Q: I’ve heard a good bit about the controversial new film Outrage recently, especially the filmmakers’ outing of closeted gays in Republican circles. What’s the deal on outing? I always thought that members of our community agreed that coming out was a highly personal decision. Is this good manners or bad manners?Confused About Outing A: […]
Steven Petrow
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Friends don’t allow friends to sext photos
Q: My younger brother is gay, and I’ve overheard him talk about sexting on his cell phone. What exactly is this? Any harm? Worried Older Bro A: It’s simple enough: Sexting is the sending of nude (or semi-nude) photos with your cell. Not long ago I was at a party and walked over to a […]
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Can boyfriends make out in public?
Editor’s Note: Steven Petrow’s new column offers advice to LGBT community members and their straight allies on etiquette and social interaction. It will run the third Wednesday of every month. Public displays of affection Q: Can a gay or lesbian couple kiss in public? On the cheek or on the lips? How about holding hands? […]
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Remembering the lessons of Harvey Milk
Thirty years ago, I was living with my girlfriend just off Duke’s East Campus in Durham when the news came that Harvey Milk, the country’s first openly gay public official, had been gunned down in San Francisco. To be honest, I had no idea who Harvey Milk was. Twenty-one in 1978, I had yet to […]
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Reflections on last week’s discrimination against LGBTs at the polls
By now we know the devastating news that occurred in polling stations across the nation last week. Specifically, I’m thinking of the ballot measures in California, Arkansas, Arizona and Florida that codified discrimination against couples of the same sex and, frankly, the entire LGBT community. Take note that I did not say the “devastating news […]
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Joe Biden’s tears remembered
As I watched Sen. Joe Biden tear up at the end of the much ballyhooed vice presidential debate, I had a visceral moment of déjà vu. In case you missed it, the senior senator from Delaware became momentarily misty-eyed as he refuted the notion that “just because I am a man” he couldn’t understand what […]
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What the Mexico City AIDS conference taught me
Have you ever been in such a fury that you can’t see straight? That despite your best efforts, you know your anger is spilling over, attaching itself to anyone and everyone in sight? That you better get yourself under control or else … or else you might say or write something that you regreteven if […]
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They shoot gays, don’t they?
Even before last winter, Lawrence “Larry” King, an eighth grader at E.O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, Calif., had it rough. His classmates in the school, north of Los Angeles in Ventura County, routinely picked on him. “Hey you gay kid, you want to wear lipstick?” one of King’s friends recalled of the taunting. Another […]
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How to wrap your head around the pregnant man
OK, I’ll admit it. When I got my recent copy of People magazine in the mail (that’s probably a horrifying enough confession right there), I did a little head-scratching as I read the story “He’s Having a Baby” accompanied by a photo of Thomas Beatie and his pregnant belly. For those of you who might […]
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New adventures in science
Back in the late 1980s, many gay menlike mehad two sets of medical records. At the outset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, no one wanted his chart to show an HIV diagnosis, nor the fact that you had simply taken the HIV antibody test, because that meantsome way, some howthat you considered yourself at risk for […]