Real love -- I'm, like, searchin' for that Queer Love -- LGBTQIA+ Love // A Thread for the Real Ones

you sent me the glow in the dark one (which amazingly still works after probably dozens of laundry cycles)

I just watched unzipped recently and it was so good. also did you know there's a sister documentary called catwalk that basically follows Christy Turlington all over the world?
pretty awful what's going on with Linda Evangelista. she just released the first body pics of her condition due to coolsculpting. unimaginable.

I was sad to miss Kates. Heard my friend Anna blew it outta the park, and saw the wacky inflatable Cathy and Heathcliff blow-up piece on film. Looked like a really fun time, but we had planned a dinner months ago with our gay friends, one of whom is going through a health scare...so it seemed more important to hang out with them.

I finished "Detransition, Baby," yesterday, and while I thought it ended much too quickly, I thought it had some really lovely moments.

hope your friend is hanging in there <3

xp y0ung?? she fuckin KILLED it (as per usual). I hope they post a recording of the livestream.

I've been listening to a lot of RuTH lately 🌄🌄🌄

yes Stevie, that Ann4

o boy what a life we lead really

so I'm not sure when the next time I'll "meet" someone is, let's call it, due to extenuating circumstances

do i care?

will i ever go out to a bar and pick someone up again? i had occasional game. all of a sudden I'd love to meet someone younger than me. i usually don't gravitate to that realm. i wonder what that's about

you will absolutely go out to a bar and pick someone up again, it is so inevitable

Date tonight. At a (rooftop) bar. I shoulda asked if he's jabbed.

first date? how did you meet? brown hair, big heart, bat eyelashes?

you know Stevie it's just at first it was pandemia, and then health stuff that's going to take another 6 months to settle. just didn't realize I'd be singing the same tune for the goddamn 3-year dark ages. but whatever i'm going to get so many beauty treatments when this is all through I plan on looking like Princess Jasmine meets Bella Hadid. mark my words.

also i quit smoking forever and it's truly something else. going on 6 months.

my new issue of BUTT just arrived!!!!!!!!!

omg i already read some of the poems
how is it at large?

is it large?

C'mon Simone, let's talk about your big "but."

I haven't read it yet bcz I got it at work and then *brag alert* went straight to my fuck buddy's house for a cute date and only just got home a few hours ago!!!

butts all around

butts rule everything around me

OK SO
I'm not a butt man and i keep feeling more and more alone
like American men are just obsessed with them
i feel like there's something wrong with me

Stevo you're killin it these days

don't care about the outside, it's what's inside that counts imo

like the way it feels?

yeah! i mean not to get too tmi or too cliche i guess but i just think anuses are this incredible part of us lol and i really like experiencing them.

So! My Saturday night date sold me out. I suspected trouble when I had to text him 15 mins before meeting: he was running late thanks to a "minor emergency" at his parents', whatever that means (what's a "minor" emergency?). Luckily a friend kept me company at the bar.

An hour later, date texts: "On my way, send location address plz?" That's the last I heard of him. For a while I thought he died -- until I saw a an Instagram post Sunday morning.

He's 24, a former student who emailed me four years after class to ask about getting a beer or coffee. On determining he was queer he gushed: he praised my self-assurance, brains, looks, etc. We might've met that night had I not plans already. It's worth noting I barely remember this kid in summer 2018.

I wonder if simply not showing up is a phenomenon of the young?

Anusii are a cliche?

that sucks. definitely hit next. it's been a phenomenon of the young and old as long as i've been dating tbh. xp

Yeah, I wanted to avoid generational generalization, but a few viejos noted The Vanishing has been more prevalent in the last four years.

I've ghosted more than my share, I should note.

I have never done this, to my knowledge?

me eiths it's dumb
I'm too polite though

wassup homieslice

good morning!

Mornin' sunshine!
What's on the platter?

I'm vegetarian tonight.

sexually or culinarily?

