Just reverted a whole bunch of less-than-quality posts to 'Draft' status.

The world - and an apparent influx of new readers - don't need to see the lame shit I used to write in 2011.

'The True Gay Agenda Revealed'

This piece was originally published in full at YourFriendsHouse.com on July 7th, 2015, available here.

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It would seem that the first world has itself in a spin over the LGBT community. With Ireland’s homos winning the marriage vote, and the United States Supreme Court legalising it across the entire country, the proverbial rainbow is shining bright and true. Equal love for all and same-sex marriage acceptance are topics vibrating with mainstream intensity. We’ve done well, ladies, gentlemen, and all those in between.

Like with all signs of progression however, there have been groups rallying against the cause. Australia remains the last English-speaking Western country to legalise same-sex marriage. Ministers and members of our own community are actively holding us back, not just religious conservative groups.

Eric Abetz, the conservative Liberal cabinet minister, was the last person to make such a public opposition, making the ominous statement that same-sex marriage seeks to “undo the institution of marriage”, and that it’s “the latest fad” which would have “other consequences”.

“Other consequences”.

Bigoted men like Eric Abetz continue to pound away at us, time and time again, thrusting hard and fast from behind with the whipping force of their anti-gay opinion. As though us homos have something to hide. As though our goals are not ones for progression and equality, but for a unique and citrusy blend of chaos and control. Men like Abetz speak as though we have some sort of vile scheme up our sleeves. For so long, this has been the suspicion.

Well, friends: I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of living in the dark, as these old and ridiculous men pick away at our cause like fleas, trying to scrape downward to the hidden messages beneath. I’ve had enough of inequality, and of the suspicion, the ridicule and the anti-gay sentiment.

It’s time I came clean, for all of us who have been sworn to silence. It’s time I spilled our communities’ darkest secrets, ones that were written by our elders many decades ago, scrawled on the walls of toilet cubicles far and wide. It’s time I revealed… the true gay agenda.

Eric Abetz, you claimed that same-sex marriage would create “other consequences” – that it would open the Pandora’s Box to unions like polyamory. And to that say I say- Abetz… you’re not thinking big enough.

The homosexual forces do not just wish to legalise same-sex marriage and pave the way for polyamory. Oh, no. We wish to desecrate all of your precious heterosexual unions. We will tear down the institution of marriage itself, hurl gasoline upon its decrepit frame, light a match – and cackle wildly as the cinders of your beloved rituals turn to fire and ash. At which point we will then fornicate in unison, as gays cannot sustain loving relationships with a single partner.

To the Christian lobby, I say: gays don’t want to simply destroy your Christian marriages. No, no. You’re doing that well enough without us as it is. No, what we desire is the destruction of your churches and the conversion of your good Christian children. Because, like the demons you write about in books, our flesh burns to a crisp at the mere sight of Church spires, so we must remove them from our new world.

At which point our lesbian women will transform into winged bat creatures – their true forms – and pluck your good Christian children from your crumpled church houses, carrying them off for their conversion, screaming into the night.

In the big gay war for humanity, the public toilet blocks, where all gay men once lived to spread disease, will become conversion camps for the children of tomorrow. They shall be trained in tolerance and loving acceptance – hush now, don’t cry, my dears – and schooled in the homosexual arts, like sodomy, witchcraft and interior design.

And, when marriage and the Church have both fallen – the fundamental basis of all functional societies – we shall install a new world order.

Homophobia will be eradicated. Advertisements of all kinds depicting heterosexual couples will be removed, replaced by adverts containing homosexual couples. Straight people will be used as furniture. Heterosexuals will be the butt of most stand-up comedy jokes, and straight comedians will elicit crickets from audiences worldwide.

Your governments will be destroyed in one foghorn cry of “YASS, QWEEN” – taken down with ease and fashionable finesse. World leaders will be replaced by LGBT icons, like Kathy Griffin, Laverne Cox and Margaret Cho. All national anthems and political nationalism will be wholly eradicated, and the world will unite under the euphoric trance anthem of ‘Believe’ by Cher.

We won’t just legalise same-sex marriage in this bold new world. No, no. We shall legalise ALL forms of marriage. Man and woman! Man and man! Woman and THREE men! Man and kitchen condiment! No one will be safe.

