On October 11 the Hustlaball returned to New York, the city where it began. Now in its 12th year, the Hustlaball, according to its organizers, “brings the world of porn stars, hustlers, hookers, pimps, streetwalkers, flesh-peddlers, and other scandalous sorts to the stage and dance floor under one roof.” As hundreds danced, talked, and worked the night away, The Advocate spoke to a number of sex workers about their careers, the economy, and life under the red light…

Read the rest of my profiles of seven sex workers in The Advocate.

At 28, Nathan Manske might be a poster child for fun employment. Tan, attractive, articulate, and recently laid off by a large advertising firm, Manske has spent the last six months channeling all of his energies into creating and maintaining the website I’m From Driftwood. IFD publishes short first-person accounts of LGBT people from all around the world, each under the simple header “I’m from _____.”

The stories come from everywhere: small towns in Michigan; big cities in Argentina. As the title suggests, Manske himself comes from Driftwood, a small town in Texas, about 45 minutes south of Austin. Recently, Advocate.com caught up with him in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he now resides, to talk about IFD.

Advocate.com: So what gave you the idea for I’m From Driftwood?
Nathan Manske: I thought of it the day after seeing [the movie] Milk. I was waiting to go to work, snoozing and half asleep, and I was thinking about him. There’s an image that actually isn’t in the movie, of him holding a sign in the San Francisco Pride parade. It said, “I’m from Woodmere, New York.” I thought, That’s pretty cool. The biggest gay elected official is actually from this little town out on Long Island. Harvey Milk is a huge gay icon, and we associate him with San Francisco, but he’s from this small town. It said to me that gay people are everywhere. We’re from Woodmere. We’re from Driftwood.

How did IFD go from an idea to a reality?
It was pretty quick. The day after I thought of it, I was laid off from my job, so I suddenly had the time to do it. Also that day, I went home to Austin for Christmas. I was there for about a week, talking to people about my idea, getting their feedback. Once I figured out it was going to be a blog, I thought, I could do this right now. That was the middle of January. I wrote a really long e-mail to everyone I knew who was gay and close enough to me that I could hound them to write for it. But the idea of true stories from gay people all over the world was the first thing I thought of. So the heart of it I saw that morning, and it’s exactly the same now.

What do you hope IFD accomplishes? Who is the site written for?
Primarily, it’s written for gay teenagers who are struggling to come to terms with who they are. I want them to know they’re not the only ones. Even in today’s society, where it seems so much easier, it’s still hard for kids out there. If they read these stories, they can think, They went through what I went through, and now they’re living a happy life. Every story should act as a role model of some sort for someone. What’s cool about it is I don’t know which one will work for which person. Some stories, I’m like, “Eh, this isn’t that good.” I’ll post it, personally not liking it, and the comments will say “Oh, my God, this is the best story on the site yet!” You never know what will inspire or help someone.

As someone who came of age as the Internet was becoming the behemoth it is now, do you think it’s changed what it means to be gay?
You’re right on when you say I’m of that age. I was in the Austin M4M AOL chat rooms when I was 17, just exploring, meeting other gay people. Trying to figure out if I was gay. It created this new outlet, helped to connect people and make them feel less alone. I found my first boyfriend on AOL when I was 18, and it was he who helped me come out more. If I hadn’t met him online, who knows how long it would have taken.

Has IFD spawned any relationships yet?
Not for me.

No one’s written in saying, “I’d like to meet this person” or “So-and-so is from my home town?”
Some people have written to say they were amazed there was a story from their town. I really want it to become a community. Even the design looks simple and small-towny, you know? I like that. I would love it if a relationship started because of IFD — but they’d have to write me the story of it!

Where do the submissions come from?
IFD is very viral. It’s down and dirty. I don’t have any money to do traditional advertising. Anyone I meet — at a bar,or whatever — they ask me what I do and I jump on the opportunity to explain the site. I give out cards for it everywhere I go. The other day I saw these two guys being cute on the subway and I went up to them and said, “Hey, I noticed you guys were touching, and I have this website — check it out!”

Do you edit or reject pieces?
There have been very few stories I’ve put up exactly as is. But the only thing I check for is spelling, grammar, and punctuation. The more raw, the more real it feels. If they were all written like Stephen King, people would think, Oh, these are only written by great writers. But if they’re written by not-great writers, I think most of America will relate to them.

Do the stories ever seem repetitive? You know, you’ve heard one coming-out story, you’ve heard them all?
Even in the guidelines, I ask for something other than coming-out stories. Every gay person, one of the biggest stories they have is coming out. With good reason: It’s a huge story and it literally changes your life. But people know that story. They know it’s difficult to come out. They know — kind of — what could happen. But I had this gay Iranian who wrote a coming-out story, and it definitely stood out. So I don’t tell people they can’t write a coming-out story, but it needs to be a special one.Overall, the stories are not repetitive. They’re all over the spectrum.

