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Dating and Mating with Alan Irgang [Threesomes and Groupsex]

Ask Alan about love, romance, and relationships (and anything) else here! *All private information is kept confidential


Dear Alan, I am 37 years old and I am starting to date a guy who is 38. We met online, then we met in person two times. I like the guy, (and he likes me too) he is smart and sweet, also good looking and sexy BUT, I just noticed that in hisprofile online he states that he is up for threesomes and group sex. That "ain't" my cup of tea and that is making me doubt him. Will I be enough for him? Is this a recipe for disaster? Do people with that kind of behavior ever settle down and want to have a family? Does this behavior suggest a cheater? Should I run or stay put? Should I ask him about it? Any advice / guidance in the matter would be appreciated. Thank you, Stephen



Dear Stephen,

I imagine you are disappointed in discovering your new romantic interest's sexual proclivities. The first thought that occurred to me is if you met him online, did you not see this part of his profile indicating what he likes sexually? I often find that it is very common for people who so intensely want to find a mate to exhibit what's called "selective attention" when they are seeking out potential partners. In other words, there is a tendency to ignore red flags and only focus on what the person looks like, and other attributes that are highly desirable. So the important lesson here is to pay attention to the whole package and be honest with yourself about what is important to you in selecting a mate and sustaining a relationship.

OK, so now that you are paying more attention to this part of who he is and what he likes to do sexually, you have lots of valid concerns. You are asking very important questions about what it all means about who he is and his capacity to be in the kind of relationship with you that you want for yourself. My best advice for you is to sit down with him and have a long talk about what you have learned from his profile. Ask him all of the questions on your mind, as well as about his past experience with these behaviors. Let him know what your concerns are and see how he responds. Do not judge him for having interests that are different than your own. Yet it is important that if you hear anything that is of concern for you to be honest with yourself about that and be willing to let him go. It will be hard at first but you will avoid much greater heartache down the road. You will also avoid condemning yourself for making the wrong decision about staying with him, having known of his sexual interests from the beginning.

I wish you the best in sorting this out and encourage you to let your inner guide lead you.






Alan Irgang, LCSW is a psychotherapist and “dating coach” in private practice in Chicago. He is also on the faculty of the Loyola University School of Social Work where he teaches graduate level courses in Human Sexuality. Alan has been in private practice since 1998 and has been facilitating groups for singles about dating and relationships for seven years.Check out his website www.alanirgang.com for more information about his practice and his upcoming seminars for singles.

For Same Sex Couples, a Tale of Two Paths to Parenting

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Gary J. Gates

The weekly adventures of Modern Family's gay parents Mitchell and Cameron highlight a common contemporary media image of gay parenting: wealthy, urban, white gay men raising an adopted child.

However, U.S. Census Bureau data suggest that same-sex couples raising children are substantially more diverse than these media images. Notably, the data show big differences between same-sex couples who adopt and other same-sex couples.

While those who adopt look more like Mitch and Cam, those who are raising biological or stepchildren are younger, more racially and ethnically diverse, and have lower incomes.

The Cam and Mitchell version of adoptive parenting is actually not yet the norm among same-sex couples. While more than 15,000 are currently raising an adopted child under age 18 (according to my analyses of data from the 2010 American Community Survey), nearly 74,000 same-sex couples are raising a biological or stepchild.

Demographically, Cam and Mitchell are actually pretty typical of same-sex adoptive parents, but same-sex couples raising biological or stepchildren have substantially different demographic characteristics.

For example, same-sex couples with biological or step children show evidence of economic disadvantage. In 2010 they had lower average household incomes than their different-sex counterparts ($82,000 vs. $92,500), and were more than twice as likely to be receiving public assistance.

Conversely, adoptive same-sex parents are economically advantaged. They had an average household income of nearly $157,000 compared to $104,000 among their different-sex counterparts.

Several demographic characteristics explain why so many same-sex couples with biological or stepchildren face economic difficulties. First, they are relatively young. On average, same-sex parents raising biological or stepchildren are nearly two years younger than comparable different-sex couples and six years younger than same-sex adoptive parents.

Many individuals in same-sex couples raising biological or stepchildren have lower levels of education. Among individuals in same-sex couples who have less than a high school degree, one in three (33 percent) are raising biological or stepchildren, while just 5 percent have an adopted child.

It's the opposite for those with a college degree. Less than one in ten (9 percent) are raising biological or stepchildren, but a third of those parents have an adopted child.

Raising biological or stepchildren is substantially more common among racial and ethnic minorities, but adoption is most common among white people. African Americans in same-sex couples are three times more likely, and Latinos and Latinas 2.5 times more likely, than their white counterparts to have biological or stepchildren (29 percent, 23 percent, and 9 percent, respectively).

But white same-sex couples with children are three times as likely as same-sex couples with a non-white partner to be raising an adopted child (18 percent vs. 6 percent).

Same-sex couples with biological and stepchildren are more common in the socially conservative South and Midwest, where LGBT people likely come out later in life and are more likely to have children from a different-sex relationship earlier in life.

In those regions 14 percent of same-sex couples are raising a biological or stepchild, compared with just 11 percent in the Northeast and West. It is an odd irony that social conservatism likely contributed to the formation of many of these LGBT families.

Conversely, adoption among same-sex couples is more common in the socially liberal Northeast and West, where the legal climate is more supportive of LGBT families. Among same-sex couples with children, 20 percent have an adopted child in the Northeast, compared with 14 percent in the West and just 12 percent in the Midwest and 11 percent in the South.

The demographic diversity that we observe among same-sex parents should prompt us to broaden our understanding of the most pressing issues facing LGBT families. They likely face challenges associated with economic disadvantage including poverty, health care, nutrition, and access to quality schools.


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Testing and Hearing HIV Test Results Together

via The Associated Press, by Carla K. Johnson

CHICAGO — Newly dating and slightly anxious, two men bared their arms for blood tests and pondered the possibility that one of them, or both, could be infected with HIV.

An innovative program — called Testing Together — would allow them to hear their test results minutes later, while sitting side by side.

In this Jan. 5, 2012 photo, Dominic Poteste, left, and Eric Zemanovic pose before taking HIV tests together at the Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago.

Testing Together, now under way in Chicago and Atlanta, takes an unusual approach: It encourages gay male couples to get tested together and hear their results together.

In this Jan. 5, 2012 photo, Dominic Poteste, left, and Eric Zemanovic pose before taking HIV tests together at the Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago.

Testing Together, now under way in Chicago and Atlanta, takes an unusual approach: It encourages gay male couples to get tested together and hear their results together. 

