Содержание выпуска: March/April 2022 — OUT

When I was a teen, my friend Eric casually invited me to see Margaret Cho perform stand-up comedy in a New Jersey theater. I hadn’t been too familiar with her work at the time. But I thought Eric was cute, so we went — sitting in front-row seats (thanks, Eric!) — and my life was transformed. Cho, as fans know, has a sublime gift for impressions and physical comedy; her impersonations of family members killed every time. But it was her epic “Persimmon Diet” skit — in which she reenacts the bowel consequences of an unfortunate six-month fruit regimen — that nearly had me wetting my own pants. I had never laughed so hard in my life, and honestly, probably haven’t since. I was reminded of Cho’s brilliance by our…

After John Cameron Mitchell was cast to portray Joe Exotic in the new Peacock series Joe vs. Carole, images from the set leaked online of the gay actor in a mustache and bright cowboy attire. The Tiger King himself responded with a slashing review. Mitchell “is just going to make me look like a flaming fag…and I’m a hard-working gay male,” tweeted the incarcerated zoo owner, who had been convicted in 2019 on charges of animal abuse and murder for hire. Mitchell’s response? A painted nail emoji. “I was like, ‘Joe, please. Come on. We’re all in this — I mean, we’re not all in jail together. But we’re all queer. Let’s not get upset,’” he recalls with a laugh. Joe vs. Carole, premiering March 3 on NBCUniversal’s streaming service,…

New York City and the pandemic have forged a new star in the photography world. Clifton Mooney was working as a nurse treating COVID patients in a Harlem hospital when he turned to Polaroid photos as a creative outlet. “It’s quite literally my escape from that part of my life,” the gay Texas native attests. His images — erotic portraits of queer men, close-ups of the male form along with plants and fruit — call to mind Robert Mapplethorpe and Tom Bianchi’s Fire Island Pines — both influences of the artist. Mooney’s work has cultivated many admirers: over 40,000 people follow his Instagram accounts (@gauchecowboy and @gauchefilm). With a rising profile, he’s captured Christopher Meloni for Interview magazine. And queer celebrities like Special’s Ryan O’Connell and Bowen Yang have also…

As far as “humble musical beginnings” stories go, I consider myself pretty lucky. It was the early ’90s, and at 20 years old, I had just come out when I jumped headfirst into my very first band, the Fabulous Scallion Sisters — later renamed Paper Dolls. I joined four other gay women who had already developed a huge queer following, and I was accepted from the start. But the road (forward and back) isn’t always so easy. Many of the hurdles I’ve had to overcome throughout my music career have stemmed from being a woman. Add on top of that being a queer woman who is a kick-ass rock drummer, and you are primed for endless “you’re pretty good for a girl” comments. But I never let it really bother…

IN MY WORLD, CHRISTMAS IS FOR THE NIECES AND NEPHEWS. FEBRUARY IS WHEN I GET THE GIFTS I REALLY WANT — FOR MYSELF. And though they shipped from Italy during the slow-down, the wait for my new prescription Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses was well worth it. You can’t be a Gen Xer without feeling a pang of familiarity with Ray-Ban, the masculine-cool specs that showed up in movies like Top Gun, Easy Rider, Men in Black, and Terminator. It’s not just for the boys (there’s a Pinterest dedicated to lesbians in Ray-Ban Wayfarers) and the company first supported LGBTQ+ rights in 2012 with its 75th-anniversary “Never Hide” campaign. Ironically, this campaign did not feature any actual Ray-Bans, just two well-dressed gay men holding hands in the street, circa 1950. Since…

During lockdown, I decided it was time to join OnlyFans and JustFor.Fans — the two biggest names in direct-to-consumer subscription content (often, but not always, porn). I wasn’t alone: Insider reported that OnlyFans saw a 75 percent increase in model sign-ups in April 2020 as unemployment skyrocketed globally. For me, the allure of extra money was too good to pass up. But how much extra money? What can someone truly earn? I decided to ask around. Dominic Ford, founder and CEO of JustFor.Fans, puts it bluntly. “Running your page is a job,” Ford says. “If you treat it like a job and put in the hours, you will be rewarded. If you just post one video and think you’ll make a million dollars…you will be disappointed.” So that was that.…

We could all use a good laugh nowadays — so how lucky that LGBTQ+ people have Bowen Yang to broadcast comedy to us and the world. Humor plays an important role in the lives of queer people. From The Boys in the Band to RuPaul’s Drag Race, wit and wordplay are wielded as a coping mechanism and a weapon against would-be oppressors. Laughter helps us to survive and stay sane. It’s a light in the darkness. And with that, we’ll leave you with a parting shot from Margaret Cho: “I urge you all today, especially today in these times of terrorism and chaos, to love yourselves without reservation and to love each other without restraint. Unless you’re into leather; then by all means, use restraints.”…

Parfum, eau de toilette, and cologne, in that order, define the pungency and potency of all scents. Spring is prime season for all of us to awaken new methods to make ourselves more noticeable (desirable). Breathe deeply. Fragrance has been an age-old symbol of individualized personalization. While many used myrrh in lieu of a difficult-to-get shower in medieval times, the oldest known perfumes were discovered by archeologists in Cyprus. They date back some 4,000 years. One of the first commercialized parfums was of royal blended oils, commissioned (commanded) by Queen Elizabeth of Hungary as Hungary Water in the 14th century. In the present, fragrance houses work hard to formulate wafting aromas that reflect not only how we’re feeling on a given day but how we want to be perceived. A…

One Christian musician has had two number 1 albums in the past year but has gotten almost zero notice in the press and even less play on Christian radio. Their name is Semler, a.k.a. Grace Baldridge, a 30-year-old former pastor’s kid from South Carolina whose folksy songwriting, punk-country guitar riffs, and resonating message of pain and hope took their 2021 EPs — Preacher’s Kid and Late Bloomer — to the top spot on the iTunes Christian charts. The queer-identifying Baldridge (all pronouns; “I really have no preference”) grew up listening to CCM, or contemporary Christian music, counting bands like Relient K, Thousand Foot Krutch, Stellar Kart, Switchfoot, and Audio Adrenaline among their favorites. But if you told her she’d one day be topping the same chart these big names appeared…