'TV: All the feels as 'Looking' says farewell'

This review was originally published on SameSame.com.au, on the 28th of July 2016, available here.

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Warning: This review contains spoilers for Looking seasons one, two, and the movie-length finale. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

When I first heard about Looking two years ago, the show about a group of gay men living in San Francisco, a kind of bearded-hipster reimagining of the iconic Queer As Folk concept, I was a tad dubious. One might call me a Brady.

Everybody wants to see themselves represented in popular culture, and gays have been starkly underrepresented on television for years. I feared that I might not relate to the characters in front of me, and that this show would tell a story I didn’t recognise.

It turned out to be excellent television, delivered by masterfully tender director Andrew Haigh – responsible for one of my personal favourite gay cinematic vignettes, Weekend (2011) – and I was hooked from the first episode.

Two years later, and we have reached an end to a charming piece of queer television. Two seasons, concluding with a feature-length finale, to see Looking off.

In Looking: The Movie, we return to wrap up the stories of Patrick (Jonathan Groff), Agustín (Frankie J. Alvarez), Dom (Daddy… sorry, I mean Murray Bartlett), and the utterly ineffable Doris (Lauren Weedman).

In the first half of the film, we are shown again the locations that made the first two seasons so memorable. Not mere setting, but real reflections of San Francisco, and oftentimes evoking its bustling community. So much of it feels familiar; particularly the gay bars and clubs, and they carry me away with the spirit of the queer haunts in my own city.

Even the title, Looking, graphically emblazoned across our screens in neon lights, feels wink-nudge familiar: neon lights of gay bars, our nightlife, the dim historical underground of queer culture – embodied in a scene, a city, a deftly depicted word.

In the second half, our characters’ arcs come to an end. Dom, after separating from his lover and business partner by the end of season two, decides to put himself out there again. Agustín overcomes his own insecurities and fears of self-sabotage, and marries the love of his life. And Doris, beautiful, untamed Doris, settles into her own relationship with her partner, and admits that they’re thinking about having a baby – while always “living in sin”.

Yet the most satisfying story to come to a close is that of Patrick, the lens through which we have always viewed these characters.

Patrick starts out in the beginning of Season One inexperienced, and is almost frustratingly immature. He often displays a total lack of self-awareness, and is generally apprehensive about pursuing his own desires.

Whether those desires are a committed relationship with the now-taken, now-moving-on Kevin (Russell Tovey) – or his past Season One love, the subdued and stoic Richie (Raúl Castillo), who spent much of Season Two involved with the insufferably self-absorbed journalist Brady (Chris Perfetti), Patrick’s neuroticism taints their potential, leaving him in a tragically depressed bind.

There’s a scene near the end of the film, where Brady accuses Patrick of being a ‘bad gay’ – but Patrick barks back, saying that he should be able to live how he chooses, without feeling like he’s letting the team down. It’s a volatile redemption for an otherwise peaceful Patrick, one that exemplifies his transformation from fragile and uncertain, to confident and self-assured. Brady and Richie both exit, leaving him rattled in their wake.

Shortly after, we see a lone Patrick looking out at his friends, all wrapped in loving embraces on the gay bar-cum-wedding reception dance-floor, their stories at an end.

Then, in a testament to Andrew Haighs’ skill for poignant vignettes, Richie returns.

Reflected in the glass behind Patrick, he treads over – and they share a kiss. All the whilePerfume Genius’ ‘Hood’ plays in the background, a far-too-meaningful track, as two seasons’ of Patrick’s childlike fear of embracing Richie and his own happiness finally melts away – Boy, I wish I grew up the second / I first held you in my arms – and he is reunited with the man he loves. The one who nearly got away.

It was after the conclusion of Patrick’s narrative that I understood my earlier fears were misplaced: Our gay stories don’t always need to feel so concretely told. For all the dissatisfied harrumphs our “gay thought police” dish out – as Patrick describes them – these televised representations of our lives, while never encompassing us completely, present characters that we can connect with.

