Sundays are for long baths, sleeping in and spending the day lounging around the house (shirtless or in your Sunday best), just like Nick Steele in this 2013 shoot by Tony Duran.
THE MODERN GAY GUIDE TO LIFE
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Tag Archives: Gay style
10 IRISH MEN YOU CAN NOW LEGALLY MARRY
As the votes are being counted in Ireland’s referendum on gay marriage, it appears that the country has chosen ‘yes’ to marriage equality. To celebrate the occasion here is a list of 10 hot Irish men that you can now legally marry:
10. Colin Farrell
9. Chris O’Dowd
8. Daniel Day-Lewis
7. Jack Reynor
6. Niall Horan
5. Cillian Murphy
4. Michael Fassbender
3. Jonathan Rhys Meyers
2. Pierce Brosnan
1. Jamie Dornan
MODERN GAY STYLE: YVES AND KARL
A few years ago I was recommended a book entitled The Beautiful Fall, a true story about the fabulous Parisian fashion world of the 1970’s and two of its most influential characters, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. The book is a captivating look into the interwoven lives of Yves and Karl during that time and recounts tales of parties, drugs, sex, exotic travels, infedelities and feuds between the two designers. Yves and Karl shared similar friends and even gay lovers, albeit not willingly, and were surrounded by the most beautiful and famous people in the world. Each designer created his own mesmerizing universe, so vivid and seductive that people were drawn to the power, charisma and fame, but in the end it was to make them bitter rivals. Their stories created a yearning within me for a time gone by when the fashion world was simultaneously bohemian and excessive, where celebrities and fashionistas weren’t overexposed through continuously updated media channels and where careless youthfulness was embraced and exploited. The author of the book, Alicia Drake eloquently takes the reader from Paris to Marrakech, from the beds of Yves and Karl to the restaurants of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, while respectably and affectionately sharing with us the lives of two of the world’s most famous fashion designers.
Click the link to see more details about The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris
Now a new biopic called Saint Laurent has been made about Yves’s life during the period of 1967 to 1976 when the designer was at the height of his career. Nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival and directed by Bertrand Bernello, the film is scheduled for release on May 8th.
15 GAY GUYS TO AVOID IN 2015
One week into 2015 and chances are that you have already broken most of your New Years resolutions. While you attempt to find your way back onto the right track towards health, happiness and your dream job, why don’t you also cleanse your soul of poisonous people? Here’s a list of 15 gay guys to avoid or remove from your life in 2015.
Disclaimer: the people mentioned below might also be your straight friend, female colleague or family member and should be detoxified from your life just the same. And another thing, don’t take this list too seriously…
1. THE GOSSIP
If he speaks more goss than Perez Hilton and TMZ combined then chances are he’s talking dirt behind your back too. Although everyone knows that a gossip cannot be trusted, he has the uncanny ability to discover information through his network of unnamed sources. Remove yourself from his network immediately.
2. THE DRAMA QUEEN
This guy lives his life as if he is a Southern Californian teenager girl being followed by a reality TV crew or an ill-tempered mob boss wife from New Jersey. He thrives on creating drama between people and as such his presence in your life is emotionally draining. Do not become caught up in his Bravo TV franchise.
3. THE JEALOUS ONE
Friends should be supportive of one another but some gay guys cannot deal with other people’s success. You’ll be able to identify this type of person cause he will always be the one discounting other’s achievements with comments like “yeh he has a good job but he’ll never find a boyfriend” or “so what if he’s good-looking, his boyfriend still cheats on him”. Stop spending time with jealous people because secretly they’re hoping that you fail too.
4. THE MANIPULATOR
The manipulator, strategist and liar are often the same person and should technically be grouped together. This type of guy likes to control situations and has a powerful ability to manipulate others into doing what he wants. He will lie and mould the people around his so to achieve whatever strategy he has thought up to benefit himself. When things do not go the way he plans, he’ll turn his back on you in jealousy and find a way to enact his revenge. This guy is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.
