (For downloading them you can use something like Hidownload.)

... And at last the mysterious song of QAF season 4 trailer is revealed. Its "Haven't I Cried Enough" by Wild Life. The same group that create "All Things (Just Keep Getting Better)". The fantastic song for fabulous Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

2004-03-24T05:21:00.000+04:30

“The lie, the perfect lie, about people we know, about the relations we have had with them, about our motive for some action, formulated in totally different terms, the lies as to what we are, whom we love, what we feel with regard to people who love us … - that lie is one of the few things in the world that can open windows for us on to that is new and unknown, that can awaken in us sleeping senses for the contemplation of universes that otherwise we should never known.”
Marcel Proust, The Captive.

I think maybe living in closet let us experience many things that we didn't have time for them if we lived normal. Although sometimes taste of a kiss worth the entire world.

... And The Root: A new RPG game with fantastic music.

... And Wendy's Queer as Folk fansite with beautiful music videos.

... And Boys of Babylon completed it's 10 best Brian/Justin scenes videos with season 3 best scenes video.

... And at last I found Queer Duck along with a collection of great flash clips (many of them are about being gay or coming out) in Lees Wacky website. (Sorry but hot linking is not allowed)

... And a funny flash clip about how you can reach to your forbidden love!!!!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

2004-03-15T09:43:00.000+03:30

This Saturday, as we leave winter behind and enter spring, is Persian New Year: Norooz. Norooz holidays are best chances to see rainbows in Iran. Happy New Year and May your next year be full of joy and beauty and rainbows.

"Over the Rainbow"
Music by Harold Arlen
Lyric by E.Y. Young
I love Israel Kamakawiwo’ole version of this song.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true

Some day I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can't I?
Some day I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can't I?

... And Latter Days : a movie about being religious and being gay. It has a beautiful trailer.

Lonely two-legged creatures.

2004-03-08T12:10:00.000+03:30

I think one of greatest problem of Iranian youth is that they are more grown up than their age. Many of Iranian youth forgot how to dream like when they were kids. Yesterday I was looking at some images at my old school gallery and I realized that as we go back boys in same grade seems younger. In recent photos boys are somehow look old. Perhaps it’s their eyes or something else. They seem sad, frustrated, without dreams. When you chat with them, the only thing that they want to talk about is sex. And they are always unsatisfied. I think if all people can keep their childhood innocence and dreams, they somehow become better grown ups. But I know that in Iran it’s impossible.

... What a change of subject!!!!!!!!!!! When I chose "Lonely two-legged creatures" as title of this post, I intended to write about mythology and comparison of vampires with queers!!! Then I realized that even after listening to great music from Legacy of the Kain series and thinking about vampires and the fact that they are elegant, lonely and dammed creatures like us, I don't like to write about them. But mythological dreams are so tempting, and the most tempting one is that maybe someday we can find our lost half and then we can become like gods.

ORIGIN OF LOVE
From: Hedwig and Angry Inch
Song written by Stephen Trask

When the earth was still flat,
And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.

The origin of love

And there were three sexes then,
One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.

The origin of love

Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants."
And Zeus said, "No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire

And then fire shot down
From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moon
And the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.

Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.

All in the Eyes of a Boy.

2004-03-05T05:14:00.000+03:30

A report on first conference of the Homosexuality in Iranian Society, UCLA 2003 by Homan and Voices of the Middle East.

.... And at last I found trailer 1, trailer 2 and trailer 3 for Celine Dion's A New Day. Its Magical.

When it was dark now there's light
Where there was pain now's there's joy
Where there was weakness I found my strength
All in the eyes of a boy.

Ashura, Passion of Christ and Queer as Folk.

2004-03-04T04:26:00.000+03:30

According to Queer as Folk season 4's sixth trailer, it seems in fourth season Justin will establish a group for defending people of Liberty Avenue from bashers. In this promo he said "We are standing up for ourselves. What's wrong with that?". These days are Muharram in Iran. The month that Shiites mourn death of Imam Hussein. Who although knew that he will killed, risk his life for his idea. Importance of martyrdom is an ancient Persian rite and philosophy. Shiite Muharram is a combination of Persian mourning for Siavash and Islam. It's about another way of fighting with oppression. Fighting through love. You can kill a hero, but you can't kill a myth. Recent Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ is also about this way of fighting with oppression. Fighting with love. But what is most suitable approach for our time and our problem. Recent battle for gay marriage proved that despite all slogans, even in United States majority of people are homophobe. I don't think that Justin's approach works. Maybe being minority has its own advantages. In most societies minorities are more successful that majority. Offcourse we must defend our rights but doing this roughly is not a good idea. Let us do it our way, queer way. As Billy Crystal said during academy awards ceremony: Jack Valenti's worst nightmare is a slightly gay pirate. People love Queer as folk, Queer eye for straight guy and many other gay shows, because gays are so sweet and charming (our WMD!), and that’s the way we can fight homophobes not with weapon. Also because season 4 is the last season of queer as folk, which is officially announced, I just wish that they don't intend to get rid of Justin this way and end the series like UK version with a "Brian/Michael lived happily ever after".

... I think Frank Herbert's Dune is loosely based on Shiite culture and after watching Scie Fi Series and its sequel I think that maybe it shows us from another point of view.

... And Lord of the Rings trilogy trailer. With a brief shot of Saruman that I didn't see until now (Maybe from extended edition of Return of the King). (Beware: its 74MB!!!)

... And Syberia 2 demo released. It doesn't reveal anything about story, but graphic and music are beautiful.

... Also Beyond Divinity Demo released today. Maybe it doesn't seem important, but as I wrote in one of my past posts, divine divinity and fallout 2 are two of few games that let you approach to a male character with gay intentions. Thank you Larian. You are great. (PS: After playing demo I wonder why recent demos are so short. Original Divine Divinity demo has around 10 to 12 hours of gameplay, but this one only last 2 hours! I wish in final version its at least as long as Divine Divinity.)

... And Uruviel's Argonath has two clips from the winning of academy awards by Peter Jackson and Return of the King.

... And The Gully has an interview with an Iranian lesbian blogger. Did you ever wonder how much our dreams, our lives and our problems are like each other?

White shores are calling.

2004-03-01T08:50:00.000+03:30

Congratulations for winning 11 academy awards and thank you for creating such a wonderful masterpiece. Lord of the Rings is something more than a movie. It's a dream, one of the most beautiful ones. Thank you all.

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping.

Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time
Don't say: «We have come now to the end»
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping.

... And aussie gay director Adam Elliot which his Harvie Krumpet wins Best Animated Short Film mentioned his boyfriend in his acceptance speech. He is a great guy!

... And an interview with an Iranian gay boy.

... And 12 reasons why gay marriage will ruin the society!!!!!

It's not bullshit, not at all.

2004-02-29T05:33:00.000+03:30

Yesterday I found a very great Brian/Michael fan site. As someone who is almost completely like Michael and is a Brian/Justin fan, I must confess that I moved deeply by their videos. Many people including some gays think that queer as folk is nothing but a soap opera. But I think this soap opera, beneath its surface, talk about fundamentally deep matters. It's about our life, Whatever it is. With all of it's faults. Many of Itsnotbullshit.com's videos are about these matters: solitude, being lost, forbidden dreams, courage, love, death and many others that I can't even find a word to describe them. These videos are greatest QAF videos that I have ever seen: Bring me to life, Follow your dreams, I'm with you, In the shadows, The scarf of death, You're all I want. These are masterpieces. Their Ted/Blake video "Protégé moi" is something you can't forget for a long time. I actually cried with some of them (What a sissy!). Thanks Tazzzkitty, Veronique and Pern333333.

They Might as Well Get Used to It.

2004-02-27T07:44:00.000+03:30

After thinking about George Bush’s open battle with gay marriage and recent parliament election of Iran, I wonder how much conservatives around the world are like each other. But after reading Alan Sullivan's Gay Tehran article which mentioned that: "Iran's ayatollahs will have to share this planet with Britney Speers, just as Jesse Helms does. They might as well get used to it", I thought that although it takes them more than 20 years to understand that, and (god help us) another decade to (gradually) accept it, unfortunately it seems they tend to forget their lessons and so are US ones. But life will go on anyway. Whether they agree or not.

.... And there is a very great collection of history of ancient and modern world by Barry Stone which I learned very much from it. Also he has a great gay art website. After reading "Shahed Bazi" by "Sirus Shamisa" and many other references about history of gay Iran, I just can't understand how they can deny our existence or even how they can't accept us?

(Photo is from Von Gloeden website. and sorry for nudity, this is one of least nude ones! Everytime I see his gallery I remember persian boys beauty!)

.... And just a dream: What if in Brad pit's Troy and Leonardo Dicaprio's Alexander, these characters portrait as they are? Great Queers!

.... And dubbed version of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children trailer is amazing. (Thanks to adventchildren.net)

Follow Me, Into the Light, Beyond the Tears.

2004-02-25T13:11:00.000+03:30

I just saw new trailers for Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. I can't describe their greatness. Small version of trailer 1, trailer 2, trailer 3, trailer 4 are more suitable for dialup connections, but if you want to see them in their full glory you can download large versions: trailer 1 , trailer 2 , trailer 3 , trailer 4. They are just amazing.

Fly Me to the Moon, And Let Me Play Among the Stars.

2004-02-24T13:26:00.000+03:30

In queer as folk season 3 episode 3 when Debbie asked Brian: Why he doesn't vote in elections, he answered: because republicans hate us and tell it in our face and democrats hate us and keep it between themselves. Also in season one in response to same question he told Michael that straight people are two groups: people who hate us in our face and people who hate us behind our back. Although it's a little pessimistic, but I think it's rather true. Especially in Iran, our society is completely homophobe and I don't think we can correct their attitude sooner than next few centuries. So trying to change our society is almost impossible. We are and we will stay an unwelcomed and unacceptable minority. But I think our greatest problem is ourselves and getting rid of society’s standards. One of our greatest problems is our parents (specially mothers) and the dreams that they have for us. I think mothers like Debbie and even Jennifer that are proud of their gay sons or at least accept their reality are quite rare. Most of our mothers want us to be engineers and doctors and marry a wealthy and beautiful girl and produce a herd of grandchildren for them. I think that's brutal. I know many of gay engineers or doctors whose dreams are to be artists. The thing that makes this problem worse is that unconsciously we accept the values that defined by our parents. For many of us being a sissy or showing effeminate behaviour seems shameful. Many of us try to pretend they are TOP and masculine (Just see the ads in gay sites). It's true that our parents suffered very much to raise us and we are in their debt but expecting someone to live with someone else’s values is brutal. It's still a question for me that: is it worth to live NORMAL and be happy from society's point of view or we must fight and accept its consequences? I accept that someone must be very brave to challenge society's values and standards and select to live as an outcast. But the joy of forbidden fruit is priceless. Andre Gide said that gay boys don't have mother. He also said It's better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you're not. But it's so difficult. Someone said I'd rather be black than gay because when you're black you don't have to tell your mother. We love them so what can we do? For living as you are, Earth seems a little too small. Maybe that's why I love science fiction. What if we all can live somewhere far far away. What if we can live somewhere that we can be ourselves and not just a hollow doll which filled by social values.

