clubs | bars | cabaret | life 18 #QXGayLondon GAY LONDON Suitable only for persons of years 18 and over. QXMAGAZINE.COM FEBRUARY t 0 / print + web iPad + iPhone QX_1040_Cover.indd 2 10/02/2015 20:52 Loveis the By Patrick Cash Devilumber one single right now is Ellie Goulding’s ‘Love Me Like You Do’. The opening lyrics read: ‘You’re the Nlight, you’re the night / You’re the colour of my blood / You’re the cure, you’re the pain / You’re the only thing I wanna touch’. Miss Goulding evidently playing the cucumber cool long-term seduction plan. Love is all around us, so the three wise FERHWSJQIXEPSRIEGLSXLIV´W½RKIVWERH sages Wet Wet Wet once said, and songs expressed vows to an imaginary man in the about love are literally all around us: on the sky, you two are now one. radio, on YouTube, in after-club taxis and Except you’re not, you’re still two distinct, Subway franchises. Goulding’s hysterically different people. And now there’s no obsessive lyrics pretty much sum up a lot guidance, because you’re in the happy of their content. According to the quick- IZIVEJXIVXLI(MWRI]½PQLEWIRHIHERH produced and mass-marketed pop we are no one’s made a sequel. The song on the drenched in, your reason for existence is to radio is either ‘I need your love, I need your prostrate yourself before one lucky fellow in time’ or ‘the spell has been broken, I loved doe-eyed devotion forever, who will become you so’, lyric-writers aren’t interested in your sun, your stars and your moon. lukewarm advice for long-term 8LMWIXLSWLEWFIIRVI¾IGXIHMRXLI VIPEXMSRWLMTW,S[HS]SY½^^ ripples of art for centuries. Queen Dido of forever with that spark on a Carthage, burning herself alive after Aeneas HEVO¾S[MRKVMZIV# abandoned her in The Aeneid, totally owned If you want it, you work for it. the concept of existing solely for another If you don’t, don’t. human, approximately 2,000 years before And even if you do stay Britney recorded ‘Born to Make You Happy’. together for the rest of your “You must be Some of these love tales have began to eat lives, and are happy, one day one themselves in pop cultural terms: perennial of you will wake up holding a monogamous, teen classic Cruel Intentions is a direct update hand that’s cold. The inevitable, of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 novel vast tragedy of a life slipping because if you Les Liasions dangereuses. from the world, leaving a halved Yet is there a deeper reason for all love behind and alone, almost this saturation of being told we are on seems so sad it makes the quest aren’t you are a constant, star-cross’d quest for love? a worthless search. Because if your life will only be complete But then you meet somebody with another person in it, why would you who makes you laugh, whose EVIL.” waste your precious searching time trying eye you catch across a to think from a homeless person’s point of crowded room, whose smile is view? You’re not going to fall in love with the inexplicably in your head on the tramp outside Tescos; society has spoken. It tube. Suddenly the idea of love makes the internal far outweigh the external; doesn’t seem as jaded a concept, the personal becomes imperative, and the nor as bathed in scornful cynicism. And political rather vague and far away. even though the imperative personal quest And when you’ve got love, what then? If for love may be a distraction from what’s love’s symbol is a beating, breathing heart LETTIRMRKMRXLI[SVPHWLSYPH]SY½RHLMQ then its ventricles appear to have been the political should presumably become distortedly tied over time with muscular more important because of his love that strings of religion, marriage and society. warms the dawn. ‘Let’s Talk About Gay Sex You must be monogamous, because if you For if you love him, you’ll want to protect & Drugs – Love’ is an open aren’t you are EVIL. Once you have stood him from a world that all too often is all too communication forum for in a building before a man in a dress, put cold. anyone to come speak or listen about these themes, on Thursday 12th February from 6.30pm at Ku Klub, 30 Lisle Street, Chinatown, WC2H 7BA. Free entry. 