This wasn’t a story about “all of us”. This was about complicated humans navigating chapters of their lives, in a world that perhaps you and I grew up in. These were modern gay anecdotes narrated against the backdrop of gay culture; a formula that has been missing from the small screen for years. In an unfamiliar desert of heterosexual excess, this was an oasis of television navel-gazing made solely for us.

Looking is about seeking something greater than what you’ve seemingly settled with.

It’s about being bold, taking leaps, and reaching forward from the grip of your own self-doubt, to pursue something more – whether that’s love, a career ambition, or sheer self-acceptance under the lights of gay nightlife.

But it’s also about finding solace in your own situation, and realising that sometimes, an escape isn’t what you need.

Sometimes our own carved-out corner of the dance-floor is perfectly good enough, as we get busy changing, busy growing, and looking for our happiness.

'Why the AFL's Pride Game means so much'

This piece was originally published on SameSame.com.au, on the 23rd July 2016, available here.

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I grew up in a football household. What I mean by that is: my family are staunch, almost fanatical AFL football fans.

My entire family, on both my Mum and Dad’s side, are all Hawthorn supporters. Mum and Dad grew up on opposite sides of inner suburban Hawthorn in Melbourne, and I’ve always been a bit convinced that their union was partially driven by a shared love for the Hawks.

Our household walls are covered with posters from grand final winnings. We have a signed Hawthorn jersey hanging in our living room, framed under glass. Stay-at-home nights watching away games are punctuated by the hysterical screams of my footy-fan mother, as near misses and straight-up goals play out on the television.

We’d attend every home game along with our family. I’m Greek, so that’s around thirty-plus impassioned louts lining two straight rows. We were louder than the beer-swilling men in the members’ section, and could shove for space on the crowded post-game trains at Richmond Station better than anyone.

The vertigo from looking around a stadium at a game can only be overshadowed by the thrill when someone nearly kicks a goal, as the punters fire up, bite their nails and shout and scream – and the player lands it! The arena erupts with a giant howl that vibrates in your ears and makes your stomach flip with excitement.

Of the family present at these outings, I was one of the louder ones.

And then at some point, as I began to mature, something changed. I went to matches less and less.

At the time, I was trying to find my place in a world that, though I so often denied it, found me feminine by virtue of my homosexuality, and femininity in men an unspoken crime. I could either overcompensate through a charade of masculinity – or opt out entirely, and be seen as inherently less of a man.

I watched as football continued to assert itself as a man’s game: the shouting, swearing, and rough-and-tumble ferocity an intrinsic part of masculinity, one that was threatened by both gays and women. Not only that, but stories of homophobia fell out from within the game itself. How could I possibly adapt to that? I didn’t pass as a “bloke” – where did I fit in?

The simple fact was: I didn’t. And so I did away with my spectatorship, and receded into my queer adolescence, isolated with video games and crippling anxiety. No longer feeling like part of the cheer squad, I stopped going to games.

Now, years later, St. Kilda and Sydney major league football clubs will go head-to-head on August 13th at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, for the very first Pride Game. The St Kilda players will wear rainbow-patterned numbers on their guernseys, with Sydney sportsmen donning rainbow socks. Even the goalposts will be gayed up. It’s an undeniably iconic moment in AFL history.

The event is inspired in no small part by the work of ex-footballer-turned-community leader Jason Ball who, as the first footballer at any level to come out of the closet, helped unite local Yarra Glen and Yarra Junction football teams in the inaugural Pride Cup match of 2014, which continues annually to this day.

When you’re a boy feeling unwelcomed by boy-things, it’s as if no matter how close you get to a goal, you’re always passing with points or straight-up hitting the posts.

When an unruly spectator at an AFL match screams “poofter” at a player on the field, it’s a stark reminder for a red-hot minute that you’re not welcome there. It’s a casual and subtle nudge that football has and always will be, a man’s sport for manly men. No poofters allowed.

But with the Pride Game inbound in August, the model is swiftly changing. We’re seeing more footballers than ever stand up against homophobia. Players I was almost resentful of, for being the deified cultural symbols of masculinity, are showing the country that they won’t stand for that which holds the gay community down.

