Gay Couple Divorce For Three-Way; Two Philly Hate Attackers No Prison Time; Michael Sam On Bullies

Gay Couple Divorce For Three-Way


Here's a story about a gay couple who were married for a year and they invited a third guy into their bedroom for a three-way (a menage). What followed is interesting. I'm working on this same topic in the next book in The Rainbow Detective Series and I'm honestly not certain where the story line is going to wind up.

“The three of us sat out in our back garden together, talking for hours about our lives, ambitions and dreams,” Adam recalls. “Sebastian was different to anyone we had ever met. There was something about him that Shayne and I couldn’t explain, but it was like meeting our life partner for the second time.”

Sebastian was equally as surprised by how well the three of them got along.

“At the time, I didn’t think I was ready to commit to anyone, so it was a surprise when I fell for both Adam and Shayne,” he says. “I didn’t think I wanted one boyfriend let alone two!”

The guys married to each other are divorcing because they don't want the third to feel left out. This way they can form a new threw-way commitment that will include all three and not just two.  It all sounds wonderful, in that hopey-changey way, but is this something that's even newsworthy?

It can get complicated, and obviously none of them have any serious financial worries about getting a divorce. In a way, it bothers me because it sort of diminishes what Edie Windsor and so many others (like Tony and me) have fought for with gay marriage. Getting a divorce like they're doing, with such a glib attitude, is simple to do when you're in your twenties and you have nothing yet...and you don't have to worry about power of attorney. But in your thirties and older it becomes much more involved. There aren't many gay grown up couples who own property and share bank accounts that would do this. 

And that's what Blair and Proctor are going to face eventually in the next Rainbow Detective book. And right now I really don't know where it's going. From a romantic POV I'd like to see it work in the books for all three of them, from a more realistic POV I'm not sure it can work. I've seen too much in real life :)

You can read the rest here.

Two Philly Hate Attackers No Prison Time

At least two of the straight people charged in a brutal attack on a gay man last year won't be serving any time in prison. They accepted a plea deal, and the other will stand trial later this month. I've posted about this before and you can check that out here.

Victor Fiorillo at Philadelphia Magazine reports: “Kevin Harrigan and Philip Williams pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy and aggravated assault. Neither man will spend a day in jail. The guilty plea was given in exchange for a sentence of probation.”

Knott didn’t plead guilty. She’ll go to trial October 30.

There's more here. 


I can't really comment on this because this is how the process works and I believe in the process. From what I gather, and I'm no expert, taking a plea deal like this is an admission of guilt that will follow them for the rest of their lives.

Michael Sam On Bullies

Michael Sam is now reaching out to gay kids about bullying. He's doing this with Vito Cammisano. I have no idea what the status of their relationship is. From the way it looks in the article they aren't engaged any longer.

To commemorate GLAAD’s Spirit Day campaign, the guys filmed a video to help spread the word and encourage people to wear purple to show their support for bullied queer people.

“I support spirit day because it is very important,” Sam says. “As some one who was once bullied, I think its very important we tackle this issue.”

There's a video, here.  

 

The Rainbow Detective Agency

The Wedding

 on Amazon

 

JFK and Alleged Oral Gay Sex; Matt Bomer's Nudity; Ben Whishaw Views on Straight Actors Playing Gay

JFK and Alleged Oral Sex

When I read things like this I just groan. It's one of the darker sides of publishing. That's party because I am a published author and I know how authors of "tell-all" books like this think...like scum...and partly because I fail to see why we should be so shocked about it if, in fact, it did happen. Privacy is an interesting word, especially with regard to something that may or may not have happened almost a century ago. 

In his new book Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: RFK Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream, author Jerry Oppenheimer attributes the oral sex claim to writer Lawrence J. Quirk who worked with Billings on Kennedy’s first congressional campaign in 1946.

The book claims that Quirk confided to Quirk that the two men had ‘a friendship that included oral sex, with Jack always on the receiving end.’

Quirk had said that Billings ‘believed that this arrangement enabled Jack to sustain his self-delusion that straight men who received oral sex from other males were really only straights looking for sexual release.’