And those who would rebel against this turn of civilisation would face cruel fates. For lesser crimes, such as refusing to provide services for a gay wedding, you would be forced to sit through two seasons of Golden Girls. We might even force you to marry a gay person, as was always our plan.

For those who commit more heinous crimes, such as using Joan Rivers’ name in vain, the punishment shall be fierce and debilitating. You will be forced to stand front-and-centre in a gay pride parade; dance, cheer, and chant songs like Macklemore’s ‘Same Love’ and other Godless hymns.

So, Minister Abetz, I don’t believe you’ve gone far enough. Polyamory is not the only evil hiding inside our trimmed and waxed Pandora’s Box. These are our plans, and our communities’ darkest secrets. If you bow to our demands, we may show mercy…

But if you refuse us, then you will face the effeminate wrath of one thousand angry homosexuals.

You cannot resist us, for we are many. You cannot fight us, for we have already won.

And we are coming, Abetz. We are coming.

'I'm a bad bottom'

This post was originally published in full on SameSame.com.au on the 26th of June 2015, available here.

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I should start off by saying this: I am a terrible bottom. Really. I’m awful.

At the best of times, it’s slightly uncomfortable. At the worst, though, it’s straight up painful. I’m often wondering if the guy I’m with has accidentally split me in half. Except… I seem to wind up bottoming a lot.

I’m told there’s a certain way they’ve got to do it, or a certain amount of preparation that needs to be taken, or a certain angle they’ve got to approach from. Or that there’s an ancient talisman, housed somewhere in the jungles of the Congo that, once acquired, and combined with the right cursed chants and essential oils, will make bottoming a pleasurable experience. None of these considerations have worked in my favour.

All self-effacing quips aside, the question I’ve really got to ask myself is: If it doesn’t feel awesome, why the hell do I keep doing it? Why would I torture myself like this? Why do I keep bottoming?

Firstly, it’s not all bad. There’s a psychological element to being ‘taken’ that can manifest in some truly intense feelings. That, and if you’ve ever ‘gotten used’ to the feeling after the onset, you can definitely agree that, while it might not be a religious experience like it is for some, it’s certainly not the worst feeling in the world.

The most prominent reason I keep trying is because, quite frankly, my perceived role in the bedroom seems to demand it. And more importantly: this role in the bedroom seems expected of me as a young, lean and somewhat effeminate homosexual.

So where do these stereotypes come from? Where are we pulling our ideas from about how we’re going to pull each other?

One theory is that our community has, in a number of ways, transposed heterosexual norms into our own homosexual culture, and, too, our own relationships. It’s something we’ve grown up with, and all of these hetero-normative ideas about masculinity and femininity, about power and vulnerability, have quietly crept their way into our subconscious minds, and have influenced how we view others and ourselves.

Masculinity is valued in men by straight society, symbolising power, confidence and sexual aggression, whereas femininity is oftentimes derided when shown by men, because it represents vulnerability, weakness and sexual submissiveness.

“What if I want to be a feminine top? Or a gruff, masculine bottom? Who on Earth decided that certain sex acts were specific to a certain stereotype?”

In short: Femininity and vulnerability are just not manly – and therefore, a lot of gay men feel opposed to it. It challenges their ideas about what a man is, and what a man should be, and what they should be as men. We’ve somehow ascribed these roles of masculine and feminine to sex acts alone – insertive and receptive, masculine and feminine, acting and acted upon. We’ve found ourselves viewing being the penetrative partner as being the more masculine of the pair, and to some, therefore the most desirable.

So it only makes sense that when I meet a man at a bar, who after a few cheeky drinks wants to hitch a cab back to his flat in Brunswick for a bit of a good time, that he might automatically assume my status as a bottom.

It’s because I’m feminine, and femininity represents sexual submissiveness, and even though we’ve discovered our anatomies and found ways in which bottoming can be pleasurable for everyone, we somehow view bottoming as something exclusive to “fems”.

Why shouldn’t bottoming be masculine? And why can’t topping be feminine? What if I want to be a feminine top? Or a gruff, masculine bottom? Who on Earth decided that certain sex acts were specific to a certain stereotype?

There are gay men out there in the world who know what they like, and will explicitly make clear what they want and how they want it, gender roles be damned. I salute those men.

