The gay marriage debate was reignited when the Government’s Civil Partnership Bill, while allowing for same sex partnerships, fell short of legislating for gay and lesbian marriage. In an unusually frank exchange, Green Party justice spokesman CIARAN CUFFE debates the merit of the bill with Dermod Moore.
The renowned Irish language poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh was the subject of an extraordinary documentary, broadcast on RTÉ last year, entitled Fairytale Of Kathmandu. Accused in it of the sexual exploitation of Nepalese teenage boys, defiantly asserts his innocence in this, his first in-depth interview.
After endless procrastination, the Government is finally planning to introduce civil partnerships for gay people. But reports suggest that gay couples are to be denied the right to adopt.
Opening our U2 special, DERMOD MOORE catches up with ADAM CLAYTON during the UK leg of the Elevation tour, and delves deep into the physics of music celebrity, politics and, er, penises
I want to get AIDS. I want to die a gory undignified death, lying Christ-like with gaunt cheeks and lolling eyes and tubes transporting juices in and out of every orifice in my skeletal frame, my mind long fragmented with dementia, leaving my grieving family and friends lost in the crazed exhausting tedium of ministering to my wasted body, my personality long having ceased to exist. No farewells, no camp ironic jokes, no gallows humour; just a few last wheezy breaths and then silence, followed by a low whining complaint from the machine.
Our culture is increasingly influenced by the New Age values of individual expression and emotional candour. To “get in touch with your feelings” is a moral imperative; the creed of the New World Order.
I met someone last night for a pint. Jim is 35, has recently separated from his wife, moved to London, and has begun his own exploration of this gay life. We started talking to each other on one of the telephone lines that are proliferating in London; it s getting so that one can order sex in this city faster than a pizza.
OK, it's about midnight as I start this, and God knows when I'll finish it. I want to write about money, and its importance in my life, which is why I've left it to the last possible minute
Kevin, the ginger cat, walked into my room this morning, said “excuse me” apologetically, in a clear, soft voice, and woke me up. As I bumbled around sleepily trying to find a dressing gown in the heap of duvets and clothes that makes up my nest, I tried to allow my mind to slip back to a few moments before, to try and capture a fragment of the dreamworld I had just been visiting.
I was having an enjoyable pint or three with a friend of mine the other evening. When he asked me what I was going to write about this week, I found myself giggling helplessly. I had to retreat into the gents to gather myself, before going back to him, still grinning.
I received a letter this week from a reader. He was responding, he wrote, to the tone of some of my recent articles. Believing that I am getting increasingly lonely and sad, and that I deserve a better break from life, he proposed that, if I needed to have a pint or a chat, I should get in contact with him.
I AM writing this with a crick in my neck, the kind we used to call red-hot-pokers when we were kids. I am ramrod stiff, and cannot turn my head to the left. I feel like a cross between Frankenstein’s bolt-necked monster and Julian Cleary, who carries himself as if he has invisible drop earrings tied to his shoulder pads. Very regal and pained.
SYLVIA was one of those people with whom it is very difficult to argue. She and I met at a lecture. She arrived late, and sat beside me in a flurry of shocking pink and Chanel. Of a certain age, her hair was an orange candyfloss, but with dark grey roots. Her voluminous bag had “I’m a happy hippy” daubed all over it.
WHAT IS this gay community to which I claim to belong? And how can it be a community when the definition of one’s sexuality (the membership criterion) is constant only in its fluidity?
“Why is it/When a man wants a woman he is called a hunter/But when a woman wants a man she is called a predator?”
Dory Previn (‘When A Man Wants A Woman’)
I WAS drinking with an old friend in a small and friendly gay pub in London, run by an Irish couple, when a big man strode in, who looked as if he had just stepped off a construction site.
THE WORD psychology has its roots in Greek: psyche, the soul, spirit, or mind’ and logos, the Divine word; speech; the word which expresses the inward thought; the thought itself.
WE WERE at a dinner party the other night, meeting some cousins of mine, and our host, hearing Him Beside talking about our going home together, enquired whether or not we were living together.
FAGHAG is an ugly word, describing a heterosexual woman who spends a large proportion of her leisure time in the company of gay men. It may surprise many people to learn that there is quite a degree of misogyny among gay men, for all their supposed ‘identification’ or ‘association’ with the feminine.
I DID a shocking thing recently. I went out shopping with my boyfriend in a supermarket, decided what to cook for that night’s dinner, bought it, split the bill, and went home to cook it. We had a couple of friends over, enjoyed a pleasant meal with good company; they went home, and we went to bed.
Consent1 v.i. express willingness, give permission, agree, (to a thing, to do, that, or abs.); -ing adult, (esp.) homosexual. [ME f. OF consentir f. L CON- (sentire sens - feel) agree]
TO LEARN about human behaviour, I urge you to forego the rigours of a degree in sociology or psychology. Avoid academic anthropology like the plague, treat philosophical treatises on human sexuality with disdain. Become a barman, and really educate yourself.
FOR EACH person, there are some things which one can reasonably expect to have experienced in one's life, and there are many other things which seem sadly destined to linger forever hovering beyond one's grasp. I am delighted to announce that I have attended a social function which, I believed, belonged firmly to the latter group.
Whatever your fancy chances are the capital will be able to oblige. Here, the Hot Press team pound the pavement in selfless pursuit of Dublin's hottest - and coolest - nightspots.
THE OTHER day, I followed the advice of a witty pop-astrology column in a newspaper that a friend of mine sent to me from America. It was simply this: write down brief descriptions of the five most pleasurable moments in your life.
SO ORTHODOX science announces that there are indications that homosexuality may be genetically determined, threatening to give the might of societal approval to the concept that we were born this way, and not corrupted or perverted from the supposed biological imperative of heterosexuality.