Australian Rules Football has, for what feels like far too long, struggled to tackle the bodies of bigotry, both in sport and in the culture that it creates. But with the advent of Pride Game, it is taking an active stance against the behaviour and intolerance that is rife within not just the sporting community, but in society at large.

One of the institutions, the very hallmarks of our country, is celebrating diversity, and challenging the ingrained notion that gays aren’t welcome in sport. It’s embracing a community who for years felt they weren’t allowed to exist, whether out in the open or out on the field.

It’s extending a loving hand to a young Brandon Cook, and letting him know that, whether he’s gay or straight, he can come along and raise the roof at Etihad Stadium with the rest of them.

And that’s what we call “kicking goals”.

'Yes, Coming Out IS A Big Deal'

This piece was originally published on SameSame.com.au, on the 9th of July, 2016, available here.

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Fun fact: I have spent a LOT of time on YouTube over the past few days watching Aubrey Plaza interviews.

I wish I were kidding. There’s something about her cool yet confident and catlike presence, that I can’t decide if I want to be her, or be her best friend. If you would like a really awkward date to see Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates, you can reach me at…

Another fun fact: Aubrey Plaza recently came out as queer. Or, as some headlines read, ‘at the very least, bisexual’.

More specifically: Speaking with LGBT publication The Advocate, Plaza responded to a question about whether women came onto her, with an answer containing the phrase “I fall in love with girls and guys. I can’t help it.”

Of course, this doesn’t really classify as a definitive answer to the question of Plaza’s sexual orientation. She’s not labelling herself – and nor does she need to. There is no requirement for Plaza to boldly and openly state the dictionary definition of her sexuality.

She’s allowed to fall for girls and guys, and she’s allowed to just exist this way. No frills, and no strings attached.

And as I poured through online story comments looking for those all-too-common bites of negativity, I could find nothing. No hate speech, no rage. Maybe I’m finally following all the right publications.

And yet, one comment, repeated so many times in so many different forms, stuck out to me: “Who cares if she came out? Why is this news?”

It’s easy to interpret such a comment as the usual homophobic silencing tactic we’re all so very used to, when you’re told to shut up and stop talking and stop making me uncomfortable with all this NOISE about your LIVES and IDENTITIES, GAWD.

But a lot of these comments sounded more like: I can’t believe that it’s 2016, and a celebrity coming out still makes international news.

This phrase usually comes from the mouths of heterosexuals who, though they truly mean well, can’t really understand why a celebrity coming out is important.

Most of them are just depressed at the reality that, in this day and age, being gay is still considered a problem. They’re the good ones: the ones who ‘like’ our angry gay Facebook updates in solidarity, and retweet our insidious homosexual propaganda. They don’t come to the marches, but they’re glad you went.

Yet every now and again, one might say, “I just don’t know why you need your own nightclubs” – or, “So you’re gay. That means you love shopping, right?”

They’re only a bit ignorant; almost endearingly out of touch. All they really need is for a fabulous homosexual to take them to a gay bar, and have all the binge-drinking queers give them a little education.

So, it’s in the spirit of education that I’d like to make a statement. To any straight members of the audience who might be listening:

Yes, coming out IS a big deal.

It’s a big deal, when members of the LGBTQ community are still being beaten, bashed – and, quite recently, murdered by the dozens – for a celebrity like Aubrey Plaza to almost casually talk about her broad sexual identity.

It’s a big deal, when queers are underrepresented across all media platforms, and gay kisses on television see massive repulsed outcries from “family” groups and conservative pundits.

It’s a big deal, when young people still live with a nagging feeling of being shit fucking scared to come out of the closet; when youths, not unlike who I was before I came out, still pray in their beds at night to the Lord on High that they might wake up the following day a happy-go-lucky heterosexual.

It’s a big deal, when it normalises behaviour that, scientifically and historically, has always been “normal” – but has been culturally warped by a terrified conservative populace over a period of decades.

You know, as a positively rabid homosexual, I agree with the idea that “it shouldn’t be a big deal”. And it is sad that it’s still big news.

We could have come so far already, if people weren’t so terrified of difference, and so unable to break free from whatever deity cripples them with fear – whether that’s a religious deity, or the real-world demons of conservative traditionalism.