Lady Bracknell : Well, both, if necessary, I presume!

So, I’m in one of the only two gay bars in Marbella (southern coast of Spain) right now, and the thing here is that high heeled shoes are passed around, everyone tries them on, and then they take their turn swishing down what passes for a catwalk. Pleased to report that my boy got the loudest applause of the night. We make our own entertainment.

The bar is filling up because at 4am they close the doors, bring out the ashtrays, and everyone can smoke indoors.

We will be back tomorrow for drag queen bingo.

omgggggg jealous

Oh I forgot to mention the seventy something naked woman who did her catwalk turn clutching a large stuffed teddy bear.

stop

jealz to the max

Just ended a fabulous evening with j0rdan.

yesss. what did y'all do?

we went to a sports bar so i could watch basketball while we talked about madonna

...and Mariah Carey. And my terrible non-date last week.

ok well that sounds ideal (sorry for the delay how the hell do three days go by?!)

you know i saw Madonna's Mme X tour
she could still put on a show, i just wonder if it isn't time for her to maybe think about doing something else

we had dinner with Stevie last night!! and then he came back to our place and we plied him with amaro and we talked about sheryl crow and natalie merchant and celine dion and it was just a total delight <3

Amaro! Sheryl Crow! Sounds like my kind of night.

sounds like a blast

word

one of my friends says the word is "achillean" btw

just makes me think of that bob dylan song lol

hungry like a man in drag

you know i want your lovin'
honey, but you're so hard

but probably most people wouldn't have that reaction

oo i like 'achillean'

i finished a song!

tell us about it!

like i think it's not that bad. i'm going back to a light rock thing, which i left like in high school but am feeling much more than poppy sounds these days. i've been listening to a LOT of grunge (it's not a grunge song lol, just saying.) that's my story! what have you been listening to t3ddy

that’s cool! i love grunge.

i have been listening to Poco, Slikback, old goa trance mixes, and a lot of Karen Dalton

spring makes my listening habits deeply weird, every year

spring is a very special season. so much opportunity, it feels like. can you tell me more about karen dalton?

i feel really bad about this kink convention i'm supposed to be going to. trying to... process some complex emotions. and what's coming up for me right now is disgust

and i mean it's not the kind of disgust people usually talk about in terms of kink. i mean no i'm fine with that. more than fine, really, a lot of this stuff is stuff that i would like to do, like, a lot

nah what disgusts me is... like, people say over and over again "kink is not abuse", and after what i've seen in the last year... a lot of the people who say that, they don't actually know what abuse looks like. _i_ don't actually know what abuse looks like. like, if i want my ass beat and somebody beats my ass, _that's_ not abuse. some people think it is, and in that sense, it's important to say that it's not. if those people are disgusted with me, that's their problem

it's the same thing with me, the disgust i feel towards the way people behave in the kink scene here is my problem

i'm experimenting with using kink as a form of self-harm. a lot of people around me use sex as a form of self-harm. i don't do that personally. pre-transition i guess sex was a form of self-harm for me. everybody told me it was supposed to feel good and it did, but it also felt _very bad_ because of the dysphoria. but i felt, like, biologically compelled to do this thing that i hated and that made me feel bad. if i didn't, i kept thinking about things that disturbed me (like, femme shit, that stuff's actually normal but i didn't feel that way at the time), and i would also get irritable and angry from the testosterone. it felt like purging. like cumming felt like vomiting out of my cock. (is there a hardcore band called "cock vomit"? i guess there is now.) i guess that's how i'd describe my experience, i mean, on some level vomiting feels good, you know? but it's not _pleasant_.

