RIP Lee Radziwill Pop Culture Icon; Gay Students and Unnecessary Rectal Exams; Drag Queen Story Hour; An Officer and His Gentleman by Ryan Field

RIP Lee Radziwill Pop Culture Icon

When I posted about the documentary, That Summer, and Lee Radziwill, last week I had no idea I'd be writing this post today.


Caroline Lee Radziwill, a renowned public relations executive, classic American style icon, former princess of sorts, and the younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, died in New York City on Friday, WWD reports. Radziwill was 85-years-old.

The article goes on to mention the many facets of Lee Radziwill's life, including touring with the Rolling Stones, along with Truman Capote. She was a woman of many highly creative talents who always seemed to have the ability to move forward. And in spite of the fact that her sister was one of the most famous people in the world, Radziwill managed to carve out her own individual identity that was totally separate from her sister's. 

Here's the link.

Here's another link. If you do a search you'll obviously find so much more.

And this link will lead you to a long piece about Radziwill and her sister, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. 

RIP

Gay Students Received Unnecessary Rectal Exams

This is awful. A doctor at the University of Southern California was allegedly giving unnecessary detailed rectal exams to young gay men. And that's not the only allegation.

One plaintiff claims Kelly asked him if he ever used sex toys. Another says Kelly refused to give him a robe to wear during a physical exam, saying it was “just us” and that he was “going to see it anyway.”

Here's the entire story.  The doctor has responded to the allegations. 

Drag Queen Story Hour

The concept of drag queens reading to kids seems to be taking off everywhere. Frankly, it's not something I ever thought I would see happen, and I've known a few serious drag queens in my time. But the kids seem to love it.  

At one 'Drag Queen Story Hour' in San Francisco, around 500 people showed up to listen to Bella Aldama read stories to kids. Of course the anti-gay protesters showed up, too. 

‘There is nothing wrong with reading a children’s book that display diversity and different gender identities,’ Aldama told East County Today at the event. 


You can check it out, here. There's a photo of how packed the room is. I think it's wonderful. 

An Officer and His Gentleman

by Ryan Field

Amazon Link

Reviews for An Officer and His Gentleman: 

"We all can use a little romance in out lives. The high heel kink was a little too much."

As usual Ryan creates some really great characters; Brody and Chance are great romantic lovers; and the sex is terrific!

Chance Martin, who dreams of becoming a chef on the Food Network, works at a grocery store for a quirky old man who gives him free room and board as long as he walks around naked when the store is closed. But Chance is only interested in cooking, until an attractive stranger walks into the market one morning.
Brody Johnston, bad boy naval officer on extended leave from his post in Europe, can’t take his eyes off innocent Chance’s round buttocks and smooth legs, and is determined to get to know him better. So when the old man goes to bed, Chance sneaks out to meet Brody and discovers his talents in the bedroom rival his talents in the kitchen. Though they are complete opposites, Chance is ready to submit to all of Brody’s sexual kinks and desires, but it never occurs to him they might actually fall in love with each other.
As Chance fights to live his dream as a chef, and Brody wrestles with the opportunities and limitations imposed by the military, will they be able to find happiness in each other’s arms?

Christopher Isherwood Movie and Male Full Frontal Nudity; Gay Male Full Frontal Nudity IMDb; Naked Guys In Movies

Christopher Isherwood Movie and Male Full Frontal Nudity

First, here's something about Christopher Isherwood, in case you haven't heard of him.

Isherwood was a "homosexual" author in the 20th century who wrote some great fiction. And he traveled in interesting circles.

While living in Hollywood, California, Isherwood befriended Truman Capote, an up-and-coming young writer who would be influenced by Isherwood's Berlin Stories, most specifically in the traces of the story "Sally Bowles" that surface in Capote's famed novella, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I think it's interesting that Capote was influenced by Isherwood. I never knew that before, not even when I parodied Breakfast at Tiffany's in my book, The Virgin Billionaire. 

You can read his full bio at wiki, here. 
 
The other night we found a film about Isherwood's life titled, Christopher and His Kind.  It was a TV movie in the UK, about a period in Isherwood's life. It's one of those rare period pieces that you can't stop watching because there's so little about gay culture during that time. And, there was a moment of male full frontal nudity. Brief, but it was there.

Highlight: Fifteen minutes in the movie, a young man called Ludo jumped out of bed naked and parades in the bedroom.

You can check this out here. I highly suggest watching this film because there was nothing insulting about it to gay men of any time period.

Gay Male Full Frontal Nudity IMDb

Web sites that focus on male full frontal nudity of any kind aren't always easy to find with a simple search. I actually found this one while doing a search for the Christopher Isherwood movie and decided to share it. I've done searches hundreds of times and this one never came up before.

Here are the list of gay themed films, fiction (full length only) or documentary (short/full length) plus str8 films often mistaken as gay themed films, that I have watched that features male "dicks" whether by the lead actors or from the supporting cast or from the unsung extras.

You can check that out here. I believe IMDb is SFW.

Naked Guys In Movies

Here's another web site that popped up in my searches above. I'm not trying to harp on the topic of naked men in movies, but I think it's interesting from a cultural POV, because naked men in movies (and books) is often so frowned upon...for various reasons. I'm not getting into those reasons too deeply in a short post like this, however, I may do that in the future.

Male Cinema is an adult membership site that offers clips with scenes of male nudity from different movies.

The site do not concentrate on the personalities of the actors, but on the erotism and sexuality of the male nudity scenes from cinema of vintage and modern era.

In the members area you can download to own erotic clips from rare as well as known movies, most of them are with male frontal nudity. All the movies titles are named in members area only.

The preview section is made in form of blog with screenshots of all the clips that are in the restricted area, also giving the country were the movie comes from and the date when it was made.

Here's the link. This one does come with photos and it's probably NSFW, so you've been warned. I wouldn't post the photos here even if I had permission. In the same respect, I don't think this would be considered porn. I think it's more artistic.

The Rainbow Detective Agency Rancho Mirage

In Print and E-book

Print version

You can find Rancho Mirage here as an e-book

Big Bad John Gay Parody

Big Bad John Gay Parody

I came across this web site recently and wanted to devote a short post to it because it is a big gay story, with respect to gay culture, and it revolves around the kind of parody I've sometimes done with books like An Officer and His Gentleman, or Pretty Man. And when I write posts like this I'm trying to show people who don't know these things that there is more to gay culture than what you normally read online these days. This is a typical discussion I might have with any number of gay authors during the course of a week...always in private.

