Archive for the ‘Gender and sexuality’ Category
August 10, 2026
(man-on-man sex, riffed on in street language, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest)
I have tons of news, much of it truly wonderful, some of it just eccentric bits of stuff I’ve come across, but all postponed after an exhausting day yesterday that turned, for me, on six exhausting hours of one thing after another going terribly wrong. Still organizing my thoughts about it all — so now for something completely different, inspired by my playing the 60s-generation music channel on my Xfinity tv. Which got me to thinking about the 60s, which was exactly my 20s, and I seem to have stumbled through a whole multi-ring circus of lives (here an acrobat on a trapeze, there a sword-swallower, over there some clowns) in those ten years. Everything happened at once.
More or less in order, insofar as that’s possible (but starting in 1958):
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Posted in Effeminacy, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, My life, Race and ethnicity, Social class | Leave a Comment »
August 8, 2026
(all about sex between men, described largely in street language, and utterly inappropriate for kids and the sexually modest)
Two engaging images of faces, both conveying pleasure, during man-on-man sex. What is it that these guys are so satisfied about?
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Posted in Acting, Actors, Facial expression, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of advertising, Language of sex, Movies and tv, My life, Underwear | Leave a Comment »
August 3, 2026
One inspired by Aaron Broadwell, one by Steven Levine; I get a little help from my friends.
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Posted in Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Linguists, Lives, My life, Photography, Taboo language and slurs | Leave a Comment »
August 1, 2026
🐇🐇🐇 rabbit rabbit rabbit to inaugurate August, with a leporine shout-out to remember 1291, the traditional date of the formation of the Swiss federation: Hail, Helvetia!
Now to dive into today’s topic in medias res, with this 7/30 Facebook greeting from Pietro Giovanni to Aaron Broadwell on the occasion of AB’s 64th birthday, somewhere around that time:
Many returns of the day to my favorite linguist
AB is George Aaron Broadwell (known as Aaron Broadwell), Elling Eide Professor of Anthropology at the Univ. of Florida (Gainesville). PG is AB’s husband Peter Marino under the pseudonym Pietro Giovanni. For further complexity, since there are a regrettably large number of men named Peter Marino, some of them famous in their fields, Peter Marino uses the nickname Piet as his professional name; Piet Marino is the author of young adult novels (Dough Boy and Magic and Misery):
(#1) The Piet Marino logo
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Posted in Academic life, Conversation, Events and occasions, Friendship, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Indigenous peoples, Language and the body, Language of sex, Linguists, Logos, Marriage, My life, Phallicity, Professional names, Pseudonyms, Speech acts, Switzerland and Swiss things, Teaching | 3 Comments »
July 25, 2026
(Extensive reference to men’s private parts, occasionally in street speech, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest)
From my 7/23 posting “Small worlds”, in an anecdote (from 1990) about my man Jacques and me:
to reverse the usual slogan, [Jacques] treats me as not only a great piece of meat but also as an especially wonderful human being. This is ridiculously sweet. Unrealistic but sweet.
The usual slogan is about men as meat. Some details.
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Posted in Ambiguity, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Linguistics in the comics, Slogans | Leave a Comment »
July 23, 2026
In recent news: the publication (on 7/6) of John D’Emilio’s latest book, Making Gay History: Memoir of a Scholar-Activist (Duke University Press). From Jonathan Ned Katz’s blurb:
a report from the trenches, a history of the struggle to create a history of sexuality, a personal history of political activism, the story of a [AZ: devoutly Catholic] smart boy from the Bronx who made himself into a pioneering, left, feminist, anti-racist gay, public intellectual.
Which prompts me to tell an anecdote about my man Jacques and me — and John D’Emilio. So my tale will of course begin with Larry Kramer, the author of the controversial novel Faggots, but more important to my tale, the founder of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, which means that through his ceaseless abrasive hectoring, he changed the world for the better and helped to save untold numbers of lives.
(There are brief accounts of Kramer and D’Emilio in my 7/21 posting “Two celebrated gays”)
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Posted in Books, Gender and sexuality, History, Homosexuality, Language and medicine, My life | Leave a Comment »
July 21, 2026
For reference in an upcoming posting about small worlds: brief accounts of Larry Kramer and John D’Emilio, two (justly) celebrated and very public gay men, of extraordinarily different natures, who I happened, once, to get linked with as a member of that category. (Blame it on my man Jacques, who knew the complexities of my nature but still managed, in his love, to think of me as genuinely heroic.)
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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Identities, My life | Leave a Comment »
July 5, 2026
Mail from me to Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky (who is, in principle, away on holiday with Opal Armstrong Zwicky for the Independence Day weekend), sent at 6:06 am on 7/4 (hugely expanded here):
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Posted in Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Movies and tv, Music, My life, Paradoxes, This blogging life | Leave a Comment »
July 2, 2026
My dinner for June 27 was delivered by a courier bubbling over in delight about the coming Fourth of July, which he identified as my national day (adding that he was Peruvian and his national days came at the end of July — surprising details below). I suppressed my complex reservations about American Independence Day (some of which I will unload later) and chose not to add that we were at the eve of one of my people’s celebratory days — Stonewall Day, June 28 (the tank top I was wearing had a rainbow flag on it) — though I did point to my gym shorts, whose white cross on red is in fact the Swiss flag, adding that Swiss national day was coming in August (August 1, to be precise). I didn’t develop the theme of my absurd pride in the remnants of Swissness that cling to me, most especially the egalitarian, aristocrat-free ideals the federation has espoused since the original alliance was formed in 1291, over 7 centuries ago; there is nothing like it in all of Europe.
After he left, I checked out the Fiestas Patrias peruanas, or Peruvian National Holidays, which officially are celebrations of Peru’s independence from the Spanish Empire (Wikipedia entry here), but in fact have become an entire holiday season, in character very much like the secular Christmas season (at, however, the end of July). It sounds delightful.
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Posted in Flags, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Homosexuality, Music, My life, Race and ethnicity, Signs and symbols, Switzerland and Swiss things | Leave a Comment »
