Are all gay men just superficial disco bunnies with only one thing on their minds? The mass media would certainly have you believe that is so, and with figure heads such as Boy George and Julian Clary, who can blame the public for going along with this idea. Of course, straight acting gay men are just harder to detect. So homophobes continue with their prejudices and the 21st century, thinking gay man gets very lonely wondering where all the men like him are! How, then, do intelligent professional gay men meet each other? There are thousands of clubs and pubs, dating agencies and personal ads for cruising purposes, but it can be extremely difficult to meet professional gay friends for purely social purposes, where a deeper relationship may develop. This is where the gay dining club comes to the rescue. I recently tried Out & Out, London’s longest established dining club for professional gay men and was amazed at how civilized an evening with 40 gay men could be.
Out & Out was started by the disarmingly charming and truly scrumptious Julia Melinek. Eleven years ago, opera singer Julia (she’s sung Madam Butterfly for English National Opera) and fellow warbler, Mark Glanville (more recently the author of best – selling book The Goldberg Variations) realised that they were so good at organising dinner parties for gay colleagues that they might as well do it professionally. As Out & Out, they booked a stand at a Gay lifestyle exhibition at Earl’s Court and pretty much became an instant success. Today they’re the biggest dining club for professional gay men in the UK, with a membership that sometimes hits a thousand. They are not just another gay dating service in London. Through the gay dining club format, members can meet new friends, network professionally and chat without any of the posing and cruising obligations of the scene.
How did they do it? Professional fag hag (it’s her description) Julia reckons that, as far as social skills are concerned, “you’re born that way.” But she likens her table – hopping duties at Out & Out functions to those of the circus plate spinner, forever dashing to give the plate at the end another twirl. Having seen her in action, I can confirm that, like the guy with the plates, she performs apparently effortlessly. But what is it with Julia and gay men? “There’s a special relationship between straight women and gay men,” she explains. “It’s like the girlie friendship, opposite sexes getting on with each other without the sexual tension.” The personal touch extends to communications with the Out & Out office. There are no mail-shots. Julia and Mark can spend eight hours a day on the phone, telling members about upcoming lunches and dinners, plus other events including theatre visits, foreign trips and boat cruises. Clearly the label ‘Gay Dining Club’ only reveals part of the picture as members use the club for professional networking purposes, expanding their social horizons, debates, message posting and of course, inevitably, for gay dating.
But, ultimately, is it all about sex? Surprisingly, no. “It’s far less a sexual thing than the scene,” says Julia. I accepted an invitation to the gallery bar of the Cross Keys, a beautiful old pub in Chelsea, where Out & Out celebrated Valentine’s Day. The mix of men was much as Julia had described, all ages, classes and races, but “the common denominator is intelligence, those who enjoy a dinner party atmosphere as opposed to posing and cruising.”
After a 17 year relationship broke up, lawyer David T found it very difficult to “let loose” again. “In the bars I was very conscious of being older,” he told me, “but here, as you can see, the age range is very wide.” At Out & Out he has made a lot of gay friends, some men he now sees independently. What about romance? None as yet. David feels that Out & Out is primarily a social group. But then I met David L and William R who have been together for three years after meeting at an Out & Out function. “Jules is very good at judging,” said David. “She sits people next to each other if she thinks they’re going to get on. With us, she got it right.” “I didn’t want a gay dating agency when I joined Out and Out,” said William “I was far more interested in networking with professional gay men and meeting new friends….but then I met David, and the rest is history!”
Now David is trying to get William to County Hall! “We’ll invite Mark and Jules,” David promised.
Pankaj Mohan
http://www.articlesbase.com/sexuality-articles/more-to-gay-life-than-sex-55292.html
Why is the life of a dog worth more than a human life?
I was just wondering why Michael Vick gets a couple of years in jail for killing dogs but Dante Stallworth kills a kid and gets a 30 day sentence. This shows me that our country values the life of a pet more than that of a human. Im not a pet lover at all but there is something wrong with this country if a human life isn’t worth as much as a pet’s life. So why is a dog’s life more important than a human life?
If you ask me it wasn’t that Vick killed a dog that made his crime horrible. It was that his victims of choice were animals rather than people. He derived the same power had the same bloodlust of a murderer, but instead of attacking people he attacked animals.
If Vick had tried to kill me, for instance, then at least I am better able to defend myself, have an inkling of what he might try and can counter those movements. My dog for instance, would lick my hand even as I was cutting out his heart.
Vick burned, electrocuted, stabbed, drowned, shot dogs that lost in the fighting ring. He systematically exploited the absolute weakest members of our society for his own amusement. While killing a person is worse, I agree, the depravity of his acts should have earned him a worse punishment.