anyway when i talk about kink as a form of self-harm, i mean it in the same way that people use sex as a form of self-harm. like sex isn't _bad_, clearly, just like kink isn't _bad_. i've learned that there are all kinds of ways to do self-harm that... people get concerned about you when you do certain things, but if you don't do those things... i guess people are still concerned, but they're disempowered. self-harm is basically a hostile act, when i do it at least. i feel a lot of disgust towards other people, other people whose behavior hurts me, whose behavior serves as a really significant barrier to me getting what i want, and my response to that is fuck you, i can hurt myself way worse than you can hurt me.

i've had people talk about, like, when they have the urge to self-harm snapping their wrist with a rubber band, and like it's not a question of whether one self-harms or not, it's about _how_ one self-harms, right? wrist-cutting isn't socially acceptable; snapping my wrist with a rubber band is. if i fuck up my bobos (i'm gonna leave that typo), if i honk on my bobos with a cane, that's acceptable, right? because i can just say "i like pain".

that's the complicated thing. i _do_ like pain. and sometimes that's healthy, and sometimes that's not. and it's not easy for me to tell the difference, always.

and these motherfuckers out here saying "kink is not abuse", like it's that fucking simple.

ok there's not a band called "cock vomit", but there's an act that put out a cassette called "cock vomit", and of course it's some fucking power electronics bullshit. god, i hate power electronics. edgelordy bullshit.

swen, you would love Karen Dalton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsYHN7eCCtU

I definitely had a "power bottom" phase, lasted about a year. I don't know where it came from. I've always enjoyed bottomming but this was ridiculous. Getting fisted, getting DP'd, I was all in. I had (and still have) a ridiculous dildo collection, some real doozies. I kept my anus pliant and whistle-clean. I could take any cock, anywhere, "no loads refused", as they'd say.

It was not really an expression of self-harm, but it was a kind of a severance package for the end of an abusive relationship. I'd been being pressured for 2.5 years into "being OK" with a boyfriend who was sexually abusive. Suddenly being out of that awful relationship made me just want to get fucked into the ground. So I got fucked into the ground. And then I started dating somebody who wasn't abusive. And my life is blissful and, comparatively, boring. (That's the problem with abusive boyfriends, they're always so... interesting.)

wish i could still get fucked but i also bounced on a lot of dick back in my day so i feel okay about it

i am also, tbh, a great top

I know there are some people who are into those... I couldn't remember what the brand is called, so I had to google "bad dildos" and sure enough it came right up. Bad Dragon.

I see a lot of trans women go through what a lot of us call our "slut era". I tried, by God. I really tried. I don't know how it is for other people, but yeah, for me, it does have a lot to do with getting out of an abusive relationship. My ex-wife emotionally and sexually abused me, and it's taken a _long_ fucking time for me to accept or come to terms with that as much as I have. When we broke up, I'd never _been_ in a relationship with someone else.

It took me a year to get with anyone else and when I did it kind of became this folie a deux thing. I guess if I really want to get into it it's this relationship that overshadows everything else. She's a great person and all but holy fuck she is _not_ a low-drama person. She spent the first few months of our relationship getting fucked by anybody she could in order to try and prove to herself she was _worth_ fucking. It doesn't seem to have worked. She resents me for not meeting her intimacy needs. I don't meet her intimacy needs because one of my boundaries is that she needs to _ask_. I refuse to mind-read, particularly not when it comes to sex, particularly given that she has a really really hard time saying "no". I'm not going to be intimate with someone who lacks the self-confidence to say "no". To me, that's not really consensual.

She keeps pressuring me to find another partner because she keeps feeling "pressured" sexually by me. We haven't been intimate in six months. We cuddle. That's it. We barely even see each other once a week. I'm beyond "desperately thirsty" and am into full-on spinster, and now I'm supposed to go to this kink convention and... it just reminds me. Reminds me of all the love I want, all the love I deserve, all the love that I have never had for more than, like, a weekend, a honeymoon. She hates herself. She hates her body. She's at a weight where she can barely get around. I'm genuinely worried that she could have a myocardial infarction any day now. I gave her $20,000 to get off my couch in the hopes that it would, I don't know. Allow her to have the stable, healthy life I felt like she deserved. It didn't. No amount of money could. The money means nothing to me. The disappointment in watching her flail over and over and over again... that does hurt. A lot.