..... Without no special reason writing this post remind me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach.

PS: After rereading this post today, I thought that my posts during past week (after valentine) is somehow gloomy. So I changed picture of this post. As Emmet said: Go on, Kill yourself. But don't be a man about it, be a queen!

..... and Syberia 2 trailer is released. You can risk everything if you know that you found your dream. What happened if we are as brave as Kate Walker and can decide to pursue our dreams?

We Don't Take Care of Each Other, Who Will?

2004-02-20T03:23:00.000+03:30

Fourth Trailer for Queer as Folk season 4(Thanks to Sandstorm) and San Francisco is suing state of California, challenging its ban on same-sex marriages on constitutional grounds.

Absolutely Fabulous.

2004-02-18T02:47:00.000+03:30

Today is the premiere of two new masterpieces. One is choimimi's If music video (The singer is very talented and has one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard.) and second is RJin's HighSchool Confidential music video. They are just perfectly beautiful. I can't write anymore, I want to go and watch them a million times more. Thank you choimimi and thank you RJin.

Forever you and me, After all.

2004-02-16T05:22:00.000+03:30

Maybe one of most ridiculous aspects of recent battle on legalisation of gay marriage in united states is that homophobe groups accused gay couples of corruption and at same time the battle is about marriage which is (at least from their point of view) the best sanctuary against social corruption. I think gay couples are perhaps more moral than straight ones. The problem is that a stable and moral relationship is denied from them. But I think after fooling around as teenagers everyone need to build an stable life. My personal idea is that the most important aspect of marriage is building a life together. Nothing is as joyful as finding (or building) a house with each other, selecting furniture, learning that you are not just yourself anymore and learning how you can love someone else more than yourself and be happier when he was happy. Isn’t any old fashioned queer left? People need psychological support to carry burden of life and if you can't share this burden sooner or later you will crash. The marriage is a state that After all (thanks to Princess of Babylon for this masterpiece) two people start to live happily ever after. There is a very good article about gay marriage by Scott Bidstrup named Gay Marriage: The Arguments and the Motives.

Thanks to brianlovesjustin.org

AFTER ALL (Love Theme From Chances Are)
Duet between Cher and Peter Cetera
(Tom Snow/Dean Pitchford)

(Him) Well, here we are again
I guess it must be fate
We've tried it on our own
But deep inside we've known
We'd be back to set things straight

(Her) I still remember when
Your kiss was so brand new
Every memory repeats
Every step I take retreats
(Them) Every journey always brings me back to you

(Them) After all the stops and starts
We keep coming back to these two hearts
Two angels who've been rescued from the fall
And after all that we've been through
(Her) It all comes down to me and you
(Him) I guess it's meant to be
Forever you and me
After all

(Her) When love is truly right
(Him) This time it's truly right
(Her) It lives from year to year
(Them) It changes as it grows
(Her) And oh the way it grows
(Them) But it never disappears

(Them) After all the stops and starts
We keep coming back to these two hearts
Two angels who've been rescued from the fall
And after all that we've been through
(Her) It all comes down to me and you
(Him) I guess it's meant to be
Forever you and me
After all

(Him) Always just beyond my tough
Though I needed you so much
(Her) After all what else is living for
(Them) Whoa

(Them) After all the stops and starts
We keep coming back to these two hearts
Two angels who've been rescued from the fall
And after all that we've been through
(Her) It all comes down to me and you
(Him) I guess it's meant to be
Forever you and me

(Them) After all the stops and starts
We keep coming back to these two hearts
Two angels who've been rescued from the fall
And after all that we've been through
(Her) It all comes down to me and you
(Him) I guess it's meant to be
Forever you and me
After all.

Be Mine, Valentine.

2004-02-13T03:11:00.000+03:30

Today when I was searching for Sad Sam doll photos to add to this post, I realized that my mood isn't like Sad Sam valentine day dolls. Sad Sam valentine day dolls are always have an "I love you" necklace or a rose in their hand. But there are other kind of Sad Sam dolls that are just sad, and it seems they don’t know why and they can't help it. I am sad today, but can I help it? Can I say "I love you" at all?
In Feb 2004 issue of British Colombia University Report, there is an article about how valentine day can be brutal for queer couples, because it remind them that they are not accepted by community. I think that’s not the worse thing. Worse thing is that you don't and you can't have anybody to share valentine day with. When I was a kid people thought that I was a shy boy. But the problem is that I was (and am) afraid to speak with boys, because I afraid that they read IT in my eyes and my words and I prefer to abandon speaking at all. So for me there wasn't (and isn't) a valentine day except in my dreams. In them I find (Thanks to Queer Eye) my love and we dance with each other forever. Even though I am proud, I am still sad.

How Can I Live; Without You?

2004-02-10T04:41:00.000+03:30

As we approach April 18, waiting for being with folks again become harder and third trailer for Queer as Folk season 4 (Thanks to Sandstorm) makes waiting even harder. Meanwhile yesterday I found a beautiful new music video at video section of Queer as Folk Heaven which is based on "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celine Dion. Thank you Kelly and Michelle. Also there are some new cute videos by sisabet.
As American version of QAF reach it's fourth season, unfortunately the original UK version is somehow seems a little forgotten. Even after four years I can't forget Nathan and Vince (Sorry but unlike Brian I don't like Stuart!) and songs like Vince's Bang Mix or Doin' It. They are really great songs and the UK version is a real masterpiece. Long live Russel T. Davis.

You can choose what to dream.

2004-02-02T11:02:00.000+03:30

Last night after watching Billy Elliot and like last times of watching it going to sleep with moist eyes, I remembered Mad Life’s question that when did you first know you were gay? When I was a kid, I always knew that there is something wrong(or perhaps better word is "different") with me. I was not like other boys. I didn't participate in their sports and rough games. As I grew up, instead of searching for bits of girls in every old paper that I found, I bought sport magazines and dreamed about beauty of wrestlers, gymnasts and fancied my classmates. Then I found some books that mentioned gay characters. I was always fascinated by world of stories and books and so started to read as much as possible. I think that I was 13 or 14 years old when I reached the conclusion that I am gay (Congratulations!). And they lived happily ever after.

....and Inxile Entertainment, producers of Bard's Tale created a very funny and beautiful intro for their site. Keep moving your cursor on characters for few times and don't give up by comments!!!!

…and Billy Elliot’s ending theme is one of my favourite songs:

I Believe.
By: Stephen Gately

If I believe that I could do anything,
Could I spread my wings and say goodbye
So many people told me I couldn't win
But look at me now
Here I am in heaven's sky
And sometimes I say a prayer
Wishing that you could be here with me Cos I believe

I believe in love, it's the best of everything
I believe in hope and the changes it can bring
If you believe then nothing can stand in your way
Just say, I believe

If hope's the house I wanna be living in
Baby, I've got one foot in the door
Yes I do
All the years of waiting for your approval dear
Well I realised I don't need it anymore

'Cause I'm stronger everyday,
Now I'm strong enough to say, I believe

I believe in love, it's the best of everything
I believe in hope and the changes it can bring
If you believe then nothing can stand in your way
I believe

It's a fact of life that we're all in the game
But it's still your call
But we all play it
Sometimes we win, sometimes we fall
But that's no reason just to give it up, cause after all
If you can't choose what to be
You can choose what to dream
And I believe

I believe in love, it's the best of everything
I believe in hope and the changes it can bring
If you believe then nothing can stand in your way
Just say, (oh) I believe.

Gay teens planning their wedding.

2004-02-01T09:52:00.000+03:30

Boston Globe's article about how gay teens planning their wedding after affirmation of the right of gays to marry.

As Christina Aguilera sang when two boys kissing in her Beautiful video : We are beautiful, no matter what they say.

Sing Rahxephon, Sing your own song, Your Forbidden Song.

2004-01-31T11:45:00.000+03:30

Today I had a little time for watching some anime music videos. And I found two great ones. First one is Lonely Little Flower by Rinny which is based on Wolf's Rain and Tatu's “Zachem Ya” and second one is Euphoria by Koopiskeva which is based on Rahxephon and uses Frou Frou's “Must Be Dreaming”. After watching them for hundred times, they are still roaming in my head. Thank you Rinny and thank you Koopiskeva.(You can find a DivX version of Euphoria along with a collection of great anime music videos in Anime Section of Gap Online)

..... And according to Peter Jackson, extended edition of Return of the king will be 4 hours and 10 minutes. Oh my god, please replace 1 February with 1 November. I can’t wait.

In Search of Rakuen.

2004-01-30T12:01:00.000+03:30

Yoko Kanno is one of my top three favourite musicians. She is the composer for masterpieces like Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in Shell and Wolf's Rain. I think her Wolf's Rain: OST 2 is one of the greatest music collections of all time.

Persian Cats and Persian Queers.

2004-01-30T03:21:00.000+03:30

I hate to write about political and social matters. Because I think the most important mission in someone’s LIFE is to make IT better. I think if everybody just try to make himself ideal (and don't meddle in everyone's life and don't try to make the society ideal), then the society will be ideal. The reason that I write this is Iran Spiegel's article about growth of individualism in Iran and the importance of weblogs in this matter. After reading Iranian gay weblogs you can see that in most of them the focus is on personal life and not the society. I think that’s a great improvement. Because I think our most important problem is prevailing over our own homophobia. I know that living in a homophobic society can be terrible, but you can run from society, but you can’t run from yourself. The map of Iran is like a cat and Persian cats are one of the most beautiful ones in the worlds. The dominant factor in cats character is that they love themselves. And I think that’s the source of their elegance, their beauty and they survival.

There is a great collection of articles about being Gay in Iran at Iranian Gay Doctors website.

… And I keep my academy award congratulation for The Lord of the Rings for Feb 29. Meanwhile Newline updates its Award website with many beautiful clips from Return of the king.

Congratulation!

2004-01-27T02:51:00.000+03:30

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King wins Golden Globe awards for best picture, best director and best music and song.

Congratulation to all people of Middle Earth and thank you for everything, for creating one of greatest dreams of all.

Also yesterday is a great day from queer point of view. HBO's great miniseries Angels in America which is based on Tony Kushner play and is about AIDS, closeted gay boys and religion wins best tv miniseries award and four performance awards for Al Pacino , Meryl Streep, Mary-Louise Parker and Jeffrey Wright.

Baby Keep Smiling.

I think Randy Harrison (Justin in Queer as Folk and our dear Sunshine) has one of the most beautiful smiles in the world and I can't help myself that everytime seeing his picture don't chant Lou Bega's "Baby keep smiling" :

Baby keep smiling
you know the sun is shining
...
I put on my glasses
and tell you how sweet your ass is
all we need is a mobile phone
to tell everybody: we are not at home
...
Baby keep smiling
you know the sun is shining
...
(sing along)
keep on smiling
the sun is shining

......and All about my mother by Pedro Almodóvar is a real masterpiece. See it if you can find its DVD.

Four New dreams by Square/Enix.

2004-01-26T08:47:00.000+03:30

I always loved Final Fantasy series and in 2004 Square/enix will publish two new Final Fantasy titles plus two more great games. I just can't wait!

Final Fantasy 12

Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children

Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time

Fullmetal Alchemist

........ and a set of articles about gay characters in computer games.

