Planet Homo

The Thick and Thin of It

A new study by university researchers supports the stereotype that gay men are thinner than straight people and lesbians are heavier.

The report, published in the American Journal of Public Health, looked at a survey of more than 67,000 Massachusetts residents between the ages of 18 and 64.

According to msnbc.com, researchers found that while 21 per cent of straight men were classed as obese, only 14 per cent of gay men were.

Conversely, they found that 26 per cent of lesbians were obese, compared to 17 per cent of straight women.

It was also found that gay men and lesbians were more likely to smoke than straight people and lesbians were more likely to be at risk of heart disease than straight women.

The study's lead author Kerith Conron, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, told the news provider the findings made a good case for tailoring health messages to lesbians and gay men.

“This may mean that we in the public health community need to come up with more tailored messages to reach these groups, just as car dealers do when they want to reach a specific target audience,” she said.

Ms Conron added that it may be more acceptable for gay women to be fuller-figured, which accounts for the higher rate of obesity.

SOURCE

Gay Ware

Report from Iowa

Intrepid reporter Todd Schultz braved the cold of Iowa to file this report:
Wednesday nights in Iowa City, Iowa tend to drag. Or rather, is it the queens who are dragging?
At Studio 13, a gay bar about half the size of an Olympic size swimming pool, Queen bee Drag Queen, and Iowan Gay Icon Dena Cass is a riot. A comedienne, a hell of a dancer, and tits that would put Pam Anderson in her glory days to shame.
 People might not expect this class of drag fervor in a “small town” like Iowa City. But the boys in Iowa know how to get down.
 In fact, Iowa City is said to be among the highest per capita gay cities in the nation. And on Wednesday nights Studio 13 is packed to the brim. Hot men everywhere, drinks are flowing, and the lovely ladies of Wednesday Night’s Drag show parade in their glamour gowns.
 When I decided to cover the drag show, I was a little bit shy about taking pictures, but I was obviously naïve about Drag Queens. Dena was anything but shy. She flaunted her long lashes, and her luscious fun bags, only getting wilder for the camera.
 Iowa may not be your idea of the ideal vacation, but for all of you guys out there who have that corn-fed farm boy fantasy, it just might be the perfect spot.
 And know this: When you come to Studio 13, on a Wednesday Night, you know you’re going to have a good time, Dena will make sure of that.

The Advocate: This is news?

The Advocate is a self proclaimed news magazine and their website is "The Award-Winning LGBT News Site" so it’s a little strange when you see on their pages yesterday this "news" story about the former lover of  Portland mayor, Sam Adams accepting to pose, naked of course for, you guessed it, Unzipped magazine. Cross pollination is nothing new, but rarely this shameless.

The Academy Award of Tricks

It was bound to happen: we live in a digital era, where dating is nothing less than getting online and demanding your particular pleasure and expecting it. It's a nasty playground to be sure. People lie. Many people are bored and assuming a personality and image has never been easier. The "trick" is to never never follow through. If you do, you might find yourself on rateurtrick.com. Started in November 2008, RYT currently has 12,000 members. Started for noble reasons as creator Robert Hallman revealed in a recent interview:  I was living in Seattle in 2000 and a friend of mine and I knew someone named JonPaul who was constantly going off on this guy and that guy and after a while, just listening to him gave me the idea of doing the site. My friend John, however, decided it was a bad idea because of the potential of slander, etc.—but then we hadn’t done our research and we knew nothing about the CDA Act of 1996, so it never happened. I finally made the decision to do it when two things occurred: a friend of mine—who used drugs—was hung and overdosed by some guy while he was in their playroom, while his boyfriend was in the office area in the same house. All my friend remembers is the guy his lover was playing with walk by with this five-year-old laptop and leave the house and then he heard kicking sounds coming from the playroom and found his lover hanging by a noose, frothing at the mouth."
While most encounters are less dramatic, the sheer drama of finding out about next week's trick can be titillating. There will always be the potential for revenge—less than happy tricksters for a litany of reasons, discarding the truth for sexual fictions or other innuendo. ("Tweaker Tweaker Sunny Day, OMG it Sun, girl STAY AWAY....what a mess!") Or in an era of shameless self-promotion, you can always write yourself up in glowing terms. ("Hook up with this guy if you can") . The current listings are surprisingly kind: most men tell it like it is. People may lie about their age a few years, or a few inches, but it seems like most people are out there, having a lot of sex, and enjoying it. Check it out.

Happy Valentine's

Yes it is.

http://www.obviousmag.com/

How the Economy Works