.Eric Zemanovic, a dental hygienist, and Dominic Poteste, a restaurant server, had been dating two months after a yearlong friendship. In the past, they'd both practiced safe sex and got regular HIV tests.

Both are in their early 30s. They'd grown up when AIDS meant an early, horrible death. So, whenever they heard about friends testing positive, they felt pangs of fear.

Poteste explained: "There's always an anxiety that comes with getting tested, even though 99 percent of the time I've been safe and been careful, there still is always ..."

His voice trailed off.

"A slight possibility," Zemanovic completed the sentence.

"A slight possibility," Poteste agreed.

Testing Together, now under way in Chicago and Atlanta, takes an unusual approach: It encourages gay male couples to get tested together and hear their results together.

After delivering the results, a counselor talks with the couple about what to do next, including agreements they may want to make with each other about sex and health.

Are we agreeing to be monogamous? Is any sexual activity outside the relationship OK? How are we going to protect each other from infection? Couples address these questions and more.

The idea is to bring honesty to sexual relationships, said one of the researchers behind the program, Rob Stephenson of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta.

Relationships offer only "mythical protection" from HIV, Stephenson said. Some couples may have avoided talking about each other's HIV status, thinking, "If he were HIV positive he would have told me," or "If he wanted to know, he would have asked."

Poteste and Zemanovic, the newly dating Chicago couple, differed in their past approaches. Zemanovic was in the habit of asking his sex partners about their HIV status; he was "neurotic" about it, he said.

Poteste hadn't been as sexually active as his new boyfriend, but he hadn't always asked the questions: Have you been tested? What's your status?

"You have an assumption that if there's something this person could do to potentially hurt me, they would tell me," he said.

Zemanovic hoped getting tested together and discussing results with a counselor would build trust between them.

Poteste hoped the counselor could help them start a conversation so they could ask and answer difficult questions.

It started in Africa more than 20 years ago. Researchers believe couples testing has successfully reduced the spread of AIDS among married, heterosexual couples in some African regions.

One study that looked at couples where one spouse is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative estimated that couples testing was cutting the rate of transmission by more than half.

In Washington, D.C., where the rate of HIV infection rivals some African nations, some community agencies allow couples to test together. Family and Medical Counseling Service Inc. has been testing about 145 couples together annually since 2008. Most are heterosexual couples.

In Chicago and Atlanta, Testing Together, funded by the MAC AIDS Fund, hopes to test 400 couples by the end of the year.
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Each participant in Testing Together signs a consent form that addresses receiving counseling, testing and results with a partner in the same room at the same time with a trained counselor: "I hereby consent to allow my partner to know the results of my HIV test," it begins.

The program challenges conventional practices in the United States, where HIV testing is usually private and for individuals only. At most other clinics, a man who asks if his partner can be there when he hears his test result is denied because of patient confidentiality concerns.

There are two trends fueling Testing Together. One, the number of gay Americans telling the U.S. Census they're living with same-sex partners nearly doubled in the past decade, to about 650,000 couples. About half those same-sex partnerships are gay men.

What's more, a new line of research suggests that up to 68 percent of new HIV infections in gay men come from a main sex partner, not from casual sex, in part because main sex partners are more likely to forgo condoms.

Counselors are trained on how to deliver test results, with particular emphasis on how to tell partners the most difficult news: one partner has the virus and the other doesn't.

With these so-called "HIV discordant" couples, counselors have a great opportunity to reduce the spread of the virus by helping the couple learn ways to protect the uninfected partner, primarily through correct and consistent condom use.

Counselors are trained to dispel myths. If the couple thinks the test result means one partner has been unfaithful, the counselor might point out that the infected partner could have acquired HIV before the partner became a couple.

If the couple believes the virus is "sleeping" and can't be transmitted, the counselor might explain that HIV can be transmitted even if there are no signs or symptoms.

If the couple believes their status is proof that precautions aren't needed, the counselor might explain that HIV could be transmitted in the future as the infected partner's virus levels rise.

Sam Hoehnle is a counselor in the Chicago program. "It never becomes easier emotionally" to deliver the news to an HIV discordant couple, Hoehnle said. He tells the HIV negative partner his results first, then spends more time and attention on the HIV positive partner.

He's seen partners support each other, but he acknowledges he can't read minds. A show of compassion could mask anger or fear.

"You don't know what's happening internally, in their heads, about how they're feeling about each other," he said.


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Why Gay Parents May Be the Best Parents

via Yahoo News, by Stephanie Pappas

Gay parents "tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents on average, because they chose to be parents," said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts who researches gay and lesbian parenting.

Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals, Goldberg said. "That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement."

Adopting the neediest

Gay adoption recently caused controversy in Illinois, where Catholic Charities adoption services decided in November to cease offering services because the state refused funding unless the groups agreed not to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Rather than comply, Catholic Charities closed up shop.

Catholic opposition aside, research suggests that gay and lesbian parents are actually a powerful resource for kids in need of adoption.

According to a 2007 report by the Williams Institute and the Urban Institute, 65,000 kids were living with adoptive gay parents between 2000 and 2002, with another 14,000 in foster homes headed by gays and lesbians. (There are currently more than 100,000 kids in foster care in the U.S.)

An October 2011 report by Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that, of gay and lesbian adoptions at more than 300 agencies, 10 percent of the kids placed were older than 6 — typically a very difficult age to adopt out.

About 25 percent were older than 3. Sixty percent of gay and lesbian couples adopted across races, which is important given that minority children in the foster system tend to linger. More than half of the kids adopted by gays and lesbians had special needs.

The report didn't compare the adoption preferences of gay couples directly with those of heterosexual couples, said author David Brodzinsky, research director at the Institute and co-editor of "Adoption By Lesbians and Gay Men: A New Dimension of Family Diversity" (Oxford University Press, 2011).

But research suggests that gays and lesbians are more likely than heterosexuals to adopt older, special-needs and minority children, he said.

Part of that could be their own preferences, and part could be because of discrimination by adoption agencies that puts more difficult children with what caseworkers see as "less desirable" parents.

No matter how you slice it, Brodzinsky told LiveScience, gays and lesbians are highly interested in adoption as a group.

The 2007 report by the Urban Institute also found that more than half of gay men and 41 percent of lesbians in the U.S. would like to adopt.

That adds up to an estimated 2 million gay people who are interested in adoption. It's a huge reservoir of potential parents who could get kids out of the instability of the foster system, Brodzinsky said.