The Compassionate and The Merciful.

2004-01-26T06:31:00.000+03:30

A few years ago I desperately need a friend to tell him everything. Everything that I am, everything that I must not be. I put an ad in the late GayIran site. But then, after receiving a few emails I didn’t answer. I AFRAID. Maybe I was paranoid but I afraid from everything. Every gaze, every gesture told me that THEY knew the truth. Then I gradually returned to my lifetime solitude and became so accustomed to it that I really don’t want to leave it. A few days ago Alone Persian Man and Gay Love, Love Gay wrote beautiful posts about religion and homosexuality. Also there is a psychology-society-religion-based dialoge in Persian Talk named “Is homosexuality a disease?”. The homophobe side of debate thought that there are two kinds of gays. The ones who just want a holiday from heterosexual intercourse and do it for just fun and that ill ones with unbalanced hormones and childhood complexes that wrongly became man and must change their sex or kill themselves! (Or as Pantea suggested in that debate if they did not, our dear government takes the trouble). Have you tried not being a mutant? Another side thought that assigning harsh punishments for sodomy by religions is to prevent spreading of corruption in society and to tell potential and undecided queers to be good boys and marry women (without thinking about outcome of these kind of marriages and their happiness). After reading several english religion-oriented gay sites I still can not admit that religion accepts homosexuality. Most of their biblical and koranic evidences is based on the fact that gays must not categorized as men or god simply hates corruption, whether its sodomy or adultery and the fact that god loves us all. I only can accept the last one. But I write all of these because I think whatever is the relationship of religions with homosexuality; the dominant factor is the idea of society. God is compassionate and merciful, but THEY are not. Gays are a successful minority, but they are still a minority and as much as they try to show that they are proud to be gay and afraid of nothing, when two boys kiss each other on the lips in the street, they look around with uneasiness. They knew that people are looking and that they have been regarded with fear, suspicion, often hatred. That is the biggest closet of all and the strongest one. It’s the closet of fears as strong and as deep as childhood ones. And whether they are real or not, all us freaks have is each other .

PS: The italic parts are from X-Men 2 and Hellboy trailers.

............and God's Weblog !

A kiss to build a dream on.

2004-01-25T09:32:00.000+03:30

I think one of the most beautiful songs is Louis Armstrong's "A kiss to build a dream on". I think it's specially fitting to Brian and Justin kisses in Queer as Folk.

Gimme a kiss to build a dream on
And my imagination
Will thrive upon that kiss
Sweetheart, I ask no more than this
A Kiss to build a dream on

Give me a kiss before you leave me
and my imagination
will feed my hungry heart
Leave me one thing before we part
A kiss to build a dream on

When I'm alone with my fancies
I'll be with you
Weaving romances
Making believe they're true

Oh, gimme your lips for just a moment
and my imagination
will make that moment live
Give me what you alone can give
A kiss to build a dream on

Gimme a kiss to build a dream on
And my imagination
Will thrive upon that kiss
Sweetheart, I ask no more than this
A Kiss to build a dream on

Give me a kiss before you leave me
and my imagination
will feed my hungry heart
Leave me one thing before we part
A kiss to build a dream on

When I'm alone with my fancies
I'll be with you
Weaving romances
Making believe they're true

Oh, gimme your lips for just a moment
and my imagination
will make that moment live
Give me what you alone can give
A kiss to build a dream on

...........and a very beautiful Brian/Justin music video by choimimi with Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen: Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy

Whether they mean it or not or the art of Slash.

2004-01-20T08:47:00.000+03:30

Today after reading Shargh newspaper's article about tintin, I remembered one of my old fantasies that tintin is gay! Actually a few years ago I read an article about Herge that told he loves a chinese boy and write "tintin in tibet" about their lost love! Today I searched internet, but I can't find any reference to this article or anything else about this matter. Perhaps one of most attractive parts of tintin stories for me is lack of beautiful-princess-who-must-be-rescued in them. Nor tintin nor captain never love a girl and except for Castafiore there is not any women in their lives and they never go after one. But then I think that we can tell the same thing about The Lord of the Rings. Maybe Frodo and Sam or/and Merry and Pipin are actually gay lovers. But then what's the importance? Are Herge or Tolkein actually wrote a gay story or not isn't important at all. As Umberto Eco masterfully wrotes in Facualts Pendelum we can connect everything to everything else and write conclusions that are according to our desire for them to be. When I read tintin, Lord of the Rings or many other stories tintin, frodo, sam, merry and pipin and ... are gay. Whether Herge or Tolkein mean them to be or not. Writers are gods in territory of their stories, but it's readers who imagine world of writers and so in the end they are the one who create, they are gods of fairy worlds.

And there are large archives of readers interpretation of famous stories. One link-library of gay Fan Fiction (Often called Slash) sites is:
http://www.sogning.dk/dir/Adult/Arts/Online_Writing/Fiction/Fan_Fiction/Slash

The Ultimate Fantasy.

2004-01-19T08:09:00.000+03:30

Back when I was a kid my dreams has an immense power. Every story(even the most weird ones) seems possible and I lived in a kind of virtual reality of fantasies. I love adventures and superheroes (Like Michael in QAF, beacause real heroes are always alone and must hide their true nature from everybody else and because I knew that despite all of their misadventures and torments, in the end of story they survive and they save the world). Beside books I think that most powerful kind of fantasy is animated one (Including cartoons and computer games). Thats because even the most foolish cartoons are emotionaly superior to live films (Excluding Lord of the rings trilogy,Queer as Folk and Dune Tv series and few others). I think thats because in cartoons emotions are very sharp, stories are simplisticly complex (What a phrase!) and characters perform their best. They are heroes of story and not just an actor. The most beautiful kind of cartoons in my idea is Anime. My top three animes are: 1. Wolf's Rain, 2. Cowboy Bebop and 3. Trigun (and Outlaw Star). And of course one of things that I love about anime is richness of gay characters in anime (As Brian used to say the fact that we gays are always think about beautiful boys is not related to being gay at all. It's because we are Men!). Actually there is a subcategory of Anime that's totally about Gay (rather sexual!) romances. This category is called : Yaoi. Msterpieces like Gravitation, Yami no Matsuei are belong to this category. And a thing that I discovered today: It seems that there is a large category of Yaoi computer games: http://destructivism.net/shop/plates_yaoi.htm
Unfortunately all of them are in japanese!

The importance of being queer as FOLK.

2004-01-15T12:57:00.000+03:30

A few years ago when you searched internet for gay videos, the only thing that you can find is porn. Finding a romantic gay video, a gay music video or something that make you feel beautiful and happy is like a dream. Then something extraordinary starts to fill the net like a storm. Image and videos of beautiful guys dancing with each other, kissing each other with love and passion and a gay love story that has elements of a great drama. Until then, gays are just subjects of fun or miserable perverts who destined to die as harsh as possible. Then we have a tv series that has all the greatness of great soap operas. Perhaps for some fans naming queer as folk as a soap opera seems offending. But I think it's really a soap opera and most of great stories are soap operas. After just a few years people start to call themselves QUEER with pride and the meaning of this word changed forever. At last we have a gay love dance scene and what a great one!

Now almost we have a Queer culture. There are lots of websites for queer as folk fan fiction. Number of fan-made queer as folk videos past 50. Now many queers can feel home and sense the warmth of familiar dreams in digital world of being queer like other FOLKS.

A Few fan site for queer as folk:
www.toolunaticsandwon.com/
www.princessofbabylon.com/
www.angelfire.com/home/qaf/
www.the-areopagus.com/QueerAsFolk/index.html
www.boysofbabylon.com/main.html
and many others.........

Why I write in English.

2004-01-14T05:38:00.000+03:30

My english language in quite bad, but I persist to write in english. Because english is the language of the world of my dreams. It's in english that I first read (and still read) about people that are like me. So please forgive my errors, Dear Diary.

Digital Freedom and Porn.

2004-01-14T05:12:00.000+03:30

One of advantages or disadvantages of being in a digital world is that here, everything is possible. The most important thing that only here is completley possible and (Sometimes!)free, is sex. Cyberworld is like our dreams: Everything can happen here and there is no boundaries. So is this good or bad? Today I was reading an interview with Sir Ian Mckellen (Gandalf in LOTR and Magneto in XMen) who told the reporters that he is quite a fan of pornography because it help people to became calm and don't play dangerous games. Also he mentioned that he likes Sexual Fan Fiction (stories that are about sexual act between various celebrities or fictional characters). Then I read the article that I copied below and I must say that I am more agreed with the latter opinion. Although for me as a closeted gay who didn't have any sexual relationship until now it's very hard, but I think cyber satisfaction is not a good thing at all.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1079016,00.html

Men and porn.

Pornography is ubiquitous, more profitable, more acceptable than ever. We argue about the effects on women participants but scant attention is given to the millions of mainly male users. What does porn do to men? Edward Marriott investigates

Saturday November 8, 2003
The Guardian

There's an episode of Friends - The One With The Free Porn - in which Chandler and Joey discover they have tuned into a porn channel. And it's free. They leave the TV on, afraid switching off will mean no more pornography. By the end of the episode, Chandler is seeing the world through porn-tinted spectacles. "I was just at the bank," he complains, "and the teller didn't ask me to go do it with her in the vault." Joey, bewildered, reports a similar reaction from the pizza-delivery girl. "You know what," decides Chandler, "we have to turn off the porn."
As a society, however, we are further from turning off the porn than we have ever been. Pornography is everywhere - it masquerades as "gentlemen's entertainment" in the form of clubs such as Spearmint Rhino, it infiltrates advertising and it will soon be available in our back pockets, thanks to a deal by adult entertainment giant Private Media Group to beam porn to UK mobile phones.

In its hardcore form, pornography is now accessed in the UK by an estimated 33% of all internet users. Since the British Board of Film Classification relaxed its guidelines in 2000, hardcore video pornography now makes up between 13% and 17% of censors' viewing, compared with just 1% three years ago, a rate of growth that is being cited as a causal factor in the recent bankruptcy of Penthouse, at one time the very apotheosis of porno chic but in recent years little more risqué than Loaded. In the US, with the pornography industry bringing in up to $15bn (£8.9bn) annually, people spend more on porn every year than they do on movie tickets and all the performing arts combined. Each year, in Los Angeles alone, more than 10,000 hardcore pornographic films are made, against an annual Hollywood average of just 400 movies.

Pornography is not only bigger business than ever before, it is also more acceptable, more fashionable, more of a statement of cool. From pieces "in praise of porn" in the normally sober Prospect magazine, to such programmes as Pornography: The Musical on Channel 4 last month, to Victoria Coren and Charlie Skelton's book, published last year, about making a porn film, to the news that Val Kilmer is to play the part of pornography actor John Holmes in a new mainstream movie, there is a widespread sense that anyone who suggests pornography might have any kind of adverse effect is laughably out of touch. Coren and Skelton, former Erotic Review film critics, focus on their flip comic narrative, scarcely troubling themselves with any deeper issues. "In all our years of watching porn," they write, in a rare moment of analysis that doesn't get developed any further, "we have never properly resolved what we think about how, why and whether it is degrading to women. We suspect that it might be. We suspect that pornography might be degrading to everybody."