But there are also men out there who feel uncomfortable about the very idea of bottoming, because they view it as feminine. And the last thing they want to be is anything other than the masculine gender they have worked so hard to embody, in spite of homophobia and bigotry that has seen them typecast as feminine by default – by virtue of simply being gay.

More self-identifying ‘masculine’ men should face the idea that something typecast as ‘feminine’ could be something they’re into.

The bottom line for me – the bottom-line with bottoming – is that it’s okay to enjoy bottoming, no matter how you might present yourself. It’s okay to be a bulking mass of muscle and want to take a dick in your ass, just like it’s okay to be an effeminate “fairy” and not want any dude coming near your nether regions with his eight-inch pole. And it’s okay to reverse those options, too.

Sex should be a fun, pleasurable and wholly uninhibited experience. We should strive to be pleased the way we want to be pleased – not in any way that restrictive societal mores might dictate. We should writhe and twist among one another and feel free from gender expectations, and we should aim to understand our own bodies and figure out what we like and dislike as individuals.

Know what you want, and ignore what a culture has planted covertly in your mind that youshould be.

'Wandering hands? I'm sick of being groped'

This post was originally published in full on SameSame.com.au on the 1st of June, 2015, available here.

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It’s late. Music blares from speakers all around, and the crowd shifts and writhes with the throb of the bass. I’m weaving my way between bodies and strange faces, in pursuit of the bar for a drink or another such thing. Perhaps I stop to dance, or greet a familiar face, but ultimately my aim is to break free and exit the throng.

And that’s when I feel it – a grip around my waist.

I look forward, and it’s an older man. He’s got his hands around me and is grinding up and down, and his face reads drunken lust. The crowd is too thick to escape him in a heartbeat, and before I know it, he’s got his hands under waistbands and in places they shouldn’t be. I get out of his grip, wave him off, and continue my journey.

And that’s about it, really.

That’s one of the first times I can remember being sexually assaulted by another man at a gay bar. When I told my friends about what happened, mere minutes later, they laughed. I think I might have laughed, too.

We’ve all been there, my friends and I. Every single one of us has a story to tell, about some guy at a bar or a club or one other such gay-friendly location getting a bit handsy. Or maybe he goes a bit too far and you end up with a situation on your hands. It happens, you deal with it, and the night seems to go on.

But why does it go on so easily?

Why have the collective responses from people I’ve known been so casual? Why has barely anyone approached these moments with the severity that our straight counterparts, in their own dance bars and dives, partake in so willingly?

I remember one time I reported an assault to a bartender at a certain gay haunt. The response from that man wasn’t, “Alright, we’ll deal with it” – It was a hearty, “So, are you going home with him?”

“He’s grinding up and down. Before I know it, he’s got his hands under waistbands and in places they shouldn’t be.”

It’s not the first time something like that has happened, either, when another man has violated my personal space. I’ve been felt up on dance floors, groped at bars, had men follow me into toilet cubicles thinking it’s a good time to have a go. None of these advances have been warranted, nor have I done anything to solicit them. They’ve been done with careless finesse, a reckless abandon.

As though because I’m a man, I must want it. I must want it all the time.

As gay men, men who have been oppressed and ostracised for years, we’ve established ways to hook up that our straight counterparts don’t share. It’s been part of our sexual liberation through decades of public inhibition.

We’ve mastered methods at giving signs and signals that exhibit our interest, wordless motions that reflect our search for sexual opportunity. We’ve learned to cruise, and in certain circumstances – at clubs, at bars, at washroom basins – we’ve found ways to indicate our interest to another that give way to sexual encounters.

These nuanced tactics are, as best put by an older gay friend of mine, predatory. They’re nonverbal, erotic and sometimes aggressive. They’re noticeably masculine. When a man cruises another man at a gay bar, it’s hard not to wonder if he’s checking him out, or wanting to punch him in the face.

And these are all fine. These skills were necessary at a time when being busted in bed with another man could see you ousted from your community, when men went to meet other men in the dark of a nearby public park, or bathroom, or “men-only” sauna. Because you couldn’t just roll up to a café with a man for a coffee date without your sexuality being brought into question.

They continue to be necessary now, because although being caught having it off with a man at home might elicit nothing more than a giggle from a straight friend, we’ve still got a long way to go. I have no problem with gays who want to cruise. God knows I’ve done it too.