As you can see from the quote above there are a few mistakes in the article itself, not to mention the fact that this is all hearsay about hearsay.

You can check the rest out here. 

Matt Bomer's Nudity

I think one of the things Matt Bomer is a genius at is becoming a character to the point where you don't always recognize him at first. It takes a moment. When he did the nude scenes in American Horror I had to look twice just to make sure it was him.

‘I think you see more of me in the fist episode than in the entire first two Magic Mikes,’ Bomer told Ellen DeGeneres on her daytime talk show Thursday (8 October).

Bomer explained that while viewers saw a lot of him, they did not see his ‘junk’ because of a flesh-colored sock that he says stays in place with the help of an adjustable plastic band.

There's more here. Obviously, there's no full frontal nudity...yet.

Ben Whishaw on Straight Actors Playing Gay

This debate continues in the entertainment industry almost to the point of mimicking what happens in the m/m romance community with straight women writing gay novels, and in some extreme cases posing as gay men in order to sell books.

Ben Whishaw is "baffled" because he doesn't understand why there is a debate about straight actors playing gay roles.

Here's what Whishaw thinks:

‘I do not understand what the problem is. Actors play all sorts of things. I’ve played murderers, journalists and kings – I’m not any of them. The whole thing is a fiction, it’s about imagination, it’s play. I am baffled to why it’s such a big thing.

‘And also, I’m baffled because it feels like we’re in a time where there are lots of gay people, not just actors but in all walks of life, and let’s be where we are. We’re human beings and I don’t understand why it’s really a discussion now.’

Whishaw also addressed Matt Damon’s controversial comments on gay actors.

Should we tell him?

First, when you compare gay characters to murderers you've lost me from the start. 

As usual I didn't read the comments before I commented in the post. You can check them out here. 

I'll tell you what I don't understand. Right or wrong, I don't understand why gay people...all LGBT+ people...aren't taken seriously enough for men like Ben Wishaw to allow us the opportunity to debate the issue. Why is he so eager to just dismiss us and our concerns? I think it will continue as a debate, especially since the Stonewall movie garnered such outrage from the LGBT+ community. I think many of us are just beginning to grow tired of being dismissed, exploited, and appropriated.

Here's an example of what I think might be a sign of the times. The film Stonewall was a box office disaster.

With terrible reviews, the very community that might have embraced it viewing the picture as the enemy, and a general moviegoing populace either seeing the wide releases (The Intern, Hotel Transylvania 2, Everest) or checking out the more acclaimed platform plays (Sicario, Grandma, etc.), this was a movie made for absolutely no one. Stonewall was never going to be a big hit, but at least a version of the film that didn’t relegate important historical figures to supporting characters in their own story would have earned it a token place in cinematic history.
 
 

The Rainbow Detective Agency

The Wedding

 on Amazon

Switzerland, Gay Marriage, Public Vote; Sharon Osborne on Rosie O'Donnell's Daughter; Sam Smith Nominated

Switzerland, Gay Marriage, Public Vote

This article is exactly why I didn't want gay marriage put to a public vote here in the US. I don't want my fate decided by a segment of the public who doesn't know how to separate religion from government. And I support religion completely. I'm not an atheist by any means. I can be very conservative on many issues, not fitting into the typical gay stereotype. I also support religious freedom as long as it doesn't stand in the way of equal rights. 

This is happening in Switzerland.

Switzerland could become the first Western European country to block gay marriage through a referendum changing its constitution.

On 28 February 2016, Swiss citizens are called to vote in a referendum on four confederate bills; one of them, titled For Marriage and Family – against the marriage penalty, could block marriage equality.

Initiated by the Christian Democratic People’s Party of Switzerland (CVP), part of the Swiss coalition government, the civil initiative seeks to add a paragraph into the federal constitution defining marriage as being between man and woman.

I am curious to see how it turns out. According to US polls, support for same sex marriage in the US is continuing to rise. However, the LGBT+ community is still a minority, not a majority. And I don't think it's fair to have a public vote on the rights of a minority. In the US, this is why we have a constitution and laws protecting everyone from discrimination. It's a system that works.  