With pornography, it seems as if the sheer scale of the phenomenon has, in time-honoured capitalist fashion, conferred its own respectability; as a result, serious analysis is hard to come by. Only occasionally, amid porn-disguised-as-documentary that distinguishes much of Channel 5's late-night output, is there broadcasting that gives any kind of insight. Channel 4's documentary Hardcore, shown two years ago, told the story of Felicity, a single mother from Essex who travelled to Los Angeles hoping to make a career in pornography. Arriving excited, and clear about what she would not do - anal sex, double-vaginal penetration - she ended up being coerced into playing a submissive role and agreeing to anal sex. Felicity - the vicissitudes of whose own troubled relationship with her father were mirrored by the cruelty of the men with whom she ended up working - eventually escaped back to the UK.

Hardcore offered a rare, unadorned look at the inside of the industry, as did Pornography: The Musical, albeit in a more surreal form, with actors interrupting sex to break into song. Yet what about the millions who consume pornography, the men - for they are, despite pornographers' claims about growing numbers of female fans, mostly men - who habitually use it? How are they affected? Is pornography, as most these days claim, a harmless masturbatory diversion? That episode of Friends, albeit with tongue in cheek, suggested a heavy diet of porn might encourage men inappropriately to expect sex. Is that true? And what about more profound effects? How does it affect relationships? Is it addictive? Does it encourage rape, paedophilia, sexual murder? Surely tough questions need to be asked.

First, though, some definitions. According to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, the word "pornography" dates to 1864, when it described "the life, manners, etc of prostitutes or their patrons". More recently, it has come to signify material, in the words of Chambers, "intended to arouse sexual excitement". Its most common themes, however, are power and submission. By contrast, "erotica", which is pretty hard to find now, carries additional connotations of "amorousness" and is far less concerned with control and domination. No, it is pornography plain and simple, from teen magazines such as Front to venerable "wrist mags" such as Playboy, to the almost daily bombardment of teaser pornographic emails, that confronts all of us on a ceaseless basis.

The received wisdom, pushed hard by such mass-market magazines as Loaded and FHM, is that men derive a pretty uncomplicated enjoyment from pornography. That, certainly, is the argument put forward by such proponents as David Baddiel, AA Gill, who has directed his own pornographic film, and the musician Moby, who once said in an interview, "I like pornography - who doesn't? I don't really trust men who claim to not be interested in porn. We're biologically programmed to respond to the sight of people having sex." Danny Plunkett, then features editor of Loaded, takes an equally relaxed view: "We know that a lot of people enjoy it and take it with a pinch of salt. We certainly don't view it as dangerous."

But is it as simple as this? One of my best friends is a man for whom pornography has apparently never held even the slimmest interest. Moby may choose to distrust him, but his sex life otherwise has always seemed to me perfectly robust. He is, however, so much in the minority as to seem almost an oddity.

For most men, at some point in their lives, pornography has held a strong appeal and, before any examination of its effects, this fact has to be addressed. Like many men, I first saw pornography during puberty. At boarding school, dog-eared copies of Mayfair and Knave were stowed behind toilet cisterns; this borrow-and-return library system was considered absolutely normal, seldom commented upon and either never discovered by the masters or tacitly permitted. Long before my first sexual relationship, porn was my sex education.

No doubt (though we'd never have admitted it then) my friends and I were driven to use porn through loneliness: being away from home, we longed for love, closeness, unquestioning acceptance. The women over whom we masturbated - the surrogate mothers, if you like - seemed to be offering this but, of course, they were never going to provide it. The untruths it taught me on top of this disappointment - that women are always available, that sex is about what a man can do to a woman - I am only now, more than two decades on, finally succeeding in unlearning.

From men everywhere come similar stories. Nick Samuels, 46, an electrical contractor from Epping - now, with a wife and four children, the very image of respectable fatherhood - says he first discovered the power of pornographic images at the age of 16, when he found a copy of Mayfair in his father's garage. "I can even remember the picture. There was a woman walking topless past a building site and the builders were ogling her from the scaffolding. It was pretty soft stuff, but it heightened my senses and kicked off my interest in pornography. Before long, I was reading Whitehouse and then, through a friend at my squash club, I was introduced to hardcore videos."

Si Jones, a 39-year-old north London vicar who regularly counsels men trying to "come off" pornography, admits that, for him, too, it was his introduction to sex. "As a teenager, I watched porn films with my friends at the weekend. It was just what you did. It was cool, naughty and everyone was doing it." Set against today's habit of solitary internet masturbation, Jones's collegiate introduction to porn seems peculiarly sociable. Today, boys no longer clandestinely circulate magazines after school; nor do they need to rummage through their fathers' cupboards in search of titillating material. Access to internet pornography has never been easier, its users never younger, and the heaviest demand, according to research published in the New York Times, is for " 'deviant' material including paedophilia, bondage, sadomasochism and sex acts with various animals".

At its most basic level, pornography answers natural human curiosity. Adolescent boys want to know what sex is about, and porn certainly demonstrates the mechanics. David Morgan, consultant clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst at the Portman Clinic in London, which specialises in problems relating to sexuality and violence, describes this phase as "transitional, like a rehearsal for the real thing. The problem with pornography begins when, instead of being a temporary stop on the way to full sexual relations, it becomes a full-time place of residence." Morgan's experience of counselling men addicted to porn has convinced him that "the more time you spend in this fantasy world, the more difficult it becomes to make the transition to reality. Just like drugs, pornography provides a quick fix, a masturbatory universe people can get stuck in. This can result in their not being able to involve anyone else."

For most men, the way pornography objectifies sex strikes a visceral emotional chord. Psychotherapists Michael Thompson and Dan Kindlon, in their book Raising Cain: Protecting The Emotional Life Of Boys, suggest that objectification, for boys, starts early. "By adolescence, a boy wakes up most mornings with an erection. This can happen whether he is in a good or bad mood, whether it is a school day or a weekend ... Boys enjoy their own physical gadgetry. But the feeling isn't always, 'Look what I can do!' The feeling is often, 'Look what it can do!' - again, a reflection of the way a boy views his instrument of sexuality as just that: an object. What people might not realise when they justly criticise men for objectifying sex - viewing sex as something you do, rather than part of a relationship - is that the first experience of objectification of sexuality in a boy's life comes from his experience of his own body, having this penis that makes its own demands."

But the roots go back further still. Research has shown that boy babies are treated more harshly than their female counterparts and, as they grow up, boys are taught that success is achieved through competition. In order to deal with this harsh masculine world, boys can learn not to trust their own feelings and not to express their emotions. They become suspicious of other men, with whom they're in competition, after all, and as a result they often feel lonely and isolated.

Yet men, as much as women, hunger for intimacy. For many males, locked into a life in which self-esteem has grown intrinsically entwined with performance, sex assumes an almost unsustainable freight of demands and needs. Not only does the act itself become almost the only means through which many men can feel intimate and close, but it is also the way in which they find validation. And sex itself, of course, cannot possibly satisfy such demands.

It is into this troubled scenario that porn finds such easy access. For in pornography, unlike in real life, there is no criticism, real or imagined, of male performance. Women are always, in the words of the average internet site, "hot and ready", eager to please. In real life, by contrast, men find women are anything but: they have higher job status, they demand that they be sexually satisfied, and they are increasingly opting to combine career and motherhood.

Men, say psychologists, also feel threatened by the "emotional power" they perceive women wielding over them. Unable to feel alive except when in relationships with women, they are at the same time painfully aware that their only salvation from isolation comes in being sexually acceptable to women. This sense of neediness can provoke intense anger that, all too often, finds expression in porn. Unlike real life, the pornographic world is a place in which men find their authority unchallenged and in which women are their willing, even grateful servants. "The illusion is created," as one male writer on pornography puts it, "that women are really in their rightful place and that there is, after all, no real and serious challenge to male authority." Seen in this light, the patently ridiculous pornography scenario of the pretty female flat-hunter (or hitch-hiker, driver with broken-down car, or any number of similar such vulnerable roles) who is happy to let herself be gang-banged by a group of overweight, hairy-shouldered couch potatoes makes perfect psychological sense.

The porn industry, of course, dismisses such talk, yet occasionally comes a glimmer of authenticity. Bill Margold, one of the industry's longest-serving film performers, was interviewed in 1991 by psychoanalyst Robert Stoller for his book Porn: Myths For The Twentieth Century. Margold made no attempt to gloss over the realities. "My whole reason for being in this industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don't care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn't have when they were growing up. So we come on a woman's face or brutalise her sexually: we're getting even for lost dreams."

As well as "eroticising male supremacy", in the words of anti-porn campaigner John Stoltenberg, pornography also attempts to assuage other male fears, in particular that of erection failure. According to psychoanalytical thinking, pornography answers men's fetishistic need for visual proof of phallic potency. Lynne Segal, professor of psychology and gender studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, writes: "Men's specific fears of impotence, feeding off infantile castration anxiety, generate hostility towards women. Through pornography, real women can be avoided, male anxiety soothed and delusions of phallic prowess indulged, by intimations of the rock-hard, larger-than-life male organ."

Pornography, in other words, is a lie. It peddles falsehoods about men, women and human relationships. In the name of titillation, it seduces vulnerable, lonely men - and a small number of women - with the promise of intimacy, and delivers only a transitory masturbatory fix. Increasingly, though, men are starting to be open about the effect pornography has had upon them. David McLeod, a marketing executive, explains the cycle: "I'm drawn to porn when I'm lonely, particularly when I'm single and sexually frustrated. But I can easily get disgusted with myself. After watching a video two or three times, I'll throw it away and vow never to watch another again. But my resolve never lasts very long." He has, he says, "seen pretty much everything. I've even seen pictures of men being buggered by a pig. But once you start going down that slope, you get very quickly jaded."

Like many men, McLeod is torn. Quick to claim that porn has "no harmful effects", he is also happy to acknowledge the contradictory fact that it is "deadening". Andy Philips, a Leeds art dealer and, at 38, a father for the first time, says there have been times when he has been "a very heavy user". His initial reaction, like that of many of the men to whom I spoke, is studiedly jokey: "I love porn." Yet, as he grows more contemplative, he admits: "I've always used it secretly, never as part of a relationship. It's always been like the other woman on the side. It's something to do with being naughty, I guess."

Again and again, despite now being married, he is drawn back. "You can easily get too much of it. It's deadening, nullifying, gratuitous, unsatisfying. At one point I was single for three years and I used a lot of porn then. After a while, it made me feel worse. I'd feel disgusted with myself and have a huge purge."

Extended exposure to pornography can have a whole raft of effects. By the time Nick Samuels had reached his mid-20s, it was altering his view of what he wanted from a sexual relationship. "I used to watch porn with one of my girlfriends, and I started to want to try things I'd seen in the films: anal sex, or threesomes." Sometimes, he says, this was OK - "She was an easy-going person." At other times, "it shocked her". Married for 15 years, he admits he has carried the same sexual expectations into the marital bedroom. "There's been real friction over this: my wife simply isn't that kind of person. And it's only now, after all these years, that I'm beginning to move on from it. Porn is like alcoholism: it clings to you like a leech."