Yet when I’m out at a club, one of our safe havens, and a man tries to feel me up, I’m somehow expected to just deal with it. I’ve internalised this idea that because gay men are sexual creatures – because men are sexual creatures – that it’s to be expected I would want to have a go. No matter who it is, how they look, or whether or not I’m even interested. We’re just fucking machines looking to get off, before disappearing into the night, and I’m part of the hunt as much as they are.

It’s almost as though these advances don’t classify as sexual assault. Not in this little world we’ve created for ourselves, where men have sex with men and grind on each other at the gay bar.

Once, when I was a bit younger, I was out on the town in one of Melbourne’s gay districts, in a street known for its gay cruising. I was separated from my friends and had had way too much to drink, so I nicked off down a secluded alleyway to throw up. Because I’m a sophisticated lady of the night.

When I turned around after ejecting my insides, I was shocked to discover a much older man standing beside me, leaning against the wall near where I spewed – touching himself. He had sized me up on the street, and followed me into the dark, thinking I was looking for fun. When I got up, he lurched forward, and I had to push my way out of there.

I’ve had too many experiences like this. Too many times where I’ve been the young effeminate boy to the older aggressive male, and been expected to just deal with it.

It’s part of masculinity – part of our societal conditioning. To be aggressive, to be rough, to be powerful. To exert our dominance in a sexual way. These are difficult traits to unlearn, as we start acquiring them from birth. And even as gay men – men typecast as effeminate divas with penchants for fashion and hollering Katy Perry from our “girly” convertibles – they still find ways to permeate our culture.

So what I’m saying is: I’ve had enough.

I’ve had enough of being felt up. I’ve had enough of being groped. I’ve had enough of your arms around me, and your persistence despite me saying no. I’ve had enough.

More than that, I’ve had enough of people telling me – otherwise wonderful, intelligent, extraordinary people, whether directly or implied – that I should just deal with it.

I shouldn’t have to just deal with being groped at bars. I shouldn’t have to just deal with people following me into toilet cubicles. I shouldn’t have to just deal with people whacking off while I vomit from overdrinking.

This is our culture. It’s a culture of rainbows, love, acceptance and diversity. It’s one we’ve created through years of isolation and inhibition. It’s one that has allowed us to meet sexual partners, to grow and to prosper, through all of the persecution we have faced. We should be very proud of it.

But when I’m out at a gay bar, and I’m walking through the dance floor, and some fool sticks his hand down my pants: I shouldn’t have to just deal with it. I shouldn’t have to just deal with being sexually assaulted.

And neither should you.

'What I Learned Dating Older Men.'

This piece was originally published in full on Your Friends House. Reposted here to my personal blog.

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I’d like to preface this by saying that I am a recently unemployed early-twenty-something living la vida loca in the big city. This means that not only do I not know how to adult, but I also don’t really know how to date. My idea of a hot date is a cheap Chinese dinner, a seedy bar, and a lot of “I think I really like you, but I also kind of want to throw up from the seven-dollar bottle of wine I drank before we got here”.

That being said, I’ve definitely tried. I’ve dated around the block. I’ve had my fair share of good times, bad times, and times I’ve had to fast-forward into one-night-stands because I’m pretty sure I never want to see them again. However, in all of my relationship exploits (and sexploits), none have quite matched up to the curiosity of dating an older man.

By older, I don’t mean “Billy’s finally got his license so he can go buy some vodkas for the girls” – I mean older. I mean aged. I mean well-versed in things like how to tell the difference between Hendrick’s and Gordon’s gin, and somehow proficient in budgeting and cleanliness. Things you and I young folk wouldn’t understand.

I mean old enough to be your dad. Or maybe even a little bit older than that.

As it turns out, if there’s one thing I do understand – chalk it up to an analytical mind – it’s the experience of dating an older man. I think my wealth of knowledge comes from the fact that I am a skinny gay boy, and that means older men are somehow drawn to me like flies to feces – or, as the slightly gross hint-hint-incest gay community expression often goes; like dads to sons. Yuck.

After reviewing some of these points with some straight female friends, we’ve agreed collectively that they all stand strong and true. In no way am I trying to suggest that younger guys are worse than older guys. These are just the experiences of one dangerously thin homosexual man, one oft mistaken for a sixteen-year-old girl.

