The tragic death of Dr Matt Wildbore last week as well as the imminent publication of Dr Chris Brickell’s new book “Mates and Lovers” made me think of a few things.

One thought that I keep returning to is the way our history, individual and collective, is so fragile.

For many younger men in Auckland, Matt Wildbore is not a name they’d know. For me, and I guess for my generation, he was a symbol of compassion, of care, of fun, of bravery and support through the worst days of the plague. He was vocal, he was courageous, he cared. The effort he put in, and also the efforts of many others, through those dark days when all you could expect after an HIV+ diagnosis was to get sicker and sicker and die, usually terribly, perhaps in your own shit, emaciated, blind, demented, unable to recognise those around your bed who loved you, it seems that history, that part of our culture, has been lost to some extent.

It’s as if the generation coming straight after a terrible war had no idea of the struggles their parents had been through. Tragedy is now ephemeral.

Before, the stories of a culture’s suffering and bravery, generosity and struggle, all formed part of the collective memory, something that could be referred to, something that was passed down from generation to generation. The essentially fragile, tenuous nature of gay culture and community makes this hard enough in the first place, but given that so many who did fight so bravely, who nursed, fed, wiped the arses of and cleaned up the vomit of their friends, lovers, or even strangers, or quietly looked after them as they descended into AIDS related dementia - these stories are now, it seems to me, largely gone, and certainly I think unknown by many younger gay men. They just don’t know what it was like. And that is maybe a good thing. But somehow it seems sad to me too that the struggles and amazing bravery displayed in the face of such terror and hostility are so quickly slipping from our collective consciousness.

But then the work of Dr Brickell gives me heart. He has undertaken meticulous scholarship to find out the hidden history of gay men in New Zealand from the 19th Century on. He has taken active steps to recover our past. If we are to ever really have a gay community, if it is possible, then understanding where we come from, our whakapapa, our heritage, our past, is essential. Knowing that men in the 1860s or 1920s looked to other men for love, for sex, for joy and for support, just as we do, is a tremendously important thing for us all to take on board.

The stoic in me remembers the words of Emperor Marcus Aurelius - “So many who were remembered already forgotten, and those who remembered them long gone” and it is true - the world is full of unsung or forgotten histories and biographies that are filled with acts of love, bravery, sacrfice, joy and tragedy that have been forgotten and blown as dust to the wind.

But I want to remember - and I want young gay men coming up to remember too. I want you to know where we came from, what we went through, because it matters, because without all this we wouldn’t be here today, and so you know a bit of what we had to do to get here, to this place where you are able to live in a level of social acceptance that seemed impossible to even imagine for me 30 years ago.

Remember. Remember all of it - the good and the bad, the extraordinary and the banal. It is part of us all, part of who we are and how we all got here.

Celebrate your life, love it, enjoy it, embrace it. But remember.

A good friend, who at 44 is a couple of years younger than me, had a heart attack the other week (henceforth known as HAM -Heart Attack Man). Given that he smokes like a chimney, and in his drinking makes me look (at times) like a Salvation Army officer, perhaps it’s not surprising. Worrying, as I am very fond of him, but maybe not so surprising.

Another friend, also younger than me, but only by a few weeks, has been living with a nasty cancer diagnosis (henceforth known as CB - Cancer Boy) for the last 2 months.

Both of these guys, myself and another friend (let’s call him the 4th), were sitting chatting the other night on K Rd. CB and HAM were sort of swapping notes, while both were smoking still (I can be smug as I haven’t had a ciggie in weeks and weeks now) joking a little, when I asked the 4th if was ok, and he assured me he was, and he asked me if I was ok, and I said “I’m fine thanks, just fine” or words to that effect.

There was a slight sort of pause, then I said, “Well, apart from the AIDS thingy”.

And that’s the weird thing. My AIDS diagnosis really is such a small part of my life now. Just a “thingy” I have to deal with.

I received the news in 1988, 20 years ago now. As one Dr in London told me, “You’ve probably got about 2 years or so left, why not go home to New Zealand and be with those you love” - “Get Ready To Die” is what she meant. I neither came home then nor died. Another Dr here in Auckland gave me a year to live in 1995, when I was very, very sick and pretty well living in Ward 9C or Herne Bay House. Again, unless something very major has happened and I missed it and you have all been humouring me, I haven’t died yet.