Most of the time being with her lets me avoid thinking about how painful it is for me, not having the support and care that comes with a loving intimate relationship. She gets upset when I talk about how lonely I am, and she's not _there_ for me, hasn't been _there_ for me for more than the occasional cuddle for six months now.

Well, if not her, than who? I went to this new years' eve party with all of the people I used to know before my folie a deux relationship with my GF burned those bridges and it's not like... they're not actually doing any better than I am. I stood there, sober and lonely, while I watched a bunch of people fucked up on all kinds of drugs desperately making out with each other. They were all extremely hot and extremely miserable. It was awkward. I'm just fucking trying to not be miserable. When it comes to relationships, I don't know how to do that. I'm 48 years old and I've _never had a healthy relationship in my entire life_. I love myself. I think I'm a wonderful person who has a lot to offer in a relationship. Where do I find people who have something to offer _me_?

That breaks my heart, Kate!! I want you to have a healthy relationship!!

I am lucky, most of my exes are amazing people. Even actually the shitty awful ex, he is shitty and awful but he’s kinda amazing in other ways, I don’t ever wanna see him again but I don’t hate him in any respect.

idk i'm having kind of a shit weekend

i feel like going out with my friends would really help me get my mind off my breakup with my girlfriend, really lighten my mood

i try talking to my friends though, and they're all dealing with so many different crises

i feel like shit and if i could, you know, just hang out with some folks and have a conversation where nobody else talks about wanting to kill themselves, where people can just be encouraging and tell me "it's ok, you'll get over her, it sucks but in the long run you'll be better off for it, you're a great person and there are tons of people who like you, here c'mon let's go for a night out on the town, shake those blues away"

instead it's like "you know what would cheer you up, you should get an onlyfans"

i'm all in favor of sex work but no. no, i'm pretty sure getting an OF would not cheer me up. i'm pretty sure taking psilocybin and undergoing "ego death" would not cheer me up. people say i'm "oppositionally defiant" but i'm gonna be honest with you i've gotten a lot of really bad advice

i mean it's not always bad advice. sometimes it's clown memes.

-

breakups are _normal_, it's _normal_ to be sad when i go through a breakup even if it's not really a breakup, more a recognition something that's already happened, even if it's not a bad thing

resilience is... like what i would _like_, where i would _like_ to be is to feel really sad and cry and recognize this is hard and painful without being in a position of...

i'm _supposed_ to get out and do the normal things, check my mail, pay my bills, do the laundry, go out with friends, and that's how i'll get to feeling better, that's how i'll get back to being a healthy, functioning human being

i'm terrified of going on dates. i'm terrified that i'll go out with someone and they'll fall in love with me because i'm the first person who's shown them human kindness in six months and they'll tell me all their darkest secrets, things they've never told anybody else

and they'll think that's romantic

i work really hard to try not to be like that anymore. i put so much effort into it. i like other people, it's just hard for me to _trust_ people i like.

and it's even harder to not blame myself. to not essentialize it, to not joke about "being attracted to red flags". to. like. acknowledge that i have this deep-seated _need_ to be hurt, _need_ to be abused, that those things are _normal_ to me, and to figure out some way to... get in relationships that recalibrate what "normal" means. i've worked so hard to believe that i'm a good person who's worthy of love, and one sort-of-breakup and here i am back really wanting to seek out people who will abuse me. those people are _so easy to find_. they are so _exciting_. they are so _hot_.

well. i guess i can write instead. it feels good to be able to write this and share it and not feel guilty about sharing it, not feel like i'm doing something wrong or being inappropriate by sharing it. it's nice. and i did go for a walk today, by myself, and i felt terrible, and i still feel terrible, and it helped.