"When you think about the 114,000 children who are freed for adoption who continue to live in foster care and who are not being readily adopted, the goal is to increase the pool of available, interested and well-trained individuals to parent these children," Brodzinsky said.

In addition, Brodzinsky said, there's evidence to suggest that gays and lesbians are especially accepting of open adoptions, where the child retains some contact with his or her birth parents.

And the statistics bear out that birth parents often have no problem with their kids being raised by same-sex couples, he added.

"Interestingly, we find that a small percentage, but enough to be noteworthy, [of birth mothers] make a conscious decision to place with gay men, so they can be the only mother in their child's life," Brodzinsky said.

Good parenting

Research has shown that the kids of same-sex couples — both adopted and biological kids — fare no worse than the kids of straight couples on mental health, social functioning, school performance and a variety of other life-success measures.

In a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parenting, New York University sociologist Judith Stacey and University of Southern California sociologist Tim Biblarz found no differences between children raised in homes with two heterosexual parents and children raised with lesbian parents.

"There's no doubt whatsoever from the research that children with two lesbian parents are growing up to be just as well-adjusted and successful" as children with a male and a female parent," Stacey told LiveScience.

There is very little research on the children of gay men, so Stacey and Biblarz couldn't draw conclusions on those families.

But Stacey suspects that gay men "will be the best parents on average," she said.

That's a speculation, she said, but if lesbian parents have to really plan to have a child, it's even harder for gay men. Those who decide to do it are thus likely to be extremely committed, Stacey said. Gay men may also experience fewer parenting conflicts, she added.

Most lesbians use donor sperm to have a child, so one mother is biological and the other is not, which could create conflict because one mother may feel closer to the kid.

"With gay men, you don't have that factor," she said. "Neither of them gets pregnant, neither of them breast-feeds, so you don't have that asymmetry built into the relationship."

The bottom line, Stacey said, is that people who say children need both a father and a mother in the home are misrepresenting the research, most of which compares children of single parents to children of married couples.

Two good parents are better than one good parent, Stacey said, but one good parent is better than two bad parents. And gender seems to make no difference. While you do find broad differences between how men and women parent on average, she said, there is much more diversity within the genders than between them.

"Two heterosexual parents of the same educational background, class, race and religion are more like each other in the way they parent than one is like all other women and one is like all other men," she said.

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Some Great Love Is Making Its Way to You

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Logan Lynn

I spent my 20s in complete solitude. Even when I was in relationship or around friends, I was impossible to reach and might as well have been by myself.

It was a decade spent mostly alone, and I think there were many times when I felt like this was just how life was going to play out.

I watched as my little brother married his high-school sweetheart, and in the 10 years since, I've had the great pleasure of holding their babies as they joined us in the world.

Loving these beautiful creatures has in many ways made my own as-of-yet-unrealized dream of building a family an easier pill to swallow -- but I have always hoped that some great love would make its way to me, as well.

In October 2010, after spending the better part of two years in single-man lockdown mode recovering from a long-winded, ugly breakup, I went to celebrate my 31st birthday with my dear friend at a local Portland patisserie.

We sat and chatted about life for a while, and then I noticed this man walk through the door and sit at a table just to the right of the dessert counter.

He was wearing a tight, white, v-neck t-shirt, and I found myself unable to stop staring at him. It may have been his big arms, his dark chest hair, his thick-framed Dita glasses, his pretty face -- I'm not sure -- but something clicked in that moment.

At one point my friend stepped out to take a call, and I took that as my cue to undress him with my mind and get down to fantasy business. (I'm not a sex maniac, but I had sworn off men and had been celibate for over a year, and my fantasy life had become both really involved and easily accessible during that time).

So I imagined us getting freaky on the dessert counter until my friend's return jolted me back to my sad, clothed, birthday reality. From across the room, I kept hearing my pretend boyfriend laughing this enormous, joyful, shameless laugh with his friend, and I tried not to stare.

As we were leaving, I pointed out my exotic find to my friend and said, "I gotta get me one like that," which, in retrospect, is a bit crass and actually isn't all that romantic-sounding, but I figure the story's no good if I don't just tell it like it happened, and that's how it happened. It may not have been poetry, but it came from a very real place.

Over the next two months I thought about this mystery man a lot, which was not a common thing for me to do when it came to random people from coffee shops whom I had never spoken to.

Often, the thoughts were naked ones, but sometimes they were not. At times I was awake when he was there; other times he would appear in my dreams.

What had happened to me there amongst the candy and cakes? I couldn't figure out if I had been possessed or if I was just really horny from swearing off sex.

Maybe I just needed to get manhandled on a dessert counter somewhere. Either way, I hoped I would run into him again and promised myself that I would speak to him if I did.

One afternoon in early December I looked up from my desk at Portland's Q Center, and there he was, standing in the door of my office, picking up promotional materials for an event he was holding there.

He told me his name. I introduced myself but could not stop looking down at my feet. We shook hands. His were soft but strong -- like they were in my dream. I'm sure I turned all sorts of red in the face, and I remember being kind of frozen there for a minute.

I came off as rude and uninterested, and he went to talk with my colleague across the hall. Once again, I found myself compelled to stare at him, completely drawn in by his presence, his look, his chemicals, but I was somehow rendered unable to speak or be friendly.

When he left I probed my colleagues for details about who this most recent star of my rich fantasy life actually was in the real world. After hearing only good reviews from the handful of people I asked, I decided to attend the event he was hosting.

I was determined to push through the shyness and try talking to him again when it was over, and I would try even harder not to come off like a total dick this time.

Out of nowhere, at the end of the event, he came up to me and asked if I'd like to grab a coffee with him sometime. (I later found out that my colleague had let him in on my having expressed interest, so the miracle-love-story factor here is a little diminished, but it was a magical moment nonetheless.)

I said yes and had him call my phone so that I could save his number.

As he was walking away, I noticed that it had not saved, and I said, "Wait! It didn't work!" He turned and walked back over to me, still with those sweet eyes, still with that handsome face, and in a fleeting moment of sheer bravery, I let out the words, "How am I supposed to get you into my life if I don't have your phone number?"

My boldness made him smile. I entered the number again manually, saved it, and left the event feeling over the moon. To my surprise, he called me the next day to go to dinner instead of coffee, which we did the following evening.

It was one of those nights where everything was easy and real. We talked about our lives, our families, our struggles, our deepest regrets, our hopes, our true selves; it was perfect.

He gave me the most passionate kiss as he dropped me off that night, and we have been together ever since.


