What's Your Excuse for Being on Queerty This Christmas?

Hey, you there? What are you doing on the world wide web on such an important religious — or, according to other religions, pagan — holiday? Well so long as you're here, you might as well talk amongst yourselves. Tell Queerty: How are you spending Christmas? Are you with family, friends, partners? Is this Christmas better than last year? What did you get — and give — this holiday season? And most importantly: Were you good or naughty this year? Honest answers only!

Or instead, you can debate whether or not Rudolph is a big 'mo.

(Photo: Michael Breyette)

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Soap star: 'Coronation Street needs more gay characters'..

A Coronation Street actor has said the soap needs more gay characters.

Antony Cotton, who is openly gay, plays the camp Sean Tully in the ITV soap.

According to Holy Soap, the former Queer As Folk star said: "The story goes that one in person in ten is gay. We've got 70 people in ours [Coronation Street] so there should be seven gay characters at least.

"Especially as Weatherfield is the gayest place on the planet as far as female characters are concerned! It's the campest show on TV at times."

On portrayals of gay characters on TV, he said: "The more there are, the more people are not going to seek representation.

"You can associate with one type and say that's who I'm similar to, and not that person, but it's not a problem because there are two different portrayals."

Stonewall estimates that between six and nine per cent of the population is gay.

Coronation Street did not have any gay activity until 2003, despite its massive gay fanbase.

Gay men and lesbians more likely to seek treatment for mental health and substance abuse..

Gay men and lesbians are around twice as likely as their straight counterparts to seek treatment for mental health issues and drug and alcohol abuse, a study has suggested.

The research from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), surveyed more than 2,000 California residents.

It found that 48.5 per cent of gays, lesbians and bisexuals had accessed treatment in the last year, compared with 22.5 per cent of straight people.

Lesbian and bisexual women were the most likely to seek treatment, which researchers said was unsurprising as women use health services more than men.

Heterosexual men had the lowest rates of treatment.

Researcher Susan Cochran said: "It is well known that health services utilisation is greater among women generally. Here we have shown that minority sexual orientation is also an important consideration. Lesbians and bisexual women appear to be approximately twice as likely as heterosexual women to report having received recent treatment for mental health or substance use disorders."

"The pervasive and historically rooted societal pathologising of homosexuality may contribute to this propensity for treatment by construing homosexuality and issues associated with it as mental health problems," she added.

Nude Olympian Men: Aldo Montano

Wow. Props to this Olympic fencing champion for giving us these great pictorials. Aldo Montano is from Italy, for those of you are wondering where he got his great, sexy look.

Belgrade conference venue staff should be sacked for refusing gays says minister

The directors of a conference hall who cancelled a press conference by a gay organisation for "security reasons" should resign.

Marko Karadžić, minister for human rights in the Serbian government, said the behaviour of the Sava Centre was unacceptable.

The Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) news conference was due to take place at the New Belgrade premises.

The cancellation caused a protest of Alliance activists.

"What surprised me is that is that such discriminatory opinions, which made the news conference impossible, were explained in that way—that means neither the place, nor the hall were a problem, but only the organiser and the theme which was to be discussed at the press conference," said Mr Karadžić.

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President Barack Obama sworn in

by Lisa Keen - Keen News Service Calling for an end to "petty grievances" and "worn-out dogmas," President Barack Obama addressed a vast global audience, taking the oath of office as the 44th President of the United States and the first person of color to lead the nation from the highest office in the land.
by Lisa Keen - Keen News Service Calling for an end to "petty grievances" and "worn-out dogmas," President Barack Obama addressed a vast global audience, taking the oath of office as the 44th President of the United States and the first person of color to lead the nation from the highest office in the land.

There was no specific mention of "Gays" in his inaugural address, though Obama continuously did so throughout his campaign and even in the addresses leading up to the January 20 inauguration. Instead, there were many broadly worded references that could be interpreted to apply to any number of conflicts facing Americans.

"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord," said Obama early in his address. "On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics." "The time has come," said Obama, "to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."

More...
There was no specific mention of "Gays" in his inaugural address, though Obama continuously did so throughout his campaign and even in the addresses leading up to the January 20 inauguration. Instead, there were many broadly worded references that could be interpreted to apply to any number of conflicts facing Americans.

"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord," said Obama early in his address. "On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics." "The time has come," said Obama, "to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."

More...