Not to mention, if I was killed then there is at least an argument that can be made stating that I deserved what I got, that I knew it was coming. I mean face it, we have all done crappy things, even if those things are small, we have done them and are guilty. A dog, what can a dog do 99% of the time that would justify exploiting and serially executing them? Despite all of the horror stories dogs very rarely attack kids for no reason, we all know that, but if a dog bites a kid the dog is killed. There is no self defense for a dog. Even had one bitten the crap out of Vick and escaped, he still would have been put down.
Sad… I prefer killers stick to people myself. We have earned it at least, to some degree or another. Maybe because of our capacity for evil and hedonism….
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I hunt BTW. In the above, I am trying to say that Vick killed dogs instead of people because he was capable of killing people, but psychologically preferred dogs, being weaker even than children….
There’s no really good way to describes who is worth more and animals have the powers to do things that human can such as changing the entire society if they are having attention while inspiring other people or animals as well. Killing an kid is just as bad as killing an puppy and some people in the earth just don’t value the youth. The real question is how comes they put an man into jail for life or death penalty for killing another legal adult while they don’t do as long as that for killing an animal or an young person?
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It is the fault of law; law is blind, abstract and fixed. Because it is blind it can be manipulated and the result is you got disasters like this.
It is funny how in certain context, killing hundreds of people is not worth attention while in another context killing a dog will put you in jail. I like pets, but they are not more valuable than humans.
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If it is pathological case as they revealed why don’t they got him a psychotherapist? Do you think jail will heal him? Most often people go to jail for slight offences and come back with a serious criminal mentality as they got the infection from their fellows.
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One dog year is worth 7 human years.
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You should be questioning corruption in our law system, not humanity. It is the lawyers who fight for idioitic laws and defend these pieces of crap that leave our system with its unbelievable laws.
In humanity taking another humans life is the ultimate crime.
In our court system where the letter of the law has to be followed, unless we have flawless, fair, and just laws (impossible because of lawyers decieving and playing on words turning black and white to grey) people will get sentences as outrageous as 30 DAYS FOR THE DEATH OF A CHILD!!!! Disgusting!!!
Thankfully in our flawed, messed up courts, no sentence is final. All can be contested and fought!
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dante stallworth and vick are both FU*KING a**HOLES AND I THINK KILLING A KID IS WORSE THEN KILLING AN ADULT BECAUSE KIDS ARE LESS DEFENCIVE. imagine how scared that kid was when stallwoth killed him Bi*ch. in my poinion stallworth should be exicuted.
now im a HUGE animal lover and vick had a longer time in jail for killing over 100 dogs oppose to 1 kid. I THINK VICK SHOULD BE BURNED ELETROCUTED AND DROWNED I HATE HIM SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A$$ 0
BOTHWAS TERRIBLE THE LAW HERE SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Don’t know the story of Vick. Well sometimes humans act like dogs and that’s shameful and sad.
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Your question suggests that justice has something
to do with the value of a life. It doesn’t. Its a business
and, like any business, its ethics and purpose is
focused on the idea of making money. The degree of a
persons "guilt" is determined by the number of dollars
the accused can bring to bear on the justice system.
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I think you need to do more research before posting such illiterate questions. Nothing personal.
Vick’s charges were different. It involved a long-term (six years+) illegal gambling operation, illegal proceeds from those operations, dog-fighting, interstate charges (across state lines, that makes his crimes federal ones, not state ones, which automatically gives his conviction different rules), animal cruelty, and many other angles.
Primarily, it was a long-running, pre-meditated action for personal gain.
Meanwhile, Dante Stallworth’s situation was NOT premeditated. It was an accident and not done for personal gain. And while drinking played a role, the victim (a 59 year old man, not ‘a kid’) was also illegally crossing the street which shifts some of the blame, legally speaking, to him. The victim put himself in an illegal area where cars wouldn’t expect to find a pedestrian, creating a dangerous situation for himself and drivers. That doesn’t make it wholly his fault, but unlike the dogs which had no choice and didn’t know any better, the victim here did know better and tried to cross a dangerous, busy road where there was no crosswalk–assuming some of the risk by his actions.
(We had someone near where I live kill a pedestrian fairly recently and get off without even charges being filed, much less a trial, all because the pedestrian was illegally crossing the street and the driver was doing everything legally. They killed a person and walked totally free because it was ruled to be essentially the person that got killed’s fault.)
You’re also only looking at jail time as ‘the sentence.’ Stallworth also got 1000 hours of community service, 2 years of house arrest, 8 years of probation, not to count professional retribution, such as a full season off without pay. He didn’t just get 30 days, he lost hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and if he screws up legally in just about any way for the next 10 years it will violate his probation and send him back to prison. He got 30 days in jail, but a much larger sentence.
No, a dog’s life is not worth more than a man’s. But the crimes, circumstances, number of charges, intentions behind the crimes, and applicable laws (such as state versus federal) were wholly different. You’re creating a false comparison just to have something to get riled up about. Do some research next time.
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It is not worth more or less, Vick viciously tortured helpless animals for amusement, sociopathic behavior which no evolved society should tolerate.
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