5. THE STRATEGIST
6. THE LIAR
7. THE BAD INFLUENCE
A controversial inclusion on the list because a bad influence can sometimes be the key to the craziest of adventures. In small doses the bad influence can be fun and mischevious but if left unchecked he can lead to your demise. He is the friend who will convince you to stay out longer at the club when you have an early flight to catch the next day or persuade you to accompany him to a sex party in a sketchy part of town. If you enjoy missing your flight or engaging in sex acts that have yet to be named then by all means keep the bad influence around.
8. THE ATTENTION SEEKER
Loud, obnoxious, inappropriate and always vying for the spotlight, the attention seeker makes every moment a dramatic one-man performance about himself. He survives on the gaze of others and will do anything to attract attention. When you’re out in public with him he makes you feel uncomfortable with his outlandish behaviour and lack of social awareness. If you’re slightly uncomfortable being watched across a restaurant full of strangers then either ask your loud friend to step down from the table and put his shirt back on or just stop spending your precious time with him all together.
9. THE NEGATIVE ONE
Negative gay guys will suck the life out of you…and not in a good way. They complain that they don’t have a boyfriend, that they never meet anyone new, that their job is awful, that the music at this club is shit, that their martini is too dry and that nothing ever goes right. Negative people will cast a grey cloud over you, make it rain and then drown you in their pessimism. Replace the negative gay guy with a positive, easygoing and optimistic friend immediately.
10. THE BOYFRIEND THIEF
He is the friend who always dates or sleeps with your ex-boyfriend several months after you broke up. This will have you reflecting on all the times he hang out with you and your boyfriend while you were still dating. How long has he had these feelings? Why does he always end up with with your exes? What type of friends sleeps with your ex-lover anyway? You can take it as a compliment or you can just take him out of your life completely.
11. THE SPONGE
Never pays for dinners out, always manages to avoid his shout at the bar and somehow ends up in your room on summer holidays even though he hasn’t contributed to the cost, these are the ways of the sponge. While it’s commendable to help your friends when they are short on cash or in-between jobs, do not support the sponge as he has no intention of ever changing his ways or repaying the favour.
12. THE OPPORTUNIST
Have you ever noticed how some gay boys are only friends with semi-famous, extremely good-looking, well-known gays? Their so-called best friends are carefully selected based on their social capital and once they’ve infiltrated the group they work to develop their own social profile. These people are known as opportunists as they actively seek out situations and people that will help inflate their own egos. If you’re friends with one of these types then you’re probably a semi-famous, extremely good-looking and well-known gay so be aware that there is a social climbing impostor amongst your midst.
13. THE PERFECTIONIST
‘I love my life and I love my friends and I’m so grateful to the universe that everything is perfect’ reads his Facebook status. As a matter of fact, when scrolling through his social media it may actually appear that his life is perfect and if it wasn’t for his over-the-top declarations of perfection then you might almost believe them. Nobody’s life is that perfect and even though his beautifully photoshopped pictures make you feel like your life is crap, he’s probably desperately miserable and therefore terrible company anyway. Stay away.
14. THE TAKER
Do you know a gay guy who loves talking about himself? While the truth is that most of us love talking about ourselves there is a special type of gay guy who will take no interest in another person when having a conversation. He’ll never ask how you are or what you’ve been doing or if everything is ok in your life. Rather he’ll prefer to talk about his life and his problems and if the discussion ever changes where you become the focus then he’ll lose interest. This is a taker – a person who takes other people’s attention and steals other’s time but never returns the favour.
15. THE REPEAT OFFENDER
Perhaps you are friends with someone who fits one or more of the above descriptions but the good that they bring to your life far outweighs the bad. If this is the case then you don’t mind putting up with their shortcomings because you understand that we all have our flaws and that nobody is perfect. That’s completely fine. It’s not until they repeat those shortcomings over and over again till you reach a tipping point when you cannot forgive them anymore. Maybe you’ve called them out on sponging, or lying or thieving your boyfriend but they still never change. If this is true then 2015 is the year when you must decide whether or not you want to keep them in your life or remove them indefinitely. The choice is yours.