COLTO CON LE MANI SUL PACCO, CONDANNATO A 200 EURO DI MULTA

Da oggi in poi la classicata `palpatina` ai genitali sarà considerata reato. Lo ha stabilito la Corte di Cassazione condannando un operaio che "sulla pubblica via si toccava vistosamente i genitali".

Un operaio in tuta da lavoro che si mette le mani sul pacco per una sistematina: esiste nulla di più eccitante per un essere umano sessualmente attratto degli uomini? No. Checchè se ne dica, la classica 'palpatina' scatena sempre un irrefrenabile istinto voyeuristico.

Bene, da oggi possiamo scordarcela. Con la sentenza 8389 la Corte di Cassazione ha confermato 200 euro di multa (e 1000 di ammenda) nei confronti di un operaio comasco che "sulla pubblica via si toccava vistosamente i genitali (da sopra i vestiti)". L'uomo era stato condannato dal tribunale di Como l'11 maggio dello scorso anno. Contro questa decisione ha fatto ricorso in Cassazione sostenendo che il gesto da lui "effettuato, equiparato a un grattamento, non era nient'altro che un movimento compulsivo e involontario, probabilmente finalizzato alla sistemazione della tuta da lavoro".

Il ricorso non è stato però accolto dalla terza sezione penale della Suprema corte, secondo la quale "il palpeggiamento dei genitali davanti ad altri soggetti, in quanto manifestazione di mancanza di costumatezza ed educazione, deve considerarsi atto contrario alla pubblica decenza, concetto comprensivo di quel complesso di regole comportamentali etico-sociali che impongono a ciascuno di astenersi da condotte potenzialmente offensive del sentimento collettivo della compostezza del decoro, generanti disagio, disgusto e disapprovazione nell'uomo medio". Sono considerate indecenti anche le palpatine scaramantiche.

Una cosa è certa: nel nostro paese c'è un bizzarro concetto di 'decenza'. E anche un'altra: alla Corte di Cassazione hanno un sacco di tempo libero.

redazione@gay.tv

1

Gay Turkey

For the gay people who have not visited Turkey before, the first step should be getting familiar with the gay culture. The gay culture of Turkey is fairly different than the gay culture of the western countries, as is the case with the general Turkish culture. Turkey, being situated at the intersection of Europe and Asia geographically, was effected both by the western and oriental cultures. Turkey is the only Muslim country where homosexuality is not illegal. This makes Turkish gay life unique in the world. This difference might be good or bad depending on your expectations, but one thing is for sure: It is very vivacious and interesting.
Note that we avoid to cause another misunderstanding with above explanation, because in the west there is already a very big misunderstanding about Turkish culture. Surprisingly, some people in the west still think of Turkey as a very typical and traditional Middle-Eastern country and some of them even think Turkey is just like other Arabic countries and the religion is dominating everything. In reality, Turkey has got a special culture of her own, much closer to the Western culture than most other Middle Eastern countries, except her incorrigible economy maybe.
To understand the gay life in Turkey, let's analyze two Turkish words: "ibne" and "oglan". Actually, both words literally mean "boy" although they are now being used as expression of insult. "Ibne" is originally exported from Arabic and it is being used with a meaning very close to "faggot" in today's Turkish. Although "oglan" means exactly "boy" in formal Turkish, it is often being used to mean "gay" in slang language. Their present meanings' got a historical background:
As we all know, a boy is not a man, not hairy, without beard, with a voice more like a woman, he's got a softer skin etc....As you can easily notice, these are all descriptions of a woman. Especially at times when religion was stronger, a boy could probably be the substitution of a woman. This might be a key to understand the remains of the history in modern Turkish gay culture. Today, the dominating gay-life style for the gay people living in Turkey is between two groups; the "active" ones who would NOT mostly accept to be called "gay" and who are mostly bisexuals, and the "passive" ones who pretend to be women in bed, and who act and sometimes dress themselves up more effeminately. So the first question after meeting a gay-related person might very possibly be "Are you passive or active (bottom or top) ?"
Spreading use of the English word "gay" also is an indication of changing gay culture in recent years. Other people are also getting more conscious about gay people and accepting their different sexual identity more. But still there's a long way to go, and maybe it's questionable which life style is better.
Maybe, these different cultures might be considered as an advantage for gay people in Turkey in a way, since they have at least the two alternatives to choose as their life styles.