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The Gay Male Couple's Guide to Nonmonogamy

via Advocate, by Daniel Vaillancourt

Mikey Rox and Everett Earl Morrow, both now 30, were committed to monogamy when they met and fell in love. That was five years ago.

“After a couple instances of infidelity to which we both confessed, we decided it’s not realistic to expect either of us to never hook up with anyone else ever again,” says Rox, principal of Paper Rox Scissors Copy and Creative in Manhattan.

The legally married couple has had an open relationship for the last two years. “Who wouldn’t want to be allowed to hook up with other guys and have their husband be OK with it?” he asks.

“Isn’t that what most men dream of, and isn’t the limitation of sex with one partner in a marriage the reason why so many people cheat?” Adds Morrow, “As two men, sex isn’t particularly emotional for either of us. That enables us to separate our love for one another from the occasional physical attraction we may have for another guy.”

Matthew and Pablo, married 40-something realtors in Palm Springs, Calif., were monogamous for the first eight of their 15 years together.

“We sort of just fell into our open relationship,” says Matthew. “It’s been a slow evolution. In the beginning, we only played together, which made it feel less threatening.”

They still enjoy the occasional threesome, but for the last few years have increasingly sought sex outside the relationship.

Jelle and Guido, both 44-year-old ground personnel for an international airline in Amsterdam, have been together since 1997.

For 10 years monogamy reigned. But when physical attraction waned, sex fell by the wayside and the relationship soured, eventually hitting rock bottom.

The two figured they had nothing to lose, opened up their relationship, and saved it. “I’m really happy,” says Guido. “It made our relationship stronger. I’m glad he’s my partner, I love him, and I believe it was a wise decision to give each other the freedom we needed.”

Adds Jelle: “There are so many things keeping us together: love, trust, friendship, security, common hobbies and interests, humor, a shoulder to cry on. Much too much to give up for that tiny but oh so important aspect in life that is sex.”

Although no one knows for sure how many gay couples are in open relationships, or whether they are on the decline, it’s certain these men are not alone. “I would feel comfortable saying that at least four out of five long-term gay male couples are not monogamous,” says Beverly Hills sexologist Winston Wilde.

“Monogamy rarely does work for more than two years — for most straight and bi men as well.”
Which isn’t to say that lifelong fidelity is unattainable. Experts agree that couples who are creative and on the same page can absolutely sustain a vigorously exclusive sex life.

“We are not and have never been in an open relationship,” says Doug Hairgrove. He and partner Warren Wood, married septuagenarians also from Palm Springs, have been together 50 years.

They’re still intimate at least twice a week and see sex and love as inseparable. “We do not understand having one and not the other,” says Wood.

John Sovec, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Pasadena, Calif., encourages his clients to form the most powerful and satisfying bond possible. “I believe gay couples have an incredible opportunity to create whatever type of relationship works best for them without the constraints of a societal norm,” he says.

When one partner wants an open relationship and the other does not, “one person has to yield,” says Loren A. Olson, a Des Moines psychiatrist and the author of Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story.

“Two cannot live with rules that are mutually exclusive.” In such scenarios, Timothy Huber, a clinical psychologist in the New York metro area, prescribes the three T’s.

“Talk, talk, talk about it,” he urges. “Do not avoid or minimize the issue. For some, that’s a setup for infidelity. If conflicts persist, seek professional assistance.”

Even when both partners desire nonmonogamy, there are cases when it’s not advisable. “Odd as it may sound, an open relationship requires a strong degree of trust and respect in order to be successful,” says Didi Zahariades, a psychotherapist in private practice in Portland, Ore.

“In my experience, it requires a healthy, loving couple who are able to talk honestly about their individual needs. Open relationships are not a possibility for a couple with a high degree of distrust or jealousy. If a couple is already volatile, then adding another person — or persons — is simply not an option.”


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Immigration Victory for Binational Couple

via Advocate, by Andrew Harmon

A married, binational gay couple in San Francisco who made headlines last summer after they were denied a green card have been granted a two-year reprieve on their deportation case.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on immigration officials' decision to grant “deferred action” in the case of the couple, Bradford Wells and Anthony John Makk:

[Wells and Makk] won a two year stay against the threat of deportation, thanks to the personal intervention of their representative, House leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and state Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat who represents parts of San Francisco, also provided assistance.

Makk is a citizen of Australia married to Wells, a U.S. citizen who suffers from AIDS-related illnesses. Makk is his primary caregiver. Makk was denied consideration for a green card based on his marriage to a citizen by the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which bars all federal marital rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples. The law covers not only immigration issues but also hundreds of tax, Social Security and other federal laws.

“We’re still dizzy from the news,” said Makk. “We are elated.”

Makk has been forced to “play the visa tag game back and forth,” for years— on tourist visas, then business visas up until 2010. “We’ve worked so hard over 20 years just to maintain a legal presence in this country,” Wells told The Advocate in October.

“If Anthony leaves, he can’t get back in. If something happens with his family, he can’t be there for them. Because he’s chosen to be here with me.”

The couple, who met with Pelosi in her Washington, D.C. office in October, had asked administration officials to put on hold the appeal of their application pending legislative repeal of DOMA or a legal ruling against it, which would allow Makk to remain stateside.

In a Wednesday afternoon statement, Pelosi said, “I appreciate the consideration of [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] in granting this relief to my constituents.

I join Anthony and Bradford in celebrating the decision, and will continue to work to repeal the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act.”


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Gay Marriage Victory Still Shadowed by AIDS

via New York Times, by Austin Considine

ON the evening of June 24, Steve Mendelsohn celebrated in the street with his friends and nearly a thousand other supporters of same-sex marriage outside the Stonewall Inn, the storied gay bar in the West Village.

The setting was nothing if not appropriate: In 1969, a riot at the Stonewall would make the bar forever synonymous with the awakening of the modern gay rights movement in America.

That night, nearly a half-century later, a bill passed that would allow gay men and women to legally marry for the first time in New York State.

For Mr. Mendelsohn, 54, the moment represented an unequivocal victory: an apex to decades of struggle for equal recognition under state law.

Still, the moment was tinged with a sense of absence, as it was for many gay men his age.

Amid the jubilation, he couldn’t help but think of Phil Kanner, his partner of 15 years, who died of complications from AIDS in 1995.

“I was thinking, ‘I wish Phil were here with me,’ ” Mr. Mendelsohn said in an interview in the fall, adding later, “If my partner were alive, I believe we would have married.”