Instead, here I am, middle-aged, worrying about my weight and waistline, wondering why I no longer seem to want to stay up dancing till dawn , wishing I had a good man in my life (applications for this post may be left in the comments section below)  and trying to get a career going.

And getting seriously worried about the health of my younger friends with non-HIV related problems. Everyone use to be worried about me, and the rest of us poz people. Now I worry about my friends, and not for HIV stuff.

It is all rather disorienting you see, as I spent a lot of time and effort getting ready to die. I was determined to die well, to have “a good death” and had even chosen the music (several times in fact, always totally different) for the whole thing. I did Buddhist meditation, I went through Kubler-Ross workshops, I beat phone books to shreds with  garden hoses (long story), I studied death in Western Society, hell I even lecture at University on it! And yet, I still have to pay the rent, find something to eat, and remember to put the rubbish out. I’m still here. The world is still turning. And dear and good friends are coping with their own health problems that could well see them pop their clogs before I do at this rate.

I’m not complaining mind you. But this Friday night sitting on K Rd, it really brought it home to me. For most of us with HIV, if you do what your Dr tells you, take your meds properly and take reasonable care of yourself, well, we’re likely to be around a fair while. Long enough to worry about friends with cancer or coronary problems.

Who’d have thunk it?

Here’s a question for you: Do all immigrants to New Zealand, or any country, share the same issues? I mean, do a multi-millionaire French immigrant and his American wife settling in Marlborough and running a vineyard have that much in common with an IT peon from Shanghai in Wellington? How much does either one share with a Samoan wife joining her husband and his family here in South Auckland? They all have to adjust, they all come from somewhere else, they’ll all feel a bit different here, for a while at least, but their social and material conditions are vastly different, and this will affect how they adjust to life here.

I ask because from among the mailing lists I’m on, I received one the other day that had this acronym -  GLITTFAB = gay, lesbian, intersex, transgender, takataapui, fafa’afine, asexual, and bisexual. What an assortment! And why on earth are we all grouped together? That’s what I don’t get. As a gay man, I think I do share a few interests with lesbians.  We get to wear a few of the same labels and get some of the same shit thrown at us by wider society. But otherwise, my dyke friends and I often see things differently, where they mainly come at political issues from a feminist perspective, and I don’t nearly as much.

Thinking of my ACT supporting gay male friends who base their politics in libertarianism, they just want all and any regulations regarding adult sexual behaviour removed. But they sure as hell don’t share my lefty feminist influenced ideas on sexuality. And they take more drugs than I do. Which they also want deregulated.In fact they want pretty much everything deregulated.

Transgender? It’s not the same thing as gay – nothing like it in fact. It’s an entirely different issue. Whether FTM or MTF, they’re not gay men or lesbians. They aren’t same-sex attracted and I honestly don’t see what interests we share. And some of the MTFs I’ve met just seem like  heterosexual men in a dress.  They cling to old pre-Feminist ways of being “a lady”, some stay on with their wives, and some I can think of even beat their wives up still, but  then claim they’re oppressed.  It’s not the same sort of oppression though, is it

Intersex – well, I accept that the issues facing those born intersex are real and serious, but don’t really speak to or impinge on my life as a bumboy I’d have to say. They occupy a difficult place in society, and I’m supportive of them, but do we really belong in the same group? I don’t think so

Asexuals? Please! Fucking and who and how we fuck is one of the key characteristics that sets us fags apart – asexuality doesn’t really speak to this side of life at all. Just don’t have sex – is that really that hard? Does it need a civil rights based political liberation movement behind it as gay rights did? Really? When was the last time someone leant out a car window and screamed “Asexual pervert!” or they got denied a job or a flat because they aren’t into sex? On a subjective level, I’m sure it matters to them, but I have to say not so much to me.

I know some Maori gay men who entirely reject the label takataapui, and find Maoritanga completely irrelevant to their lives, they relate to the world and themselves as gay men first, and I know others who rate being Maori first, and put their sexuality down as a minor issue.