RULE 26: STOP WAITING TO BE PERFECT
Match.com has launched the 2015 campaign ‘#loveyourimperfections’, encouraging us all to embrace the things that make us unique. I have contributed to the campaign with this post which is a challenge to all those who read it to stop waiting to be perfect before you feel like you’re worthy of love. After all it’s our mistakes, misbehaviours, quirks, habits and our little obsessions that make us who we are.
If you are waiting to lose weight before you are ready to find love then you will never find love. If you are waiting to have the perfect six-pack before you are ready to find love then you will never find love. If you are waiting for anything about you to change before you are ready to find love then you will never find love. If you are waiting to be perfect then you will never find love.
I used to think that I would be ready for love and a relationship only once I had controlled all the external elements of my being, that only when my body, job and social life were in ideal alignment then would I find the perfect guy. The fact is that my life will never be perfect and neither will yours.
Stop waiting to be perfect to feel that you are worthy of love whether it be love from someone else or self-love. It’s exhausting to pursue perfection. Why? Because there is no measureable end goal. The finish line is always moving. How will you know when you’re perfect? The pursuit of perfection does not lead to happiness. It leads to dissatisfaction with the moment. Perfection does not exist and as such the pursuit of perfection is a pointless cause.
But who wants to be with a perfect partner anyway? Personally I don’t want to be with someone who wants me to be perfect, in fact, I want to be with someone who loves my imperfections. I want a man who will love me even when I’ve put on weight, when I haven’t gone to gym for three months, when I’m sick and when I’m feeling ugly. My future partner needs to understand that sometimes I shave and sometimes I don’t, that sometimes I trim my chest hair but most of the time I look like I’ve been stranded on a tropical island for months with only a Wilson volleyball as a companion. My future partner needs to understand that these external things do not define who I am and as such I don’t want a relationship that fluctuates depending on such things. The right person will love me for who I am always not who I am sometimes.
It’s our imperfections that actually make us the most beautiful. The Japanese have known this for centuries. Kintsugi, the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer resin mixed with powdered gold is based on highlighting imperfections as beautiful fragments of the overall story. As a philosophy it speaks to breakage and repair becoming part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. We should apply this same approach to mending the parts of us that we see as broken and imperfect.
My body is covered in scars and marks. I have a long scar on my knuckles from when I cut myself working in a cocktail bar, I have a scar on my chin from when I was dumped by a wave on family holiday and I have little stretch marks on my sides from when I went through a growth spurt in grade 8. All these blemishes represent moments in my life and instead of hiding them, I have chosen to embrace them as markers of memories.
Only once you have learnt to appreciate all the parts that make up who you are will you then be ready for love. In the end though, it’s not about being ready for someone else’s love but learning to love yourself.
Watch the campaign video here to see how the things that embarrass us about ourselves might actually be the things that others find endearing.
Image by Willy Vanderperre
MODERN GAY STYLE: MASK IT
It’s been a manic week. As the year winds down, the party season winds up and all those late nights and boozy parties begin to take their toll. You’re tired and worn down but you keep pushing on, knowing that 2014 has almost come to a close. You tell yourself that if you can just make it through to December 31st then come the new year, you’ll be much kinder to yourself. Perhaps you’ll give up sugar or maybe it’s alcohol that is your vice and you’ll definitely aim to have more than five hours sleep a night. Until the clock strikes 12 in less than two weeks, you have free rein to do as you wish. Drink, eat and be merry but if you’re starting to look a little worse for wear (as I was this morning) then you might want to take a couple of minutes to yourself to indulge in some in-home pampering.
