Author Archives: themoderngay

Apr 06 2013
1 Comment
TRAVEL

LAS VEGA(Y)S

Las Vegas

Las Vegas tourism has launched a glossy new campaign targeting the gay travel dollar. These posters reminded me of my own experiences in Sin City…

If you’ve never been to Las Vegas then your perception of the place is probably based on movies such as The Hangover or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. After visiting Sin City in August 2012, I can confirm that these movies are indeed fair and accurate documentations of the kinds of debauchery that one can expect. There’s something about the mix of weather, people, alcohol and desert isolation that makes visitors crazy. After only 3 nights of intense partying, I was glad to have made it out alive.

I never had the inclination to visit Vegas. Casinos, breasts and fake Venetian canals never did appeal to me but when I was asked to be best man at my best friend’s wedding in New York, I knew that there was only one place to host the bachelor party. And if we were going to do Las Vegas, we were going to do it right!

As the only gay man in a group of 12 very straight boys, I surrendered myself to the reality that I would have to partake in many a “straight” activity over the weekend. It didn’t even cross my mind that there would be any potential for some gay quiet time, not that it bothered me. I quite enjoyed dancing with strippers on tables in nightclubs and having conversations with waitresses at restaurants. Though, a part of me was curious as to whether or not there was a side of Las Vegas that I was missing. A side filled with hot American boys who played for my team.

It was thanks to a stripper named Destiny (or Cherry or Chastity) that I was to be introduced to the other side of Vegas. Destiny had been flirting with me for a good half hour while sitting on my lap in our cabana at the Encore Beach Club. I had tired of the conversation and was becoming slightly unhinged by the amount of our alcohol that she was consuming. Obviously I would never normally do anything to sabotage the enjoyment of my straight friends but I couldn’t take any more advances from opportunistic girls who wanted to drink for free.

“I’m gay”, I announced bluntly over the sounds of Calvin Harris’ DJ set in the hope to deflect her from our cabana.

“Well then let’s go find you a man”, responded Destiny with a sense of child like eagerness and excitement.

Destiny dragged my by the hand and led me around the pool, which was overflowing with muscle men and half naked girls, indicating to the crowd with bizarre and obscene hand gestures that I was a homosexual. Much time had passed and I was starting to feel like the only gay in the village when Destiny spotted a handsome young chap amongst the sea of party people. We waded through the lukewarm water (which was a pleasant relief from the 49 degree desert heat) towards the young man.

“I’m Destiny and this is my gay boyfriend. You guys should hang out” explained Destiny.

And hang out we did. For the next 12 hours, me and my new Canadian friend explored the other side of Las Vegas. I didn’t feel guilty abandoning my friends because over the course of the pool party they too had found their own things to “do”. We ran around The Strip and hopped from bar to bar, party to party, pool to pool late into the night and the next morning until we parted ways and promised to stay in touch (which we all know never happens).

Overall my Vegas experiences was everything I had hoped for, and more. As best man, I had coordinated an epic weekend for my mates and we had certainly done it right with limos, tables, dinners, clubs, parties, girls AND boys. Everyone had fulfilled their expectations while some of us had our expectations surpassed.

You may be curious as to what else happened between me and the Canadian but as the old adage goes “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”…..

What is your craziest Vegas story?

Tagged , , , , , ,
Apr 05 2013
Leave a comment
MUSIC Video

FRIDAY MUSIC FIX: LADY

Currently fixed on “Please don’t do it again” by Lady.

Sounds like: The golden age of R’n’B

Enjoy with: A mojito, a cigar and oversized sunglasses

Tagged , , , ,
Apr 04 2013
2 Comments
RULES

RULE NO.2: BE A ROLE MODEL

JudgementDayPreview[6]

Like most gay boys, I went through a period of prolonged confusion during adolescence. I would hook up with girls and try be one of the boys but neither felt right. What troubled me the most was that I didn’t fit perfectly within the gay stereotypes by which I was measuring my own sexuality. Constantly I would debate back and forth as to whether or not I was actually gay. My process went something like this:

I love acting which means I’m gay but Brad Pitt is an actor and he’s not gay.

I play right-mid on the school soccer team and I’m on the swim team which means I’m straight. Gay guys don’t like sports.

I think about other boys on the swim team which means I’m gay but everyone has feelings about the same sex at one point in their lives. Right?

I like fashion but I don’t wear tight shirts or short shorts.

At the time the only gay men that I had access to were those on television; the men of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”, Stanford from “Sex and the City” and that hairy guy who won the first season of Survivor. But I couldn’t relate to any of these men. There was nobody to look up to. I had no gay role models.

In the ’90s the limited gay characters that were portrayed in movies and television always seemed to fit similar molds; the flamboyant and fabulous gay, the bitchy gay, the promiscuous gay, the confused gay or the gay dying from AIDS. There were no positive examples of well rounded, happy gays who just got on with their lives. I never wanted to be like of any of these men nor could I relate to any of them which made my process of self acceptance that little bit more difficult. Beyond the movies there were no gay figures in pop music, business, politics or sport (other than Ian Roberts) or at least none that were actively discussing their sexuality.