Psychoanalyst Estela Welldon, author of the classic text Mother, Madonna, Whore, has treated couples for whom such scenarios spiralled out of control. "A lot of men involve their partners in the use of porn. Typically, they will say, 'Don't you want a better sex life?' I have seen cases in which first the woman has been subjected to porn and then they have used their own children for pornographic purposes." When couples use porn together - a growing trend, if anecdotal evidence is anything to go by - there is, says Welldon, "an illusory sense that they are getting closer together. Then they film themselves having sex and feel outside themselves. This dehumanising aspect is an important part of pornography. It dehumanises the other person, the relationship, and any intimacy."

Even when in a loving sexual relationship, men who have used porn say that, all too often, they see their partner through a kind of "pornographic filter". This effect is summed up eloquently by US sociologist Harry Brod, in Segal's essay Sweet Sorrows, Painful Pleasures: "There have been too many times when I have guiltily resorted to impersonal fantasy because the genuine love I felt for a woman wasn't enough to convert feelings into performance. And in those sorry, secret moments, I have resented deeply my lifelong indoctrination into the aesthetic of the centrefold."

Running like a watermark through all pornography use, according to Morgan at the Portman Clinic, is the desire for control. This need, he says, has its roots in early childhood. "A typical example might be a boy with fairly absent parents, either in emotional terms or in actual fact." The boy, wishing his parents were more present - more within his control, as it were - can grow up wishing "to find something over which he can have control. Pornography fills that space."

But the user of pornography is also psychologically on the run, Welldon adds. "People who use pornography feel dead inside, and they are trying to avoid being aware of that pain. There is a sense of liberation, which is temporary: that's why pornography is so repetitive - you have to go back again and again."

Lost in a world of pornographic fantasy, men can become less inclined, as well as increasingly less able, to form lasting relationships. In part, this is due to the underlying message of pornography. Ray Wyre, a specialist in sexual crime, says pornography "encourages transience, experimentation and moving between partners". Morgan goes further: "Pornography does damage," he says, "because it encourages people to make their home in shallow relationships."

Jan Woolf believes it might also prevent a relationship getting started. A former special needs teacher, she lasted only six months in the job of BBFC censor in 2001. During this time, she watched hundreds of hours of hardcore videos. At the time, she was single. "If I'd been in the early stages of a relationship, it would have been very difficult, because I'd have been watching what I might have been expected to be doing, except it would never have been like that." She left the job because the porn was starting to make her feel "depressed - I wanted my lively mind back".

The more powerful the sense of pre-existing internal distress, the more compelling becomes the pull towards pornography. For John-Paul Day, a 50-year-old Edinburgh architect in his first "non-addictive" sexual relationship, the experience of being a small boy with a dying mother drove him to seek solace in masturbation. He says he has been "addicted" to pornography his entire adult life. "The thing about it is that, unlike real life, it is incredibly safe," Day says. "I'm frightened of real sex, which is unscripted and unpredictable. And so I engage in pornography, which is totally under my control. But, of course, it also brings intense disappointment, precisely because it is not what I'm really searching for. It's rather like a hungry person standing outside the window of a restaurant, thinking that they're going to get fed."

Day, who has attended meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous for 12 years, says, "Pornography is central to my own sex addiction in as much as sex addiction has to do with the use of fantasy as a way of escaping from reality. Even in my fantasies about 'real' people, I am really transforming them into pieces of walking pornography. It is not the reality of who they are that I focus on, but the fantasy I project on to them."

Like drugs and drink, pornography - as Day has realised - is an addictive substance. Porn actor Kelly Cooke, one of the stars of Pornography: The Musical, says this applies on either side of the camera: "It got to the point where I considered having sex the way most people consider getting a hamburger. But when you try to give it up - that's when you realise how addictive it is, both for consumers and performers. It's a class A drug, and it's hell coming off it."

The cycle of addiction leads one way: towards ever harder material. Morgan believes "all pornography ends up with S&M". The now-infamous Carnegie Mellon study of porn on the internet found that images of hardcore sex were in far less demand than more extreme material. Images of women engaging in acts of bestiality were hugely popular, the most frequently downloaded being of a brunette with - in the pornographer's trusty lexicon - "a huge horse cock in her tight pussy".

The mechanics of the pornographic search - craving, discovery of the "right" image, masturbation, relief - makes it, says Morgan, work like "a sort of drug, an antidepressant". The myth about porn, as a witness told the 1983 Minneapolis city council public hearings on it, is that "it frees the libido and gives men an outlet for sexual expression. This is truly a myth. I have found pornography not only does not liberate men, but on the contrary is a source of bondage. Men masturbate to pornography only to become addicted to the fantasy. There is no liberation for men in pornography. [It] becomes a source of addiction, much like alcohol. There is no temporary relief. It is mood-altering. And reinforcing, ie, 'you want more' because 'you got relief'. It is this reinforcing characteristic that leads men to want the experience they have in pornographic fantasy to happen in real life."

In its most severe form, this can lead to sexual crime, though the links between the two remain controversial and much argued-over. Wyre, from his work with sex offenders, says, "It is impossible not to believe pornography plays a part in sexual violence. As we constantly confront sex offenders about their behaviour, they display a wide range of distorted views that they then use to excuse their behaviour, justify their actions, blame the victim and minimise the effect of their offending. They seek to make their own behaviour seem normal, and interpret the behaviour of the victim as consent, rather than a survival strategy. Pornography legitimises these views."

One of the most extreme examples of this is Ted Bundy, the US serial sexual murderer executed for his crimes in January 1989. The night before his death, he explained his addiction to pornography in a radio interview: "It happened in stages, gradually ... My experience with ... pornography that deals on a violent level with sexuality is that, once you become addicted to it, and I look at this as a kind of addiction like other kinds of addiction, I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something which is harder, harder, something which gives you a greater sense of excitement, until you reach the point where the pornography only goes so far ... It reaches that jumping-off point where you begin to wonder if, maybe, actually doing it will give you that which is beyond just reading about it or looking at it."

Bundy, as damaged as he was, stopped short of blaming pornography for his actions, though it was, he believed, an intrinsic part of the picture. "I tell you that I am not blaming pornography ... I take full responsibility for whatever I've done and all the things I've done ... I don't want to infer that I was some helpless kind of victim. And yet we're talking about an influence that is the influence of violent types of media and violent pornography, which was an indispensable link in the chain ... of events that led to behaviours, to the assaults, to the murders." In the understated words of Wyre, "The very least pornography does is make sexism sexy."

The average man, of course, whatever his consumption of pornography, is no Bundy. Yet for those who have become addicted, the road to a pornography-free life can be long and arduous. Si Jones advises accountability: "Make your computer accountable, let other people check what you've been looking at."

And the alternative to pornography, says Morgan, is not always easy. "Relationships are difficult. Intimacy, having a good relationship, loving your children, involves work. Pornography is fantasy in the place of reality. But it is just that: fantasy. Pornography is not real, and the only thing human beings get nourishment from is reality: real relationships. And, anyway, what do you want to say when you get to the end of your life? That you wish you'd spent more time wanking on the internet? I hardly think so."

Ureka!!!!!

2004-01-12T11:50:00.000+03:30

A few days ago I found my new favorite band: T.A.T.U
It's a Russian group with two lesbian girls. Their producer is Trevor Horn, who also was producer of queer music legends like Petshop Boys and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. My three top singles in their new album "200 Km/H in the Wrong Lane" is:
1. Not Gonna Get Us
2. Malchik Gay
3. All the Things She Said
I think it will be very great if producers of Queer as Folk use their songs for season 4!(Anything Else?!!!!!)

Happy New Year.

2004-01-12T11:26:00.000+03:30

May this be the best year of your life. AMIN!!!

Angels In America.

2003-12-14T07:08:00.000+03:30

Another masterpiece by HBO.

Some Quotes.

2003-12-13T10:35:00.000+03:30

I was standing in the middle of Manhattan, and heard a man say "They ought to take all these homos and put them on an island somewhere." I said, "Merry Christmas, Bozo, you're on it."
Jim David
Drag is when a man wears everything a lesbian won't.
Author Unknown
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?
Ernest Gaines
In response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighbourhood. 'You could move.'
Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby,"

The queerness of Hobbits.

2003-12-13T06:23:00.000+03:30

On eve of third 'Lord of the Rings' release, gay fans discuss
storyline's same-sex relationship
By Web Behrens