So without further ado, here are some of the things I’ve learned dating older men.

They’re incredibly careful with you.

To them, you are practically a newborn. You are a proverbial clean slate, a starry-eyed youth preparing to take on the world, one cheap pot of beer at a time. If you text them while intoxicated after three or four pints, they will assume you’ve been smoking meth with criminals. They will plead with you to catch a cab to their house, where they will feed you water and bread, until you feel inclined to fellate them as a thank-you. Older men like to think you’re incapable of doing anything by yourself. Which is perfectly fine by me, so long as you keep booking those Ubers’ on your card and footing the bill at breakfast.

They’re constantly surprised that you might have a brain.

Maybe I don’t look like the sharpest tool in the shed, but I find it amazing just how many times I’ve had older men say to me, “Wow, you’re so mature for someone your age!” – Those words, in that exact order. It’s like they think that just because I’m in my early twenties, by default I spend my days doing nangs in a sharehouse, and giggling mindlessly over episodes of The Big Bang Theory while my mate packs a cone. Is Generation Y really doomed to have to prove themselves to old blokes time and time again? If you can hold a sentence together without so much as drooling down the side of your cheek, or looking like you’ve short-circuited, you’ve basically won their heart.

They want to recapture their youth vicariously through you.

Older men seem to have a crippling desire to return to their youth. Let’s face it – ageing happens, and when you hit a certain age, you start losing tautness and tone in places you were sure would never feel the effects of gravity. If it’s not the way they gaze lovingly upon me, as though I were the Taylor Swift to their succubi-Madonna – it’s the sheer number of beauty and anti-age products I’ve seen lining their bathroom cabinets and the tops of their shower stalls at any given time. When age starts to weary thee, the reality is, you want to know you’ve still ‘got it’ – and what better a way to achieve that than by doing a young person who is totally down? After all, you’re only as old as how you feel or who you’re feeling.

They’re collectively better in bed.

There, I said it. It’s the point you’ve all been waiting for. Young people might have more stamina and willingness to go at it than older people do, but older men just straight up know what they’re doing. And what’s better, they actually want to please you, and will not stop until you’re done. They want to know what you like, and they want to take it slow. They’re tactile, sensuous, appreciative and cautious at the best of times. Once you’ve been with a man who was probably married at some point in his long life, younger guys seem like selfish, mindless thrusting machines when it’s all said and done. Older men are just better in bed. And why wouldn’t they be? They’ve had years of practice.

Ultimately: I’m a kidult. A child masquerading as an adult. I am confused, askew and oftentimes dwindling in the wind, waiting for my next pot of Melbourne Bitter on tap to help me fail to understand the complexities of my existence. And sometimes, it’s nice to know that there’s someone out there who has at least figured half of it out. Who has trekked through life into a state of reasonable understanding, and has their own well-reasoned answers to my million tragic questions.

Maybe that’s the appeal of The Older Man – that they’ve perhaps got their shit together. Just as they might vicariously re-enjoy their youth through me; I might vicariously attempt to feel some sense of success through them.

If you’re curious about the ways and wiles of the mature older gentleman, or you’re up to feeling a tad objectified, or maybe you just want to know a bit more about how to save up super: Date an older man. Because even though they might not be exactly where it’s at – they’re where we’re all headed.

Be exactly who you are.

Recently I participated in an evening show on one of Australia's most popular community radio stations. The reason I was a guest was because I am oftentimes given the label of a gay community stereotype, one I do not personally identify with.

I am labelled a twink.

A twink is a feminine, flamboyant young homosexual man, whom dainties about and throws caution to the wind as he chugs his vodka cruisers, smokes like a chimney and parties to Beyonce like no other. He is thin, hairless and prone to high-pitched squealing, and he can often be found at loud nightclubs, dancing it up with other members of his subculture.

I am given this label because I am, to many, a slender party boy. This is not something I asked to be called, and it is not something I identify with. Primarily because oftentimes the reaction by many when accosted by a twink, is amusement and distaste, though that is based primarily on my own personal experience.

People oftentimes choose to identify with a label - indeed, in a recent study published by the Australian Research Centre for Sexual Health and Society, it was found that, of 1,000 gay men between the ages of 18 and 39, asked whether they identify with a label, 20% identified with 'twink', compared to 9% who identified as a 'cub' - because it provides them a greater sense of community. They feel at home with those among them, and whether or not they actively seek twink counterparts - which I don't personally feel is the case - it helps to know that there is a group that they fit in with.