There are a few very interesting comments on this web site that all support/explain gay parody in general, and it's a topic I think gay men find interesting because we've been so ignored in music, books, and films for so long we craved something...anything...mainstream that we could call our own. Even the gayest authors of their time like Truman Capote were not able to write anything with gay main characters. The same goes for the gayest performers and actors. Men like Capote did the best they could with books like Breakfast at Tiffany's and took what they could get during a time when gays were considered either clowns, court jesters, or mentally unsound.

Here's the most interesting (and true) comment I found in a commentary by Randy Sparks:

This parody was all in good humor, and it became one of the best-requested numbers in my solo act. I quickly discovered that most Gay men had no problem with laughing at the ditty, but any Lesbians in my audiences seemed to immediately take offense, so I was careful where I sang it. I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

It's the fundamental difference I've always found in writing gay parodies of mainstream films. And it's a huge problem for some who are not gay men and want to read about us or listen to our music, but not on our terms.

In any event, I'm not going to elaborate on that because this post would never end. But here's a link to 13 gay parodies of the hit song, Big Bad John, by Jimmy Dean. According to the site, there may even be more. If you click on the small music notes with each recording you can hear the songs to understand how they were done.

Gay culture is evolving and it is changing, especially with respect to assimilation, and I embrace all those changes completely. But that doesn't mean I'm willing to lose all that we've created.

David Arquette Trans Sister; Truman Capote, Bogart, Oral Sex; Gay-For-Pay Porn Star Family Meeting

David Arquette Trans Sister

According to this article, Alexis Arquette, transgender actress, announced she had sex once with Jared Leto. But more than that, her brother, well-known actor, David Arquette, made a few claims about his sister on a talk show. Evidently, David A. did a documentary on all this titled, Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother. I have to admit that I had no idea about the documentary or Arquette's transition.

This is what David A. said about adjusting to his sibling's transition:

‘We sort of knew so it was pretty easy,’ he said.

Then he added: ‘It’s pretty funny, I hate to say it but there’s like this … there’s an aspect of my sister that when she’s sort of part boy, part girl. It’s kind of what I grew up with. There’s something that’s more authentic to me than when she’s a girl.

'When she’s a girl she becomes cattier, it’s a little attitude. … I like her as sort of the medium girl. But I love her (so) that’s sort of silly to say.'

The rest is here. People who read this blog know I rarely carry on this way in posts. I'm ambivalent about the hot cop of Castro, and I'll post about the nude male calendars with a yawn. The truth is I'm not always as impressed as other people when it comes to men. But I have always thought David Arquette was one of the most attractive, hottest, sexiest men ever to step out of Hollywood. I know this is all about Alexis, but there's just something about that man that makes me want to turn the air conditioner down a few degrees. And now I have a whole new respect for him.

Photo attribution here.

Truman Capote, Bogart, Oral Sex

Truman Capote, like most of his kind, was well known for embellishing even the slightest story about the most mundane incidents. I've posted about him on the blog many times, because he was famous for writing several books, one of which was Breakfast at Tiffany's...a story I parodied with the first book in The Virgin Billionaire series. That parody was my own interpretation of a Cinderella trope...with all gay men and plenty of gay sex. I didn't do it by accident and it wasn't fanfic. I figured if a gay man like Capote could write straight characters and get away with it, I could parody them freely. I also focused a great deal on the romance, too. I didn't leave that out. And even though the parody follows the trope, I made many, many changes. But another reason why I wanted to parody that story was because Capote was also well known as the homosexual clown and court jester of his day in many circles. In the original film, Breakfast at Tiffany's, they even portray an Asian character with huge racism...in that clown and jester way. I didn't do THAT in the parody either. In many ways, Capote made it more difficult for gay men of his time to come out of the closet. He was flamboyant and amusing, and also clever enough to know how to get what he wanted by manipulating just the right people in the right social circles using his exaggerated mannerisms. His storied black and white ball is still infamous, and there are plenty of books out there to read more about him. Frankly, I never found him amusing or worthy of being a role model...unless you're heading to the circus.

In any event, I digress. This next article I'm linking to talks about how the late Lauren Bacall reacted to a rumor Capote spread about giving her late husband, Humphrey Bogart, oral sex. When a question regarding this oral sex incident was posed to her during an interview, she was about as impressed with the topic as I have always been with anything related to the Truman Capote saga. Not.

This is what Bacall had to say:

'Oh, please. You must be joking. I never heard that.

Why you bring up a thing like that? What kind of a mind do you have? Step out of the gutter. … Maybe it was a pipe dream of Truman’s – who knows?

 'But it’s a totally ridiculous suggestion that it really is a fact, and I hope that’s beneath you, because I really don’t like the fact that you brought something like that up.'

Frankly, I'm with Bacall on this one. I don't think Capote ever told a full truth in his entire life. And we'll never really know for certain.

 There's more here.

Gay-For-Pay Porn Star Family Meeting

The gay porn site, Broke Straight Boys, seems to be trying to gain attention with more than just adult content. They've produced a documentary of sorts that follows a gay porn star home where he gathers together with his family and they discuss his life, his sexuality, and what he does for a living.

“I really don’t care about defining my own sexuality. At this point now, I don’t like labels, I can’t stand labels,” he says once his family moves to the topic of assigning him a sexuality. His father believes he may be “homosexual,” to his brothers, he is “gay.” His brothers say they’ve “always felt” Paul was gay, and that “it’s awkward how he tries to hide that.”

Interesting. He constantly talks about how much he hates labels. I can't help but find this all slightly disingenuous. For one thing, he's working for a gay porn web site that's called Broke STRAIGHT Guys. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose if he called himself gay? The people who watch this type of content want the straight guy fantasy. Instead, he claims that if he did believe in labels, which he doesn't, he would probably be bisexual. I don't doubt that there are many bisexual people all over the world, and he very well could be. But this entire "reality" show just doesn't sound all that real to me. And frankly, I'm tired of hearing people talk about how they don't believe in labels as if being open about being gay implies there something wrong with being gay. The fact is we're all labeled something at one point or another in life. There should be nothing wrong with being labeled gay.

On the positive side, it's an interesting interview because the family is supportive and he makes some very logical points about why he decided to do porn. But, he's young, he rambles about nothing at some points when it comes to labels, and I don't think he has the slightest clue how hard it's been for all the gay men and women who came before him.

In any event, you can read more here. There's also a video clip.

 

 

The Sheriff and the Outlaw

 

by Ryan Field 

Amazon Link

 

 



FREE GAY Excerpt; Courage: Michael Sam; RIP Elaine Stritch; Gay Pride Commentary; "Supernatural" Queer Baiting

Courage: Michael Sam

Michael Sam received the Arthur Ashe award recently, and when he made his speech emotions grew so intense people actually cried. I think his comments reflect more than just one emotion, and I also think so many can identify with his struggles in life. The magnitude of it all hits hard at times.

