For 35 years, gay men have been told one thing: wear a condom. In my work as a journalist and broadcaster, I have specialised in covering gay men’s sexual health issues, and have always encouraged listeners to be responsible for their own health and wellbeing. Now, new forms of protection that do not involve latex …

He’s been paddling in the pool for 20 minutes, locking eyes with every member of the water polo team. I’m reclining by the edge of the water with my shirt unbuttoned. When he gets out to sit on the grass, I get up slowly and walk towards the showers. A few minutes later, he follows me …

I keep interrupting him to ask if the condom is still on. He pauses for a second. “Yeah dude, I’ll let you know if it comes off.” We started speaking on Grindr two hours ago and now I’m in his apartment in Carlton North, long hairy legs sprawled open around his neck. Something about the …

On my first night out in St Kilda when I first moved to Melbourne, I downloaded Tinder and Grindr and self-advertised the hours away. While I built meaningful relationships through both apps, optimism slowly slipped away after cross-examination. A white cisgender gay man like myself does not have too much trouble fitting in with online …

I spend the most time with myself, running my fingers over my stomach and agonising over the parts that are soft. I guess all queer and trans people feel the way I feel at some point, because our bodies become associated with a very specific type of failure. In Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet, he …

As a child, I remember thinking about getting married. In my mind, I always pictured a woman by my side. I was socially conditioned to think this way from an early age because I never felt like I had any role models outside of the traditional representation of what it meant to be a man …

Since the realisation that I was attracted to men in my early adolescence, I’ve never had any doubt that the desire was entirely innate and immutable.   I’ve never been attracted to women, and I couldn’t imagine feeling any other way. Not everybody attracted to the same sex feels this way, however. A minority of …

Whenever we think of AIDS, we are immediately drawn back to the 80s when its emergence was at the forefront of Australian media. To say that it was a difficult period would be a major understatement – people were getting the virus left and right, casual sex received a bad reputation and our government hoped …

I passed by a familiar face at the top of the stairs. He smiled knowingly at me.   I remembered him from a one-time fuck some months ago – a face that had popped up on apps a few times, but had never materialised in the flesh again, until now. We spoke openly, the silence …

Holding the Man counteracted this culture by offering an intimate and unashamed portrait of same-sex love and the pains wrought by the epidemic, demonstrating the ability of love to transcend and persist beyond death.

I’m being destructive, and I know it.” This statement comes from community consultation I did recently with HIV-positive gay men on how they feel they’re being affected by using crystal meth, otherwise known as ice, or tina in the queer community. If you have picked up a newspaper recently, you’d have heard of the crystal …

IN JUST OVER two weeks, the third Asia Pacific Out Games kicks off in Darwin, Australia. There’s been no bidding war over who will televise the games, nor any slow motion ads showing athletes with muscles rippling, faces contorted with determination. For most people, the Asia Pacific Out Games, like the Gay Games and the …

Music in itself is pretty gay. It’s often melodramatic, sometimes camp and always likely to incite singing, dancing or jazz-hands – stereotypically gay behaviour by pop culture’s own yardstick. It’s therefore ironic that the medium has been sparse on gay content. Until now. A shift is underway and it reached a crescendo with Macklemore. His …

When journalist Josephine Sargent moved to Sydney for an editing job, she was thrown in the deep end of sexual diversity. THE PHONE rang. It was my mum. Mum: Hello darling. Your aunty just rang. She saw you on the news. Josephine: Really? Yay! Mum: In a bikini. Rehearsing for that gay and lesbian parade on …

Marry Me depicts the everyday experiences of an average Aussie gay man: arguments with family; flawed, drunken sexual encounters; the use of sex-based phone apps and the coveted afternoon beach visit when it all gets a bit much.