You can check this out here.

Sharon Osborne on Rosie O'Donnell's Daughter

The only reason I'm following up on this is because I posted about Rosie O'Donnell's daughter disappearing and that story was extremely sketchy. Frankly, I'm not a huge Rosie fan and I can live without Osborne, too. Rosie lost me on The View years ago. I've always believed dirty laundry is for the hamper, not twitter.

In any event...

Sharon Osbourne is speaking out passionately in defense of Rosie O’Donnell whose daughter complained in a recent interview that O’Donnell smokes pot, has a short fuse and delegates a lot of her parental duties up to nannies.

‘It’s just one of those ugly, horrible situations – the heartbreak that Rosie must be going through,’ Osbourne said on The Talk, the daytime show on which she is a co-host. ‘These arguments, it’s horrible when they go public.’

You can read the rest here, if you care. 


Sam Smith Nominated

Now here's a guy I love, Sam Smith. He's hard-working, excellent at his craft, and he's taken some of the worst punches I've seen in a while with complete grace. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen anything negative coming from him.

Taylor Swift may have gotten the most American Music Awards nominations today with six but Sam Smith had a strong showing with three AMA nods.

The openly gay British singer-songwriter was nominated in the Artist of the Year, Favorite Album and Favorite Male Artist categories.

Well done.

You can check that out here. 

The Rainbow Detective Agency

The Wedding

 on Amazon

The Rainbow Detective Agency: The Wedding; 1950's Gay Advice; Would You Be Straight?

The Rainbow Detective Agency: The Wedding

Here's the next book in the Rainbow Detective series, The Wedding. In short, without giving any spoilers, Blair and Proctor travel cross country to Provincetown to get marred for two reasons...one is business related and the other is so that Proctor's parents who live in Connecticut can attend the wedding. This book is a lot more emotional than the other books and Proctor softens a little at times when he least expects it. He's facing serious life issues with his family and he's growing up fast.

They are calling this "Book 7" on Amazon, however, it's really book 6. It's being called "7" because Amazon considers Book 5...the box set...an actual book, too. I can't control that one, so the best I can do is explain it.  If you have any questions, you can e-mail me. My e-mail is on the sidebar in "About."

There's a lot of sex in the book, but that's not what the book is about. I see loud mouthed authors complaining about too much sex in books all the time without ever considering one important factor: if the sex were removed from this book the story would still stand on its own. I've already proven that with Chase of a Dream by releasing the version with sex, and the version without. I wish more erotic authors would do this, too. Maybe then we wouldn't have to listen to the sex haters complain about too much sex. It really would shut them up. It's also an excellent exercise in editing to see if you really do have a strong story line.

But I digress, with a smile...

Here's the blurb:

Want to escape into pure male/male fantasy and romance? Would you like to meet two hot men who love and trust each other enough to invite other hot men into their bedroom? The Rainbow Detective Agency is the place to go for that and more. 

After Blair gets shot working on a disgruntled author case, Proctor and Blair decide to get legally married. 

When they plan their small wedding in Provincetown instead of Los Angeles, they meet a handsome young guy named Cameron Marcus with Internet fame, hoping to hire him as a private detective.
The problem is they know nothing about Cameron except his fleeting fame, which makes Proctor far more cautious than Blair.

What will happen if Cameron decides to take the job at the detective agency and move to Los Angeles? Will young sexy Cameron turn out to be perfect for the job, or will he be the worst mistake Blair ever made? 

A steamy, sexy male/male romance, with humor, wit, love and emotion that has just the right amount of tenderness to bring a few tears to your eyes.

This book is a stand-alone in the The Rainbow Detective series and books one to four can be purchased as a box set.

You can check the rest out here, on Amazon.

1950's Gay Advice

Those of us who weren't around in the 1950's often take so much for granted when it comes to everything LGBT+ related. I know I'm guilty of that more than I probably should be.  Not all advice back then was good advice when it came anything gay related.