 “To anyone out there, especially young people feeling like they don’t fit in, or that they'd never be accepted, remember this: Great things can happen when you have the courage to be yourself,” Sam said Wednesday night.

You can read the rest here.

I still find it almost overwhelming to think that so much has changed so fast. And yet at the same time it's taken years of hard work to reach a point where men like openly gay Michael Sam can stand up and make a speech like this.

I hope no one ever takes this for granted.

RIP Elaine Stritch

Admittedly, I know very little about Elaine Stritch. But I do know she's a huge icon within the LGBTI community and many are now mourning her passing. I did once watch a documentary about her, and her personal struggles in life, and I did gain a new respect for all she went through in one lifetime. I find it ironic she dated Rock Hudson.

Stritch had many LGBT admirers and always returned the love, and she had gay connections too numerous to list — to name just a few, she’s one of the greatest interpreters of the work of Noël Coward, who built the musical Sail Away around her character, and Stephen Sondheim, who gave her the song that became her signature, "The Ladies Who Lunch," in Company. In addition to her stage work, she had a significant TV and movie career. On TV, she famously played Alec Baldwin's domineering mother in 30 Rock, and her films included A Farewell to Arms, starring Rock Hudson, whom she even dated.

You can rad more here.

Gay Pride Commentary

Here's a commentary that seems to be focused on where the "gay" in "gay pride" went. I hadn't even noticed this has been happening. On a subconscious level I don't even say gay pride anymore. I just say pride and don't even realize I'm doing it.

Notice what word is absent in all of them. We have said goodbye to "gay."

LGBT people decided that they "wanted to show American they were 'regular' people," to echo a story in the The New York Times —"the kind that live next door."

It's a very interesting commentary, and also very long. However, I think it represents many sentiments that echo the thoughts and worries a lot of gay men have right now. Just today alone a young writer from a Philadelphia publication posted something on social media about how he's tired of people saying we don't need to use the word "gay" anymore when talking about an entertainer or public figure. And I tend to agree with him on that. By not using the word "gay" we're still promoting the shame we've all been working so hard to get rid of. And there's no shame at all in being gay. None.

The difference is subtle but far from trivial. Calling a neighborhood "diverse," saying that we're "the neighbors next door," and uttering the phrase "Pride Parade" — all of these are rhetorical moves that detach the neighborhood, neighbor, and parade from any particular community. We are no longer primed to think about sexual orientation at all.

I think this way of thinking and speaking is dangerous.

I actually agree with most of this article. And while I don't take offense when I hear people say they can't wait until we're living in a society where no one needs a label anymore, I also know those people don't fully understand because they've never experienced that brand of discrimination. It sound's good on the surface, but underneath it's just another way to promote shame. I cringe a little inside because that's not only taking away a good part of my own identity as a gay men it's also suggesting there is something wrong with being called gay.

You can read it in full here.

"Supernatural" Queer Baiting

I've been seeing a lot of this lately...or at least what seems to be queer baiting. First, queer baiting is when the media (in this case a TV show) suggests there's going to be a gay relationship at one point and never actually shows a gay relationship. They do this, supposedly, to attract gay viewers. I've seen it so far on True Blood and Big Brother 16. And now they're saying the TV show "Supernatural" is doing it, too.

Here's one tweet from a fan:

#AskSupernatural how do you feel about the fact that your show is the first result on google when you google queerbaiting?

I checked that, too. On my computer it came up as the second result, right beneath the urban dictionary definition I linked to above.

I don't watch the show so I can't comment. But I have seen this before and I will say that it backfires eventually.  There's more here. James Franco does a lot of queer baiting. I used to like him. Not so much anymore.

FREE GAY Excerpt:

No, this is not queer baiting when I use this as the title of a blog post. I'm writing gay fiction and I'm delivering it. I'm not just fucking around and pretending I'm producing gay material to get attention.

This is an excerpt, in raw unedited form, from my newest book, Small Town Romance Writer. Please keep in mind the novel is 113,000 words long and it covers a twenty year span so some technical things had to be written as they were in the 1990's. You really did need to key in a pass code to retrieve voice mail from a cell phone back then.

Amazon Link

Travis planned to move into Scottie’s apartment in Providence that January until they made the big move to Iowa that coming summer. Scottie’s landlord agreed to allow Travis to move in, even though he hated renting to more than two people at a time. But when the old guy saw how much they loved each other he said it reminded him of when he’d met his husband many years earlier and he agreed to make an exception. But more than that, he refused to take more money each month and he offered the use of a small office in the garage so Travis would have a place to work. Mike didn’t mind Travis moving in for six months. He thought it would be cool to have Travis around for a while. He claimed no one he’d ever met sucked dick better. Mike was a sweet guy and Travis took it as a compliment. He had a feeling Mike’s IQ was in the double digits.

            Because Travis had been living in Scottie’s apartment on weekends for so long, the move wasn’t much of a shock to him. He only brought his clothes and the things he needed for work. The only real shock Travis experienced when he first moved into Scottie’s apartment happened on a Wednesday night. He would never forget it as long as he lived. He was sitting between Mike and Scottie on the sofa watching a late night talk show on TV. Mike had returned an hour earlier from a basketball game and he’d been horny, so Travis blew Mike and Scottie in the living room during the eleven o’clock news and they all sat back to relax for a while before they went to bed.

            By that time, they’d removed the nightstand that separated the twin beds and they’d pushed the twin beds together to create one huge bed they all shared. Travis often went to sleep with Mike on top of him, but he always woke up in Scottie’s arms. It was the oddest thing. It was as if they were magnetically connected and didn’t even know it. At some point in the middle of the night when they were all sleeping Mike would turn over on his side to sleep alone, and Travis and Scottie would wind up in each other’s arms.

            That night on the sofa Travis was naked and he was leaning back against Scottie’s chest and Scottie had his arms around him. Mike was still wearing his basketball shirt and shoes, but he’d thrown his basketball shorts on the coffee table and his jock strap was hanging on the left side of the TV. When a TV commercial came on Travis started to daydream about leaving the small apartment in Providence and moving to Iowa again. Even though he didn’t have an emotional investment in Mike, he would miss him and he would miss the time they spent in that small apartment all the same. It always smelled like a combination of men and sex. But while Travis was staring at Mike’s jock strap on the corner of the TV, and Scottie was rubbing Travis’s chest muscles, the commercial ended, the talk show resumed, and the host of the show said, “Please welcome up and coming gay romance author, Ethan Holmes.”

            Travis sat up and hunted for the remote control beneath Mike’s basketballs shorts on the coffee table.

            “What’s wrong?” Scottie asked. He spread his legs and adjusted his balls. He was naked from the waist down, too. He’d been dozing off and he’d missed the introduction.