It is interesting to note that while 20% of the participants identified as twinks, and only 9% identified as cubs, that cubs were more likely to be organised as a group through meetings. That they were more likely to congregate and form friendships. And you know that it's the norm. There are no 'twink bars' that I know of, but bear and cub haunts aplenty. Entire bars filled with a certain determined 'type' of homosexual man, catering to their subculture. So, from that, you could assume that although twinks may potentially occupy a larger spectrum of the gay 'community', they lack that sense of community itself. That sense of belonging.

It runs right back through to high school notions of cliques and wanting to feel like you belong. There's quintessential sociology and psychology at work. Knowing this, and knowing it's a perfectly normal characteristic of human beings - why don't I fit in with the facet of the community I am perceived to belong to? Why don't I try to fit in?

Maybe it's because I don't appreciate being pigeonholed. I don't want people to make assumptions about my personality. I have gone on dates with men who, within the span of our meeting, have come to the actual conclusion that I am vacuous and airheaded, purely because of my body type, because of the subculture I appear to belong to. I quote, "You're such an airhead twink". I've been told this within minutes, to my very face. Like I'm meant to agree, and falter into a giggling fit. Oh god, you're right! I'm so silly.

Which is why, when put on the panel for the radio show, I was bizarrely confronted when I realised that my detest towards this label might, in fact, be part of a problem. A problem that I have.

I might hate labels, but I'm sure as hell ready to label others.

Nobody wants to be seen as anything other than the convoluted, unique individual that they are. Yet, in the spirit of attempting to belong, we assign ourselves labels - some less so than others, as 56% of the participants in the above study did not self-identify with a label - and we succumb to the merciless stereotyping committed by others, others in our own community.

"I don't want to be that person, because that person is seen as gross. That person is vacuous and childlike and reckless and embarrassing to be around. I don't want to be that person, and I don't want you to view me as that person, because that person is a flicker of a human being, a mould of someone who was once flesh and bone. Don't make me into a type."

Yet, in the same breath that we utter these words, we create an image. And when we look around at the people surrounding us, we start to see that same image. We notice the same trends viewed of us by others. When I go out to a gay nightclub, I see the slender arms and the flouncing stride, the characteristics of a stereotype, and suddenly, I'm perturbed, I'm embarrassed, I'm revolted.

Maybe not revolted, but you get my gist.

Look at that little twink. What a laugh. What a joke. I'm nothing like him.

I should point out at this point that I think it's perfectly acceptable for friends to bandy about terms and assign each other stereotypes amongst themselves - in the spirit of a joke, of playful camaraderie and jest. Because you know the person you're talking to. You recognise their intricacies and their uniqueness and the complexity of their mind. You see them; who they are. Not a stereotype.

One of the hosts on the radio show asked me a question based upon a finding from the study; that many gay men who did not self-identify with a label were found to feel less positive about being gay. That many of them were found to have less self-worth. He asked me, in a tone so casual that it could have been the drunken banter sprawled out across a bar along with a bottle of vino - and I'm paraphrasing here - do you feel like you hate yourself because of your sexuality?

What a question.

Is the reason why I choose not to self-identify because, on some level I hate myself, and am ashamed of being gay? Is it because I don't want to fit in with the cliques and the stereotypes, said cliques and stereotypes I dole out unto others as though those others are not walking, talking, three-dimensional, convoluted and too-often-misunderstood human beings? The same complicated meat sacks of firing synapses and original thoughts who suffer the same derogatory dalliances with other people presuming their personalities that I do? Was I once alienated, and in turn began to alienate others?

I didn't think much of it at the time - we were all laughter and jokes and intelligent discussion, and it certainly wasn't a question posed in any negative spirit at all - but later, as I wandered the city streets on my way home from the station, I started to really think on what I'd been asked.

And then I remembered when I nearly went under the knife to change the way my face looks. To get my nose hacked off and my jaw realigned. Because when I looked at strangers in the dark of a nightclub, who looked something close to the picture perfect homosexual man, it made me angry, and sad, and yearning. Because I thought about how they might not want to ever know me, just because of the way I looked. Because I wanted too badly to "fit in" - to be seen as attractive to strangers who don't even know my name yet, let alone my story.