My idea of pampering is running a bath filled with Radox, making myself a soothing green tea, trimming my facial hear and putting on a Montagne Jeunesse face mask. There really is something luxurious about sitting in the bathtub, face masked, sipping tea and reflecting on the week that’s past. Today I used the Dirt and Grime Clean Face Masque that Montagne Jeunesse sent me from their men’s range and then tried the Blackhead Blitzer, which may have made me look like a fabulous Hannibal Lecter but left my face feeling wonderfully rejuvenated. I finished off with the Eye Rescue patches which use mineral rich sea algae to reduce puffiness and at £1.99 a pair are much more affordable than having to travel to a spa at an algae-rich tropical island resort for the same treatment. Thirty minutes later I was out of the bath, body feeling pruney but face as a fresh as an angel, ready to tackle the last days before Christmas and the inevitable food coma that awaits me on the 25th.
MODERN GAY STYLE: TIE ME UP
If you instantly want to look like a sophisticated gay man with style and panache then put on a tie. If you instantly want to look like a dishevelled gay man who has no fashion sense then put on a tie wrong. Adorning a tie with a suitable outfit will up your fashion credibility and distinguish you from all those other gay men who still insist on dressing like teenagers. However, for many of us, it’s been years since we last tied a tie and it was most probably for high school or another formal occasion that we were reluctantly forced to attend. Back then the tie felt more like a noose than a fashion accessory, restricting breathing and cutting off circulation to one’s brain by strangling one’s neck like a bower constrictor. Now that you’re a grown man it’s time to learn how to fasten a tie properly.
Although it may seem as if you need an engineering degree to effectively adorn this elongated piece of material, it’s actually a lot simpler than you think. Elegant London establishment, Draycott Hotel has made it easy for you to do so with this 6 step infographic on how to tie a tie. Now there is no excuse for you not to look like a gay gentleman who has stepped out of the Ted Baker Autumn/Winter 2014 catalogue.
FRIDAY MUSIC FIX: HOZIER
Occasionally you come across a song that literally shakes you to your core. You hear the first few bars and the music reverberates from your ears throughout your body, creating a ripple of goosebumps along your limbs. It’s the combination of the artist’s voice, the lyrics and the piano arrangement that almost brings a tear to your eye because of its proximity to perfection. “Take me to Church” is such a song. Andrew Hozier-Byrne or Hozier as he is known, is the 24-year-old Irishman behind this beautifully crafted piece of aural art. His voice is dark, enchanting and eery with an almost spiritual holiness to it which is well suited as the song is about religion, heaven, sin and love. The lyric, “I was born sick, command me to be well” will hold extra meaning for those of us raised in religions that denounce homosexuality and the accompanying video depicting a homophobic beating will strike a chord with anyone who has experienced homophobia.
THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE FOR ONLINE DATING
This article was originally written by The Modern Gay for Match.com
I have been using the internet to communicate with other gay guys my age since I was fourteen-years-old. What started as a means to explore my curiosities in the privacy of my bedroom has matured into a means by which I have met romantic partners. In the early days of internet dating you were warned not to share too much detail about your life for fear of being taken advantage of but as we have become more comfortable with this digital medium we are more open to sharing our phone numbers, private pictures, personal stories and even our home addresses.
When I was eighteen I signed up for one of the few gay dating sites that existed at the time. The internet was the only access I had to the big gay world but because I was still in the closet I was reluctant to use a real profile picture for fear of being outed. Like many other questioning, young gay guys, I established a false profile, using an image that I found online. I created an alluring persona of the ideal “straight-acting”, high school jock and used this disguise to communicate with other guys. Luckily though, I quickly realized the pointlessness in pretending to be someone you are not, both digitally and in real life. Although my fake profile allowed me to comfortably chat to other gay guys (something I could not do while I was still in school) I knew that these relationships would never eventuate into anything more than an internet fling. I deleted my accounts and stopped using the internet for chatting until I was comfortable enough to establish a profile that reflected the real me, with genuine pictures included.