For some reason we’re all expected to be adequately addressed by being in this grouping. Doesn’t work for me. (apologies to Mr Herkt)

It’s not that I’m blind to the difficulties or oppression that others who are outside the sexual norms of society  have, far from it. But to lump us all together as one, as this seems to do, is starting from a false premise: to me it’s saying that just because we fall outside the bounds of heteronormativity we all have a shared set of political, material, social or cultural issues. I don’t think so. And to some extent it is defining ourselves by heteronormative terms.

I blame the academic rubbish heap known as Queer Theory for this. Theresa de Lauretis is usually credited with coming up with the term “Queer Theory” in a 1989 (I think) paper. I don’t think that where it has gone now is necessarily where she envisioned it going, but that’s by the by – academic theories often get picked up and run away with by all sorts.

Yes, there are many ways of being sexual (or even asexual) humans outside the restrictive norms of mainstream society. But just because we’re not sitting in the majority doesn’t mean that we all share common interests either. This grouping moves from biological categories (intersex) to arguably more socially constructed ones (gay & lesbian, though the nature/nurture debate on that still isn’t closed by any means)  and one only made possible via modern medical technology (transgender). We can all be labelled “queer” but I think that masks more than it reveals. And by doing that it silences some.

In New Zealand today, the oppression that used to rule over so many of us has lessened considerably, especially if you’re a gay man or a lesbian. And we got those rights through concerted political effort made over decades.

Am I unsympathetic or politically unsupportive of the rights of intersex or transgender people? No,  not at all – but do we all fit into the same category? I think not.We’re just as varied, just as diverse in where we sit in society as the group of immigrants I listed above. As they are, we’re from minorities within a larger society, but some of us are going to be able to settle in with far greater ease than others.

When I started fucking around in my teens, it was all about fun. Sex and fun. Fun and sex. I remember when I was about 18 (1979) , being told by a guy at a Gay Liberation at Auckland Uni that as no one could pregnant or hurt, I should go out and fuck my brains out, or words to that effect. After all, I was told, the worst that could happen was syphillis, and you could get that treated, or if you were really unlucky, herpes, and that could be managed. Looking back, he may have had ulterior motives…

Tell a horny 18 year old to go and have sex! Doh! Of course I took his advice.

Fuck for freedom! We were political sexual guerrillas, or so we thought. We really believed that by overturning the opressive norms of heterosexual monogamy and creating our own new way of sexually ‘being’ we were going to shake the bourgoise patriarchal edifice. Right, that worked…

So for me, and I think for a lot of men at that time, sexual freedom was a central part of who we were as out proud gay men. No more hiding in the shadows. No more “being discreet” about it. We wanted to fuck - and we did. Of course, Auckland always seemed a pretty limited arena. So, as so many others did, as soon as possible I headed off for Australia - I made it to the opening night of Steamworks in Melbourne. Later I was in the USA, at the tender age of 24, being as friendly as I could, wherever I could.

San Francisco seemed sort of the home to being gay in one way, sexy, fun, but still a bit hippyish, people talked astrology, but New York loomed large as a fuck-fest: sex, drugs, hard, fast.

By the time I got there, of course, things had quietened down a bit from the excesses (revolutionary excesses though) of the 70s. AIDS was being felt, though, as I discovered, not really being talked about.

I remember one night in The Anvil, a leather bar on the West Side, this guy taking me out into the lobby and giving me a hit of cocaine, from a little silver spoon around his neck (and wearing a spoon round your neck that must have been dated even then - so 70s!) and he told me “Before you go home with anyone, just give em a hug, and try and get your hands into their armpits, and , ya know, if their glands are swollen, don’t go home with him.” That was the first safe sex ed I can remember.

But the Mineshaft was still going, a legendary place. The spiritual home of all subsequent fuckclubs. It’s not that it was the first, I think the Caldron in SF was open before it, but it was somehow something special. There was no sign marking it - you had to know where to go to find it. Just a door with a light over it in the meat-packing district. Up a staircase, check whatever clothes you wanted, or the guy on the door thought were not in keeping, (and they had a pretty strict dress code) and in you went.