For many middle-aged gay men in New York City, the passage of the same-sex marriage law was in part a fresh reminder of the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic, when men like Mr. Mendelsohn, the director of a nonprofit media group, lost innumerable friends and loved ones to a disease that was often as stigmatizing as it was deadly.

At the height of the epidemic, the disease took tens of thousands of lives in the United States each year; it reached its deadly peak in 1995, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the number of deaths of those with AIDS reaching more than 50,000 that year.

Those who survived haven’t stopped living, forming new relationships and organizing for equality in the decades since.

But the memory of what was lost lingers — a shadow cast by marriage equality’s glow.

“New losses can trigger old feelings of grief, but so can successes, so something like having gay marriage can trigger feelings of loss,” said James Masten, a Manhattan psychotherapist and author who has worked with patients with H.I.V. and AIDS for the last 20 years.

“Even though it’s a positive experience, it can still remind us of all the people who aren’t here, who haven’t had the opportunity to see this — all the activists who never lived to this point,” he added.

Jeffrey Sharlach, 58, founder of a Manhattan-based communications firm and an adjunct associate professor of management communication at New York University, said he lost nearly every one of his gay friends in New York during the 1980s and ’90s, including his partner of more than 12 years, Ken Williams, who died in 1994 at age 33.

Mr. Sharlach is publishing a novel in May about that period in his life called “Running in Bed,” which he described as about a quarter autobiographical.

For Mr. Sharlach, New York at the height of the AIDS epidemic became an empty shell, its streets a constant reminder of loved ones who were disappearing. “Every single block would be like, ‘Oh, I remember this guy used to live here.’ ”

“It was like a city of ghosts,” he added.

With the passing of time, many of those who survived the 1980s and ’90s have gone on to form meaningful long-term relationships.

Some, like Mr. Mendelsohn, took advantage of the same-sex marriage law fairly quickly. In September, he married Wallie Pagunsan, exactly two years after the day they met.

Others, like Mr. Sharlach, believe that the moment for marrying may have passed. Though he, too, has a long-term partner, his second since Mr. Williams died, he has little interest in marrying.


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What it Means to Write a Gay Love Song

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Mark Hamilton

When first asked to write on "what it means to write a gay love song," I thought I'd take a stroll to my neighbourhood café, where I do most of my writing and working, and by the time I'd arrived would have a definitive answer regarding the gay love song as one of the ultimates in queer defiance and political statement. But now that I'm here, I simply don't.

To me, as songwriter, every love song I write is a gay love song. Perhaps it's a weakness as a performer that I can't sing something unless I truly believe in it (otherwise, I'm just too embarrassed), so when I sing of love, I sing only of the kind of love that I know. And that, for me, is always a big gay one.

I'm releasing a new EP of music titled For Paolo, and the title track is a love song I wrote for my Viennese boyfriend. He calls me the colloquial "schatzi," so to his embarrassment I put it in the chorus.

If there's something to do that he thinks is important, he tells me that I "better should," so that's in there, too.

He'd like me to believe he's the shy type and that having his name in the title of a song (never mind as the title of a full EP's worth of music) is a struggle for him, but I can tell he's more than a little chuffed about it.

"How dare he say anything about my song," he told me last night, when a friend who hates pet names said he liked the song except for what he considered an overuse of "schatzi."

So yes, indeed, "For Paolo" is a gay love song of the highest degree. It's got the gay gene. It was born this way.

And yet, despite what I need to believe in order to perform a song genuinely, I can also realize that my songs' genders and sexualities can vanish entirely once they leave my lips and hit the listener's ear.

At some point, everyone has a "schatzi," and it really makes no difference if the one I'm singing to in my mind has a beard and the same private parts that I do.

I've received letters from straight married couples telling me that their first straight wedding dance was to some gay song I wrote for some hot guy on the other side of the planet.

In one case, a couple told me they'd danced to a song that I'd originally written for a straight (sure) construction worker I'd been hooking up with in Calgary a couple of summers ago.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I've put more straight love songs on mix tapes for gay crushes than I could ever possibly remember.

It doesn't even matter if he (or she) is singing to a she (or he), because it's the sentiment that gets us through sides A and B to the end of the tape.

I'd argue that love songs, once they come to mean something to you, don't really even have a sexuality anymore. ("The Man That I Am with My Man" by The Hidden Cameras might defeat this rule, but for the most part, for me it seems to stick.)

So, what does it mean to write a gay love song? Pretty much the same as it means to write any song. It means something particular and unique to everyone who listens to it, gay, straight, bi, transgender, or questioning.

And personally I hope all those people like what I've done in tribute to my handsome, homo boyfriend, and would love every guy, girl, guy-girl and girl-guy to make out with their respective partners (or groups thereof) to it and let me know how it goes.


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Come Home to Yourself for the Holidays

via Huffpost Gay Voices, by John-Manuel Andriote

The four little words "home for the holidays" pack worlds of meaning and sentiment. They may evoke warm memories of dazzling decorations, family gatherings, gift exchanges, holiday parties, and way too much food.

But for too many LGBT people, "home for the holidays" means anxiety, drama, and stress from families that may not accept them.

Those of a certain age (full disclosure: I'm 53) can find that this season brings up difficult memories of loved ones taken from us cruelly and prematurely by AIDS and other causes.

Missing our friends at this time of year can underscore our grief for the lives we started to build in our younger years with friends and colleagues we expected to know our whole lives, who are now gone.

For some of us, HIV/AIDS has had such a profound impact that it has made us reassess our lives and make big changes. For me, my own 2005 HIV diagnosis sparked a very real midlife crisis.

After I was able to be more rational and knew I wasn't likely to get sick or die in the near future, I chose in 2007 to return to my hometown of 40,000 in eastern Connecticut. I'd spent 30 years "away," living in big cities: Boston, Chicago, New York, and 22 years in Washington, D.C.

It's an understatement to say I never expected to live in Norwich again. But time, and a changed perspective, can make a man think about "home," and even his old hometown, in surprising new ways.

Longtime activist David Mixner writes in his new memoir, At Home with Myself: Stories from the Hills of Turkey Hollow, about coming to grips with turning 60 and finally letting himself process the impact AIDS has had on him.

For Mixner, dropping out of his busy life for a while, like a modern Henry David Thoreau, gave him the perspective he hadn't been able to gain in the midst of his whirlwind of activity.

For three years, in a mountaintop house perched between two peaks in a town of 10 full-time residents two and a half hours from Manhattan, Mixner kept company with animals, birds, the moon and stars, and, most importantly, himself. In Turkey Hollow, fully living life came to mean something different for Mixner.