But it wasn't all bad. This is the advice one father gave his gay son in the 1950's...

One day, Patrick’s father, sensing his son was gay, sat him down and gave him a piece of advice he still carries with him to this day: “Don’t sneak. Because if you sneak … it means you think you’re doing the wrong thing.”

“Of all the things a father in 1959 could have told his gay son,” Patrick recalls, “my father tells me to be proud of myself and not sneak. … I had the patron saint of dads for sissies. No, I didn’t know it at the time, but I know now.”

You can check out the rest here. 

Would You Be Straight?

I always find this interesting. It asks gay people the question that if you could be straight, would you?

We admit when we came a across the below Buzzfeed video titled “If You Could Be Straight, Would You?” we winced a bit, imagining the sad stories and even sadder desires to have been born more “normal.”

But it’s a pleasant surprise to hear the overwhelming pride from so many factions within the LGBTQ community — that even when there are hurdles along life’s road, these fabulous queer folks wouldn’t have it any other way.

You can check out the video here. You'll like it.

I can tell you without thinking twice about it that I wouldn't want to be straight for any amount of money in the world. I would have missed waaay too much fun in my life, a lot of which has been incorporated into my books. 

New Release: The Rainbow Detective Agency; The Wedding; Bus Driver Slams Kids with Gay Dads; "Divine" Had a Chainsaw; Do Gay Men Worry Too Much About Aging?

Bus Driver Slams Kids with Gay Dads

This is why Tony and I choose to live in New Hope, PA, because it is, and has been for years, a gay enclave on the East Coast. It's like Provincetown, or WeHo, with a huge concentration of LGBT people and very progressive mainstream people.

Not everyone makes the same choices, and I give those people credit for being brave enough to endure small town mainstream USA. Unfortunately, they have to deal with some serious discrimination. Some school bus driver wielding a bible thought it was her duty to let the child of two gays dads know how she feels about that.

From the dad's POV...

Just this week our 15-year-old son’s bus driver was listening to her “Christian” radio station while driving the school bus, giving him religious propaganda — in the form of a comic book — with Jesus as Superman and the rest of us poor citizens of Gotham living a dark dreary life until we accept the Man of Steel as our Lord and savior.  Why has she taken it upon herself to volunteer this information? He already subscribes to all the teenage angst: attempting to fit in, questioning his parents’ beliefs and doubting his self confidence. As my son listened to the religious Sermon on the Mount…or rather the Sermon on the Bus, he discussed with the driver that he had two fathers. She imparted her wisdom unto him; she doesn’t have a problem with homosexuals, but “they are not blessed, and they will go to hell.”

And there you have it. 

You can read the rest here. It's a painful story, but filled with insight, about what it's like to be living in the heart of the mainstream if you're considered a "gay" family. And, this happened in New Jersey, not somewhere in the deep south. It can happen anywhere.  

"Divine" Had a Chainsaw

I remember the first time I learned about "Divine." I was in high school and didn't know much about the gay community or culture. At the time, I had no idea how important Divine was to gay culture or the impact she would continue to have so many years later.

Here's John Waters on Divine...

I think he changed drag queens forever. RuPaul’s show wouldn’t be there. RuPaul started a long time ago, I’ve got to give him some credit, and RuPaul also has a great look out of drag, something that Divine struggled with. Except towards the end, when he wore men’s suits and looked like a very handsome, distinguished man…His legacy was that he made all drag queens cool. They were square then, they wanted to be Miss America and be their mothers. Divine frightened drag queens because he would show up with a chainsaw and [makeup artist] Van Smith would put fake scars on his face, wearing mini skirts when you’re 300 pounds. He broke every rule. And now every drag queen, every one that’s successful today is cutting edge.”

You can check this out here. 

Do Gay Men Worry Too Much About Aging?

Hell yes. I do. I haven't had a carb since last May. I eat salad at least two nights a week. I haven't had pizza, donuts, or ice cream in over a year. I run four miles every morning, plus work out. I will, indeed, have cosmetic surgery when the time comes. (I've already had one thing done.) And I'm not too fond of celebrating birthdays anymore. 