Do you have any recommendations for people who want to send something in? Anything you’re particularly looking for?
My favorite stories are the ones where you don’t know where it’s going to go. One I posted today started off, “This story is about jealousy. And about seeing Joan Rivers.” And I thought, Awesome. I have no idea where this is going to go. My other favorites are stories from people in their 60s. A lot of them start with “The year was 1965,” and immediately you think about how that was a different world for gay people.

How many stories are you up to now?
Probably like 130.

One hundred thirty since February? That’s a lot.
Since March. March 24. Right now I’m publishing one a day.

Do you have a favorite piece on IFD?
When we hit 100 entries on the site, we had a contest to pick the best one. The winner was by J.R. Mortimer. It’s about him folding laundry, about to break up with his boyfriend. As he’s folding, he’s talking about all the articles of clothing, like, “Oh, you bought me this shirt when … ” And then there’s a flashback. So it was a lot of little moments, all connected through the clothes. It was very well written, had a lot of anecdotes within one story, and it was short.

What’s the future of IFD, now that you’ve got the site up and the unemployment is running out? Book? TV Show? Deal with NPR?
I’m turning IFD into a book. I have an agent, and I’ve divided the stories I’ve chosen into sections, like “Love and Relationships,” “Coming Out,” “Family,” “Life Before 1970.” We’re submitting the proposal now. Wish me luck

Published in The Advocate, 6/10/2009. Read the original (w/ comments) here.

When most people think about online video games, they think of teenage boys and Angelina Jolie dressed as Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. But a growing number of LGBT adults are taking to the (virtual) streets, carving out a home for themselves in what are commonly known as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games, or MMORPGs.

With 11.5 million subscribers, the most popular MMORPG is Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, or WoW. Players can be one of two genders, 10 classes (such as Warrior or Death Knight), and 10 races (like Blood Elf or Human). They can also join guilds, which are like online social clubs (kind of like the houses in the ballroom scene, as depicted in Paris Is Burning). The second biggest guild in the game is the Spreading Taint, one of a number of LGBT (and ally) guilds. For the fifth year running, the Spreading Taint is organizing an in-game World of Warcraft Pride, scheduled for June 20 at noon. This year it’s themed around recognizing the contributions of female-identified LGBT people in the game.

What is the place of Pride in a world of anonymous avatars that can’t even have sex? The Advocate caught up with one of the WoW Pride organizers over IM to find out.

Advocate.com: What’s your full name?
Benjamin Hardin: Benjamin Hardin in the real world. Bigheadben in the game.

How old are you?
Bigheadben is level 80 in World of Warcraft [80 is the highest possible level a player can reach]. In what passes for real life, I hope to be there someday.

What do you do in your regular life?
Wrapping up a master’s in psychology, starting a doctoral program in it this fall.

How long have you been playing WoW, and what do you like about it?
Started playing it five years ago in beta and haven’t stopped. It is obvious even after only a short time playing the game that the people at Blizzard who designed it have an awesome sense of humor. There is also so much to do, and all of it is fairly robust and entertaining. But it’s the other players that make the game. I would have stopped playing years ago if I didn’t have Tainters to daily entertain me.

What do you think attracts queer people to WoW and online gaming in general?
We are here for the same reasons as everyone else: to have fun, develop our characters, spend some time with friends, and flirt shamelessly.

What is the Spreading Taint, and how did you end up forming it?
The Spreading Taint is the name of our family of nine guilds in World of Warcraft. It’s part of our umbrella organization, the Rough Trade Gaming Community [an LGBT gaming group]. I think it is important to find a group/guild that matches your personality. We attract a range of folks when it comes to ages, backgrounds, orientations, locations, and play styles/preferences, but the typical Tainter has a great sense of humor, is fairly laid-back, enthusiastic, sex-positive, respectful, generous, and goofy as hell. Also, more often than not, shockingly hot in person. And humble.

So why have Pride online?
No reason not to celebrate ourselves, just as we choose to do in real world Pride. Also, lots of our members live in smaller communities that don’t celebrate Pride, so this gives them a chance to experience the madness. And I think it is important to remind other players that the person behind the avatar next to yours in-game might not want to hear you say how “gay” something that you dislike is.

Isn’t pride about visibility, and online gaming — to a degree – about fantasy and anonymity?
I think folks create avatars that reflect something about their personality. People who enjoy helping others might play a healer. People who enjoy a lot of variety might choose a hybrid class. A voracious bottom might play a Blood Elf. And just because you can hide who you are in an online game … why would you want to?

Aren’t online games often filled with homophobic 14-year-old boys?
That is certainly the perception, isn’t it? Sadly, homophobia isn’t limited to 14-year-olds or just to boys. The relative anonymity of online gaming lets people be as careless and insensitive as they like, because, basically, they can be. Online-gamer culture was defined early on by straight male teens, but it has grown beyond that now. We have grandmothers, gay boys, trans people, straight men and women, some awesome hot lesbians, bi people, bears, and twinks in the Taint. But there definitely is still the random bad apple from time to time.