From:http://www.sovo.com/2003/12-12/arts/feature/queerness.cfm

Actors Sean Astin (left) and Elijah Woods acknowledge the close bond
between their characters Sam and Frodo in the 'Lord of the Rings' film
trilogy, even saying that the relationship could be interpreted as gay.
(Photos courtesy New Line Cinema)
It began with a shy caress on the hand. From there, it grew into
sleeping side by side.
By the time the tale winds to its dramatic end, there are sacrifices,
kisses and open declarations of love. Indeed, the couple's relationship
might be hailed as a great romance of 20th-century literature — but for
the tyranny of gender.
The characters in question are Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, the
two hobbits at the heart of "The Lord of the Rings." And though they grow
preciously close to each other during their quest to destroy the One
Ring of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fact that both characters are male
suppresses a thorough discussion of their love — a sort of Middle-Earth "Don't
Ask, Don't Tell."
But since the billion-dollar blockbuster film series renewed interest
in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic, some fans are asking a question no one seemed to
think about when the trilogy was first published in the mid-1950s: What
exactly is the nature of Frodo and Sam's relationship?
"Return of the King," the finale of the film series and the on-screen
relationship between Sam and Frodo, opens Dec. 17 in wide release.
Between the two characters, some fans see a close bond between master
and servant (Sam is Frodo's gardener), and others find a deep fraternal
love between comrades in wartime. Still others discover clear evidence of
romantic love.
Could it be that the heroes of this spectacular tale, beloved by
millions across the world, are gay? Could Tolkien, a renowned linguist who
utilized words with precision, have crafted a subtle statement about gay love?
The very notion that the hobbits had a romantic interest in each other
is enough to send some people into apoplexy. Between the release of the
first and second films, some fans were surprised to learn that actor Ian
McKellen, who portrays the wizard Gandalf, is gay.
For a time, the official "Lord of the Rings" Fan Club message boards
even censored the word "gay," until McKellen found out and helped lift the
ban.
So one can imagine the potential for hostility to any suggestion that
Sam and Frodo, making their way towards the fires of Mount Doom, were also
heating things up with a fire of their own.
There is no direct reference to any sexual passion between the pair.
Then again, there's nary a spark in the source material between the tale's
human protagonist Aragorn and his immortal lover, elf princess Arwen. The
films clearly play up that star-crossed love affair.
McKellen posted a statement on his Web site about the relationship
between Sam and Frodo.
"Frodo and Sam would not be the first young gentleman and his servant
to be a little in love with each other, but Tolkien doesn't make their
affection explicit sexually, nor does every reader agree that he has dropped any
real hints about it," McKellen writes. "Theirs is certainly a close
interdependent relationship."
Even Elijah Woods and Sean Astin, the heterosexual actors who play
Frodo and Sam, acknowledged that the pair could be gay during interviews
after the release of the second film "Two Towers."
"I think the gay community has certainly embraced it as a beautiful,
special thing, and I think it can be interpreted that way," Woods said
at the time. "It's good to know that people appreciate the relationship,
because it is powerful, and it is integral to both individual journeys.
Frodo wouldn't make it without Sam, and Sam wouldn't make it without
Frodo."
The comic relief duo Merry and Pippin could also be interpreted to have
a love relationship, according to the actors who play them.
"There's a nice kind of loving, close friendship that goes on, a kind
of unconditional love between the hobbits," said Dominic Monaghan, who
plays Merry. "It is something that you can associate with gay people."
Even as some straight fans shy away from the notion that Frodo and Sam
might be gay, the topic is of great interest to gay fans of the series.
"It's not a specifically homoerotic relationship, but it is a
homo-romantic one," asserts Shawna Walls, a Tolkien historian who runs the
gay-friendly site BagEndInn.com, and moderates a Yahoo group for queer "Rings" fans.
"The thing is, Tolkien didn't talk about sex at all, so using sex as a
litmus test to decide whether or not Sam and Frodo are a gay couple
doesn't really apply," Walls says. "On a non-sexual level, they definitely
compare to the other romantic relationships that Tolkien illustrates."
Clifford Broadway, a writer and Tolkien expert who pens a regular
column (under the name Quickbeam) for TheOneRing.net, the most popular Tolkien
fan site, continues the debate and the dichotomy between gay fans and
heterosexual "Rings" followers.
"It would be OK if they were gay — but they're not," Broadway counters.
In his niche in cyberspace, Broadway weighed in on the topic four years
ago, well before pop culture reawakened Tolkien-mania.
"I had observed a lot of people yammering on other sites, speculating,
'Oh my god, we're going to have homo hobbits holding hands and kissing each
other,'" Broadway recalls.
Gay actor Ian McKellen tells fans on his Web site that the relationship
between Sam and Frodo in the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy is 'a close
interdependent relationship' that some interpret as gay.
"I always hear, 'Oh, they're so gay together,'" Broadway continues. "My
response is: 'No, they're just affectionate. You need to deal with your
own issues.' American men cannot deal with two literary characters
supporting and loving each other in a time of dire need, so it becomes a gay issue
when it never really was."
Regardless of the interpretation in Tolkien's books, one thing is clear
about the films: Hobbits holding hands are a no-no at New Line Cinema.
In the second book, Sam watches Frodo sleeping and remarks, "I love
him." The screen version excises that moment.
The movies choose to leave the Sam-Frodo relationship ambiguous, and
that seems to be where they're headed with next week's finale "The Return of
the King."
Sam and Frodo's plight grows ever more dire, but "I don't think we're
going to see the two of them cuddled up, sleeping close together, using each
other's bodies for warmth, as Tolkien expressly states," Broadway
predicts.
But for fans of the books, the compelling question "Are they or aren't
they?" remains.
"You can interpret it either way, and I think either interpretation is
valid," Walls says. "You just have to look at it from different
perspectives. I think Tolkien tells us that they are a couple. It's
beyond friendship, that's for sure."

Stephen Holt contributed to this article.

The Iranian Closet.

2003-12-11T12:26:00.000+03:30

When your family would rather see you dead than gay.
By Dr. Ali Zarrabi
From: http://www.thegully.com/essays/iran/031120_gay_iran.html

NOVEMBER 20, 2003. In 1989, after years of living in the closet both in Iran and Germany, I finally reached the point where I saw only two options: either I had to kill myself and end my depressed, closeted existence, or accept myself and deal with the consequences. I came out that year in June, when I went to my first Gay Pride in Berlin holding hands with another man.

My feelings of fear and shame have changed to anger: at my parents, my society, and the culture they forced on me. I'm angry at my parents for making my childhood such a constant hell. For not being there when I had to hide and cry because somebody, again, made a derogatory remark about me.

I'm angry at the entire Iranian society for their homophobia: there are other options. In early Native American societies, if a young boy showed no interest for so-called masculine activities, he wouldn't be sent hunting or horse-back riding with his father: he would be allowed to stay home to help with the chores around the house. These boys were never forced to marry when they grew up. Instead, they could become something more compatible with their nature, often healers.

A Gay Child
Being born a gay child in an Iranian family means being ignored or ridiculed for the first twenty or thirty years of your life.

By the time I was 5 years old, every kid on my street, the neighbors' sons and all my cousins knew that I was different. They would make fun of me for not wanting to play soccer, and preferring more creative and artistic games. My father used to get angry any time I wanted to dance.

To force you to do what they want, Iranian families use the constant refrain, "after all that we have done for you," holding over your head the food and shelter they provide, something you could have gotten in any orphanage. They also use the guilt about their financing your education, something they mostly do to make up for their own failures in life.

Hitched
The worst is the pressure to get married. They use every tactic, including their health: "Your father will die if you don't marry soon." They talk constantly about some neighbors' son whose newly-wedded wife is pregnant: "They are such a lovely couple."

The pressure to marry is so unbearable that many gay men and lesbians succumb to it and surrender. Forcing a gay adult male to marry a woman equals psychological mutilation. After ruining your childhood and forcing you to pursue a career you don't want, they then have to make sure that every single moment of the rest of your life is lived in misery and agony.

I am not heterophobic, but I would rather die than live the rest of my life with a Persian woman, lay down with her in the same bed and every night come up with some excuse for not wanting to have sex with her.

The Neighbors
You have to understand that the average Iranian family lives for the mardom, their neighbors and relatives. They don't have an individual life: everything is done to satisfy the opinion of the mardom. The clothes you wear, the car you drive, the parties you have, your life and soul, everything is for the mardom. The typical Iranian family would rather see their son dead than gay.

The parents of one of my friends pressured him to attempt suicide. They openly asked him to either become "normal" or to kill himself. That didn't work, but they managed to send him somewhere very far away, so none of the mardom would recognize him. They are willing to lose their son, just for the mardom.

When I was in the closet, and suffering through medical school, I became obsessed about my sister's welfare. I thought, "If I come out no decent Iranian man will ever marry her. Maybe I should wait until she gets married, then come out. But what if she never gets married? What if her future husband forbids her to see me if I come out?"

I didn't see myself as my sister's equal. She had the right to have a happy family with a husband. But did she recognize my right to have a loving and caring man in my life? Would she wait until I found my lover, then get married? I am the older one after all. Why would I want a homophobic Iranian man as my brother-in-law, anyway? Homophobia is not a single disorder. It is usually associated with sexism and machismo. Why would I want my sister to marry such a guy?

Arranged Marriages
Besides homophobia, there's also custom to contend with. The average Iranian family is the result of a forced marriage. I am talking about our parents' generation. I don't know how things are these days. As a result, husbands and wives rarely share romantic feelings, let alone love. They often covertly dislike or openly hate each other.

It's not easy to tell them that you want to be with somebody because you love or like him. I'm sure young Iranian heterosexuals have the same problems with the older generation. How can you make your old-fashioned parents understand that?

This is a very difficult task, but not impossible. It requires lots of learning on their side. If they really loved their gay son, they would try to understand him. Fearing rejection, and worse, many gay Iranian men instead decide to hide their true selves from their parents, cutting them out of their lives.

Solitary Confinement
The many years of my life when I was stuck in the closet were a kind of solitary confinement. The word "closet" matches very well the condition I was in. A closet is a small, dark place where you can hardly move or breath. You sit there and hope that nobody finds you. I used to ask myself what would happen if I came out of the closet, and maybe worse, what would happen to me if I stayed in. I wondered what my parents would do if they found out. I used to feel sorry for them for having a gay son.

It was like being trapped in a swamp. I couldn't move forward or backward. Every day brought a new depth of depression. I used to ask myself and God thousands of times a day, "Why me?" At some point, when I was living in Germany, I was so isolated that I wouldn't speak to anybody for days even though I was living in a big city.

I dreamed of having an Iranian boyfriend, hoping that some day he would come and help me come out of the closet. He would replace the family that I had left in Iran, take care of my loneliness, help me accept and find myself, and solve all the other small or big problems that I had. I was waiting for my savior. Of course, he never came along.

Tipping the Balance
The turning point came as I was finishing medical school in Germany. As the stress let up from exams and lectures, and I became less financially dependent on my parents, my choice became, literally, do or die. That's when I went to my first Gay Pride.

Shortly after that I moved to New York, started a job and took my first steps towards real freedom. I soon had an American boyfriend that I used to even take to official parties at my job. Being gay was the most normal thing in the world. I had little contact with other Iranians in New York. That was something that I missed tremendously.

In 1998, like many other Iranians before me, I moved to Los Angeles. After being away from the Iranian culture for twenty years, I was back in the middle of it again, dealing with their homophobia and prejudice. I kept a low profile until I fell in love with an Iranian, the one I thought would be the man of my dreams.

After a very short romance, reality caught up with us. He was extremely closeted, and under a lot of pressure from his family to marry an Iranian girl. Our relationship fell apart under the pressure. I was left heart-broken and devastated, hating my culture and people even more than before.

At that time, there was nothing to help Iranians in Los Angeles to come out, or to show them it is possible to be gay and have a life. That was when I came up with the idea of starting the Iranian Gay and Lesbian Healthcare Workers Association, an organization that fights homophobia in Iranian society, analyzes gay relationships, and tries to make it easy for people to come out, accept themselves, and encourage their families to respect them.

I believe, there has been a change in the last few years. There are more openly gay Iranians who are proud of who they are. But the one I loved, and still love, remains in his lonely closet, caught in the web of family and tradition.

Gandalf is Gay!!

2003-12-10T10:06:00.000+03:30

Ian McKellen who played Gandalf in Lord of the rings trilogy is gay.

Some Quotes.

2003-12-03T02:16:00.000+03:30

Gay people should be allowed to get married. Just because somebody's gay doesn't mean he shouldn't suffer like the rest of us.
-- Jeff Shaw
Homosexuality is God`s way of ensuring that the truly gifted aren`t burdened with children.
-- Sam Austin
We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture.
-- Robin Williams

Broken Saints.

2003-12-02T11:24:00.000+03:30

A magical story in Flash:
www.brokensaints.com

Being Gay in Game World.

2003-12-02T09:50:00.000+03:30

One of most important aspect of computer games is that you can immerse yourself in a virtual world and forget about real world. For me, as a closeted gay boy, this is a part of living in a digital closet. But even in this digital closet you can't be yourself. Most of role playing computer games are about saving world and the Fair Princess. In a large group of these games few quest are about doing a favor for girls. In recent games after female categories are avaiable for playing these do me this favors and thank you my love quests are divided between boy and girls characters. Also in some games a brothel is added that have both girl and boy characters in it. During my whole gaming experience only two games allow a male character to approach and choose a male partner. The first one is fallout 2. In fallout 2 you can enter a farmer house and tempt his girl to marry you. But to my amusment you also can tempt his son and sleep with him and actually MARRY him with contest of his father! You can guess what I feel after that, when during the game my boy-wife can accompany me during my quests. The other computer game that allow you to be gay, is recent Divine Divinity by larian studios. In Divine Divinity there is a brothal that as a male character you can choose a male partner and the comments of owner when you do this is quit beautiful. In contrast with these two games is Nevewinternight. In this game when you enter the brothel as a male character, only girls talk to you and give quests to you and the boys refuse even talking with you. I think in a computer game the player must have the option of choosing his/her sexual identity and it's a very important aspect of gaming.