It was dark, of course, a bar upstairs and another down. A pool table by the upstairs bar. Once I saw a guy stretched out there, naked, pinned down to the felt with surgical needles. He seemed to be happy. I heard that when they first opened, the barman actually had a real mechanics greasegun filled with engine grease that he’d lube guys up with, until a couple of medical patrons pointed out this wasn’t the best idea.

It was a space that was, on its best nights, utterly wild, Dionysian, no barriers, full of everything you could imagine and more. Quite a sight for a 24 year-old Auckland boy I can tell you. Coke, speed, acid, amyl, random pills people gave you. Cocks, arses, fingers, fists, a guy with crisco on his feet which could only mean one thing - foot fucking.

But with my new leather jeans, a white t I fitted in fine, and was fairly popular. Well, as popular as I wanted to be, which depended on the night. The image, more than just image, the ethos, the entire idea behind this sort of sex and sexual performance, was masculine, exaggerated, hyper-masculinity. It was a spcae to ‘be’ a man in a different way - a place for men. A place for men to be with other men in particular ways.

It never really got going before midnight as I recall, and went on till 6 at least. But the windows were all blacked out so you never knew if the sun had come up.

Slings, chains, mazes, bathtubs, all the stuff that now is ordinary and part of any fuck-club, then it had a real edge. Once I was sitting down at the downstairs bar, having a beer and a breath, and there was a guy on the stool next to me. I sort of looked at him again, through my haze, and saw he had a tube running from his dick. At his feet he had a guy, tied and bound, blindfolded, with the tube from his dick ending in this guy’s mouth - taped of course, so he couldn’t get away. he just sat there and drank beer and recycled it.

There were some moments of real tenderness too, real meeting, that sense of intimacy that only comes after you’ve been deep inside each other, pushed each other’s nerves quite a way, that requires trust, and care, loving a stranger that you know you’ll most likely never see again.

And after it had closed, the St Marks baths were open. A cab ride over to the Village, and you could keep going.
So this was the gay culture we’d created, born out of the political dreams of the 60s, into the hedonistic 70s, and dragging itself through into the 80s.

And you know, I have to say, it was a lot of fun.

Just a shame about that little virus that had made its way into our world.

A message from a guy I don’t recognise on nzdating - “So, do you still paint your fingernails black?” How long ago was that? 1981? Did I ever paint them black?Maybe in my late-70s wannabe punk days.  I remember whore red, sometimes with turquoise glitter laid over the top when the varnish was still wet (cosmetics were more limited in those days). Not sure about black though. I did have black hair with pink stripes. And then lime green hair with a big pink triangle that came down over my forehead to the tip of my nose. I can’t remember all the rest of the stuff I put through my hair. It changed colour regularly. I used to have a beautiful white angora mini-dress, from Streetlife I think. I wore it to my first anti-Springbok tour protest outside Air NZ house, complete with the lime green and pink hair, and tights, one leg pink, one, you got it, lime-green with, I think, red boots. After getting baton-charged I started to wear more protection to protests.

I remember having a pair of black stilettos that fitted (I have big feet). I used to like to put on a pair of tight, torn Levis, a white T shirt, leather jacket, early 80s clone outfit, big glittery earrings and  the stilettos, and wander along Jervois Rd, stoned, and watch the people watching me. It was fun.

I remember buying a length of cerise silk from Wah Lee’s on Hobson Street, and standing on the back porch of our house in Albany Rd, , draped only in that silk. Glen Morris, my flatmate standing with me, both of us shouting “Cerise!” as loudly as we could, disturbing the suburban calm. We liked the word. I think we were on acid.

We called ourselves “The Empresses in Exile of Sodom and Gomorrah”. Glen’s been dead 15 years now.

I can remember being upstairs at the old Aquarius (I think, or maybe it had changed to “Staircase” by then) in Fort St one night, when around midnight, there was a sudden pause in the music, a sort of throne was put on the stage, and what I believe I was told was one of New Zealand’s first transsexuals came up and enthroned herself, and then a procession of young men in drag, I think all  in white, came out from the back bar, each with a male escort, and were presented to the queen on her throne. A mockery of the old custom of debutantes being presented to the monarch. It was funny, and fun, and tongue-in-cheek.