            “I think that’s Ethan,” Travis said. “On TV.” He’d been speaking regularly to Ethan and Lance on the phone, but he’d been putting off a visit and he hadn’t been concentrating on them as much because of Scottie. And he knew Ethan was on some kind of a book promotion tour. Ethan couldn’t wait to boast about the way everyone was treating him.

            Then Ethan walked onto the stage, hugged the talk show host, and sat down in a chair opposite the desk and smiled at the audience. They applauded for him as if he’d won the Nobel Peace Prize and they didn’t even know who he was, which Travis found mildly amusing.  

            “Did he tell you he was going to be on TV?” Scottie asked. “That’s odd.”

            “No,” Travis said, and then he remembered he hadn’t checked his voice mail in a few days. Scottie had talked him into getting a cell phone after he’d rented out his apartment and turned off his land line in Provincetown and Travis was just getting used to the cell phone. He hated the fact that you had to remember so many numbers in order to listen to messages, and he missed his old answering machine where all he’d had to do was push a button to get his messages. All these technical things that were supposed to make his life easier kept making it more complicated.

            While they watched the interview and listened to Ethan talk about his new gay romance with that hideous book title the publisher wanted to use, Travis went to get his phone and he called Ethan out in Los Angeles. He knew the talk show had been taped earlier that evening and he figured Ethan would be home waiting to see it on TV when it aired on the west coast.

            When Ethan picked up, he said, “Where the hell have you been? Why didn’t you return any of my messages? You’re really starting to piss me off.”

            “I keep forgetting the number to dial to get my messages,” Travis said. “I’m watching you on TV right now. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be on TV? You could have e-mailed me, or you could have called Scottie.”

            “I left you ten messages about it, and I wanted to talk to you, not Scottie,” Ethan said. “And since when did you start checking e-mails?”
            “I check my e-mails daily,” Travis said. “It’s the first thing I do before I start working every morning.”

            “Oh, that’s rich,” Ethan said. “Weren’t you the one who swore you’d never have e-mail and that you’d always work on that rusty old typewriter?”

            Travis sent Scottie a smiled on the sofa. “Things change. I’m in love.”

            “How do I look on TV?” Ethan said. “I’ve never been so fucking nervous in my life. I’ll bet I sound awful.”

            From what Travis could see, Ethan was charming the host and the live audience. Everything that came out of his mouth incited a reaction that seemed positive with the audience. And in his black suit and white shirt, he’d never looked better. “You’re wonderful,” Travis said. “They love you. But how the hell did you get on TV?” The last author Travis had seen on TV was Jackie Collins. Most writers don’t get TV gigs, especially those who wrote gay fiction of any kind. He remembered reading that Truman Capote used to be on a lot of talk shows, but that was mostly because he was so flamboyant and out of this realm.

            “Lance knows somebody who pulled a few strings,” Ethan said. “A scheduled guest cancelled at the last minute and they called me. I only had a few hours to prepare. I was lucky Jacques on Rodeo Drive could fit me in between his regular customers. I told him I would literally die if he refused to take me. Could you even imagine going on TV without having a professional stylist?”

            Travis rolled his eyes. “God forbid.”

            Ethan ignored his sarcasm. “How is the audience reacting to what I’m saying about the book?”
            “I’m not sure,” Travis said. “They just cut to another commercial. But everyone was applauding. They sounded happy.” His mixed emotions came rushing back, and he felt a pinch of jealousy once again. He knew when an author got an opportunity like this books would start selling fast, especially a trashy gay romance with thinly veiled Hollywood actors as characters in a western. In the same respect, he was thrilled for Ethan and he did wish him well.

            “I have to go,” Ethan said. “That’s it. I only had that one small segment on the show. We’re having a few people over to watch the show when it airs out here in a few hours. I’ll call you later tonight when it’s over.”

            Though Travis knew it would be the middle of the night in Providence by the time he called, he nodded and said, “I’ll take my phone to bed with me.”

            When he closed the phone and set it on the small dinette table, he returned to the living room and found Scottie and Mike with their legs open, stroking their erections. He shook his head and climbed over the coffee table. Travis sat on Mike’s lap first and said, “I’m starting to feel like a plastic blow-up doll, like I’m only good for one thing around here.”

Another "Looking" Article; Small Rant

Another Looking Article; Small Rant

Yes, another know-it-all critic, Bobby Hankinson, posted an article about HBO's Looking and he finally gave his grand approval. Get my smelling salts. But his praise is only based on the most recent episode, while slamming previous episodes as if he's the authority on gay television.

 For many viewers, it may just be too little, too late. That's a shame, because I think tonight's episode finally struck the right balance between the show's much-touted realism (some might call it "overly-touted") and some really nice storytelling.

Comments like that often pass me by because when I talk to friends and I read comments on threads and forums about Looking I see gay men who are thrilled to see a TV show with which they can finally identify, and one that gives a voice to the most silent majority within the gay community: the gay male who breaks most of the traditional gay stereotypes. In other words, he's not the wedding planner, the florist, the hairdresser, or the interior decorator. There's nothing wrong with any of those careers or the gay men who perform them. It's just nice to see another part of gay culture portrayed once in the show Looking.

You can read more here.

And here's a comment from a web site that monitors TV ratings.

HBO is taking chances on niche markets. They are starting to represent characters who are NOT in the 98% majority of heterosexual, white, middle class men aged 18+ because that demographic is NOT the 98% majority of people in the world. Bravo to the network for taking chances on things out of the ordinary. The shows, while not unproblematic, are fresh and foraging new ground for silent, oppressed voices to be heard.

I'm with this guy. Very few in the history of the world have been more oppressed than the gay male who is NOT the stereotype of effeminate Truman Capote. And I'd like to think the days of the amusing swishy gay male, much like the days of black men who tap danced, are coming to an end very soon.

Whether or not Looking will survive another season I don't know. I hope it does. But I'm also finding that TV in itself is a dying medium and most people I know under the age of fifty are watching shows online and I'm not sure if those ratings count. If you do a simple search for Looking and read some of the reviews and comments from gay men who've seen the show online you'll get something much different than you'll see from critics.

If you go to this youtube link you'll be able to read a variety of comments. Some are the standard gay hate comments for all things LGBTI. Others are written by younger gay men who love the show and hope it continues. I think that's important to grasp being that so many younger people are NOT subscribing to cable or Direct TV anymore and they are getting all their entertainment and information online. We're thinking of doing that ourselves in the near future.

I think if Looking were to add at least one gay couple who have been together at least ten or twenty years it would gain in ratings. And I'm not talking about a gay couple like the one on Modern Family. I'm talking about a real gay couple.