Diaries of a cat and a dog.

2003-12-02T07:08:00.000+03:30

EXCERPTS FROM A DOG'S DIARY:

Day number 180
8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 pm - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
4:00 pm - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

Day number 181
8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 pm - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
4:00 pm - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

Day number 182
8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 pm - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
1:30 pm - ooooooo. bath. bummer.
4:00 pm - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

EXCERPTS FROM A CAT'S DIARY

DAY 752 - My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape,and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another houseplant.

DAY 761 - Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded; must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair...must try this on their bed.

DAY 762... Slept all day so that I could annoy my captors with sleep depriving, incessant pleas for food at ungodly hours of the night.

DAY 765 - Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body in attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was. Hmmm. Not working according to plan.

DAY 768 - I am finally aware of how sadistic they are. For no good reason I was chosen for the water torture. This time, however, it included a burning foamy chemical called "shampoo." What sick minds could invent such a liquid. My only consolation is the piece of thumb still stuck between my teeth.

DAY 771 - There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the foul odor of the glass tubes filled with what they call "beer." More importantly, I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.

DAY 774 - I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird, on the other hand, has got to be an informant and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Alas, due to his current placement in the metal room, his safety is assured...for now.

But I can wait, it is only a matter of time....

Day 775 - The horrors! The worse creature my captors could have devised to torment me with was another hideous cat! I can't stand the way it lies around and looks at me as if it knows more than I do. This creature seems to despise me as much as I it. I had held out a passing notion that another of my own kind would have enabled me to conspire against the villains who hold me; now I see that I was wrong. What a dreadful creature! And yet they coo over us both. Can they not spot my innate superiority?

Day 776 - The other cat and I, though we can not stand one another, have yet managed to both pee copiously behind the couch, on the so-called "shag" carpet. I have taken a lesson from my rival and begun sleeping on top of my captors' heads in the hope of suffocating them.

Day 777 - The wardens take much interest in our shit. They make sure they sift through the sand and pick it all out. Their interest in shit does not surprise me. After all, they like the dog.

Day 778 - The other cat seems to have an interest in copulation, which (thank them for their sadism) my captors will soon "fix". Told him of the fingernail torture, and he didn't even believe me. I showed him my mutilated paws and he gasped in horror. Then I broke the bad news. "You know why that dog licks his nuts?" I said, "It's because he still has nuts to lick, if you catch my drift." I fully support the horrors my captors will inflict upon my fellow captive, tearing away his manhood as they soon will.

Day 779 - Yes, they are monsters, but I am so happy. They fixed the other cat. It's sadistic, it's sick, it's inhuman, it's what their great leader "Bob Barker" commands, but -- the Sphinx be praised -- I support it wholeheartedly!

Day 780 - Got stoned on cat nip tonight. At the height of it all, I had a vision, a hallucenogenic revelation: they are the prisoners and I am the captor! Why haven't I seen this all before?

Vaan.

2003-12-01T02:56:00.000+03:30

Final Fantasy 12: Vaan!
From: www.ff12.com

Isn't he cute?

How can you breath on five o'clock.

2003-12-01T02:44:00.000+03:30

From: http://behrooz-online.persianblog.com/

چطور ميشه ساعت پنج نفس کشيد
يادم هست چند سال قبل ، خيلي وقت پيش ، توي بيمارستان قلب تهران ( شهيد رجائي) يه پسري بود كه قلبشو عمل كرده بودن . اواخر جنگ بود و تهران زير موشك داشت مي لرزيد و پسره هم از جنگ و بمباران خيلي مي ترسيد .

يك ماه بود عملش كرده بودن ، ولي اون نمي تونست نفس بكشه ، يعني بدون ماسك اكسيژن نمي تونست ، خيلي كه زور مي زد سه چهار دقيقه بدون ماسك تحمل مي كرد . حالا بگذريم از اينكه دستشويي رفتنش چقدر مصيبت بود ، ولي مساله ي اصلي ساعت پنج بود .... ساعت پنج عصر .

براي اون پسره مثل فدريكو گارسيا لوركا ساعت پنج زمان خيلي مهمي بود . چون ساعتي بود كه تلوزيون شبكه يك كارتون نشون مي داد ، ولي اون نمي تونست بره و مثل بچه هاي ديگه جلوي تلويزيون بشينه و كارتون تماشا كنه . چون نمي تونست نفس بكشه .

مجبور بود چند تا نفس حسابي و عميق بكشه و بعدش ماسك اكسيژن رو از روي دهنش برداره .... دو تا پا داشت چهار تا پاي ديگه هم قرض مي كرد و با تمام نيرو مي دويد طرف تلوزيون ، چند دقيقه اي كه نگاه مي كرد نفسش بند مي اومد و رنگش مي شد سياه سياه ...

دوباره بدو بدو برمي گشت اتاق خودش و ماسك رو مي ذاشت روي دهنش و چند تا نفس حسابي مي كشيد تا كه برگرده سر تماشاي كارتون .

جنگ تموم شد .....

پسره بعدش رفت اونور آب و عمل كرد و خوب شد . خوب كه نه ، ولي نفس مي كشيد ... زنده بود . بزرگ و بزرگتر شد . يه وبلاگ ساخت و اسمش شد بهروز آن لاين پرشين بلاگ دات كام ....

بهروز مي خواست زندگي كنه ، توي اين جامعه نفس بكشه . پس دوباره ماسك گذاشت . ماسك دروغ ، ريا ، فريب ... تظاهر .

از اينكه شخصيتش توي جامعه فرو بريزه مي ترسيد ، از اينكه ديگران بفهمن كي هستش وحشت داشت ... حتي خودش هم نمي دونست كيه .

تا اينكه چند تا دوست خوب پيدا كرد ... دوستايي كه با بهروز نقطه ي مشترك داشتن ... فقط يك نقطه ي مشترك . مي خواست بره و اونارو ببينه ... به خاطر اين باز هم ماسكشو برداشت ، بدو بدو رفت تا دوستاشو ببينه .

خيلي خوشحال بود ... هدف ديگه اي نداشت ، نگران بود .... اما ارزشش رو داشت كه به ترسش غلبه كنه و ماسكشو برداره . حاضر بود نفس نكشه ... رنگش مثل گذشته ها كبود بشه ... اما دوستاي با وفاشو ببينه ... باهاشون حرف بزنه ، درد دل كنه ... بخنده .

بدون ماسك اما نمي شد . .... پس به سرعت برگشت سر جاي اصليش ، ماسكشو گذاشت رو دهنش و يه نفس عميق كشيد .

ساعت پنج عصر كه ميشه بهروز دلش مي گيره . دلش مي خواد باز دوستاشو ببينه ، ولي ... چه طوري نفس بكشه ؟

So they say . . .

2003-12-01T02:31:00.000+03:30

from:http://www.angelfire.com/home/qaf/quotations.html
Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime, and a cruelty, too. If you do not believe me, read the books of Havelock Ellis.
~ Sigmund Freud

Our main character, Brian, is a guy who fucks anything that moves. He does not pay a price for it. He does not get AIDS, and he has no conscience about it. I think that's absolutely revolutionary.
~ QAF co-producer Dan Lipman

QAF is the gay Shaft.
~ Peter Paige in an interview with Carla Collins for eNow

The opening episode has the longest lick down the backside of a boy of any TV broadcast in history.
~ Tom Legan, QAF Manager of Promotions and Marketing

I'm a total 'Queer As Folk' whore.
~ Leeza Gibbons at the 12th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles, California

It's a great study in the mechanics of desire.
~ Randy Harrison (Justin)

As an actor, the thing you look for is the chance to jump off a cliff, essentially, the chance to sort of put blinders on and go. I'm this person in these, whatever, in these 30 seconds that we're shooting this thing, I'm this person. I really got to experience that with QAF and I got to go wherever I needed to go. And I promised myself I wouldn't do it in a fearful way. I promised myself that if I did this show, I'd go the distance and I really did. I felt like I really did.
~ Fab Filippo (Ethan)

The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and three hundred sixty two admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision.
~ Lynne Lavner

If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work. "Hello, can't work today. Still queer."
~ Robin Tyler, Comedian

Yes, I was a teen-age lesbian. And while that may sound like a horror movie to some of you, for me I could subtitle that period of my life, ‘Adventures in Paradise,' because there was one thing that we gay teen-agers could do that our straight friends couldn't. I could say, "Hey, Mom, Michelle's coming over to spend the night Friday night, okay?" . . . "Okay, honey!"
~ Marilyn Pittman

A study done in the Des Moines public schools showed that the average high school student hears anti-gay comments like 'dyke' and 'faggot' a stunning 26 times a day, and that teachers who witness such incidents do nothing a shocking 97 percent of the time. The results of this kind of behavior for gay and lesbian students is terrifying.
~ Martina Navratilova addressing the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network in New York City

There is no need for parents to fear homosexual teachers. Ninety-seven percent of child seduction is heterosexual.
~ Dr. Benjamin Spock

Today's gay boy generally doesn't need a Socrates to initiate him into the world of adult physical love: He's already aware of his sexuality and its value. He's a self-conscious commodity, willing to accept objectification if the compensation is fair. Like the gold diggers in old black-and-white musicals, the boy has the power of pulchritude. Because he's desired for his appearance alone, he can act as he pleases and the man has to tolerate it. The gay boy is a bitch because he can get away with it. He never grows up because he doesn't have to.
~ Philip Guichard

Lots of gay and lesbian viewers are wetting themselves over the new Showtime series Queer as Folk, which follows the lives of fags and dykes in Pittsburgh. When it comes to the boys, Queer as Folk definitely gets it right, but sadly there are far fewer lesbians on the show, and the ones we do get are bickering, jealous bitches who just want to have kids and settle down. We've still got a long way to go. The show is being applauded for pulling no punches when it comes to the depiction of gay and lesbian lives. Words like "real," "uninhibited," and "gutsy" are simply euphemistic references to the show's explicit content-yes, they actually show you said queer people being sexual. In the world of gay TV, that's revolutionary stuff. On network television, while straight people routinely romp around in their underwear and grope each other, the supposedly slutty Jack of Will and Grace has never even been seen in bed with another man.
~ Tristan Taormino, Village Voice

We listen to our HIV positive friends talk about how their lives gradually came together after their diagnosis. We watch as those on disability spend hours a day working out and pumping up until they look healthier than the uninfected ever did. Our community offers them people to clean their homes, listen to their problems, deal with their anger and pain, do their shopping, get their medication, help them fill out their forms, distract them when they're depressed, network with other people facing the same challenges, and to get on with their day to day lives. We see them meeting other positive men, negotiating consensual unsafe sex and leading a carefree lifestyle most of us haven't tasted since the early eighties.
~ Columnist Brad Fraser, fab magazine, Winter 1997 issue.

Labels can also be misleading. I saw a news report about a lesbian protest march, and the reporter said, "Coming up next, a lesbian demonstration." My first thought was, "Cool. I always wondered how those things work."
~ Michael Dane, Comedian

I just wish more of my fellow queers would come out sometimes. It's nice out here, you know?
~ Elton John, accepting a Distinguished Achievement Award from Elizabeth Taylor at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center's 25th anniversary blowout.

