Hi friends! Happy Wednesday!
Starbucks announced yesterday that Pumpkin Spice is officially back, which signals the official (far too early) slide into fall. I’ll be heading back home to Hawaii next week to celebrate my high school’s 50th birthday and spend some much-cherished time with my dad.
Then it’s back to the grind and my birthday month (I am a cuspy Libra for those wondering). I also finally finished Dungeon Crawler Carl, so if anyone is as engrossed in those books as I was, let’s please talk about them!
Also, I am so blown away at the response to last week’s “The Psychology of Breeding.” It’s already by far my most popular post and brought me hundreds of new subscribers, so if that’s you, welcome! I am so happy you’re here! And if you haven’t read it, here’s the link.
Two of Columbus’s Most Celebrated Gay Bars Sold to LGBTQ+ Owners
‘Evil Twink’ Photo of Young Pope Benedict XVI Goes Gay Viral
This weekend, my brother sent me a recording of an interview he did with my grandmother on a recent trip he took to Santa Fe. My grandma Sheila (my biological grandmother Eleanor’s wife) was talking about the year that she and Eleanor would spend at the Hialeah House in the San Fernando Valley. They would go out every Friday and, in her words, they became teenagers again.
I started to research Hialeah House and found that details about the bar were remarkably hard to find. This is unsurprising, as a lot of Queer history is ephemeral and we don’t have many markers of what we leave behind. This is the most that I found from a magazine called The Lesbian Tide in 1973.
But it got me thinking about the bars I love that have no historical significance to the world, but immense significance to me. There will never be an article chronicling the immortal significance of the Boxers in Hell’s Kitchen, but that bar has played host to so many of my favorite memories. Similarly, The Dickens, or a small bar in St. Louis whose name I can’t even remember, but holds a cozy memory of Christmas Eve 2019. Queer bars are so important even if they don’t have national significance.
So, from you this week, I’d love to hear about a lovely memory of one of your favorite gay bars. Let’s preserve them as best we can!
There’s no way I could publish anything about music today without acknowledging the passing of the incredible Dolly Parton yesterday. Now, I grew up in Hawaii after the heyday of her music, so I didn’t listen to a ton of it on the regular, but still, I was deeply impacted by who she was as a human. Actually, my biggest introduction to her was probably the musical 9 to 5. And yet, can any of us really say that we didn’t have some connection to her? After all, she had so many roles throughout her life: musician, artist, humanitarian, etc.
I can’t think of someone more universally loved than our Queen of Country. Looking through her YouTube to find a song to link, I’m taken by how many other artists are on her page. There are covers of her songs from Lil Nas X to Beyoncé to Miley Cyrus and Pentatonix. She truly gave the world such art and then let us exist with it how we wanted. That, to me, is the sign of true confidence and solidity within oneself.
May she be resting easy, and may her music always be a gift to those who need it.
Last week I had the immense privilege of reading Fruit Fly and attending the book’s U.S. launch at The Strand. For those of you who haven’t heard of Fruit Fly, here’s the pitch: a woman struggling with writer’s block needs her next book idea after her debut best-seller, eight years ago. In search of answers, she hops on the internet and is advised to go sad, go dark, and go gay. Naturally, she makes a fake Grindr profile with her husband’s pictures and ends up meeting Liam, a meth-addict with an agenda of his own.
I will say absolutely nothing more than that because I want you to be just as surprised and delighted as I was reading it. I finished it in under 24 hours, and it is one of the best books I have read in years.
At its heart, it’s a book about who gets to tell whose stories and a commentary on the trend of straight women exploiting gay trauma to make millions. You probably won’t be able to snag a copy for a while because its runaway success was not expected by the publishers, but you can get it on digital or audiobook! Support our gay authors and stay tuned when the adaptation by A24 comes out (the rights adaptation were subject to a huge bidding war too).
Also, just a personal note: Josh is so wonderful and sweet, and listening to him talk at the event and afterward just made me so happy that there are people who deeply care about the darker parts of our community who are getting the recognition they deserve. We’re going to be doing some collaborating over the next few months, so stay tuned and go buy Fruit Fly!
If you’ve read it already, what’re your (spoiler free) thoughts!?
Name: Justin Tharpe
From: Dothan, AL
Who: I’m a 25-year-old gay man living in Birmingham, AL. I teach 7th grade world history and, in my free time, sing in a semi-professional choir. I’ve been loving Gay Buffet since I first subscribed because of how many things I feel it has taught me about the broader queer community!
Thank you, Justin!! Y’all, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of Gay Buffet. I love seeing y’all’s pictures and learning about you! Today I need two more folks to sign up for the community spotlight!
So, be brave and fill out the form below, tell us a bit about yourself, a little bio, maybe some of your work - anything that you want people to get to know you better! What do you say? Will you help me build some community?
Dear Aidan: Is it wrong that I’m bored of having sex with my partner? I love him to bits, but the physical aspect has stopped feeling enjoyable or new and exciting. Kissing and stuff just doesn’t have a spark anymore, which I think he’s noticed. I’ve not told him this, but I’ve entertained the idea of an open relationship, which may help bring the spark back between us?
Hi friend, first of all I want to make it very clear that no, it is not wrong that you are bored of having sex with your partner. This is remarkably common as our brains and our bodies adjust to the intimacy of our long-term partners. Everyone wants their sexual compatibility with their partners to remain as fresh and passionate as it was in the beginning, and that’s what we’re fed in a lot of stories we consume.
Unfortunately, that’s not how our biology works. So, first, I’ll point you toward Esther Perel. She is a therapist who has some incredible insights into why eroticism fades over time in relationships. Her book Mating in Captivity, is an excellent place to start. It explains how familiarity breeds comfort and kills sexual desire. So in her methodology, relationships are about a constant balance of the intimacy of partnership and mystery.
But more specifically, I’d start by just talking to your partner. See if there are underlying reasons that your sex life has changed. A great piece of advice I’ve heard is that “if there’s a lull in your sex, you don’t have to be embarrassed to talk about it because both partners are aware of how much sex you are or are not having.”
Once you explore the issue, you can introduce solutions like toys, people, or kinks. Now, these things can help build passion, but will not often fix the underlying issue. That’s the same for openness. It can be a really helpful release valve, but make sure that you’re not using it to cover up a problem. If you cover up the problem with it, then the issues can build. If you use it in conjunction with other methods of problem-solving, then I’d say that’s great.
The lack of spark can feel really scary, but I promise it’s a navigable obstacle, so have hope and remember all the other strengths that you and your partner have too!
Please, if you have your own question that you’d like advice on, submit below! This is only fun for me when I have y’alls excellent questions♥️
Alrighty folks, well that is all from me this week; stay kind out there!
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.