Instead of carousing on Fire Island and late-night dancing with younger friends, it now had more to do with quiet pleasures like watching an eagle soar from a cliff. "After a lifetime I was at home with myself," he writes.

As it did for David Mixner, home has taken on new meaning for me since I gave up my "big-city" life. For me, home isn't a particular house, though it is an area of land, with its own geography, history, and lore.

We New Englanders feel deep ties to our rugged landscapes and take pride in the independent and resilient Yankees who have gone before us into the "history" that surrounds us in our old houses, town greens, and graveyards.

Home is my family, the people I've known my entire life. We are similar in the ways families are similar, but we are also very different in important ways, too.

Somehow we have managed to stand with each other through the best and worst times for more than half a century now.

And home also has come to mean being at home with myself. For years, I was embarrassed about my lifelong interest in plants and flowers; it seemed so "gay." Now I live in a place, back where I began, where men farm and garden and talk about it with knowledge and pleasure.

I was shy about the fact that I have loved to cook since I was a kid. But I've always been told I take after my grandfather John, who owned a restaurant and was known as a terrific chef. It's not unusual for Greek men to cook, but when I was a younger man, I wasn't yet ready to embrace that part of my heritage.

So "home for the holidays" has new significance for me. It means not just a special place or people I love who also love me. Now it means embracing the life that has been given to me, and the man I was made to be. Home, as they say, is where the heart is. Home is also in the heart.

It seems to me the longest, most difficult journey in life is the search for our true home, that accepting and safe place "somewhere over the rainbow."

Yet when we find it, the place where dreams really do come true, it can look so different from what we ever imagined. And we realize it's been inside of us all the time, waiting for us to discover it and, finally, come home to ourselves.


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Same-Sex Marriage Improves Gay Men's Health

via myhealthnewsdaily, by Staff

Gay men's health improves when their state legalizes same-sex marriage, a new study finds.

The results showed gay and bisexual men in Massachusetts had significant fewer medical- and mental-health-care visits, and lower mental-health-care costs in the year after the state legalized gay marriage, compared with the previous year.

This amounted to a 13-percent reduction in total health-care visits, and a 14-percent reduction in health-care costs for this group. The reductions were similar for partnered and single gay men.

Previous research has shown that excluding lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals from marriage has a stressful impact on this population, according to the study.

There were also reductions in cases of hypertension and depression, according to the study. Both conditions are associated with stress.

The findings suggest that legalizing same-sex marriage could benefit public health "by reducing the occurrence of stress-related health conditions in gay and bisexual men," said study researcher Mark Hatzenbuehler, of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

However, among HIV-positive men, there was no reduction in HIV-related visits, suggesting that those in need of HIV/AIDS care continued to seek needed health-care services, the researchers said.

The researchers surveyed 1,211 patients from a large, community-based health clinic in Massachusetts that focuses on serving these groups.

Because the clinic was in a large metropolitan city, these results may not be generalized among people living in more-rural communities, the researchers said.

The study is published online today (Dec. 15) in the American Journal of Public Health.


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Gay Culture and Sex Addiction

via Huffpost Gay Voices, by Alexandra Katehakis

Support for gay marriage is on the rise. Every new survey shows greater tolerance and greater acceptance of the fact that homosexuality is a personally integral and relational truth that warrants equal rights.

With this support, we also see the rise of greater diversity in gay culture depicted by the media. Certainly the suburban gay parent is a fairly recent standard prototype in the collective consciousness that has gained traction from popular fiction, namely Modern Family and The Kids Are All Right, and from real-life celebrity parents like Rosie O'Donnell and Neil Patrick Harris.

The suburban gay parent does much to humanize the prevailing stereotype that depicts lesbians and gay men solely as promiscuous and unstable, propagated just last month by the conservative, religious website LifeSiteNews in response to Newsweek's recent cover story on sex addiction:

"[H]omosexuals are known for having superficial, short-term relationships and hundreds of lifetime sex partners..." (That's perhaps the least offensive quote in their homophobic article.)

I have to wonder about the degree to which any so-called "deviant" lifestyle traits displayed by LGBT people are ultimately an inherent psychological reaction to institutionalized homophobia at every level.

Let's take this trip. First, there's the closet, this toxic idea that it's not OK to be gay, compelling LGBT children to hide their truth.

Gay kids live in silence for fear of the repercussions of disclosure, which can include rejection, abandonment, and bullying to the point of suicide.

Gay bullying is perpetrated by peers, parents, teachers, community leaders, and world leaders.

While many minorities suffer oppression, from disenfranchisement to outright discrimination to persecution, few minorities additionally experience such extreme degrees of intimidated relational repression during formative years as the LGBT community.

What effect does this have on people? As a result of this coerced repression, there exists insufficient co-regulation to explore appropriate relational valuing, which is the process of integrating personal reality with authentic expression that results in healthy, intimate relationships.

Instead, an abyss has to be crossed where a child "comes out." For LGBT people, this is a rite of passage with a wide range of emotions that is experienced mostly in emotional isolation.


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2011: A Good Year to be Gay

via theguardian, by Aaron Hicklin

A funny thing happened in America in 2011. With the US political establishment in deadlock and Republicans bowing to Tea Party mandarins over a raft of issues from immigration to curbs on trade unions, one area of American civil liberties celebrated a watershed year.

After decades in which gay rights have polarised US opinion, the country barely shrugged in September when a two-decade old law prohibiting gay men and women from serving openly in the military was finally repealed, prompting thousands of gay soldiers to post coming-out videos on YouTube – just one more example of how the web has transformed gay visibility.

Less than two months earlier New York became the sixth, and biggest, state to allow same-sex couples to marry.

To put that in context, there are more people living in New York than in the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage.

The struggle for marriage equality has been one of the most bitterly divisive issues in America, but after a series of defeats for gay-rights advocates, the tide appears to be shifting irrevocably in their direction.

A series of national polls this year has shown support for same-sex unions outgunning opposition for the first time since polling on the issue began in the 1980s – a dramatic turnaround from even three years earlier, when voters in California approved a ballot measure overturning same-sex marriage.

In the 2004 election, under the keen encouragement of Karl Rove, no fewer than 11 states passed ballot initiatives banning gay marriage — a cynical get-out-the-vote ploy that helped swell Republican ranks at the polling booths.

The perception that marriage equality was a poisoned pink chalice persisted up to the 2008 election, when even Obama was careful to clarify that he wasn't in favour of gay marriage, apparently heeding warnings from Bill Clinton to give the issue a wide berth.