Since then I have met some great guys through dating websites and apps. Along the way I have also learnt some valuable lessons about online dating, the most important of which is honesty. Pretending to be someone that you are not is pointless in the long run. Sure it may allow you to escape the reality of your life in the moment but ultimately it’s a dead end and people inevitably are hurt. I also strongly believe that we should only be in relationships with people who love us for who we are and not for who we think they want us to be. The best way to attract these people into your life is to be honest from day one, and this means being honest in your online profile too. Exaggerating your height, body type or income may increase the views on your profile but what happens when you meet your love interest in person and he realizes that you are not a six-foot-two footballer with a six-figure salary? Such superficial things as body type and salary should not even matter in a loving relationship but they will become an issue if you have lied about them from the start.
While honesty is certainly the most important rule in online dating, here is a list of 7 practical ways to improve your online profile that will hopefully lead to happily ever after.
Image by Steven Kohlstock
THE ONE GUY THAT EVERY GAY MAN NEEDS IN HIS LIFE
There is a special type of man that every gay guy needs in his life. This type of guy is an essential partner who can make the arduous journey through life that that little bit more pleasant. He will be there to console you during your breakups, dance with you to cheesy diva music on a night out and offer you advice from a completely unique perspective. He is the type of guy that you can talk to about things you can’t with your other guy friends and although you may say, “I love you” to each other, it is a very different type of love. There is a special type of man that every gay guy needs in his life and that is a straight male best friend.
It takes a straight man with special qualities to bestfriend a gay guy. The first quality required is an unwavering comfort in his own heterosexuality. Whether he’s sharing a bed with you on holiday in order to save money or dancing on a podium next to you with his shirt off, doing things that are perceived to be gay does not faze a straight guy who is comfortable in his own sexuality. He will feel comfortable walking down the street with his girlfriend hand-in-hand while you walk next to him with your boyfriend hand-in-hand. He’ll hug and kiss you hello and tell you that he misses you when he hasn’t seen you in a while. He will easily blend into a social situation where he’s the only straight guy, not flinching when your gay friends are being overly flirtatious or affectionate and he’ll relish the fact that you introduce him as your “token straight friend”. For him, being around gay guys is not a threat to his masculinity. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even faze him at all.
A straight best friend doesn’t see sexuality as a defining aspect of your friendship. You are not his “gay best friend” and he is not your “straight best friend”, you are just mates. This is the second essential quality. While some straight girls excitingly seek a gay best friend as some sort of glitzy, novelty accessory, your best mate loves you for so much more than your sexuality. You share similar values and similar tastes in music, sports, humor, books and fashion. Together you can talk about similar experiences in love, relationships, heartache and it doesn’t matter that those experiences are between different genders. Some of these guys may have been your best friends from a time before puberty, when your sexuality was still dormant while others you may have only met after you came out. In both cases your different sexual preferences were never a factor on which your friendship was forged.
Much like with any other friendship, the most important quality that a straight man must possess in order to bestfriend a gay guy is loyalty. It is loyalty that ensures the longevity of any friendship, it is loyalty that helps a relationship survive the ups and downs of life and it is loyalty that binds male friends as brothers. Loyal friends are those who will be there when the club lights are turned on and when the music stops playing. It is during times of personal crisis such as health scares, deaths and depression that a loyal straight friend truly displays his mateship.
Having a straight man as a best friend also provides balance to one’s life. They provide a sounding board on which you can bounce ideas, problems and concerns and receive advice back from a different viewpoint. Often if we spend too much time within our own community, surrounded only by other gay guys we can become caught up in the drama of daily gay life. Having a neutral, outside party with whom we can confer is important for ensuring not only variety but also one’s own sanity. A straight male best friend is also a reminder that in a world where we have been judged, teased and chastised largely by other straight males, there are those in our midst who love, support and care for us regardless of our sexuality.
Image by Olaf Blecker
THE MODERN GAY GUIDE TO LIFE 