Jonathan Groff to Critics; He Hates Condoms; Vintage Gay Art

Jonathan Groff to Critics

I posted my thoughts in a review of a review about the new LGBTI show, Looking, last week and most of my readers seemed to agree with me. It's all subjective, which is important to take into consideration. But in this case what the critics of Looking who call it boring don't seem to understand is that gay men like me and thousands of others aren't sitting back anymore while only a handful get to voice their opinions.

In other words, the gay community is highly diverse and those select few in the gay community who have represented us in the past often find themselves being challenged now in ways that wouldn't have happened ten or twenty years ago. No one challenged Truman Capote because no one ever admitted to being gay back then. In this case, though small when you think about all the issues we still face, it's with the TV show Looking.

The star of Looking, Jonathan Groff, isn't sitting back either, and he's responded to a few comments about Looking that I think are highly significant with respect to many gay men and situations these gay men often find themselves in these days.

“The way that, potentially, this show is moving in the next direction, [is that] while all of the characters are gay, nobody’s sort of grappling with the fact that they’re gay,” he explained. “This show is about a group of gay men where their sexuality is kind of the least of their worries. Their problems are more their work environment or their love relationships or their friendships. Or they’re moving out of town, or you know, it’s about many other things in addition to being gay. Hopefully, its a reflection of where we’re at, which is where being gay is a huge part of who you are but it’s not the definitive thing about who you are.”

I think Looking, in a way, is a lot like Sex in the City, but with gay characters, and without the bad gay stereotypes Hollywood has been cramming down our throats since the beginning of film.

You can read the full article here, where there are vocal excerpts from the interview.

He Hates Condoms

The condom topic always creates highly charged discussion in any forum, but this article is a little different because the author, Matthew Ebert, discloses his HIV poz status in the first line.

I have always struggled with condoms. They remind me of something I hate, my HIV-positive status. My bad, you say? Nope. I just love barebacking. But I will not have anal sex without condoms. Which means I have not had intercourse in 18 years. But recently I met a younger guy who is HIV-negative, and I don't want to risk transmission, so I decided to start loving the condom and learned to stop dropping those mind bombs that kept me down on the farm.

I can't tell you how much I love this entire article.

You can read more here. It's the first thing I think I've ever read that not only gets into the reality of condom phobia but also the reality that it doesn't have to rule your life.

 Vintage Gay Art

During the ten years I owned my art gallery in New Hope I carried a number of newer artists who focused on gay art, but my favorite pieces...and those that usually sold the best...were always vintage. And this next article gets into not only gay vintage art, but magazine art.

In the 1950s, art admirers were hard-pressed to find images of gay male life adorning the walls of major galleries and museums. Instead, the beautiful work of photographers and illustrators like Bob Mizer and Tom of Finland were often exhibited within the pages of gay magazines. Diverse depictions of private male life -- particularly erotic life -- were thus made available only to the people who knew where to find it.

Knowing where to find it was an important phrase up until recently. For those gay men who were in the closet and had little access to large cities it was almost impossible to find anything even related to gay art.

You can read more here. There are also visual examples.


Photo attribution here.

Lady Gaga, Feminism; Ryan Carnes Gay Character GH; Quidditch Craze

Lady Gaga, Feminism

A person who has been a guest blogger with a pop culture review here before, David Aria, has a piece out in Spindle magazine I found interesting. It's about feminism, women in publishing, a mix of pop culture reference, and even Lady Gaga and Truman Capote.

Biographically Porter and Gaga also share a striking array of similarities, so much to the point that one would think that Gaga is actually Porter reincarnated. Though they both came from radically different backgrounds, both were nostalgic about their family heritage, Gaga from Italian lineage and Porter of Old Southern legacy (Porter was literally granddaughter of the Confederacy), and often spoke of it with great reverence. Amusingly, both Gaga and Porter infused their social sphere and preferred the company of homosexual men (Porter’s GBFF was actually Vogue photographer George Platt Lynes). And interestingly enough, just as Gaga is public “frenemies” with Perez Hilton, Porter had a similar “frenemy” styled relationship with author Truman Capote. They both often made each other’s guest list but rarely had a kind word for one another, or at least none that didn’t come with a personal dig.

I didn't know Porter's best friend was George Platt Lynes, and I've posted about him before. I've read a great deal about Truman Capote (and posted about) and his socialite women friends, those he referred to as his "swans" (Babe Paley) and didn't know Porter was his "frenemy." But I can see now how that could happen.

In any event, it's an interesting piece and you can read it in full here. I refrain from commenting on things like feminism because I leave that up to the women who author publishing blogs and book review sites. Feminism is their territory. Anything LGBT related is mine, so I save my comments for those topics. I'm going to try to get David Aria to do a few more book reviews here on the blog because I like his criticism. I'd like to see his opinions about mainstream hetero romances, the ones with women in long flowing gowns on the covers.

Ryan Carnes Gay Character GH

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I watched the soap, General Hospital, all through high school and college. I haven't seen it in about ten years, though. The gist of this story seems to be almost a little cliche. Actor makes good on daytime drama and quits daytime drama to go on to bigger and better things. Bigger and better things don't happen; Actor returns to daytime drama ten years later to his old role with vim and vigor.

But the interesting thing about this case is that when the storyline with Ryan Carnes's character started getting more gay back when, he left General Hospital. Now he's back again. Some have speculated he left because he was playing two other gay roles and he didn't want to be typecast in only gay roles. Carnes has never commented on this, and I don't blame him. The fact is that once you are pigeonholed in any of the arts...even publishing...it's hard to break out of the proverbial box. It can be a wonderful thing, and also sometimes frustrating.

Actor Ryan Carnes had his first day back this week to the Los Angeles set of the ABC soap General Hospital after nine years away. 'First day back in Port Charles,' the actor tweeted, mentioning the soap's fictional city. 'Twas a good day.'

I think I'll set the DVR. I haven't seen GH in years and I wonder if Monica is still carrying on like she used to.

You can read more here.

Quidditch Craze

I never saw the Harry Potter films or read the books. It's just not my thing, so I didn't even know what Quidditch was until I read this article. Evidently, Quidditch involves flying. But the new real life craze doesn't do that.

This is not exactly the beginning of a regular sports match, as people weave past each other trying to avoid the smack of a hard ball into their back, or a wooden pole into their chest as they get tackled. This is a real-life quidditch match, straight out of Harry Potter. The teams are not flying, but running around with brooms between their legs, playing what is essentially a combination of rugby, dodgeball and lacrosse.

It's being promoted as a gender-free sport. You can read more here.

White Writers Get Away With It; No Gay Marriage in Philly; Yes Gay Marriage Braddock, PA

White Writers Get Away With It

Before I get into this, I think the title should be more like "White Straight Writers Get Away With It." But the focus of the article is how white writers seem to get a free pass when it comes to writing about minorities, and yet minority writers don't have the same freedom to write about the same topics. In this case, Asian American author, Bill Cheng, wrote a novel about rural black Mississippi and you should see how the readers have received it. Not what I would call a warm welcome.

