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.

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.

Read more.

Queer and Immigrant for the Holidays

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Erwin de Leon

Many seek the company of compatriots to recreate festivities and meals that evoke their countries of origin.

Most turn to their ethnic congregations for services consistent with their values and traditions.

Queer immigrants, like any other newcomer, can find the holidays tough. But it can also be doubly hard for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender immigrants, as they feel left out not only by the mainstream but by their own families and ethnic communities, which tend to be conservative and unwelcoming of openly LGBT individuals.

“My blood family and I had a contentious relationship due to my political involvement teemed with my sexuality and gender identity,” said K, who identifies as queer, transgender, and of Philippine descent.

“Due to this, I was kicked out, homeless, and estranged as a young person from my blood family. This has incited displacement, a painful sense of mobility, and an instability that show itself during holiday time.”

Tania, a community organizer at the Immigrant Youth Justice League and coordinator for the LGBTQ Immigrant Rights Project at the Association of Latino Men for Action, says her family has come around.

They are more comfortable with her being out, and she is able to bring her partner home for the holidays.
She nonetheless feels a great loss at this time of the year.

Tania is undocumented. Her parents brought their family over from Mexico 18 years ago when she was only 10 years old.

It is important for her to describe herself as without papers. “That’s really an important part of my identity because it’s something that has been true for me for most of my life,” she said. “It’s something that has affected every aspect of how I live.”

“It’s really difficult to listen to people’s plans of traveling at this time to a country where I can’t go even if I wish I could,” she admitted.

Read more.

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.

Read more.

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.

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.

via U.S. News and World Report

Medical schools set aside an average of only seven hours for topics related to the health care needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) patients, a new study says.

The survey of deans of 150 American and Canadian medical schools also found wide variation in the amount, content and quality of instruction on LGBT health.

For example, a third of the schools had no LGBT content during their clinical years, about 7 percent had no content during preclinical years, and about 4 percent had no content in any of their years.

And while most (97 percent) taught that physicians should ask patients if they have sex with men, women, or both when obtaining a sexual history, less than two-thirds of schools taught about the difference between sexual behavior and identity (for example, that a man might have sex with men and yet self-identify as straight).

The findings appear Sept. 7 in a medical education theme issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals have specific health and health care needs,” wrote Dr. Juno Obedin-Maliver, Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues. Some of these pertain to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, adult and adolescent health issues and issues around gender identity, among others, he said.

Compared to their peers who are not LGBT, this group is “more likely to face barriers accessing appropriate medical care, which may create or increase existing disparities,” Obedin-Maliver added.

Read more.

Read more on LifeLube.

A Gay Marriage Etiquette Guide

via Gawker, By Brian Moylan

I have everything I need. Now it’s time to get hitched!

For those who don’t want to go through all the fuss, there’s going to be a free pop-up chapel in Central Park on July 30th that will be giving out the quickie weddings that heterosexual couples who visit Vegas have been rubbing in our faces for decades. But for the rest of you who want to figure out how to have your own elaborate affair, it’s going to take more than just planning, but problem solving as well.

If you’re a heterosexual man or woman, what you’re supposed to do and when has been determined by centuries of social norms. While many gay people will want to maintain many of the traditions they’re used to seeing at straight weddings, it’s often hard to translate things that are designed for opposite-sex couples to two people of the same sex. Here are some suggestions on what to keep and what to ditch.

The Proposal

The man is supposed to get down on one knee and offer the woman a ring, right? At least that’s the way it happens on The Bachelor. What to do if you’re on an episode of The Confirmed Bachelor? I think it’s fine for either partner to ask.

You can’t say that the butch or the top should do the proposing, because we know it’s the femme or the bottom who wears the pants in the relationship—most of the time anyway. So whoever gets to it first gets to do the proposing. Expect to see “Sheila, Will You Marry Me? Love Debbie” on the Jumbotron at every Giants home game next season.

Read more on LifeLube or Gawker.

Washington Blade: Obama extends protections to gay couples under Medicaid

via Washington Blade, by Chris Johnson

The Obama administration is set on Friday to issue policy guidance to states expanding their ability to offer same-sex couples the same protections afforded to straight couples when they receive long-term care under Medicaid, the Washington Blade has learned exclusively.

Under the new guidance, dated June 10, states have the option to allow healthy partners in a same-sex relationship to keep their homes while their partners are receiving support for long-term care under Medicaid, such as care in a nursing home.

Medicaid kicks in for a beneficiary to receive care after an individual depletes virtually all of their money. To pay for the beneficiary’s expenses under Medicaid, a state could impose a lein, or take possession, of a beneficiary’s home to pay for Medicaid expenses.

However, federal law prohibits imposing this lein if beneficiaries are married to someone of the opposite-sex who’s still living in their home. The new guidance, signed by Deputy Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Cindy Mann, clarifies that states can offer this protection to the healthy partner of a Medicaid recipient in a same-sex relationship.

“A State can have a policy or rule not to pursue liens when the same-sex spouse or domestic partner of the Medicaid beneficiary continues to lawfully reside in the home,” the guidance states.

The Obama administration previously hadn’t articulated whether gay couples could receive these protections under the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage. The guidance doesn’t mandate that same-sex couples receive this protection, but allows states to “incorporate their criteria for determining when to impose a lien in the Medicaid State plan.”

Read more. Visit LifeLube.

via AIDSmeds, by David Evans

A forthcoming research report suggests a number of personal lubricants can damage anal tissue cells and increase HIV replication, potentially heightening the risk of contracting HIV, notably if condoms aren’t used.

The “personal lubricant” market is a thriving one. One popular website sells 53 different brands, with many boasting several varieties. If you’d like one that tastes like fruit or chocolate, or adds the sensation of heat, you’ve got multiple options to choose from. The same goes for the degree of slipperiness, the type of sex you want to have, the ease of cleanup and, most important, condom compatibility.

What sexual accoutrement retailers can’t tell you is whether a lube will increase, decrease or have no effect on your chance of becoming infected with HIV if the condom breaks or you decide not to use a condom in the first place. Until recently, it wasn’t a question high on the list of researchers’ or manufacturers’ priorities—lubes are intended to keep condoms from tearing during sex, end of story. But for scientists at the Population Council, a New York City–based research organization at the forefront of HIV microbicide development efforts, the positive or negative effects of lubricants on HIV transmission has been a nagging issue for years.

New research results from the nonprofit organization suggest there may be reasons for concern. According to laboratory studies the group conducted—on schedule to be published in a forthcoming issue of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses and currently available online—a large number of popular lubes may actually make it easier for HIV to get past the body’s defenses, notably during anal sex without a condom. Even more alarming is the finding that four lubes in particular cause HIV to reproduce up to four times faster than it does in the absence of such products.

Read more.

Read the Q&A on Lube Safety produced by IRMA – International Rectal Microbicide Advocates.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cWwpKMFHZo

Watch Varla Jean Merman on Manhunt Cares!