Yet in this year's debates between the ragtag pack of Republican presidential nominees, the usual rhetoric denouncing gay marriage has been noticeably absent.

Even Obama, facing precarious odds for a second term, has said that he favours repealing the notorious Defense of Marriage Act that has prevented federal recognition of gay marriages, even those performed in states where they are legal.

What changed in those few short years? In many ways the transformation of attitudes has been ongoing for decades, accelerated in large part by the impact of Aids, which reconfigured gay identity around community and relationships.

In TV shows such as Glee and Modern Family, gays are no longer comic stooges or punchlines, their relationships treated with the same respect as those of their straight counterparts.

They hold hands, they kiss, they even share the same bed. This was a quantum leap on 1990s shows such as Will & Grace, in which the gay characters had the whiff of "confirmed bachelors", to use the archaic euphemism of obituary writers, rarely presented in functioning relationships, much less in love.

To young gay men and women today the idea that they will be able to marry and raise kids no longer sounds outlandish or controversial. It sounds axiomatic.

They see gay couples getting married in states such as New York and Massachusetts. They see Neil Patrick Harris, a popular television actor, posing on the red carpet with his partner, David Burtka, and their two children.

They listen, alongside their straight friends, to gay anthems by Lady Gaga, and watch popular gay-inclusive shows such as True Blood.

Most of all, they communicate with a diverse group of friends on Twitter and Facebook, where gay and straight teens revel in their shared cultural interests.


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Gay Introductions

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Domenick Scudera

'Tis the season of holiday celebrations, office parties and family gatherings. For gay people like me, these social events lead to a unique problem.

When I introduce the man I love to other people at a party, I cannot use the convenient title "husband" to explain who he is to me. Same-sex marriage is not recognized in our state.

There are many other options that I could use to introduce Brian to my long-lost Aunty Trudy from Duluth, but none of them is satisfactory. Here are a few:

Boyfriend: Brian and I have been together for 16 years. We are both... well, let's just say we are both on the other side of 45. We are too old and have been together too long to be "boyfriends." If we were going steady, or going to the prom, then maybe "boyfriends" would be more appropriate.

'Friend': I have lots of friends, and Brian is one of them. In fact, he is my best friend. But he is much more than that, so if I were to use this term to explain our relationship, it necessitates the use of quotation marks, italics or winks, as in:

"I'd like you to meet my 'friend' Brian [wink, wink]." You could use the word "roommate" in the same way: "my 'roommate' Brian [wink, wink]." This is all a little too cutesy for my taste.

Mate: This word would be fine if we were pirates. "Aye, matey, this here's me first mate Brian. Now swab the deck. Arrrgh."

Partner: This word makes us sound like attorneys in a law firm: "Scudera, Strachan and Associates, Homosexual Partners Since 1995." (Well, this could work if you consider our dogs "associates.")

Domestic Partner: This is even worse than "partner." It makes us sound like we are joint owners of a home cleaning service: "Scudera, Strachan and Associates, Domestic Gays Since 1995. We Make Your Floors Sparkle!"

Lover: This defines our relationship by a sex act. Although Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum may want to define our "lifestyle" this way, I would rather not. Sex is just one aspect of many in our lives.

It seems random to choose one part of our relationship to represent who we are to each other. Brian cooks dinner sometimes, but I would not introduce him as "my chef Brian."

He also does the gardening in our yard, but he is not "my gardener Brian." I could just as easily call him my "confidant," my "driver," my "dog walker," or "the guy I watch TV with."

All these choices, including "lover," are too limiting.


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It's about the "Weekend"

via ThinkProgress, by Zack Ford

The Sundance Selects film Weekend has to be one of the most honest portrayals of gay dating I’ve ever seen, and it deserves the positive reviews it has been getting.

Though people of all sexual orientations will relate to the themes of romance and courtship, Weekend shines in the way it offers a Queer Theory lens on the most primal aspect of gay life: hooking up and dating.

The premise is simple enough: Russell and Glen hook up on Friday night, but end up spending the weekend together, realizing that there’s something more than sexual chemistry between them.

Glen, of course, is leaving the country Sunday afternoon, so the magic has to happen fast.

It was disappointing that the film reinforced the stereotype that gay men use a lot of drugs, but with the short timeline, the alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine take the characters to a very vulnerable and honest place with each other, allowing for the film’s most compelling dialogue about gay relationships.

Weekend thrives on its simplicity, using conversations between the two archetypal characters to dissect the script gay courtships are supposed to follow as the two learn and grow from each other’s influence.

Russell is the classic closet-case, who’s out as gay, but not really to anyone. He pursues sexual liaisons, but is afraid of commitment because it means being out and having to own his identity.

 Instead, he interviews his partners about their own coming out experiences and tries to live vicariously through them in his journal. Glen, on the other hand, is out and proud, but has sworn off of relationships after being hurt by a cheating boyfriend.

 He also interviews his partners, forcing a tape recorder in their face in hopes of exposing queer sexuality through some sort of eventual art project.

Both are searching to understand the other’s archetype: Why is Russell so afraid and ashamed of his sexuality that he feels he has to hide it at all times? How can Glen be so comfortable with himself when he lets his sexuality define him?

The exploration of these questions reflects the internal homophobia that impacts all members of the LGBT community, complicating our relationships as we attempt to pretend they are no different than those of our heterosexual friends and neighbors.

Towards the end of Glen and Russell’s hurried courtship, the topic of marriage equality comes up. Tapping into his queer radicalism, Glen condemns the gay community for trying to embrace the heterosexual norm, suggesting “no one gets married for the benefits.”

 Russell’s yearning for true love betrays his inhibitions as he implores that maybe two people just want to declare their love in front of their friends because it’s meaningful to them. Ultimately, though, the movie makes a point greater than either side of the debate.

 Given how the variable of being gay in a homophobic society complicates same-sex relationships, marriage equality would create a venue in which gay men and lesbians could be celebrated both for their unique identities and for the normal lives they can nonetheless live.

Neither Glen nor Russell are ready to marry, but marriage would honor how both of them feel about their identities.

Weekend asks more questions than it answers, but it does so in a refreshingly unvarnished way. As public sentiment about the LGBT community changes, so too does the culture of the community itself, and this film creates a foundation for discussing the impact of those changes.

And despite the archetypal nature of their identities, Glen and Russell are unsensationally realized such that audience members will relate to them both. The film itself is about relationships, but its biggest offering might be an opportunity to better understand ourselves.

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Gay Relationships and Heteronorma-what?