Unfortunately, most reviewers and interviewers seem to care less about the quality of Cheng's writing than they do about the answers to these questions: Did the Chinese guy get it right? Can an authentic picture of the South come from a man of Asian descent who grew up in Queens?
 

Instead of addressing those questions directly, I would like to take a step back and look at the assumptions with which they're laden. In doing so, I can't help but recall the reception of another book I recently read, The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. If it sounds familiar, that's because it won the Pulitzer for fiction earlier this year.
 

In taking this another step forward, I've always found, from personal experience, the same brand of passive discrimination as an openly gay male writer. There's no issue at all about straight white women writing gay fiction. I've been a long time staunch supporter of straight white women writing gay fiction and I just released an anthology where straight white women are included in gay story lines. It's acceptable, it's encouraged, and many do it very well. However, if an openly gay male has a few gay books out and he wants to write something more mainstream, it's not going to be simple and he's most likely going to have to do it with a pen name.
 

There used to be more freedom, in an odd way, when gay writers were not open about being gay and were not known for writing gay fiction. They could write hetero novels like Breakfast at Tiffany's and they could get away with it...if the author conformed to what "they" wanted him to be. In Truman Capote's case it was the stereotypical effeminate gay man who never actually spoke about being gay openly. And now gay men who are openly gay and who are breaking the stereotypes are still facing more difficult odds in mainstream publishing. My posts about Matt Bomer, as an openly gay actor, have gone into detail about this. This quote came from a Matt Bomer FAN. Think Rock Husdon, and how he was accepted because of the way he kept his sexuality hidden all his life.
 

"Only problem for me is Bomer is gay and knowing that, not that I have anything against it, is that it's a turn off for me," one fan wrote. "I would know the whole time he's not really 'in the mood.' Sorry if that sounds mean, it's just about suspension of disbelief. I'm sure many fans who don't know this detail would find him perfect."
 

In fact, in a post written by a well respected straight white woman who writes M/M Romance it even goes so far as to state that she's never experienced any form of discrimination as a straight white woman writing m/m romance. Of course she totally overlooks the fact that she's a straight white women in the post. She doesn't question why she's always received a warm welcome from all reviewers, even those that are not exclusively gay review sites. I don't doubt this for a second. I'm not posting her name or linking to her because I don't want to single her out in any way.
 

But she's lucky to have been born straight and white. Fortunately for her, she'll never know what it's like to be a gay man and fully comprehend the same brand of passive discrimination I have had to deal with all of my life in the publishing industry, and many other gay male writers just like me. She'll never know what it's like to be Bill Cheng, an Asian American writing about rural black Mississippi and have reviewers question his abilities as a writer. She'll never know what it's like to be a gay literary agent who keeps his gay identity hidden from his staff, including his partner of forty years, so he's not labeled as "The Gay Literary Agent." She can quit writing gay romance tomorrow if she so chooses and write heteronormative romances and still get that warm welcome from the list of web sites she named in her post.
 

I don't have that option unless I change my name and identity. And I can't afford to be glib about it.
 

I personally applaud Bill Cheng for writing what he wanted to write, and I'm going to read his book very soon.

 
No Gay Marriage in Philly

It seems yet another mayor has refused to perform gay marriages in Pennsylvania, this time it's the liberal Democrat, Mayor Michael Nutter.

Mayor Nutter, a staunch supporter of marriage equality and gay rights, will not officiate at same-sex weddings until after court challenges to the legality and licensing of such marriages are resolved, his spokesman said Monday.

That decision was met with disappointment by a Philadelphia couple who recently asked the mayor to oversee their wedding after obtaining a marriage license in Montgomery County, which has been issuing licenses to same-sex couples - in defiance of state law - since late July.

In taking this stand, Nutter has now joined the ranks of Mayor Keller of New Hope, PA.

You can read more here about reactions around Philadelphia. And I think it should be noted that Mayor Nutter has always received support and money from most of the LGBT community throughout his terms. It's nice that he's a supporter of equal rights, and it's nice that he's supporting gay marriage as a concept. But when you get down to the bottom line, Nutter let a lot of people down this time.

As a side note, Philadelphia is also one of the most dangerous cities in the US, and Mayor Nutter has done very little to make it safe during his terms as mayor. 

Yes Gay Marriage Braddock, PA

I waned to post this article back to back with the one about Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia refusing to perform gay marriages because of the significance, and to show that it's not impossible to stand up for equal rights in America when it comes to unjust laws, and that there are a few politicians left with the courage of their convictions like John Fetterman of Braddock, PA, who is performing same sex marriage to challenge the law in PA.

A Pennsylvania law banning same-sex marriage is quickly losing its authority, as a growing number of state officials are choosing to openly defy the legislation rather than wait for the result of a federal court challenge.

 

Mayor John Fetterman of Braddock on Monday officiated the first same-sex marriage in Allegheny County, after the couple, John Kandray and Bill Gray, obtained a marriage license from another official-gone-rogue in Montgomery County, about four hours away. D. Bruce Hanes, the register of wills in Montgomery County, began issuing same-sex marriage licenses two weeks ago, and Kandray and Gray decided to seize the opportunity.

“It’s an act of civil disobedience,” said Fetterman on MSNBC Thursday. The message to Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, he said, referencing President Reagan’s iconic challenge to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, is: “Mr. Corbett, tear down this law.”

You can read more here.

Notice they mention D. Bruce Hanes, the man I've posted about tons of times in the past few weeks. Many are even calling him a hero because he had the courage to stand up for equality and to go down on the right side of history, unlike Mayors Nutter or Keller of Philadelphia and New Hope, PA.

And now there's another hero, Mayor John Fetterman of Braddock, PA, who actually had the courage to compare the unfair law that bans same sex couples from marrying in PA to President Reagan's stand against the Soviet Union many years ago. You see, history always repeats itself, and there's always going to be a law the needs to be challenged for various reasons. In this case with same sex marriage it's equality. And it takes courageous people in power to do this, and to set examples.

Holly Golightly's Story; Cory Booker Gay Rumors

Holly Golightly's Story

This article about the creation of Holly Golightly in Truman Capote's novella, Breakfast at Tiffany's, has several interesting points. One of which deals with her personality and how she thinks about men.

In her disregard for the conventions of polite society and her sexual adventurousness, Holly is something of an avatar of the liberated woman of the Sixties and Seventies, although she probably wouldn’t have approved of hippie sartorial practices, nor would she have likely appreciated the more strident male-bashing aspects of the radical wing of the feminist movement.

