teh gay

This book, Sex Variant Woman: The Life of Jeannette Howard Foster by Joanne Passet, appeared on my desk yesterday or the day before (meaning I may have requested it, so I'm not sure it should be part of the Gay Count):

Maybe because I'm a lesbian history geek, this one completely appeals to me (I also loved reading Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, for instance ... history! So interesting!). Every page I open to makes me tear up with admiration for the subject of the book.

Jacket flap:

Jeannette Howard Foster was to lesbianism in the mid-twentieth century what authors such as Gore Vidal and James Baldwin were to gay men. The first librarian at the famed Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, Foster unapologetically blew the lid off Cold War sexual repression in 1956 with her Sex Variant Women in Literature — the first-ever study of homosexuals, bisexuals, and cross-dressing characters appearing in more than 300 works, from ancient times to the present. ... Now Joanne Passet offers a captivating, entertaining biography of this singular woman whose life defined the history of lesbianism in the twentieth century.

Also? Foster lived in Kansas City for a time. My foremother! (When I head to visit the fam this weekend, I'll try to make a pilgrimage to the house and post pix.)

Book: $27.50 at Powell's (linked above), pubbed by Da Capo Press. Joanne Passet, the author, is a prof at Indiana University East. Go, Midwest!

Just in time for the end of Pride Month (except in Eugene, but that's another story) ...

Best. Stupidity. Ever.

One News Now replaces the "Gay" in Tyson Gay's name with "Homosexual."

(You, know, the Tyson Gay who almost sort of wind-aided broke a world record?)

As in, "Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic Trials" and

Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.

Cannot stop laughing.

Plz to read original post.

By the way, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Book in my mailbox a minute ago:

Description on back of book:

Adult film legend Aiden Shaw follows up his bestselling memoir, My Undoing, with a searing look at sexual excess. In Brutal Uncut Paul's life is spinning out of control with his hardcore partying, leading him to seek out abusive and degrading sex. But this comes with a price — one that nearly destroys him on his hazardous path to redemption.

Brutal Uncut, available at Powell's for $14.95.

Or, if you're the resident gay, here at the EW.

Just so you know, Shaw's other book titles are Brutal (um ... hm), Wasted and Boundaries.

You know what's hilarious? Edmund White, Blake Morrison and Simon Callow blurbed the book. Seriously.

Callow:

Somewhere deep inside its harrowing pages is an unexpected quality: innocence. It takes you all the way with it down the vertiginous tunnels of the story.

Morrison:

His accounts of sex, drugs, sado-masochism, therapy and clubbing are brutally candid ...

(I love the juxtaposition of S&M with therapy ... and clubbing!)

White:

If you enjoy reading about young male prostitutes and their lurid exploits, you'll love Aiden Shaw's new novel.

OK, well, I have nothing particularly against S&M oriented, therapy-going, drug-taking, tunnel-burrowing young male prostitutes, but it's true that I'm probably not dying to read about 'em. So if you want this book, write me a 100-word email explaining why you deserve it.

suzi at eugeneweekly dot com

I look forward to your super-gay missives.

Apparently, I finally passed some kind of "resident gay" test.

(Read more here.)

Image of first couple to be married in Montreal, courtesy of Wiki Commons

Hey! If you're an adult hanging out in California and you're in a relationship with one other person and you want to formalize that relationship by getting married, guess what?

YOU CAN!

One of yesterday's most affecting articles, to my mind, was one in the New York Times, a blog entry that invited same-sex couples to share their stories.

People's stories made me cry. Seriously. I mean, I'm not into the marriage thing myself (I'm more into the EVERYBODY deserves health care, the recognition of relationships etc. kind of thing), but who wouldn't get all teary-eyed reading the stories?

But they're mostly not from Oregon, and I want to hear from Oregonians.

So I'm shamelessly copying the NYT's idea. Are you Officially Oregonially Domestically Partnered? Did you go to Canada to get hitched? Are you headed for Cali this summer to ring them bells? When did you get together? What's your story?

Please share in the comments.

And please note: This is a moderated blog post. Offensive, anti-gay comments of any stripe will be taken down.