god, dbt skills ftw

so glad i did a round

i like the vernaculzar these days tbh

ppl did actually wake up in a lot of waya and i'mb here for it

i would recommend the promise of civilization during these days of early to mid twenties and i yearn to hear some more.

dear swen, i have no idea what you are talking about lol

i am a gloomy gus by nature and my primary partner's sense of humor does not always do it for me. young pine, on the other hand, brings us all together in riotous laughter quite often. we have victorian lady alter-egos with falsetto voices, i am beatrice, young pine is priscilla and j is gwendolyn. we also do crazy eyed joe redneck voices and joke about fucking rotisserie chickens. j is always straining to come up with the worst puns. most everything else right now is kind of shit but laughter is a refuge. it's medicine i usually usually won't take but my fellas are kind of forcing it on me and it's really helping.

So! Two Victorian ladies walk into a gay bar and...

fuck a rotisserie chicken?

the kind of kink I can get behind and in front of

mmm chicken grease watch out for them bones though

never!

So, need a read on something: got into a little tiff with another poet/writer over some of the drama revolving around the closing of this independent literary distribution. We quashed it, but one of the reasons why I was wary of this person beforehand is because they seemed to often target queer dudes in their online haterade-spewing. Sometimes I have agreed with the haterade— there is a lot of very mediocre work that happens to be made by queer dudes out there— but sometimes I have wondered: why does this person target queer dudes and trans people from NYC so much? Nothing conclusive, so just a thing in the back of my mind.

Yesterday, he posted a “joke” that reads as very supportive of the work of Tom Clark. Background info:

In Dorn's (and his wife Jennifer Dorn's) magazine Rolling Stock, #5, there appeared, written in collaboration with Tom Clark, an item called "The 1983 AIDS AWARDS FOR POETRY--In recognition of the current EPIDEMIC OF IDIOCY on the poetry scene." The page featured a large illustration of a test-tube of reddish liquid, presumably infected blood, which was the "prize."

The recipients of this "award" were Dennis Cooper ("for writing the most AIDS-like line of the year: "Mark's anus is wrinkled, pink, and simplistically rendered, but cute"); Clayton Eshleman (for "attacking a dead--and thus harmless--poet, Elizabeth Bishop" in a review in the LA Times Book Review); Robert Creeley (for writing extravagant blurbs for books by Stephen Rodefer and Joanne Kyger); Steve Abbott ("for accusing everybody who doesn't like him or his poetry of 'rabid homophobia'"); Allen Ginsberg (for claiming he wrote some lyrics for the rock group The Clash, when supposedly he hadn't); and finally, "WRITE-IN CANDIDATE" ("Fill in the name of your favorite POETRY IDIOT here.").

I don’t follow, but I don’t know who Tom Clark is, or why he was shunned. That AIDS award is really bleak!

I have a few gay friends who go full misanthropy in their online exhibitions. I don’t love it. They’ve crossed lines far too many times. “A few gay friends” actually just one, really, the others who do this I tend to keep distance

omg lol what was i talking about above

that was def a post brought to you by the party bus

ok here i am trying to parse:

"so glad i did a round" = OF DBT THERAPY

"i like the vernacular these days /
ppl did actually wake up in a lot of ways and i'm here for it" = the kids are woke have and instituted a cultural vernacular surrounding identity, sexual expression and gender that i admire

"i would recommend the promise of civilization during these days of early to mid twenties and i yearn to hear some more." = civilization actually does have some promise in the 2000s lol

ok that's the best that i can do

Thanks!!!

how are you lovey?? what's the day today?

<3 <3 <3 :)

i'm good! breathing easy because of an unexpected tax break :). about to go for a run in the sun.

what's going on w u?

omg taxes

well i had a unexpectedly loud wknd, like met all kinds of people and stayed up til 6 making out with my friend last night i mean what am i 16

exhaustion central!