And I remembered when I changed my mind entirely. When I cancelled my surgery, one I'd been planning for years, the week before it was due. Because I didn't want to be the person who tried to assimilate into a culture which pulls in and isolates and estranges one another based on their physical characteristics. Because I wanted to be the person who values every single person for their unique characteristics - for the parts that make them interesting. Fascinating. Wonderful. On the surface, and within.

How strange, then: the very concept of sitting in a radio station, speaking into a microphone on Australia's most popular community radio show, considering all of my past experiences, passively deriding homosexual men for prejudging me over my looks, while at the same time going to every effort to distance myself from the very stereotype I've tried so hard to insist does not befit me, casting that stereotype upon faceless characters in the dark of a nightclub.

I guess this kind of thing takes time.

Jimmy at the bar is studying law. He's got his whole life ahead of him, just like his mother always told him, and he knows where he wants to end up. He likes video games, playing with his dog, hanging with his friends, and the smell that wafted in from the trees outside his childhood bedroom window after a storm. When he was sixteen, he came out to his parents. His mother was fine with it - you know it's a dangerous life, Jimmy, it's a dangerous life, but I love you, and I'll protect you - but his Dad gave him one hard look in the eye, then walked out the door. When he came home, he took all of Jimmy's video games, and threw them out his bedroom window. With the trees and the scent of rain on the air.

Later that week, Jimmy moved out, with some friends in a sharehouse. He's a little too young, but he's trying, and because if there's one thing he knows, it's that he's got his whole life ahead of him. Just like his mother always told him. I'm sorry, Dad, I'm sorry you never got the football-playing ladies' man that you always wanted. I'm sorry we couldn't work out together. I'm sorry we couldn't kick the pig skin, or whatever. I'm sorry I'll never have a wife. I'm sorry I never got the chance to develop a taste for beer with you, because you could never accept me for who I am. I'm sorry I've got bigger dreams than whatever broken ones you've flayed out on the floor, that you keep trodding on, trodding, trodding, trodding, trodding, trodding...

Jimmy at the bar is studying law. And you're rolling your eyes and clenching your teeth because he's skinny, because he's small, because he's feminine. Because he's not what you want to be. Because he's not what you think a gay man should be. Because you think you know him. Because you think he's not worth knowing.

And that's a tragedy. Not for them - for you.




I won't be self-identifying as a twink any time soon. I'll call out any motherfucker who wants to typecast me as an airhead, all because I'm thin, and I'll refuse to allow anyone to view me as anything other than clever, brilliant and three-dimensional, irregardless of my size.

But the next time I'm out at a nightclub, and I see before me, a slender and dishevelled, flouncing dancing queen: I'm going to take another look. Refrain from clenching my teeth.

We have been conditioned towards treasuring masculinity and demonising femininity in gay men. It's something many of us have tried hard to avoid, but inevitably collapses out of our rears at the unlikeliest of times, just when we think we've unlearned it. We have been also conditioned into stereotyping others, and placing them in categories. This is both a blessing and a curse - and unfortunately for some, has a habit of somehow determining their perceived worth.

But you can't ever be held to someone else's standard of beauty. You are better than a body or a type, and you are worth so much more. After all, are we not an incredibly diverse community, awash with colourful characters and whimsical personalities and beautiful stories and shared struggles? I'd like to think so.

Be exactly who you are. Because you are beautiful. Everything that makes you, you. I won't judge you.

This was for every person who has ever felt like they weren't good enough, or fit enough, or lean enough, or muscular enough, or attractive enough, to fit into this community. This was for every person who has ever felt like they were not worth knowing because of the way that they look.

This was for you.

On alcohol and not knowing how to drink it properly.

So basically I’m not partying for a good 28 days.

It’s one of those things with a degree of leniency - I mean, sure, maybe I’ll go out for a drink or two with a friend one week. Maybe once a week. Maybe a beer to go with dinner after work. But at the end of the day, it’s not about the alcohol.

It’s about getting wasted. I’ve never known how to drink any other way.

Like my old creative writing tutor wrote in his piece, uncomfortably about his struggles with alcoholism; “One sniff of the barmaid’s apron, and I need to drink myself into a stupor”.