Truman Capote was a gay man, but not an openly gay man in the sense that he worried about equality and coming out. In his day the word gay meant happy and he was considered a homosexual, among other pejoratives. When he wrote the character of Holly Golightly it most likely came from many of his own personal experiences, because in his time, just like now, the world was owned by straight men.

I found this interesting, too.

One of the strongest endorsements of the novella came from Norman Mailer, normally the most competitive and certainly the most macho of all of Capote’s contemporaries, who wrote: “Truman Capote I do not know well, but I like him.

“He is as tart as a grand aunt, but in his way he is a ballsy little guy, and he is the most perfect writer of my generation, he writes the best sentences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm. I would not have changed two words of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which will become a small classic.” (Indeed, perfectionist that he was, Capote might well have placed a semicolon after the word “generation”. Capote was a master of that particular punctuation mark.)

On the surface that sounds like a compliment, but some gay men would take offense to the grand aunt reference. I know I do. As flamboyant as Capote was, he was still a man. A good deal of his career, however, was spawned as a result of his being so flamboyant, and I'm sure he knew that. Gay men have always done whatever they have to do to survive, and in some cases, if that means acting the part of a pet poodle they are not above that. I understand that, I don't fault them for that, and I admire them for doing what they had to do to survive. I can tell you one thing for certain, if the character of Holly Golightly had been written as a gay man, the book would never have been published, Mailer would never have praised it the way he did in the quote above, and I probably wouldn't even be writing this blog post about it.

I could ramble on with this topic for days. But the point I'm trying to make here is that when I parodied Breakfast at Tiffany's the way I did with gay characters in The Virgin Billionaire, I was making my own statement, not trying to become the next Truman Capote. By writing the VB as an erotic romance only took that parody to another level because that's also something Capote never would have been allowed to do during his time...books about gay men AND sex were hidden in the mattress. And there weren't that many around in the first place. Gay men had nothing with which to identify in books or in films during Capote's time...or any form of mainstream entertainment. So they wound up identifying with characters like Holly Golightly for lack of anything better. And Capote did do a great job of creating her, but I'll always wonder that if he'd lived in a different time and place if he would have made her a gay man instead.

You won't see that mentioned in the article I've linked to. I doubt the author, Jay McInerney, even thinks along those lines. And why should he? He never had to think that way.

Cory Booker Gay Rumors

I think this next article to which I'm linking is important for a variety of reasons. Cory Booker is a talented young politician I've been watching for a while now. He's the mayor of Newark, NJ, and the things he's done in that city to turn things around have been wonderful. I was born in Newark, NJ, and as a young child my family moved away because the city started to decay. And I never thought I would see such a huge rebound in my lifetime. No one can dispute this.

This fall Cory Booker is running for a seat in the senate, and another senate candidate, Steve Lonegan, has been throwing those proverbial darts in Booker's direction. And the way he's been doing this is not only shocking, it's about as sickening as it gets with regard to what he thinks of gay men in general.

"It's kind of weird. As a guy, I personally like being a guy. I don't know if you saw the stories last year. They've been out for quite a bit about how he likes to go out at three o'clock in the morning for a manicure and a pedicure," Lonegan, the conservative former mayor of Bogota, N.J., told Newsmax.

This comment is an indirect result of the fact that Booker does not comment on his private life or his sexual orientation at all. Booker made this statement last week.

“Because how unfair is it to a young lady to put them in the spotlight if they haven’t signed up for that yet?” he said. “And people who think I’m gay, some part of me thinks it’s wonderful. Because I want to challenge people on their homophobia. I love seeing on Twitter when someone says I’m gay, and I say, ‘So what does it matter if I am? So be it. I hope you are not voting for me because you are making the presumption that I’m straight.’”

I understand what Booker is stating, and I don't disagree with it...if Booker is NOT actually gay. I get the way the political machine works, too. But if he is gay, and he's not disclosing that now, he's really only adding to the shame other gay men have been experiencing all their lives, and promoting the concept that being gay does make a difference. I don't like that. Openly gay men nowadays don't like that. And we are tired of that brand of thinking. Mayor Koch of New York did that sort of thing all his life, and I would like to see that brand of thinking die with Koch's generation so that future generations of gay men don't have to worry about that "young lady" in the spotlight, and all they do have to worry about is that "young man" in the spotlight.

This actually even gets more complicated in this article, where Booker talks about how he once hated gays.

He added: “Allow me to be more direct, escaping the euphemisms of my past — I hated gays. The disgust and latent hostility I felt toward gays were subcategories of hatred, plain and simple.”

Booker’s self-cleansing column seems to dispute rumors that he is a closeted homosexual. Is it possible for a man to be virulently homophobic and still be gay? One published study suggests that it is within the realm of possibility.

If I were Booker, I would say something one way or the other and address the issue openly. I will never forget the day I came home from work to a news conference on TV where Gov. McGreevey of NJ said, "I am a gay American." It was as entertaining as it was pathetic. I had seen McGreevey in person once in Lambertville, NJ, up close, during a parade. I knew he was gay the moment I looked into his eyes. And this was long before his disclosure. When he did finally decide to come out, blogs all over the web branded him Governor "McCreepy."   And I would hate to see Cory Booker turn into Senator Creeper.

Photo here

Harper Lee Sues Literary Agent Samuel Pinkus

Harper Lee, author of the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, filed suit against literary agent, Samuel Pinkus. The novel is over fifty years old, and the story gets a little complicated.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan seeks unspecified damages from the son-in-law of Lee's former literary agent and companies he allegedly created.
The lawsuit alleges the son-in-law, Samuel Pinkus, failed to properly protect the copyright of the book after his father-in-law, Eugene Winick — who had represented Lee as a literary agent since the book was published in 1960 through the firm McIntosh and Otis — became ill a decade ago.

However, it should be noted that when I did my own search for Samuel Pinkus I came up with this on agentquery.com. And I'm assuming this info is updated and accurate. Pinkus is not with McIntosh and Otis like his father-in-law, he's with Veritas Media, Inc. somewhere up in the Hudson Valley. And according to AQ, these are other authors he reps:

Represents famous authors Harper Lee, Mary Higgins Clark and the estate of John Steinbeck (Eugene Winick is co-agent for Higgins and Steinbeck's estate)

The law suit has already sparked the interest of several on Absolutewrite forums, here. And when they sink their teeth into something you know it's serious.

And this article is interesting because it mentions e-book rights, which I had a feeling might have something to do with this. I also could not find any digital editions of TKaM, so I'm gathering like so many books it has NOT been released in digital format. My big question here is why would a literary agent, author, or publisher NOT get this released in digital format by now. Of course I could be wrong, but I just couldn't seem to find it anywhere in digital.