But while holding hands in the street is still a carefully-considered political statement, and not a thoughtless gesture of affection – when interlocking those delicate fingers with your same-sex partner still carries a very real risk of violence – I’d like to celebrate people who come out. Particularly celebrities in the public eye.

Because the more LGBTQ icons who say, “This is who I am. What about it?” – the more young people know it’s OK.

And the more role models we will have who will show those young people that, whether you fall in love with girls, or guys, or both – and you can’t help it – it’s all a little bit fine.

'Does fashion have an accessibility problem?'

This piece was originally published on FashionJournal.com.au on the 28th of June, 2016. Available here.

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Before I ever got involved, I found myself at odds with the fashion industry. It was a mystical wonderland that felt foreign to me. Ironic given that I’m a tall, thin gay man.

Accompanying my sister to my first ever fashion show, I felt strangely out of place. I was not well dressed, nor did I know any of the designers. The waiting crowds of dolled-up couture connoisseurs left me feeling like a trespasser.

I was Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada. A film that, coincidentally, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

I wasn’t sure what you were all fussing about. The hype felt bizarre. You were all a gasping Emily, and I, an onion bagel-chomping newbie. 

But when the runway started, suddenly I too was gasping. I was swept up in the atmosphere. I developed a fascination with designers, an understanding of labels and an appreciation for an industry that I had previously been an outsider to. I suddenly knew where I wanted to be.

Even now, years later, as I find myself staggering through runway foyers and hiding backstage, I am filled with that same breathlessness every time a runway starts. I am right where I belong.

I know a lot of people who feel the same. Yet I also know many who, though they might lust for sweet threads and aspire to big brands, still feel like outsiders in a private space.

They’re just not fashun enough, with highbrow frow-dwelling bloggers never ceasing to intimidate. Their looks – their sheer presence – are given the deadly purse-of-the-lips by many an amateur Miranda Priestley.

Like it or lump it, the industry sometimes feels like a battleground. The young and aspiring can feel ousted by the bold and the beautiful. 

The question is: Does fashion have an accessibility problem? Do runways feel less like celebrations of art and more the velvet ropes of country clubs du jour, meant for a certain type of fash-lover?

Not too long ago, fashion was a restricted area; the runway shows only available to the elite of industry figures. There were no bloggers, no sneaky Insta snaps, and no YouTube clips broadcasting twenty minutes of blessed Chanel. Fashion events were exclusive and meant for the crème de la crème of the industry.

Now, fashion is moving towards a consumer model. Shows are becoming accessible to anyone. Runway brands can be purchased post-show, and anyone can buy tickets to shrink around their icons and get glimpses of their future OOTDs. The concept of the ‘insider’ is all but a gimmick.

None of fashions’ elite can agree if this is a good thing. Lagerfeld himself describes the lack of harmony on the topic as “a mess”. Heaps of Paris Fashion Week regulars are straight up rejecting the push, while brands like Burberry have completely gotten on board.

Yet the question still remains: how do we engage the kids? How can we make fashion more accessible to intrigued freshies? How do we diminish the snark of Emily (too) Blunt, and bring out post-transformation Andy Sachs?

One answer is: make fashion funny.

This clip by Matthew Frost for French magazine Jalouse is a divine example of how to satirise a fashion method while still showcasing a brand. Another clip of his starring Lizzy Caplan, simply titled Fashion Film, perfectly lampoons the arthouse fash-flick genre in a way that is funny and appealing.

Vogue produces regular online videos that approach fashion and culture in an entertaining way. Comedian Amy Schumer recently collaborated with Anna Wintour in a hilarious clip, which got audiences laughing with an editor they might otherwise be intimidated by.

(Wintour later went on to describe Schumer as a “very human person” during a speech at Cannes – which is an incredible statement coming from a real-life fashion cyborg. Actually though, ILY goddess Wintour).

Fashion can appeal to the switched-on politico. Sydney model/activist Ollie Henderson made waves at MBFWA in 2014 with the headline-grabbing launch of her label House Of Riot, a brand that continues to intrigue and inspire. It’s fashion that garners interest with politically active young people, giving them people power through clothing.