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Ed Jackson

My partner Adrian and I have been together for nine monogamous years. We celebrate the fact that we're both men, that we've found true love, and that we want to get married.

We also hate the fact that, despite our best efforts, we still struggle with heteronormative constructs, which can be deadly to gay relationships.

They are time bombs scheduled to explode at the exact moment one of the latent, stereotypical gender roles preprogrammed into our subconscious emerges.

When they do, we are usually completely unprepared and lack the tools to handle them.

In 2009, Sean Slavin published an article in the journal Sexualities that explained "heternormative" this way:

Such practices as open relationships, casual sex with regular partners (fuck buddies), and alternative family structures distinct from sex, exist widely among gay men and various combinations often do provide a mix of sex, romance and relationship. The insistence that these things should exist in one relationship is heteronormative...

He adds that one of the primary problems heternormative constructs create is that:

gay men struggle to make meaning in their relationships using a heteronormative discourse. This suggests that gay men must continue the struggle to have their relationships recognized by the law and wider society, but they must seek recognition for the relationships they have, not the ones that are ideal or acceptable (e.g. gay marriage).

Gay men are increasingly embracing monogamy, marriage, and parenthood. Those are the relationships many of us have and that even more of us want.

Don't think that being in an open relationship makes you safe. Constantly throwing gay men who want marriage and monogamy under the bus by cavalierly labeling our relationships and aspirations for love as heteronormative is counterproductive.

It demonstrates a failure to acknowledge how deeply heternormative constructs and the underlying gender roles are engrained and that they pose an ongoing threat to all gay relationships.

For example, Adrian and I had to learn how to let go of the traditional roles men are expected to play in relationships. The first few years we were together, we were constantly competing with each other and had no idea why.

We later discovered it was because ideas like being the "head of household" and the "king of the castle" had been so seamlessly introduced into our minds as children that we didn't recognize them as the source of conflict between us as gay adults.

The first few heteronormative time bombs that exploded in our relationship nearly ended us.

Now, Adrian and I operate under the assumption that more of these weapons are out there lurking in belief systems we thought we'd purged when we made peace with our sexuality.

Not everyone has been so lucky. We all know gay men whose relationships were blown apart by some insurmountable, enigmatic obstacle.

They are the guys who get a blank look on their face when talking about their ex while saying, "We loved each other. We just couldn't make it work."

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Filling the Void: Interracial/Inter-Cultural Dating 101

by Lee Carson, MSW, LSW (and LifeLube pal)

Excerpt:

I think that many of us who have dated interracially or inter-culturally can attest that often times there are things we may deal with in the context of our relationships that may not present themselves in relationships where both partners in the couple are of the same racial and/or cultural experience.

Some examples of things that may come up include: issues around your partners race from family and/or friends; dating someone of a different religious experience than your family’s belief (ex: someone of the Islamic faith dating a Christian); dating someone from a different country among other things. Cultural differences can be even as nuanced as one partner coming from a smaller more reserved family and the other from a larger family where they are more boisterous and socially aggressive. The possibilities of the varying cultural differences that could present themselves are endless.

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What's the age limit?

via 365gay, by Joe Kort

Question: There is this guy that I talk to every now and then and we always flirt. We have hung out a few times, though we have never gone further than kissing.

I have a huge crush on this guy and I honestly believe he is into me as well. HOWEVER, we are 10 years apart in age: he is 32, I’m 22. I don’t think it would be an issue at all, but I sense that this a huge hang up for him.

I am considering telling him that I believe we could really have a great relationship and that I don’t think he should be so concerned about our age difference. What do you think is the best way to go about this?

It has always been common for gay and lesbian couples to have large age differences between them and many of these relationships have been successful. Historically, older gay men who came out later in life were not as mature as younger gay men.

I always distinguish between our gay ages and our chronological ages. For many older gay men just coming out, their gay ages are most likely the same age as the chronological age of the younger gay man with whom they are involved.

Yet we live in a very judgmental culture where age differences are of major concern for many people. This is a pet peeve of mine. People often make sweeping generalizations about the rightness and/or wrongness of a couple having an age difference of 10 or more years.

But a judgment cannot be made based solely on the individual partner’s ages. Maturity factors in heavily for both, along with individual personalities and how the couple negotiates and navigates the years between them.

It is great that you are going to have a conversation about this. When you talk, you should be real and honest. Tell him that you sense he has a hang up about the age difference and ask him what his thoughts and feelings are. It is important to take him seriously, as some of his concerns might be valid.

Next, tell him your thoughts and feelings about the age differences and ask that he take you seriously as well.
It is important to validate his concerns because, after all, they are his concerns, whether they are real or imagined. He has to work them through and talking together is a great way to do this.

Some of the things to consider are what others will say about your relationship and the way in which they will judge it. The two of you need to anticipate this and find a way to handle it.


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Meet my Partner or Boyfriend?

by Sebastino Aviles

Language is one of the few things in life that we don’t really think about, I mean unless you’re a linguist or something like that, I consider it something that we take for granted.

That being said I’ve noticed that I catch myself changing up my language, depending on different circumstances, such as where I’m at, who I’m with, and what I’m doing.

 I’m sure everyone experiences this phenomenon all the time in their lives but do we really take the time to notice when and why we are doing it?

I believe that my language is reflected on who I am in terms of social constructions such as gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, class, and age. If I use those social constructions I would describe myself as a young working class gay Latino man.

Language itself is a social construction and as a social construction it is subject to change depending on who is using it. Which brings me to my next point, as a gay man I often monitor my language depending on where I’m at, who I’m with, and who I’m talking to.

My prime example is how I change up my language is when talking to people about a significant other. Depending on who I’m talking to or where I’m at I would either call my significant other my partner or my boyfriend.

If I were to talk to a heterosexual person and I have my significant other with me I would normally introduce him as my partner, however if I’m talking to someone who belongs to the LGBTQ community or identifies as LGBTQ I would introduce him as my boyfriend.

On the other hand if I know the heterosexual person well enough like if they are a family member or a close friend I would introduce him as my boyfriend.

Once again my language would change depending on where I was at, for example if I were in a formal setting like at a reception for some event I would introduce my significant other as my partner, and if I were in an informal setting like a bar or something he would turn back into my boyfriend.

I think for me having two options as to what I call my significant other can be problematic at times because it seems that I am conforming to what other people would find acceptable and thus creating a dichotomy that doesn’t need to be there, but at the same time I feel that having two options is also important because it gives me the choice of choosing how I want to define my relationship and how I want my relationship to be perceived to myself as well as to society.