I LOVE THESE ADS!GOSH, THEY ARE SO SAME GENDER LOVING AFFIRMING

I just absolutely love these ads. They are so adorable, sensual and same gender loving. I wish I had seen these kinds of ads growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. It would have done so much for my self-esteem and confidence as I grew up struggling with my own sexuality.

Beautiful ads!





I have to quote Kenyon Farrow, a friend, who said it best "This is the way to do social marketing for HIV prevention for Black and Latino Gay men. My friends at the Institute for Gay Men’s Health at GMHC continue to break the mold in terms of how to do effective, interesting, and NON-STIGMATIZING HIV prevention."

_____________________

This "I AM GAY: AND THIS IS WHERE I PLAY" ad was absolutely brilliant and groundbreaking to me. I can identify with the sports element in this ad as a Black SGL brutha who does play sports. Also, it depicts masculine (all things being relative) bruthaz around the idea of sports play, too. A total connection for me and hopefully others less informed or playing into stereotypes. I have blogged (twice already in July 2009) about my LOVE of sports and how most Black SGL bruthaz in my circle aren't really into sports. And you don't really here about Black SGL men in sports reported on in the mainstream (unless a player retires and reveals himself after the fact to be homosexual - and I have no value judgment on that. It's most certainly a personal decision).

Well, I had the privilege of seeing a huge 80 foot long (I'm guessing) monstrosity (I mean that in a most excellent and grand way) affixed to a building wall at the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue - If you never got to see the ad below in person, can you image it in the middle of the heart of HARLEM, USA?????! It blew my damn mind. YOU READ ME?!!! YOU HEARD?!!! The scale was huge and it was most certainly in your face and totally unavoidable. It no doubt sparked a lot of dialogue. And dialogue is definitely needed in the Black community.

I personally don't identify with the word "gay" at all,
instead I use the self-naming, cultural affirmation and pro-Black term SGL (Same gender loving). You'll see MY use of the term throughout my blog and if we communicate via email or in person. However, this ad caught my total attention as I stopped on the corner, stared at it for many moments and looked around to see if anyone saw me looking at it. LOL! There hasn't been anything bold like this since I saw the controversial (wording) "I Know My Son Messes Around With Other Men..." ad back in the late 1990s on the inside of the trains themselves. Phenomenal! Dat's wassup!

INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA!!!Why Does Homosexual Porn And SGL Lifestyle Magazines Need A "Sexual Orientation" Disclaimer?

Is it just me or does anyone get bent out of shape in regard to the (above picture) "sexual acts" disclaimer (pictured above) at the beginning of porn video credits???!! I know some people may laugh at me for getting bent out of shape about a disclaimer on porn (despite it's overall artistic endeavors and impact on the world being low on the totem pole). However, there is something to be said about the psychology of this kind of thinking and propaganda and one's self-worth to even address this on a video.

Although this particular disclaimer above is from the Rocky Ruiz porn video, I've seen this type of disclaimer in a number of homosexual porn videos as well as same gender loving (SGL) lifestyle magazines like PULSE, CLIK and Bleu (see the fine print).


I mean, why do these companies need to say that? Do heterosexual porn videos or general (non-homosexual) lifestyle magazines out there state a similar disclaimer? Well, NO, not that I've ever seen. To me this speaks of internalized-homophobia: the idea of being featured in a homosexual porn video or a respectable and excellent lifestyle magazine, yet claiming a loophole that some of the actors, stars or models may not have a homosexual orientation because they're featured in a homosexual product. This is NOT needed!! It's like being apologetic for someone featured in a magazine who might be misconstrued as being homosexual because the target audience is Black or Latino same gender loving folks. Come on... Actors are actor! Stars are stars! Models are models! As long as the viewer's fantasy is fulfilled in a video, or a magazine model's picture compliments the words of a particular feature article(s), then that is all that matters.

I don't wonder or muse through a video or magazine on whether a brutha is hetero or homo. I sometimes think to myself in some cases that "Wow! He looks mad cute" or "Man! He's a hottie" and then I move on because I don't know these bruthaz.


I've had this discussion with other bruthaz in my circle and basically I get a body language shug of "So what?" or no response as it's not important to them. I told one of my mentors that I'm going to publish it here on the Nubian Knights Network, and his question was "Do you actually read the credits during a porn video?" I didn't say this to him (my mentor), but I do like to read credits only for the productions dates of the video to see how recent the video is otherwise I don't read anything else except the starring people. It just so happens that I've been catching these disclaimers in a number of videos and remember seeing it in PULSE magazine, too. And YES, I do proudly claim that I do sit through and read the credits of Indy and Hollywood films at the end of a film in the movie theater, and also watch the credits through and through for home viewing. Going all the way back to when I was a kid, I've always taken the artistry of filmmaking (not porn) seriously and I like to see the credits of the hundreds of folks it takes to put a film production together. I guess, hence me persuing the dream as a filmmaker myself. So sue me!

Click The Above Image To See
The Yellow Hi-lited Fine Print
On The Ridiculous Sexual Orientation Disclaimer

Again, maybe it's just me, but I wanted to get this off my chest. I just think it's stupid and ridiculous and speaks to one of the myriad of problems in the Black (and Latino) SGL community regarding our (non) comfortability with our fluid sexuality and the emasculation and woundedness of the Black male which goes all the way back 400+ years to our powerlessness during slavery and the middle passage.