Whether through comedy or politics, these are whole new audiences given the means to explore and engage with fashion for the very first time.

Ultimately, in this exciting new time of consumer runways and outsiders looking in, should we be appealing to the deliciously scornful Emily, or the ever-curious Andy Sachs?

The masses are being granted access to a previously exclusive realm, and it’s high time we worked out how to bring them into the fray. 

''Influencers' are dying and I'm not sad about it'

This piece was originally published on FashionJournal.com.au on the 6th of June, 2016. Available here.

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The other night I was scrolling my Facebook feed for what felt like hours (because I do nothing with my life), when a link caught my eye. It was an interview on Digiday with an anonymous social media executive, detailing the alleged breakdown of marketing relationships between brands and social media influencers. 

The interviewee harped on about the perils of utilising social media celebs and Instagram stars for branded content and marketing. About how the pool of talent is becoming far too large, meanwhile their pay rates are skyrocketing. About the “decrease in quality” of content being created. “They no longer value their art,” the anon exec sighed. 

It’s finally happening, I thought. The Influencers are dying out.

For years, you couldn’t escape them. Log onto Instagram and there they were, batting their supple lashes and flexing their impossibly toned abs. Have a squiz at any youth pop-culture website, and you’ll see interview after interview with some mega-hot Insta-babe, all thanks to her six-to-seven-digit follower count. 

Instead of frothing over models in bikini advertorials, you could watch the same bombshell plug the same tired skincare label on repeat through her Insta feed. And instead of a few fashion divas plugging sponsored content, there were suddenly hundreds, with fans foaming at the mouth (probably also crying). 

Audiences defined their cool people, and brands responded by putting them on a commercial pedestal, hoping those audiences wouldn’t notice the marketing ploy at play. Sunkissed beach babes. Instagram hunks. Digitally-savvy content creators with massive followings, and companies fighting tooth-and-nail to have them as their spokespeople. These were our Influencers.

It was fun for a good long while but at last, we’re starting to see the glitter fade. And why shouldn’t we? They’ve had their time. 

People are losing interest in influencer marketing – largely because, as it turns out, people don’t like being sold. We went from curiously Googling that brand your fave fashion babe plugged, to scoffing at the blatant sponsored post. That, and if Digiday’s interview and certain fashion-fiascos are anything to go by, all those influencers were starting to get a big head. 

No, not you, Essena. We get it; you don’t live here anymore.

They’re the brand-savvy equivalent of a Pinterest board. The ‘influencer’ label is becoming a cult of no-personality.

Before you think I’m being a bitter old queen, it turns out the research might back me up. A recent survey by Markerly indicated that micro-influencers – those with lesser followings – have relatively higher engagement rates and reach, than influencers with huge followings. 

This confirms what I’ve known all along about the superhot dudes with the six-digit followings I pretend not to lust after: Nobody actually cares. 

Loser. 

(Brb, sobbing @ my reflection.)  

That and we’ve seen the presence of “influential” fashion bloggers become less and less mandatory at events like Fashion Week in the past few years. There are some bloggers I follow through their wanders around these festive annual events – but many are getting the skeptical side-eye more and more.

Of course, with every dwindling industry, there are reasons to be concerned for its loss. 

Frankly, the world needs more content creators. Some influencers give an independent angle to an industry that the traditional advertisers and journos can’t provide with their media obligations and code of ethics. 

That, and for every sell-out hottie being given the boot, there’s a serious creative losing out to the cultural shift. Some of these “influencers” are beyond passionate artists, who are finally getting the credit and social media #impressions they deserve.

So how do Influencers suffer the pain of yet another cultural change in the winds? And what advice can I, a simple media fanatic, give to their future endeavours?

Reveal your dynamic personality. Audiences don’t want unthinking brand-spokespeople as alternative media icons. You can get far enough on Instagram with a ripped physique, but people are clueing in to the Cult of No-Personality.

Sure, young people are always going to be drawn to pretty things. But we dig discourse now and we’re interested in intelligent thinkers. We’re Clementine Ford over Baywatch babes, and Waleed Aly over insert-shirtless-hunk with a brand sponsorship. 

