Remembering Bea Arthur, feminist TV pioneer
There are lots of reasons to take a moment this weekend to mark the passing of Bea Arthur, who died on Saturday at age 86 in her home in Los Angeles. The most obvious was that she was talented and hilarious, and that if you are over the age of 30 in this country, there’s a good chance that she made you laugh on a semi-regular basis at some point in your life.
But it’s also important to remember that before “Dollhouse,” before “Sex and the City,” there was “Maude.” The “All in the Family” spin-off, which ran from 1972 to 1978, starred Arthur as Maude Findlay, the Democratic-voting, women’s liberation-supporting, four times married cousin of Edith Bunker. The program, created by television visionary Norman Lear, made the news early in its run for featuring prime time’s first abortion, in a two-part episode that aired two months before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal across the country.
Seven years after “Maude,” Arthur starred in “The Golden Girls” as Dorothy Zbornak, the divorced retiree who shared a home in Florida with three other women, including her aged mother. It’s remarkable to think, given how young, glossy and pneumatic network television has become, that less than 20 years ago, the airwaves were given over to four older women who talked about sex and ex-husbands and ate cheesecake.
Many others have observed that “The Golden Girls” was “Sex and the City” before “Sex and the City,” or alternately that the “Sex and the City” ladies were only a few decades away from drinks on the lanai themselves. The show was one of the most female-friendly and respectful looks at the experience of aging while female ever broadcast on national airwaves, simply by showing women — living, talking, having sex, making friends, cracking wise, living full lives together with energy and engagement. And if you happen to catch one of the reruns that still air, chances are good you’ll laugh your ass off.
So here’s to Bea Arthur, one of television’s finest and funniest feminists.
Remembering Bea Arthur, feminist TV pioneer
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/remembering-b…
Safer or Stupid? Some Gay Men ‘PrEP’ for Sex
More than two decades into the AIDS epidemic, the well-known conundrum of condom burnout among gay men has produced a highly controversial underground practice. “Pre-exposure prophylaxis,” or PrEP, involves taking a comprehensive anti-retroviral drug, usually tenofivir, before having sex.
Some men are actually doing this because they take safer sex seriously indeed. One doctor told me of two patients who took the drug before they had protected sex with strangers as an added preventative in case a condom breaks.
But for the vast majority of gay men, PrEP means a key to not using a condom. That’s what makes it such a hot-button issue among AIDS researchers, doctors and activists. The theory behind is that the anti-retroviral drug prevents HIV from grafting itself onto healthy cells and replicating. When HIV first enters the human body, there isn’t much of it; theoretically, if those few viruses swimming around the bloodstream don’t have anywhere to go, they’ll die out–just as do millions of germs we come across every day that don’t affect us.
One prominent doctor in Boston maintained that PrEP, despite its bad rep, is necessary as one more tool in the arsenal of AIDS fighters. But others see it as an enabler for those men who don’t want to bother using protection. See Safer or Stupid? Some Gay Men ’PrEP’ for Sex
EDGE Boston -
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/safer-or-stup…
Exclusive Daily Beast Valentines Poll: The Sex Freeze and the Baby Bust
In a time where consumer confidence, consumer spending and the GDP are all on the decline, a new poll on sex and romance from The Daily Beast, an operating unit of IAC (NASDAQ:IACI), found that interest in sex in these difficult times is also on the decline. Furthermore, Americans are less likely to have children and are postponing other major life events such as getting married, moving in with a partner and getting divorced. The complete survey, including all data, is available at thedailybeast.com.
– More than one in three are less likely to get divorced
– In both sex and dating, Americans are being more careful. 41% are more
cautious about who they date and one in five are using more birth
control to avoid having children
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/exclusive-dai…
Exclusive Daily Beast Valentines Poll: The Sex Freeze and the Baby Bust
In a time where consumer confidence, consumer spending and the GDP are all on the decline, a new poll on sex and romance from The Daily Beast, an operating unit of IAC (NASDAQ:IACI), found that interest in sex in these difficult times is also on the decline. Furthermore, Americans are less likely to have children and are postponing other major life events such as getting married, moving in with a partner and getting divorced. The complete survey, including all data, is available at thedailybeast.com.
– More than one in three are less likely to get divorced
– In both sex and dating, Americans are being more careful. 41% are more
cautious about who they date and one in five are using more birth
control to avoid having children
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/exclusive-dai…
Sex scandal divides Portland gay community
(Portland, Oregon) — A confession by Portland’s first openly gay mayor that he lied about having sex with a teenager is dividing this famously progressive city, as well as its gay community.
Just three weeks after Sam Adams was sworn in, many gays are questioning whether he is the man they …
Sex scandal divides Portland and its gay community
A confession by Portland’s first openly gay mayor that he lied about having sex with a teenager is dividing this famously progressive city, as well as its gay community.
Just three weeks after Sam Adams was sworn in, many gays are questioning whether he is the man they want as their trailblazer.
“Sam has been our guy forever, which makes this even harder,” said Marty Davis, publisher of the newspaper Just Out, which has called for his resignation. “It’s completely dividing and tearing our community right down the middle.”
Portland’s progressive reputation is based on its dedication to eco-friendly buildings, its large network of bike paths, an expanding mass transit system and the city’s welcoming attitude toward gays and lesbians, which was reflected in Adams’ easy victory in last year’s election.
See Sex scandal divides Portland and its gay community
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Why Do Homosexuals Want to Serve in the Military? For the Sexing, Of Course
If you like Southern fiction — and who doesn’t — you’re always on the lookout for the next Faulkner, someone who can take you, again, to that world of idiot manchildren and spinsters having sex with skeletons. A world of drunkards and poets, where degenerates and fanatically proper and squeamish old ladies of both sexes are condemned to live beneath the same roof with relatives they could only regard as monsters. A world where bible salesmen steal your wooden leg.
A world where, most importantly, and without any warning at all, anyone you know can turn on you and suddenly try to gay you up.
Well, I have seen the future of Southern fiction, and his name is retired DEA Supervisory Special Agent Gregory D. Lee.
Gregory D. Lee is also a conservative pundit — and who isn’t — and syndicated columnist. Today his column is entitled:
Why Do Homosexuals Want to Serve in the Military? For Sex, Of Course
And it contains this:
Homosexuals predominantly want to serve in the military in order to have access to people their own age with whom to engage in sex. It’s just that simple. It’s all about sex, and not about serving the nation…
See Why Do Homosexuals Want to Serve in the Military? For the Sexing, Of Course
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-do-homose…
Look On The Bright Side, You Aren’t Mrs. Ted Haggard
These are truly terrible times. You may have been laid-off. You may have been on the receiving end of a lay-off rumor. You may have been arrested for cooking meth in the home you share with the future son-in-law of the future of the Republican Party.
Cheer up, little clown. At least you aren’t Gayle Haggard.
Remember this lady? Her husband, former Evangelical pastor Ted Haggard, admitted to having sex and meth with a male prostitute. Ted was removed from his position at the influential New Life Church, then kicked out of a de-gaying program and is now trying to sell insurance in Arizona. The couple, who have five children, are still married. Explains Gayle:
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I know to restore the honor to our children is to help restore honor to their father. |
Yes, it’s easy to snicker. Ted is participating in a documentary in which he says he never claimed to be straight. Gayle’s snotty statement above implies that gay people are without honor. We normally love to luxuriate in the hypocrisy of Christian homophobes like Gayle, but today, our feelings about her are a strange mix of schadenfreund and empathy.
Schadenfrempathy, if you will.
See Look On The Bright Side, You Aren’t Mrs. Ted Haggard
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/look-on-brigh…