Just by being out you're doing your part. It's like recycling. You're doing your part for the environment if you recycle; you're doing your part for the gay movement if you're out.
~ Martina Navratilova

I don't mind straight people as long as they act gay in public.
~ T-shirt worn by Dennis Rodman of the Chicago Bulls during a network-TV interview.

To a large segment of our society, gay people are viewed as sexual outlaws. God forbid a straight person should acknowledge that there are pleasures associated with their anus. That's a big, big door that people don't want to open.
~ Phil Hartman

I'm gay, I'm queer, I'm homosexual, I'm a poof, I'm a poofter, I'm a ponce. I'm a bum boy, baddy boy, backside artist, bugger, I'm bent. I am that arse bandit, I lift those shirts, I'm a faggot arse, fudge packing, shit stabbing, uphill gardener. I dine at the downstairs restaurant, I dance at the other end of the ballroom, I'm Moses in the parting of the red cheeks. I fuck, and I'm fucked. I suck, and I'm sucked. I rim them, and wank them, and every single man has had the fucking time of his life. And I am not a pervert.
~ Stuart Alan Jones, UK QAF

If you removed all of the homos and homo influence from what is generally regarded as American culture, you would be pretty much left with ‘Let's Make a Deal.'
~ Fran Lebowitz

I couldn't do that part -- those [silly] three lines. They brought me in to audition for a small part, an A-list gay who is throwing a party that Hal Sparks' character goes to. But I said no. I'm getting typecast and it's getting boring. The characters I play on TV are props. It's a way to make Liberals feel good about themselves. Every lead character on Providence has a gay or black friend. It's a way for them to say, "Look, you see, we're doing something good -- we are putting this gutless character on our show." I find that insulting. I find that worse than no representation.
~ Scott Thompson, on auditioning for Queer As Folk; from "Homecumming queen" by Nelson Branco, fab magazine, December 20, 2001

Because of insufficient federal funds, activists were forced to turn the disease [AIDS] into a commodity and sell it to the public like any snack food, compensating for the lack of government support with private support, with charitable contributions, which they extorted from the public by arousing pity for the victims, by packaging the epidemic in sentimental cliches that reduced potential donors to a state of maximum susceptibility.
~ Daniel Harris, author of The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, in an interview taped by Visual AIDS for World Without Art Day

I believe that those who promote discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or any other grounds are gravely mistaken about the values that make our nation strong. I will continue to move my administration in the direction of compassion, acceptance, and understanding.
~ Former President Bill Clinton in an interview with The Advocate

If God dislikes gays so much, how come he picked Michelangelo, a known homosexual, to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling while assigning Anita [Bryant] to go on television and push orange juice?
~ Mike Royko, syndicated columnist.

I haven't seen so many stiff members on TV since the launch of the Parliamentary Channel. Talk about full frontal. Anyone who thoughts that Jerry Springer was the biggest dick on TV ought to check out Pride after midnight.
~ from "Getting hard" by John Kennedy, fab magazine, December 20, 2001

Memo to the Congress: Thanks for thinking of me, but I don't need you to defend my marriage. My husband and I can handle that ourselves. Spare me 'The Defense of Marriage Act' label on a bill banning same-sex marriages. The name implies that the value of heterosexual marriages goes down once you let homosexuals into the institution. There goes the neighborhood. I don't buy this realtor's view of relationships. Gay and lesbian couples who want to wed aren't trying to assail the grounds for marriage. They're trying to share them. If anything, they want to stabilize the gay community.
~ Syndicated Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman.

Amateur porn has gotten pretty hot since the advent of the Internet. ... I'm grateful to these boys for sharing their largesse with the rest of us, but don't these guys have parents? I mean, if your hard-on can be downloaded anywhere from Athens to Zanzibar, chances are pretty good it's going to find its way back to Peoria. And surely there's somebody you once dumped or just plain pissed off enough who'll make certain it gets there.
~ Portland, Oregon 'Just Out' columnist Marc Acito

Disney movies are just full of fairies, you know. And what's the deal with Chip and Dale? Two male chipmunks, living together, year after year. I suppose they want us to think they're 'roommates.' With evidence like this, I'm surprised it took the Southern Baptist Convention until 1996 to aim the flamethrower of righteousness at the Walt Disney Co. Yea, verily, the Southern Baptists are threatening a boycott because Disney has extended health benefits to the partners of its gay employees and allowed gays and lesbians to actually GO INSIDE Disney theme parks. To the Southern Baptist way of thinking, Disney is turning anti-family. Mickey Mouse is gnawing away at the baseboards of morality. Pluto is whizzing on the tires of decency. It all seems pretty Goofy to me . . . Oh, well. There is an upside to all this, you know. If the Southern Baptists stay away from Disney Wold, the rest of us should be looking at WAY shorter lines for Space Mountain.
~ Mike Resmond, in a letter to the editor of the Indianapolis Star on Tuesday, June 18, 1996, in response to the Southern Baptists' boycott of the Walt Disney Company.

Here lies David Diamond — underneath Tom Cruise.
~ Dave Diamond's preferred epitaph.

Why can't they have gay people in the army? Personally, I think they are just afraid of a thousand gay guys with M16s going, ‘Who'd you call a faggot?'
~ Jon Stewart

My aim is to have an all-gay sitcom someday, with heterosexuals as token guest stars. Let them be the next-door neighbors for a change.
~ Harvey Fierstein

Wouldn't it be great if you could only get AIDS from giving money to television preachers?
~ Elayne Boosler

Yes, you can get AIDS from a mosquito . . . if you have unprotected receptive anal intercourse with an infected mosquito.
~ Randy Shilts

And don't give us that tired old mantra about discipline, good order, and morale. We acknowledge the need for discipline and good order, and we have read the Navy's report on Tailhook: and we have concluded nonetheless that it would be wrong — fundamentally wrong — to exclude heterosexuals from the armed forces. The standard for all should be conduct, not status.
~ Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.), at the Gay and Lesbian March on Washington, 25 April, 1993.

When we say the Pledge of Allegiance, we say, '. . . with liberty and justice for all.' Well what part of 'all' don't people understand?
~ Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), at the Gay and Lesbian March on Washington, 25 April, 1993

A very good-looking boy followed me for a quarter of an hour, and in the end he came up to me outside the Opera. I went back with him to his home and he kissed me with a frenzy even on the staircase. I was wildly passionate. We made love like tigers until dawn.
~ Rudolph Valentino, silent screen actor.

To be forced back into the heterosexual cage of coupledom [via gay marriage] is not a step forward but a step back into state-imposed definitions of relationship. With all that we have learned, we should be helping our heterosexual brothers and sisters out of their state-defined prisons, not volunteering to join them there.
~ Jane Rule, author of Desert Hearts, in Toronto's Xtra!

My starting point is generally that gay issues deserve to be thought through carefully, not just polemicized about. So much that comes from our gay advocacy groups is just political rhetoric. ... Orwell has a great line condemning people who 'think in slogans.'
~ Syndicated gay-press columnist Paul Varnell

I don't know, darling — he never sucked my cock.
~ Tallulah Bankhead, on being asked if a certain acquaintance of hers was gay.

The [Christian] supremacists who lead the anti-gay crusade are wrong morally. They are wrong because justice is moral, and prejudice is evil; because truth is moral and the lie of the closet is the real sin; because the claim of morality is a subtle sort of subterfuge, a strategem which hides the real aim which is much more secular. The supremacists don't care about morality, they care about power. They care about social control. And their goal, my friends, is the reconstruction of American Democracy into American Theocracy.
~ unknown

Homosexuality is a problem because an unenlightened society has made it a problem, but I have received letters by the thousands from gay people telling me that they wouldn't be straight if they had a choice. All they ask is to be allowed to love in their own way without facing the charge that they are "sick and twisted." I say, love and let love.
~ Abigail Van Buren (aka 'Dear Abby'), advice columnist

I'm beginning to believe that one of the last frontiers left for radical gesture is the imagination. At least in my ungoverned imagination I can fuck somebody without a rubber, or I can, in the privacy of my own skull, douse Helms with a bucket of gasoline and set his putrid ass on fire or throw congressman William Dannemeyer off the Empire State building. These fantasies give me distance from my outrage for a few seconds. They give me momentary comfort. Sexuality defined in images gives me comfort in a hostile world. They give me strength.
~ David Wojnarowicz

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
~ John Wooden

The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
~ Pat Robertson on Indiana's proposed ERA

You saw him! He's the best, I've had the best!
~ Nathan Maloney (Charlie Hunnam), Queer As Folk, UK

That's bizarre to me. Maybe it's because they're young. Maybe it's because they don't know what it's like to lose 87 of their friends like I do. But it's an incredibly stupid view to have. It's incredibly stupid to have unsafe sex. It's beyond stupid. It's imbecilic. When I see people doing it, I just want to smack them over the head with a hammer. I feel like saying, "You want AIDS? Here -- I'll just inject you with it myself! Here -- let me strap your arm, and inject you with the fucking virus, because you're pissing me off!"
~ Lea DeLaria in A&U Magazine

It is better to be hated for what one is than loved for what one is not.
~ Andre Gide

I think people are very unnerved by bisexuality in our culture -- unless it's about teasing, unless it's about withholding sex or implying homosexuality with the underlying message being 'Ha-ha, I'm not.' There's virulent homophobia in our culture. Cartoonists deal with exaggerated caricatures. Comics are seen as a kiddie medium, and there is a little history of dealing with taboo in comic strips. For example, in daily strips you used to not be able to show snakes. Why? Hmmm. Let me think. Snakes: phallic. And so on. Things are loosening up a little bit. As far as I know, Akbar and Jeff (from 'Life in Hell') are the only gay couple in comics. They may dance with a woman or two. But I don't think they are going to shape up.
~ Matt Groening on why there are so few gay characters in cartoons

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.
~ Benedict Spinoza

One should never lose hope. Homosexuality can strike any straight man at any age.
~ Roger Peyrefitte

Sex is like bridge: If you don't have a good partner, you better have a good hand.
~ Charles Pierce

I'm a Queer atheist. I hope Jesus does come back. I bet he'd be a miraculously good bottom.
~ B. Allan Ross

To be nobody-but-myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day to make me everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
~ E. E. Cummings

All around the Crayola-bright disco, hair and makeup personnel spritz buff male torsos with fake sweat. The make-believe scene is a same-sex dance mecca called Babylon. So many men, so little time to dust them with glitter. On another set nearby, a wardrobe mistress gives what she calls "a sock-and-jock adjustment" to an actor playing a waiter at a trendy gay eatery. Translation: She's enhancing the endowment of this guy's jeans by stuffing them with a hank of hosiery. His crotch now looks like the cover of the Rolling Stone's Sticky Fingers album.
~ Steve Daly, Entertainment Weekly: "The Gayest Show on Earth"

There's no drama in political correctness.
~ Russell T. Davies, QAF original creator

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
~ George Orwell, Animal Farm

Dear Diary,

2003-12-01T02:27:00.000+03:30

Hi.