What do you have planned for this year’s Pride event?
For our fifth annual celebration we aim to make it a big gay party. We’ve got three contests (the Nude Duel Tournament, the Best Pride Float contest, and Azeroth’s Next Top Model) with some fab prizes, and we’re encouraging folks to participate, be creative, and have fun. We’ve created Rough Trade Radio to provide Tainters with some campy, classically queer tunes. Rest assured that as usual our parade route this year will be a faggy, laggy gay pixel mess o’ fun.

How and why did you choose to theme this year’s Pride around female-identified players? The perception of online gamers is definitely male; would you say there are many female identified queer people in WoW?
Every gay person understands what it is like to be the minority in a social situation, and because female players are definitely a small but growing subset in online gaming, I want to communicate that the Spreading Taint isn’t just a club for gay boys. Our female players rock, plain and simple. Despite the variety of folks in the Taint, we do skew mostly male, and I appreciate that it likely takes a great sense of humor and an awesome set of ovaries to so cheerfully put up with our incessant penis chat. Asking the girls to be the lead float in this year’s Pride parade is our version of Dykes on Bikes, kinda.

Are you doing anything special for Pride?
This is the first year that Blizzard has enabled us to change the gender of our avatar, so some of us boy characters are going in drag this year for Pride. Partly because it is a Pride tradition in general, but also as love and props to our girl guildies. ]]> http://hughryan.org/pixelated-pride/feed 2 http://hughryan.org/linday-lohans-fight-for-marriage-equality http://hughryan.org/linday-lohans-fight-for-marriage-equality#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:05:02 +0000 hugh http://hughryan.org/?p=23

Originally published in The Advocate, 4/25/2009. Read the original (w/ comments) here.

Lindsay Lohan’s recently released faux eHarmony profile is perhaps the most brilliant 90 seconds in the young actor’s career. She simultaneously manages to poke fun at herself, her relationship with Sam Ronson, and eHarmony — a homophobic dating website that would never allow her to post an ad looking for a “man or a woman.”

But when I posted a link to the video on my Facebook page, I received comments like “she’s young and immature and well — who cares?”

The answer: I care. Deeply. And so should anyone who’s concerned with the future of queer rights and visibility in the United States.

It can’t be stated strongly enough: Lindsay Lohan is unlike any other LGBT celebrity to come before her. She’s young, she’s beautiful, she’s A-list — and at the top of her career, she began publicly dating a woman. This is not the coy “maybe/maybe-not” game that other young celebs have played, or the outing of a former star. It’s worlds beyond the occasional kiss or the admission of having “dated women in the past,” which until now was the most radical truth that Hollywood stars would own up to.

While never choosing a label and avoiding public statements, Lindsay Lohan lived her relationship with Sam Ronson in the public eye almost exactly, one feels, as she would have had she not been famous. They partied, they made out, they fought, they bought groceries. And yes, I read about it every time. Not just because I love gossip, but because Lindsay Lohan is both representative of and at the forefront of an important cultural shift in the way sexuality plays out in the public sphere. She is the first of a new post-identity wave.

And it is this same wave that is helping to win the fight for same-sex marriage — as well as other queer issues like adoption by same-sex parents, hate-crimes bills, and discrimination protections. In the aftermath of the Prop. 8 vote in California, an important set of data came out: 63% of voters ages 18 to 29 rejected the initiative, but 54% of voters 45 to 64 supported it.

If that’s not a generational shift, then what is?

It’s not to say that time alone makes change, but instead that the work of organizers, radicals, and individuals brave enough to come out and educate those around them accrues over time. Lindsay is the flowering of the queer movement in this country: She has not attempted to sanitize or hide her life for anyone. She’s queer, she’s messy, she’s had problems with drugs and alcohol, she gets dressed up and flashes her shit, she fights with her girlfriend (sometimes publicly) — frankly, she sounds like a lot of people I know.

The more honest she is about her sexuality, the more it creates the normalized expectation among young people that sexuality is not a big deal. Of course, there is a danger in this, because violence and discrimination are still the norm for many queer people — especially those who are not white, beautiful, rich, young, and/or gender-normative.

Now is not the time to pat ourselves on the back and believe that we live in a post-homophobic world. But this new attitude offers a deep well of potential for taking the queer movement in a radical direction. In the post-identity future, where same-sex desire is less likely to be an inherently radicalizing identity, we must find a way to continue to be relevant.

The issue of marriage has long been a divisive one in the queer community. Some see it as the final frontier to equality; others as a misguided move toward assimilation and away from more important issues, such as housing discrimination or escalating violence against transgender people.

Personally, I’m not invested in marriage. I think discrimination is wrong, but why should the government give tax benefits to citizens based on relationship status? When marriage is tied to important freedoms like citizenship, keeping families together, and health care, I can understand the appeal. I’d simply prefer to decouple these benefits from marriage. But that’s another fight, one we’re not likely to have soon.

But in a world where more people can be honest about their sexuality, and marriage equality seem like an increasingly obvious civil rights issue, perhaps we can one day move on to these greater issues.

With Lindsay, of course, leading the way.