Although I used to do drag occasionally, I wasn’t a drag queen.  It’s been a long time ago now, but I remember it as fun. I did it more to shock than for any other reason. Drag in the middle of the day on a busy street is a lot more subversive than drag in a gay club at 1 am.

And now, look around Auckland’s gay scene, and the rest of the country, and you can’t go out to a venue without tripping over a boa belonging to a professional “drag artiste”. It seems the same in Australia too. Less so elsewhere. Drag is big in this part of the world. I’m not sure why.

The professionalisation of drag is yet another instance of our mainstreaming. What used to be a marginal, witty, cutting-edge, in-joke sort of thing, has now become an object of academic theory and capitalist commodification. Drag queens can now make good money performing at conferences, acting as MCs for various groups, and somehow we’re supposed to think they’re all “fabulous”.

I don’t. I’m bored with drag.

It has lost its danger, its edge. Today it’s just one of the tame acceptable faces of being gay. There is nothing subversive about it, and all too often, nothing very interesting or talented either. Lip-synching to divas? I’d rather listen to the song without the visual pollution. 

So I see the idea of “Negotiated Safety” (NS) has been re-appearing, both here on the message boards and in the rag. Actually, that’s unfair, Mark Farnworth in express actually wrote a fairly good, if historically uninformed piece on the topic. And at first glance it is easy to see why people go “Why doesn’t NZAF push this idea…?”

NS was first “named’ by the Australians, Kippax et al, in 1993 if my memory serves me right. They claimed they had ‘identified’ it as a strategy being used by gay men to avoid getting HIV.

I guess Mark was still in primary school when this first surfaced back in the early 90s. Official NS goes something like this: you and the guy you’re with go through a 3 month minimum process of discussing the idea, figuring out how much you trust each other, how easily you can talk about your sex-lives honestly and openly (and that’s never a problem, right?), with a counsellor,  then it’s about getting tested, sharing your test results, waiting another month or so, and keeping on talking about it all, getting tested again, and then promising never to fuck around without condoms and put your partner at risk. Whoopee ! No-one has ever lied to their partner about sleeping round, right? And once you get out of the habit of using rubbers, just how many more chances are there for a little slip-up with someone you’re playing with on the side?

Now, that 3 month minimum “talk, test,talk,test,trust” idea was one thing, but what was seen immediately after this was promoted was that guys were meeting in bars and fuck-clubs and “negotiating” their safety over a few beers while feeling horny.

Horny gay men took it as an excuse to throw away condoms.

Well duh!

And HIV infection rates in Sydney went up.

Well, double duh!

Let’s face it. Gay men have been making their own risk assessments around HIV since we first identified the virus back in 1981. Some times guys have decided that the other guy looks “clean” (God I hate that word about being HIV-) and therefore it’s all fine. Sometimes they even ask each other if they have HIV, and trusting the other guy to tell the truth, move on that. The thing is there is nothing new here folks. We’ve been doing it since Year Zero of the epidemic. And yes, HIV+ guys will more often than not throw away the rubbers if they’re with another poz guy.

The trouble with this is that NS is not that effective a strategy for safe sex promotion, for keeping HIV negative men HIV negative, which is what organisations like NZAF are charged with.

Let me give you a comparison. Let me confess, there are times I get into my car and drive when I would be over the limit. I have never once been caught, nor have I ever once caused an accident driving this way. So I must be able to drive anytime I like when I have been drinking, right? Or maybe I’ve just been very, very lucky?

I can’t imagine the LTSA ever saying “Gee, a lot of people seem to be able to drive without killing anyone after a few too many, let’s start a campaign about how to drive a bit more safely when you’re pissed.” That is what NS effectively amounts to.

Does the Cancer Society tell you how to smoke safely? No? Why not I wonder, after all, my grandfather smoked from the age of 12 and died when he was 84. Mean Cancer Society must be hiding something from us, those killjoys.

Of course you can “negotiate”, and guys have been doing it and will continue to do it, no doubt about that. But to claim it is a good idea to promote it in terms of getting an HIV prevention message across, sorry, I can’t agree with that.