The Influencer might finally be dying, but it’s not all bad. Let’s see if the next generation of content creators can’t put our money where their mouth is.

"What IDAHOT Means To Me"

This piece was originally published in full on SameSame.com.au on the 17th of May, 2016. Available here.

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It was a brittle and cold evening around the suburban centre near where I lived. Five o’clock and the sun was already beginning to set. The streets, usually bustling with energy, were melting away into a more quiet nightlife.

A close friend and I were hanging outside the train station, when she ran into some people she knew. They were big muscled blokes, kicking back and chain smoking. The kind of guys who threw their weight around wherever they went.

My friend also decided to tell them, for whatever reason, that I was gay.

Within seconds of hearing that info, their ears pricked up. They were onto me. They lurched forward, armed with hate and almost cackling vitriol. “You’re gay, huh? You a fucking gay? Why don’t you suck my dick, then? Suck my dick, you fucking faggot.”

In total fear, I ran away, their shouts echoing behind me.

I was a shy rake, not yet out to his parents, and had only just come out to his close friends. I was fourteen years old.

That was to be one of my first direct encounters with homophobia and bigotry, but it wouldn’t be the last.

Even now, in a time of my life where I am so out and proud that I write candidly about sexuality online, I still get scared when I’m dropped off near that centre. Thinking about who might be around, or if I’ll be singled out and targeted. As though my sexuality can be read from a distance, or smelled on me like cologne.

In the decade that has passed, I have experienced many more instances of abuse and violence. Whether it’s slurs spat on public transport, or shouted abuse from strangers, or the slight chink in the expression of an acquaintance when they realise what I am.

Today is International Day Against Homophobia And Transphobia. It’s a day to recognise and stand up against the violence prevalent in our society, which continues to threaten people in the community.

This is a society in which half of all LGBT individuals hide their sexuality or gender identity in public, for fear of violence and discrimination. One in which they are several times more likely to experience mental illnesses like depression. Where children are kicked out of homes and forced onto the street for being who they are.

Several states in Australia still have the Gay Panic defence, meaning that should a straight man decide on a blue Monday to murder you in cold blood, he need only infer that you, a gay man, were trying to hit on him, to have his sentence reduced from murder to manslaughter. And too many in our society continue to try and tear down our beloved queer institutions, like the Safe Schools Program.

While American civilians bicker and moan about whether or not trans people should be able to use the appropriate bathrooms for their own personal bodily functions, said trans people are being abused, assaulted and murdered in the streets. Trans folk suffer vitriol far greater in number than their gay and lesbian counterparts, leading to higher rates of mental illness.

The Russian government continues to silence the voices of sexually and gender-diverse people, refusing to acknowledge them as human beings, jailing them for speaking out. And in far too many countries to this day, simply living, as a gay person, will see you killed by members of your community. Sometimes even by law enforcement.

All the while, gay men still clutch their ears and block out the fragmented echoes of the AIDS crisis, grappling with the sense of masculinity imposed on them by heteronormative society, rejecting one another in episodes of internalised homophobia for being ‘too femme’ or ‘not masculine’.

And, of course, we still can’t get married. Bloody hell.

I think of these facts of life, and they hurt me. I am wounded by the reality that this world doesn’t fully cater to my kind. I fear for trans people and worry for gay people and struggle to comprehend the lack of acceptance by members of our very own government.

But I also know that things are changing.

Since that grim day being abused by men in the street, I have met others who blocked out their memory with kindness. I have met straight people – muscled blokes, who throw their weight around – that embrace me with warmth and kindness.

I believe that through love, charity and expression, and the occasional burst of well-channelled outrage, we can change the way society views our people. That we can create a safer community, one devoid of the trials our forefathers faced, for LGBT youth to grow up in.

If you’re gay, or trans, or any other shade of sexuality and gender-diverse, who might be struggling with confusion and fear over what you are: know that you have a vibrant community standing behind you.

IDAHOT is a day to show our support for those who have suffered, and remember those we have lost. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex. All of the colours of the pride rainbow.