2 QX_1040_love is the devil.indd 2 10/02/2015 19:21 _QX 1040 MASTER 1.indd 3 10/02/2015 19:38 Dom Top’s guide to dating duds The Baggage Handler &MPFS&EKKEKILIVI[MPPWIIQMHIEPEX½VWX loving, sincere, genuine and looking for a Sleazy Bastard committed relationship full of cute nights in playing Ker-Plunk and watching the This man has a one-track mind and the track Karsdashians. That’s the idea he’s desperately likely leads to some weekend-long chemsex- GPMRKMRKXSER][E];LEXJIWXIVWFIRIEXL fuelled chill out. Don’t bother trying to drag this friendly façade however, is a veritable him on a date, you won’t even make it past Pandora’s box of monstrous issues left XLI½VWXGSYVWI[MXLSYXLMQHIQSRWXVEXMRK Undercover Agent over from his last relationship (which was LMW½RKIVMRKXIGLRMUYISRXLI½KWXEVXIV probably last week). Probably whilst sucking down Viagra with No two ways about it, something in the milk Engage with this one and pretty soon you’ll his chardonnay. This walking erection is ain’t clean with this one. The Undercover FI½IPHMRKMVEXIQIWWEKIWSRXLILSYVIZIV] only interested in INSERTIONS and he’s Agent will feed you any number of reasons hour about who that boy in your last tagged harbouring a full body harness under his why he can’t show you his face, why he can’t photo is and why you didn’t text him before tearaway tux. be seen in public, why you can’t know his you went for a dump. Leave this one on the real name, etc. Unless he’s messaging you carousel, kids 2QOLQH3URºOHZLOOVD\: “OPEN from ISIS base camp though, the truth of the MINDED” and not much else. But he will matter is almost always the same; this dude 2QOLQH3URºOHZLOOVD\: “Lookin 4 send you roughly 15 photos of his sphincter is a double–dipper. You’ll want to douche Mr right, been hurt too many times b4 but givin before you can say ‘hello’. thoroughly before doing this one, lest you this 1 last go. Cuddler. Romantic. sic the suspicious spouse on yourself. They’ll Lookin 4 forever. WHY IS FIWRMJ½RKSYX]SYVWGIRXSRLMWWGLPSRK EVERYONE ON HERE SO 2QOLQH3URºOHZLOOVD\: “Looking RUDE?” for discreet. Your face pic gets mine. CAN’T ACCOM.” ss sssss The Bone(R) Collector The collector is the most common of the lower beings, lurking in almost every corner of the virtual dating world. He never meets but simply trawls through the ether, collating hundreds upon hundreds of cock TMGWWSLIQE]JIEWXYTSRXLIQMRLMW½PXL] JIXMHPEMV,IGERFIMHIRXM½IHJVSQLMW almost-immediate enthusiasm for swapping TMGWGSYTPIH[MXLXLIUYIWXMSR±;,%89 INTO?”, hoping to incite a cyber-sex session while he saves your hard-ons to his hard drive. 2QOLQH3URºOHZLOOVD\: The collector can be hard to identify as he GSQIWMRQER]KYMWIW8LITVS½PITMGQMKLX show you a sexy Spanish stallion, but you can be near-certain it’s a collector wearing his last victim’s visage. 4 QX_1040_Love by james.indd 4 10/02/2015 19:26 _QX 1040 MASTER 1.indd 5 10/02/2015 19:38 The Shame & Sexuality Series… Hj]llqEakk;Yajg H]ghd]f]]\lgklYjld]Yjfaf_`Yj\Yf\^Ykll`Ylo`Yl]n]jo] o]Yj$o`]j]n]jo]_g$q]ke]Yfkq]kYf\fge]Yfkfg& But I see this on such a regular basis and not just with performers. I see bartenders ERH[EMXIVWVSYXMRIP]SFNIGXM½IHERHEVI expected to endure unwanted advances, f you have had the pleasure of and a lot of employers don’t protect their seeing me perform, you’ve probably staff from this kind of behaviour but actively witnessed a lot of my body. I’m encourage them to utilise it for monetary shameless in sharing my physique gain. I, of course, have no problem using sex with my audiences in order and sexuality to earn a living, but only on a to question the boundaries of consensual basis. No one should be forced. sexuality and gender. I’m fearless -´QEPPJSVSFNIGXM½GEXMSRFYXMXLEWXSFI in exposing myself, and sometimes agreed and not put upon an individual. I make people feel uncomfortable The other night at a performance, I was with my nakedness, which is great. grabbed several times by someone who I did I want you to question what is not know, and had not been invited to do so. actually offensive about our bodies; &]XLIIRHSJXLIRMKLX-XSPHLIV½VQP]XLEX they are beautiful, they are funny, she had no right to they are sexy and they should be do so. She apologised idolised in every shape and form. , but she was The only thing you won’t see is me questioning my ‘no’, Iwith an erection. You either have to be my essentially saying that “ EqgfdqZgmf\Yjq partner, or be paying me a hell of a lot of because I’m dressed money for that privilege. provocatively, it’s I work a lot on a consent basis within not her fault. Her performance. I like to think that even friend then, out of akl`YlqgmYj] when I cross boundaries, I am sensitive the blue, interjected enough to know when someone feels and tried to diminish uncomfortable for any reason, and I like to me as a human being fglYddgo]\lg think that I would be there with an open and deprecate my heart and mind to discuss with someone right to say no.