Mardi Gras should be a made a national public holiday.

I pledge alegiance to the Land of Queens and Muscle Marys. A land beyond the missionary position. A land where indulgence is de-rigeur and decorum optional.

I promise to uphold the values of this vaunted community: vanity, beauty, diversity, multiplicity, duplicity, variety, youth, sarcarsm, and above all pride.

I endeavour to maintain the core rites to Queen-dom: rimming, spit-roasting, deep-throating, campiness, voluminous hair, pink handbags, and slaved worship of the most royal queen of all, Madonna.

Finally, I solemnly swear to abide by the most sacred, most cherished practice of all in the Land of Queens and Muscle Marys - the eternal reverance for the penis. I swear to worship every single penis as if it were my own. I vow to experience the penis in every possible way. I endeavour to discover every single penis that exists and to slather each and every one with love-juice wrapped in the warmth of my mouth. I will adopt as my life goal the discovery of ever bigger penises, for size is everything. Cut, uncut. White, red, yellow or black. Bent, straight or crook. I shall genuflect and the penis shall be revered.

—

If you seriously wanted to, you could party non-stop for two whole weeks in Sydney in the lead up to Mardi Gras.

It all begins with Fair Day two weekends before Mardi Gras. It starts nice and easy, very relaxed, very casual, in fact, almost familial. It’s still almost just locals in the city and life is just that little bit above “normal”.

Then come the weekend before Mardi Gras. There’s the Pool Party on Saturday evening from 7pm. Then then Azure Party (formerly known as the Harbour Party) on Sunday from 3pm to 11pm. The city starts to flood (literally) with visitors as each day passes. The internet chat rooms are busier than usual. There are new, or foreign, faces in every pub and club. The venues are packed, heaving even, every evening until the following weekend. There’s a palpable sense of anticipation and excitement in the air and we’re not just talking about guys getting off (alone or with each other)!

Mardi Gras weekend begins with the Parade on Saturday, then the official Party and if you haven’t had enough, then Toybox, a.k.a. the Recovery Party, on Sunday from noon until 8pm.

They know how to throw a good party Down Under.

Posted on March 3rd, 2007 by jl
Filed under: Life's gay! | No Comments »

When gay men decided to adopt the idea of an “open relationship”, I wonder if they thought they were being progressive, realistic, sensible, revolutionary or if they thought about it at all…!?!??

I know that gay men weren’t the first to come up with “open relationships” - “swinging” was popular among some straight couples from the 1960s onwards. However, as a proportion of all relationships, I think I could assert with great certainty that “open relationships” are not just more prevalent but also more public, and thus officially adopted, among gay couples these days.

For a while there I tried to understand why gay men do it? Some cite sexual boredom after years of being with a partner. Others say it helps with different sexual needs and desires (one guy might like S&M while the other doesn’t). Yet others have different sexual drives - some guys just need it more than others and some just can’t keep up! Some say it helps keep the relationship “fresh” and interesting - you might learn new tricks along the way. Some couples have to live apart for long periods of time because of work or other commitments and an open relationship thus helps them meet their interim needs. Others do it just because they can!

It took a while before I finally got round to the idea that perhaps an open relationship isn’t so out of the “ordinary” after all… and that perhaps under some circumstances it is not just an option but also a solution for some couples and that despite whatever pre-conceived or inherited, moral views I might hold about open relationships, perhaps for some couples it does work. Perhaps for these couples they can have a sexually open but emotionally closed relationship and still keep it going…

And yet… I still have my doubts…

I can’t help but feel that as human beings, it’s difficult to separate the physical from the emotional - not that it’s impossible but that it’s difficult. At some point in one’s series of encounters, that barrier will give way, in which case, I wonder what impact it will have on the relationship. However, say that one is able to keep that barrier up on a sustained basis, then what cost would that entail? Does sex become merely cold a physiological exercise? In which case, does the sexual relationship become merely sexual and no longer a relationship? Or do relationships become simply platonic?

And then there are issues of jealousy and privacy. This is aside from all the other practical reasons for not having an open relationship - the risk that you bring diseases home, that you might not have enough energy for your partner after a day “working” at it elsewhere, or that you end up fucking your partner’s supervisor’s son-in-law.

Ultimately it’s not my place to judge what’s right or wrong for others. I’ve had interesting conversations with many trying to learn and understand how each one works out the dynamics and practicalities of their own open relationship but ultimately, where I am concerned, I still don’t think this is something for me…

—

Kevin: … speaking as a gay [man] I’ve never been able to master the art of being faithful.

Scotty: Oh. That. That’s too bad. But then you can’t be faithful to anything until you know why you should.

- Brothers & Sisters, Season 1, Episode 3

Posted on March 1st, 2007 by jl
Filed under: Life's gay! | 3 Comments »