Part of my research involves interviewing guys about how they got infected. And I have at least one gay guy who was in what he thought was an honest, loving committed relationship, where they decided not to use condoms, and he got infected by his partner. They “negotiated” their safety, (I don’t have it, do you? No, cool…) except the HIV+ guy was so freaked out about his condition he couldn’t admit he was positive and that every time he put his dick up his boyfriend’s arse he was exposing him to HIV . So much for love and trust protecting you.

Yes, gay men will go on making their own risk assessments, as they have done since the start of the plague. Sometimes they’ll get away with it. But not always.

The idea that NZAF or any other organisation charged with promoting safe sex and with a special responsibility for gay men would push this as a safe strategy is just dumb. If you believe that it is a good thing, you really don’t get what the NZAF is there for. Guys do it, have done it, and will continue to doit, but it’s not a safe-sex strategy.
If you want to make sure you don’t get HIV, but want to enjoy a good sex-life, then use rubbers and lube.

I can guarantee you that every year some guys in New Zealand will practice a form of NS, just as we have since the 80s, and that some of them will get infected by people they thought they loved and could trust and some by total strangers they “negotiated” with in a bar the night before.

 I like bars. But, you see, I do like a drink and chat. And even with their drawbacks, bars are one of our main social spaces as homos.

There are guys I know from bars and only from bars. We never or very rarely socialise outside them. Yet we know each other, or we know about each other. I think the gay male world is one of the few places where you can know a guy’s intimate details, you know, how big his cock is, whether he likes to top or bottom, what sort of men he goes for, any special kinks, does he like to get pissed on, or get turned on by leather, and still never know his surname, how big his family is, what his living room looks like or what he does for a living. 

But you will know what he drinks.

In fact, you can know all that about another guy without ever having talked to him or even had sex with him. You see, we do tend to talk to each other and about each other.

Every time I see one particular guy walking down the street, I think “There goes Mr Accident” after a friend told me of an unfortunate occurrence with him one night, resulting from a combination of too much lube, too many toys, and not enough douching. Nuff said. And I’ve never even spoken to this guy, and doubt I ever will. I don’t even know his real name. But I know about that unfortunate night.

You know the ones behave like dykes i.e. move their music collection and furniture in by the end of the second date and insist on going to the SPCA and getting a puppy together.

You know their opposite - the masters of the mixed-message : they are all over you, they chase you, they send you suggestive texts at odd hours, then, just as you think things are getting good, they disappear. A few months later they see you, their eyes light up, they explain how busy they’ve been, and then, they’re gone again.

You know the party-boys, the drinkers, the pill-poppers, the p-heads, the bitter cynics, the eternal romantics, the stoners, the predators, the parasites, the drunks, the hookers, the bears, the bores, the twinks, the twink-chasers, the daddy-chasers, the happy couples, the not-so-happy couples, the cock-teases, the sluts and of course the arrogant “I am so hot I wouldn’t let Dan Carter fuck me if he asked” gym-bunnies.

The funny thing with the gym bunnies is so many of them are of the “see Tarzan, hear Jane”  types.  They spend hours at the gym, they are pumped, they are ripped, they make the All Blacks look like the Invercargill RSA Ladies’ Senior Bowling Team. They open their mouths…and sound like they got rejected for Priscilla because they sound too gay. 

And then you see the serious leather guys, dressed in their dead cow, with their cigars and facial hair, piercings and tatts, talking about real-estate, recipes or the opera… I do recall years ago in the old University Club on Collins St in Melbourne, when I was 18 and fresh *wistful sigh* a this really hot guy saying to me once “The more leather and chains they have on, the more invisible lace there is floating in the air behind them”

Yet beyond all this, there are real friendships I have made through the bars. Even at times when I don’t know very much more about these men, I have had long intense and interesting conversations, often over months, taken up again every Saturday night, about life, love, sex, politics, travel etc. Sometimes these even move beyond the bar - that tentative transplant, like lifting a delicate plant and re-potting it, moving the friendship into another social setting. Will we still like each other if we meet in a café, or over a meal? Usually the answer is yes.

And we do tend to look out for each other. I’ve been picked up a few times off the floor when too many different substances in combination have had an undesired effect, and done the same for others too.