When I was a teenager, we all drank to get drunk. We hadn’t developed the taste for liquors and cocktail niceties - it was cask wine out of the silver bag for us. Because we didn’t care - we wanted the feeling, and we were just that uncomfortable shade of pubescent rebellious. Or maybe you were a preppy little twat sipping cruisers like children for the colour it put in your mouth, or maybe you were some rocker with jack and coke. We were the kind of kids who would take off down to the park in the middle of the day with the goon sack we got some bogan to buy for us. We were the runts hiding fucked under fringes at Flinders Street Station. 

Either way, it was never about the social lubrication. It was about drinking to get fucking drunk.

Fast forward to my adult years, and I spent time working in nightclubs drinking vodka lemonades off of hastily-thrown-together drink cards to try and quell the nervousness that came from having to take photos of other drunk people that night. Because I was new and excited by the prospect of being a nightclub photographer, but also way too anxious a person in a variety of social situations to fathom doing it off anything less than three or four standard drinks. So I'd get a little bit drunk - all head spinning and brimming with confidence - until approaching people for a snap became nothing short of a sinch. This would eventually continue, for years and years and years, until the only way I knew how to take party photos was to succumb to party girl status myself.

No-one taught me how to drink alcohol. No-one taught me how to drink in moderation. The only time anyone ever taught me how to look after myself, was at a friends sixteenth birthday, when mother insisted on confiscating two of my four Smirnoff Double Blacks, because she didn’t want me overdoing it. That was my lesson - deprivation over education. It didn’t stop me from drinking everyone else’s booze, though. No, at some point, some kid pulled out an entire bottle of Ouzo from underneath a bed, and we shotted that shit like it was anything less than liquid death down our throats. Until we were screaming into digital cameras, drunkenly snapping out selfies as though we were the coolest kids on the block.

Not because we had any idea what we were doing. But because we just wanted to get drunk. You didn't drink in moderation, because that didn't make you cool. That wasn't 'fun'. We were dumb kids, and that was just the way we did it. Braincells be damned. 

Flash forward to me at twenty-two years of age, drinking in moderation seems to come with its own sense of personal accomplishment. Like the fact that you didn’t manage to write yourself off on a Thursday night is somehow worthy of its own reward, kiss-the-mirror type shit. If I go home tipsy, and not staggering down the street, it’s like I don’t know who I am anymore. And I’m laughing, and I'm reflecting on how bullshit that sounds - but realistically speaking, it is, and it shouldn’t be the case. We should all be well-accustomed to two or three beers over the ‘Just another glass, just another bottle— and fucking whoops, there it is’. Cue the stagger and the groaning whisper of another future hangover.

If I can go out for a couple of cheeky wines after work, and make it out of there without so much more than a skip in my step, that’s a magical experience. That’s, like, adulthood. Or so it feels.

But really, getting wasted, and not knowing how to drink any other way, is only half of the problem. It’s the shit you do when you’re wasted that makes all of the melodrama.

I shouldn’t have to explain it, because we all know what it looks like. When you’re wasted, that dude you’ve been drunk-dating with the potato-head and no personality suddenly looks like a gem - he might even look interesting - leading to a slew of hungover confusions and regrets. You don't even really know that person, but you know how much wine you had to drink that night, and boy, it sure stopped you from running screaming into the street over his boring bullshit. When you’re wasted, you can fall out of control in three seconds, and getting between two brawling dudes in a bar seems like a real bright idea, because Drunk You can definitely diffuse the situation. When you're obliterated in the city on a Sunday morning, that proposition for a one-night-stand with a dude (or two, or three) seems like a fucking great idea, and you're all about the sensual frisson, the decadent escape into a strangers' bedroom in the middle of the night.

Until you wake up, no clue where you are, head pounding, eyes bloodied and red, retrieving your far-flung underwear and sneaking out the door, while the bridge troll you accosted lies sleeping in his bed.

"In moderation", they say. "Drinking in moderation". Like anyone has any clue what on earth that means.

When I’m wasted, I do dumb shit. If I’m not fucking with my own head, I’m fucking with my own body. So I’m putting a stop to it for a while. I'm giving moderation a try. Or maybe I’ll go for coffee instead.

Coffee is love. Coffee is life.

End diatribe.