Evidently, I'm not the only gay man who feels this way. Here's a quote by John Grant...

This aging thing is quite strange. I don’t want to generalize too much, but gay men worry about aging a lot more than other men, from what I can tell.

Youth is prized above all things — the beauty of youth — and I know a lot of gay men who are very, very obsessed with keeping young.

I don’t understand it in most of their cases. I think older men are super sexy. The ‘beauty of youth’ thing, I totally get that. But by God! I would not want to be where I was in my 20s. I was clueless!”

I had a friend who used to say, "You're young for a short time and old for a very long time." And he was a gay man, too. When he died, he had them make him ten years younger on his tombstone. I swear that's the absolute truth. I never knew his real age until he died. And I once went to a birthday party for a gay friend that his straight sister threw for him. It was a surprise party. But the surprise was on him. He told everyone he was 55, when the huge happy birthday banner hanging at the party read, "Happy 65th Birthday." It was NOT a happy moment for him, but very amusing for the rest of us.

You can read the rest here. 

Side note: I do, however, have a little Dove Chocolate every now and then. It compensates for everything else :)

Rainbow Detective Agency: The Wedding

Here's a link to my new release in the Rainbow Detective Agency. It's a full length novel. I think it runs 62,000 words. The link will lead you to Smashwords. I'll post more links to web sites as I get them. It takes a while. 

  The Rainbow Detective Agency:

The Wedding

Danny Pintauro's BDSM Sex and HIV; Majority Of Gay Men Didn't Use Condoms?; One Million Moms And Campbells Soup

Danny Pintauro's BDSM Sex and HIV

Openly gay, Danny Pintauro, has been vocal lately about his addiction to meth and being HIV positive. This is interesting because he claims he contracted HIV through oral sex, not anal.

Pintauro, who revealed he believes he contracted HIV through oral sex 12 years ago, explained he was first introduced to meth during a BDSM sex session with a stranger.

“So here I am wanting to explore bondage, wanting to explore rougher things, wanting to explore, sort of, being dominated,” he recalled. “And the person that I find, who I think is just gorgeous and, oh my god, it’s, like, perfect. … This guy wants to hang out with me? How can I turn him down?”

Actually, for any young gay men reading this who are curious about exploring their sexuality, you can turn people down if it's not safe sex. You can say no. I've done that many times. Speaking from a different POV, I know it is possible, though frustrating at times, to turn someone down...even if he is gorgeous and like OMG perfect. You have that power.

You can read the rest here.


Majority Of Gay Men Didn't Use Condoms

This is kind of conflicting because I think many of us just assume that everyone...not just gay men...is using a condom IF they are having sex with people they can't be sure about. There are many STDs out there, and to risk getting any one of them makes me wonder. But still, I have to wonder where this article is going because it's talking about married gay men and gay men in long term relationships, too...and I'm not sure why.

The study found that 72 percent of respondents said they didn’t use condoms the last time they had anal sex. Of that 72 percent, 32 percent said they didn’t use a condom the last time they topped, compared the 37 percent who said they didn’t use a condom the last time they bottomed.

50 percent of the men engaging in unprotected anal sex said they did so with either a long-term boyfriend or their husband or civil partner. 20 percent said they did so with a person they were either dating or with whom they had sex on a regular basis.

You can read the rest here. I don't know how accurate this really is. And there are obviously a few variables. If you are married or with a long term boyfriend and you're monogamous you don't need condoms. We're just like straight married couples in that respect.

And as someone in the comments pointed out, how many are doing PrEP?

One Million Moms and Campbell's Soup

One Million Moms, the anti-gay conservative group that's always been against same sex marriage, has been going after Campbell's Soup for featuring a family with two gay dads.

Here's part of it...

 “It starts off with the first man feeding soup to the little boy and in a ‘Star Wars’ Darth Vader voice says, ‘Luke, I am your father.’ Then the other man enters the scene and says, ‘No, Luke, I am your father.’ How confusing for this little boy and for all children viewing this commercial.”