The most memorable one was downstairs in the Mineshaft in the 80s in New York. It had been a very long night of partying and sex, and things were winding down, when someone gave me something or other, and the next thing I remember is two huge leathered up muscle boys leaning over me, one fanning my face with his leather cap saying “Oh honey, are you ok? You don’t want to pass out down here!”

Fancy a drink?

I don’t think about why I am  gay so much these days, unless I have to. When I was an angst-ridden teenager, it occupied my mind considerably.

Why was it that I had no sexual  interest in girls, like the other boys did, I wondered? Why did I enjoy showers so much, all of us standing around in the communal shower room, talking and soaping up. Why did I keep thinking about guys all the time? Why were all my wet-dreams based around men, not women? What was wrong with me and how could it be fixed?

I was terribly confused, full of self-doubt, and sure there was something deeply “wrong” with me for all this. My family would reject me, if they ever found out, as would my friends. I would be an outcast, a weirdo, unloved and unlovable forever. And it took me a while to get over it, quite a while really.

But when I think back to before my balls dropped, I remember that even as a five-year old, while I enjoyed hanging out with the girls in primary school and talking, I also really enjoyed the few boys who were my mates. I wished they’d stop chasing that silly ball and come and sit and talk with me. I wanted to be “best friends” with them. I was emotionally attracted to them, in a sweet innocent childish way.

How I see things now is that, for me anyhow, being gay isn’t about sex, as much fun as that is. It’s about that emotional pull.

What makes me a homo is that I want to have my primary emotional relationships with other men. The sex is great, it’s fun, but it’s the icing on the cake rather than the cake itself.

I am gay because I love men. Not just because I fuck them. And from the conversations I’ve had with other guys I am sure I’m the only one at all.

And I think that’s a really important point to remember.

As gay men we want to love other men. We are attracted to other men, not just sexually, but with our hearts and our minds.

I’ve often been struck by the way young gay guys who are just coming out, when they are 15 or 16 or so, will say “I want to find a boyfriend !” They want a guy to love and to be loved back by. It is this emotional drive that , to me, really makes us gay. And I was certainly like that back then too. Yes, I dreamed of sex, but I also dreamed of love, with a man. I wanted a guy in my life, not just his cock.

What does our gay scene offer though?

Bars, nightclubs, fuck-clubs, saunas, sex, drugs and booze. All of which, I hasten to add, have their place. Trust me on that!

But we are utter crap at giving ourselves and young guys coming out a social environment where they can have a chance at meeting each other without the pressure of sex. And we are utter crap at doing this for ourselves as we get older as well.

It is as if the gay world has been stuck in this time-warp, all we do is go to bars and clubs or fuck clubs or the internet. And while exceptions exist, they are not exactly conducive to meeting like-minded guys who you might actually be able to think about forming a life with, through sickness and health, good times and bad. Yes, I know I’m generalising, there are gay bowling groups, gardening groups and so forth, but for most of us, I’d say that it is still the bars that form the centre of gravity, or increasingly, chat-rooms. But most of the chat tends to be about sex.

And the straights focus on our ‘peculiar’ sexual habits too. Putting things up our arses and in our mouths and so on. Yet really, how much time do you spend fucking in even the best relationship? A lot of it is about whose turn it is to cook dinner or why didn’t he buy milk on the way home when he knew he used the last of it that morning on his muesli, or being there by his side when he thinks everything in his life is crap. Relationships aren’t all flowers and fucking.

But it’s the love of men that makes us queer I reckon. To love, and to be loved by another guy. That’s the key for me. That’s what makes me gay: it’s all about love.

I’ve been thinking about cock a lot. Well Duh! I am a homo after all. And I’ve seen a lot of cock in my life. OK, more than just seen.

I mean, of course I like arses, legs, arms, chests, stomachs, armpits, faces, etc, but really, if a guy doesn’t have a dick, well, as they said in Sex and The City, I’m just not that into him.

But guys, never give your dick a name “This is my mate, little David” – it’s so straight.

And cocks are all so different. And I don’t just mean size. Some are aesthetically perfect, beautiful objects, that have just the right colour, size and heft (you have to hold it in your hand and feel the weight to really know how good it is) - they just look perfect on that guy’s body. A good heavy cock is a delight. And the arguments you can have over the virtues of cut vs uncut. Gives a whole new meaning to wearing a hoodie. Not to mention the debates on the merits of length vs girth. Hours of fun.  Most cocks are ok to good, which means they are great, even though most of us are insecure about our own.