Now is the time for the positive gay role model. I believe it is the duty of my generation to show the next generation of young men, struggling with their sexuality, how to be well rounded gay men in the modern world. I am grateful for the generations of men who came before me who fought for gay rights but the next fight wont be political or social but personal. It will be an internal fight. We will need to ask ourselves “now that I have rights, now that the stigma around homosexuality has been somewhat lifted, what does it mean to me to be a gay man?”.

We need as many role models as possible to lead this fight so that young gay boys have positive examples of homosexuality, men from whom they can learn so that eventually there will be less and less boys struggling with their sexuality.

Who are gay men that you look up to?

Photo Credit: Judgment Day by Troy Dunham & Jeff Eason

Tagged , , , , , ,
Mar 21 2013
Leave a comment
STYLE

MEN OF DISTINCTION: TOM FORD

Tom Ford

Tom Ford is the personification of style. He embodies all the qualities of a modern gentleman; good manners, well groomed and intelligent creativity, all with a sexy overtone.

Who do would you nominate as a Man of Distinction?

Tagged , , ,
Mar 04 2013
Leave a comment
SOCIAL

BELVEDERE AND DNA MAGAZINE “MAKE BELIEVE” PARTY

Belvedere Vodka and DNA Magazine hosted a “Make Believe” party on Saturday 2nd March to coincide with the Sydney Mardi Gras parade. Upstairs Beresford was transformed into a “Winter Wonderland” where celebrities, musicians and Sydney’s party people enjoyed bespoke Belvedere cocktails and premium entertainment from the likes of Van She, Collarbones and DJ Kitty Glitter. The event was hosted by international party queen Jodie Harsh and continued long after the parade had finished.

Many brands have cautiously dipped their toe into the “gay dollar” pond but it’s rare to see a brand such as Belvedere associate itself so wholeheartedly with the gay community. I guess this is because brands have traditionally been affraid of isolating mainstream consumers by aligning with polarizing smaller markets.

Disclaimer: Although I am the PR Account Manager for Belvedere Vodka, their decision to host an event to coincide with Mardi Gras was made independently of my input. I had always been an adorer of the Belvedere brand and was very impressed by their previous years’ gay events long before I was even on the payroll.

 

 

Tagged , , , , , ,
Mar 01 2013
2 Comments
RULES

RULE NO.1: THERE ARE NO RULES (EXCEPT FOR ONE)

francisco-lachowski

I am a sucker for self help books. I cannot satisfy fast enough my appetite for reading the latest New York Times Best Seller on “How To Live the Life You Imagined” or “Grow Rich by Thinking”. While most of my peers are on the internet shopping for clothes and accessories or looking at porn, I’m trawling Amazon for obscure books on self esteem written by psychologists from Sweden. And looking at porn.

It reached the point when my shelves, side tables and cupboard couldn’t accommodate any more books by Tony Robbins that I asked myself “Why am I so fascinated by this genre of literature?”. The answer was simple, I was looking for a definitive solution. A formula to life. A set of rules that when followed would guarantee money, success, fame, a Brazilian model boyfriend, fabulous friends, a SL55 Mercedes (and Range Rover Sport), limitless funds to travel, an apartment in New York, a house in the Hamptons, four children, a dog, a live-in masseuse and a pool boy who wore cutoff denim shorts while singing “she works hard for the money” a la The Birdcage. Surely if I read enough then eventually I would have sufficient knowledge and life would unfold seamlessly? I realised that I was missing the point.

While many self help books spruik the benefits of simply reciting affirmations to achieve success or visualising your life as you want it to be in an approach that I can only describe as the “fast food” method, there are many books that offer true insight into how to improve your life. The former category is rather shallow and taps into people’s laziness and need for a quick fix in order to sell copies while the latter category takes a more spiritual approach. Summed up rather briefly, the “fast food” method gives you rules to follow in order to find fulfilment in whichever area you are lacking while the “spiritual method” teaches you that there is only one rule. And that rule is the importance of being true to yourself. When you are true to yourself, everything else falls into place. The things that you really want become clear and you often find that they are significantly different to the things you valued before. True happiness can only come from within and in order to access this happiness you first need to honour your truth.

Why do so many gay men suffer? I believe that it’s because for so long we have denied our true selves or hated our true selves. We have created beautiful bodies to hide behind, adorned our exterior in flashy clothes, involved ourselves in bitchiness and drama all in attempt to deny our inner pain, a pain caused by avoiding our inner truth.

This is why rule number one is the most important rule of all. There are no rules in life more important than honouring your true self. Only then can one find true fulfilment and happiness. Some of the richest and most successful people I have come across are also the most miserable. They followed the so-called rules of life which indeed lead them to money, success, fame but once they started living the lives they thought they always wanted, they realised they were still unhappy. To be happy is to be true to yourself. That is all there is to know.

So put down the self help books because I have done the readings for you and it can all be summed up  beautifully in one sentence, written by my favourite author Eckart Tolle:

True Salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is to be who you are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself

What do you think is the key to happiness? Comment below and share your thoughts.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
Newer posts →