You can read the rest here. 

There's no comment needed here.

More Glendale E-Pub; Viral Gay Kiss Leads to Marriage; How Hillary Clinton "Evolved" on Gay Marriage

More Glendale E-Pub

After I posted about starting up Glendale E-pub Services, I received more than a few e-mails with questions about just what the service offers.

Here's one response I sent to someone who e-mailed me, an author I've been corresponding with for quite a while. His e-publisher is shuttering in a few months he's looking into what it might take to indie publish his books when he gets the rights back. This was something that happened to me, and it's happening to a lot of other authors right now.

Please take into consideration that nothing about this is written in stone. The whole concept behind this service is to work with each individual author, at affordable fees, so they can publish their own work and retain their own rights. 

Glendale e-pub is more like a service where authors can publish than an actual publishing house. In other words, authors retain their own rights and control their own royalty payments, in full. Glendale works in partnership with the author to help the author get the book published either on Amazon or as many venues as they can.

 

There are flat fees that are affordable and each author gets what works best for them. Everyone is different and some people prefer to only publish on Amazon. Others prefer to distribute widely. The most important thing is that the author gets complete control of his/her own work and Glendale manages that for them in the initial stages.

 

The reason we started Glendale is because I've seen so many "services" that promise the world, charge far too much, and basically rip authors off. I've done a lot of indie publishing myself in the past four years and I've learned everything through trial and error. Glendale is an alternative for new authors, authors who have lost their publishers for whatever reason, or authors with back list books who want them published again. Every author is an individual.

 

Most of all, Glendale welcomes all authors of all genres. It's not like querying and there is no bias. It's more of a first come first serve basis. We don't like to rush things and we don't judge anyone's content. We believe the readers can do that. It's not our job to do that :) 

 

If you have questions you can submit them through the web site here, or e-mail me with "Glendale E-publishing Services" in the subject line, here... RfieldJ@aol.com

 

Viral Gay Kiss Leads to Marriage

 

A few years ago a gay kiss with a marine went viral,  and these two guys recently got married. I remember thinking, at the time, what a novelty it was to see something like this go viral.

Marine Sergeant Brandon Morgan tied the knot with Dalan Wells last week — a milestone they couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago.

 In 2012, just four months after the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell went into effect, Morgan and Wells became a viral sensation and symbol of a new era when a photo of the two embracing made the rounds.

You can check this out here, with photos. When you see the photo that went viral I'm sure most of you will remember it. I think it surfaced on Facebook for weeks because people couldn't get enough of it. It's nice to see a RL happy ending for a change. 

How Hillary Clinton "Evolved" On Gay Marriage

I remember this one, too. There was an article out a few years ago about how Chelsea Clinton helped Hillary Clinton "evolve" on gay marriage. I can't find it, but I do remember reading it somewhere. At the time, I rolled my eyes. 

You see, this really bothers me. The world "evolve." So you're telling me that you had to come to the conclusion that I deserved the same equal rights you have had all your life? It was that hard for you to do? And you're not even hesitating when you say this?

The former (and possibly future) first child sat down with Ellen, and wouldn’t you know it, Hillary’s much-discussed stance on gay rights came up. Chelsea told Ellen that she “absolutely” pushed her mom to support gay marriage.

She had to PUSH her? 

“When I got married in 2010 to my best friend it just crystallized so fundamentally to me that everyone should be allowed to marry their best friend,” Clinton said. “And so I joined the equal marriage fight in New York and we got equal marriage in New York in 2011.”

Sometimes I think it's better not to say anything at all. This is one of those times.

 

You can read the rest of this here. 

As usual, I read the comments with this link after I wrote the post. I'm always curious about whether or not I'm the only one who feels a certain way. Most seem to feel the same way I do on this one. 

To be fair, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are not the only people coming from places of privilege who have made statements about "evolving." Others have done it, too, and I think someone should tell them. 

 

No matter how you look at this, it's a form of passive aggressive homophobia. 

Newest Release 

When A Man Loves A Man