Now let me add to your insecurity.

Let’s face it, some are downright ugly. And there is no rhyme or reason. I’ve seen some of the most beautiful cocks on some of the most ordinary looking guys, and some really ugly cocks on guys with gym ripped bodies and GQ faces. Life can be so unfair. And some of those dickshots on guy’s profiles online. Not flattering.

And how can you separate cock from balls?  So sensitive, such fun to play with, to fondle, to squeeze, to lick and again, so many shapes and sizes. Big and bouncy, low hangers, tight nuts, hairy or smooth or shaved, and happily  resting on your chin. Ah, balls. Love ‘em. And again, some are just objects of pure aesthetic delight, and some, less so…

The ugliest cock I ever saw was in 1985 (it is etched into my memory). It was in Turkey, and after a bus-breakdown in a small town I ended up sharing a room with another passenger on the bus. He kept making passes at me and I kept backing away. In the morning I woke to find him parading round the room with his underpants pulled right up the crack - he was trying  to get me to fuck him again, and finally pulled his pants down to reveal what I can best describe as a tiny frost-bitten rosebud. In Turkey, boys don’t get circumcised till they are about 10, and his had gone wrong: very, very wrong. I was up and dressed and out of that room so fast.

Size: ah well, there’s the perennial issue for all men, and especially gay men. Who ever worries their cock is too big? And I have to say, I’ve never met one that was. And I’ve met a lot of cock over the years. Have I already mentioned that? And most of us, whatever our ethnicity, are in the 5.5-6.5 inch range. They have even done repeated studies on African men that show that the super-size black cock is really just a myth. Or a piece of nasty objectifying racism, depending on your politics.

Some guys do have small cocks. And some of them can be really beautiful too, and fun to have fun with as well. I’ve had some great sex with guys who had little ones. But the anxiety and embarrassment that having a little cock can give gay men, an audience who are, like me, phallically appreciative, is not to be ignored. If it’s any comfort, the Ancient Greeks thought small cocks showed you were civilised, and big ones were marks of being like an animal. But who listens to the Ancient Greeks these days?

The tyranny of porn, where dicks are nearly all at least 8 inches or look that way, is partly to blame. And the fantasies we create in our own heads. And of course, most guys under-estimate the size of their own dick because we look down from on high, rather than being able to gaze with wonder and delight from the front.

Is there a way around size anxiety? I guess it’ll always be with us, some how or another.

But as much as I love cock, the main thing to remember is that there is actually a living person attached to the other end. So if when the pants go down and it’s not what you’d thought, remember what your mother taught you and be polite!  - there’s a guy standing there in front of you, naked and vulnerable, with a heart as well as a cock, and he surely deserves to be treated as well as you do, whether his dick is out of your wildest dirtiest fantasies or leaves you less than impressed.

A friend just rang and offered me a free ticket to tonight’s HERO Party, and I said “Hmm, well, I don’t think I really want to go. It’ll just be another Salvation”

“Me too” he said, “I can’t be bothered, that’s why I’m getting rid of the ticket”

What happened? Why don’t I care about the HERO Party anymore? I still like a good party, a big night out, but, HERO - meh.

It used really be something, the whole HERO Festival. There was a real spirit in the air, a sense of fun and occasion. But, back then, there were hundreds and hundreds of locals involved in making things happen, a few paid, most volunteers. And that created a real buzz, a sense of expectation: this was going to be OUR big night out.

Remember the grand opening in Aotea Square? That was an event. Remember the parade? That was an event. The mini-film festivals, all the other things, the magazine, just the general sense of build-up to a great time.

Today, well, the HERO Brand Management Group run it. I have no idea who they are. I have no idea what the HERO brand is about or why it should matter to me.

Yes, I know about the incompetence and financial mismanagement that dogged it in the past and why they changed the way they operate. Some very dodgy dealings went down which helped sour the whole thing for the “community” or those who had year after year put time and heart into making a great event.

But today, now, I just can’t be bothered. HERO doesn’t do it for me.

Does it do it for you?