It is also alleged that Pinkus failed to respond to offers on e-book rights and a request for assistance related to the book's 50th anniversary.

The lawsuit asks the court to assign any rights in the book owned by Pinkus to Lee and requests that he hand over any commission he took from 2007 onwards.

For those who don't know, author Truman Capote, who wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's, and was considered flamboyant gay before to word gay became common usage in the mainstream, and traveled with the likes of Babe Paley and other socialites, helped Lee get the novel published. I've read a few bios about Capote, and he was very friendly with Harper Lee. To the point where some have suggested he might also have had a good deal of influence in helping write TKaM. Although that's only been speculation on the part of the authors of those books, and it's never been proven. But aside from all this, the historical significance of TKaM when connected to the era in which it was released goes without saying. These were two of the most powerful authors of the twentieth century.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out, because we rarely hear about authors suing their agents...especially so many years later. Publishers maybe; agents almost never. The agent is the one single person the author should be able to trust with absolute confidence, and if that confidence is not there, well, there's no point being with them. And after what I read in David Gaughran's recent post about how some literary agents are using Argo Navis to self-publish their clients, some of whom are bloggers and have been handing out publishing advice for a long time to new authors, I'm starting to think authors need to become even more aware of their own circumstances.

Dirk Bogarde, Gay Film Stars, The Virgin Billionaire

It's never actually been fully established that actor/author, Dirk Bogarde, was gay. But when you read the links below all evidence points toward that direction. The reason why I became curious had more to do with reading a bio of Noel Coward and Marlene Dietrich, by Michael Menzies, and reviewing it earlier this week. Coward was also supposedly gay, and Dietrich was allegedly bisexual. And this made me think about a bio I read a while ago about Merv Griffin and how I tended to wonder about whether or not the information was all true. According to the Griffin bio, all of Hollywood was gay. And the more I read the more I'm starting to wonder about whether or not that bio is actually telling the complete truth.

Of course some of what's linked to now about Bogarde is hearsay. But many of the facts are just too solid not to be true. The one solid fact that remains to be true is that men in those days did not admit to being attracted to other men. It wasn't done, and for some serious reasons I get into below.

Dirk Bogarde's Art of Decadence:

By the ’60s, Bogarde had had enough of being screamed at by adoring girls, and he began exercising a strong discrimination about the roles he took — at his point, Bogarde seems to have selected films on the basis that they actually said something. He flouted taboos by making “Victim” in 1961, in which he played a public figure being blackmailed for homosexuality.

(Bogarde himself was gay but denied it during most of his career; though he wrote of his early sexual relationships with women and his passionate love for Judy Garland, he never wrote about the love of his life, his manager and partner Anthony Forwood, whom he was with for more than 50 years.)

This is fascinating; I'm going to make a point of seeing this film. If he played a public figure being blackmailed for homosexuality, I have to wonder how much of this was the real Dirk Bogarde flipping the bird to the world for all the years he had to remain in the closet. I would imagine he'd reached his own personal saturation point by then. And he was tired of pretending.

Sexy Self-Image that Revved Up Dirk Bogarde:

Bogarde, says Fraser, indicated to him that the physical side of his homosexual affair with his long-term companion, Tony Forwood, had ceased but that he dared not take casual lovers for fear of publicity. Then the top British romantic screen star of the post-war era gave the younger actor a demonstration of the substitute he had found to turn him on: high-revving a static Harley-Davidson motorcycle in his loft while gazing at a poster of himself clad in crotch-hugging leather trousers as a Spanish bandit in the 1961 film The Singer Not the Song. "It looked like a Narcissus fantasy come to life," Fraser said yesterday.

How much of this is true I don't know. It's not something I would have repeated in a biography had I been writing one on Bogarde. And I'm sure it's not something Bogarde would have approved even if he'd been out of the closet. There are some places you just don't go. This is one of them. What he did to get turned on was his own business. It's interesting how these things always come out after the person is dead.

Dirk Bogarde Web Site:

 

DirkBogarde.co.uk is the official website of the Dirk Bogarde Estate. The site is a tribute to the actor, writer and artist, and is a non-profit-making endeavour.

It is widely known that Dirk destroyed a large part of his archive, but during his life he carefully deposited his annotated film scripts with the BFI and his literary manuscripts with Boston University. This website aims to gather together what remained and to point the way to the relevant collections, to give the uninitiated a reasonable understanding of Dirk’s important role in the Arts and to offer a glimpse of his world on and off camera.

This web site is not going to get into anything about Bogarde being gay, or anything deeper than what he would have told the press fifty years ago himself. But there are some fascinating photos and some interesting things to read.

Dirk Bogarde Wiki:

Bogarde was a lifelong bachelor and, during his life, was assumed to be homosexual.^[11] Bogarde's most serious friendship with a woman was with the French actress Capucine. For many years he shared his homes, first in Amersham and then in France, with his manager Anthony Forwood (a former husband of actress Glynis Johns and the father of their only child, actor Gareth Forwood (dec.)), but repeatedly denied that their relationship was anything but platonic. Such denials were understandable, mainly given that homosexual acts were illegal during most of his career, subject to imprisonment and against the conditions for termination specified in Rank Studio contracts with its actors,^{[citation needed]} thus potentially putting his career as a major actor at jeopardy, which few actors of the time would risk.

 

As usual, wiki seems to be on top of it. Just by reading the beginning of the paragraph above you'll see how this mimics the lives of so many other male Hollywood stars of the 20th Century. And, more important, the fact that "homosexual acts" were illegal sheds a new light on why so many remained deeply closeted. There's also the career risk. In those days no one watched films with fags or homos unless they were laughing at them. To a certain extent, this still rings true today.

 

So whether or not Dirk Bogarde was actually gay remains to be seen, and it's always going to be a mystery. Just like with so many other well known actors of his time...and actresses. I would also guess there was a certain amount of bitterness with which he both lived and died.

 

Although I took a beating from a few book reviewers with "TheVirgin Billionaire," when I decided to parody Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's," as a gay erotic romance, I don't have any regrets about doing it. I never kept it a secret; I told the truth from day one. What I did with that hetero story, by turning it into a gay story as parody with a sense of humor, isn't anything different than other writers have been doing for years with storylines like Pygmalion. And, Capote was also gay, but never actually came out with it openly. All you had to do was meet him once and it was obvious, so they say. And I'm sure that when he was writing "Breakfast at Tiffany's" he didn't have any choices. He couldn't write gay fiction back then. He wouldn't have had a career if he had.

 

And I could never stop wondering about how wonderful "Breakfast at Tiffany's" might have been if there had been two gay characters falling in love instead of a straight couple. And that's because I'm gay, and that's what resonates with me. And sometimes we all like to flip the bird a little, with a smile.