Let’s stand together in solidarity, and help build a better world for our young people. Let’s stand tall, proud and strong.

We can save lives.

'Dear girls: Gay men are not your handbags'

This piece was originally published in full on FashionJournal.com.au, 5th of May 2016, available here.

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To kick this off, a couple of little details about me:

One: I’m a gay man. That means I’m attracted to other men. It also means I am part of a community. I share a rich history with other gay people all over the world. There’s some good stuff involved but mostly it’s a lot of stigma, hatred, violence and death. It also means some people see me as automatically girly or less of a man. Whatever that means.

Two: I write about and photograph fashion, music and lifestyle. That includes writing for this website. Look at you, reading my work. I appreciate you. Let’s be friends. That dress looks great, by the way.

As a gay man who writes about and peruses the fashion industry on occasion, it’s often assumed the two are related. Simply by being someone who wears clothes and who doesn’t mind a floral bonnet or a nice Thurley frock, I’m often stereotyped as a ‘fashion gay’. 

By virtue of fashion being woman-dominated and gay men being seen as feminine, it’s often assumed that gay men automatically dress well. That we’re dainty, flouncing queens, styling the womenfolk and fixing their hair (yours could use a cut-and-colour, btw). 

And while I don’t really mind being the princess you so desire me to be, there’s something that I desperately need to say.

I am not your handbag.

I’m not your Gay Best Friend. I’m not your stylist. I’m not your Carson Kressley from Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. And for the love of God, I will not go shopping with you.

I can hear you sighing: ‘But gay men are the best!’ over there. And to that I say, ‘I know’. We’re amazing. But there are a few things we’ve got to talk about first. Bear with me. 

Far too often I'll meet someone who, noting my liking for fashion, will try and take me under her wing as her ‘new gay’. The number of gals I meet in smokers rooms at nightclubs who want to take me shopping, is directly proportionate to the number of straight guys I wish I could kiss. 

That’s a lot, if you’re wondering. Like, oh boy.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the appeal. Here’s a man, a real, human man, who doesn’t want to touch you. He’s not interested in putting his hand up your skirt, which means you don’t have to tell him to fuck off. And you love it sick. It’s a novelty. I’m actually super happy you feel comfortable hanging out with me, because the world needs less creeps and more kewl friendships.

But why must we pretend that by virtue of my sexuality, I have a working knowledge of Givenchy? 

I don’t even know who Riccardo Tisci is (to be fair, I don’t know who I am, either). Marc Jacobs only got my attention thanks to his accidental nude Instagram snap. I’m also quietly angry that a Marc By Marc Jacobs shirt, which looks not too dissimilar from a General Pants basic, is worth $330. I can hear you typing a comment about ‘the quality’, but seriously. It’s a plain white tee. 

It’s gotten to the point where I can explicitly play it up, just to get ahead in life. PR girls at fashion festivals adore a ‘sassy gay’; we’re like women but not at all. I will also do it just to make you enjoy me. It goes a little like, “Oh my god, Marais top, yass queen! Dior, right? Totally Chanel, just divine, mwah”. 

In my moonlight gigs as a nightlife photographer, I can abuse my own sexual orientation to get more shots. I’ll be at work and I’ll see a group of fashion-forward babes with cosmos in hand. I’ll approach them for a photograph and immediately play up the ‘sassy fashion gay’ stereotype. And it works, every single time. They love me; they pose. And on the way out, they want me to know I’m ‘fabulous’.

But when you assume, because I’m brave enough to don florals, that I’m camp as a row of tents, you might think it’s innocent. The reality is, however, you’re rejecting my cultural history, my life, and turning me into, at best: a two-dimensional stereotype; and at worst: a plaything. A tool you can use to make yourself more ‘fabulous’.

And I know many fabulous gays. Some of them love fashion. Myself included. But they are not fashion gays. They were not designed in a shop, nor were they handcrafted to make you feel good with a distressed leather finish. They are human beings with histories, interests, stories and lives. 

Then again, I suppose you’re better than a homophobic dudebro. Wanna hit up Chapel Street? You’re really working those boots.