If you’re into bubblegum pop, Kim Petras might just save your summer with this one. The rising queen of pop has already cornered the market on spooky bops thanks to last year’s electrifying Turn Off The Light, but her bubbly, swooning new single Malibu practically drags listeners to the beach, slaps the sunscreen on, and mixes them a cocktail with Blue Curaçao.
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Malibu
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Muse Monday *12
Bathing Boys by Hermann Lismann, born 1878 in Munich, Germany, killed by the Nazis 1943 in the Majdanek concentration camp in Lublin, Poland.
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15 sex toys for queer folks
The sex toy industry is modernizing. The toy boom of the late-‘70s established the market with lowbrow kitsch: gaudy packaging, leopard print, bright colors. Building up courage to step in a dingy sex shop — the kind with mannequins in cheap lingerie in the window — was a rite of passage for many. But most products you’d find there were (and are) poorly made, aggressively gendered, and inaccessible to those with disabilities.
The online, direct-to-consumer sex toy industry is changing that. We now have an onslought of new brands — and some tried-and-true established ones, many of them queer-owned and women-owned — creating better products.
What do the experts love? Ask them. From vibrators to BDSM gear, these are the best sex toys for LGBTQ+ people of all stripes.
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2gether
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Tummy Tuesday *73
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Say so
Yes I just woke up obvi pic.twitter.com/JBe7xZB9I8
— Riley Finch (@rileyfinchxxx) May 8, 2020
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João Pedro Mota
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Wet Wednesday *104
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GagaOOLala wants to be the Netflix of queer Asia
There are tons of streaming services out there. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Quibi, HBO’s various services. And that’s not counting more niche platforms like WOW Presents Plus, which brings all things drag straight to your device. And now, there’s GagaOOLala which wants to bring you all the Asian queer goodness.
GagaOOLala isn’t new. The service was founded in 2006 in Taiwan. One of the co-founders, Jay Lin, helped to start Taiwan’s International Queer Film Festival.
“There was a lack of LGBTQ+ content available all year round in Taiwan and the rest of Asia,” Lin said. “A physical film festival happening during a few days was not the solution, we needed something 24/7. The situation in many Asian countries is still dire, in some of them, homosexuality is still considered a crime. We needed to provide easier access to LGBTQ+ stories to let them know they are not alone.” Enter this streaming service.
The site serves as a space to access content that they only serve as distributors for, in addition to original material. And this collection of feature films, short films, and series hail from Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, China, the Philippines, and other countries. And it’s lauded work: The Teacher was a GagaOOLala original film that was nominated for several Golden Horse Awards and took home one — the award show is Taiwan’s equivalent to the Oscars.
The service now launched globally and for US$6.99, users can watch the films and shows with English or Chinese subtitles with more languages coming soon — a free version of the service boasts more than 30 films as well. The launch was timed to the one-year anniversary of Taiwan passing marriage equality. The move made the country the first in Asia to do so. In celebration of that anniversary, the streamer will launch Taiwan Equals Love, an original documentary that follows the island’s path to allowing same-sex marriages.
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Ian Jeffrey
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Max Haddadin
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Troye Sivan tries to keep up with a professional chef
Troye’s trying to cook (again) and the emphasis is on trying ;)
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Philip Ellis
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Femboy Friday *35
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What K-Pop’s beautiful men can teach us about masculinity
Rob Marciano, the 51-year-old senior meteorologist on ABC’s Good Morning America, is the archetype of a red-blooded American man — six-foot-something, a healthy head of brown hair and Crest-commercial smile, wearing an impeccably tailored blue suit fit for a presidential debate. On an August day in New York City, he stands opposite the South Korean men of Monsta X, themselves models of handsomeness back home.
All in their twenties, Monsta X are wearing dramatic red and black prints, some in billowy button-up shirts, and all in tight, black leather pants. Their skin is rendered flawless with foundation, and their smokey eyes and lip tints glisten under the studio lights. Marciano is polite and friendly, but acts like an awkward dad, flashing peace signs here and there, not seeming to understand the massive appeal of one of the biggest bands in the world.
He’s not alone. K-pop has seen a meteoric rise in visibility in the West in the past three years, and bands have been welcomed with enthusiasm — as well as confusion. The wave has largely been led by BTS, who have secured four Billboard No.1 albums (the only other group to do so were The Beatles), and have sold out stadiums around the world. Other groups like BLACKPINK, Monsta X, SuperM, and NCT 127 have also graced American charts and found a voracious fanbase that will show up for them on tour.
But despite its passionate global fandom, many feel as if Korean music is only conditionally embraced by the American mainstream — a temporary foreign novelty rather than a legitimate player. When K-pop groups are invited to American award shows, they’re often excluded from the main creative awards, and either recognized for their social media presence or siloed into separate categories from their Western peers.
Brands will often attempt to curry favor with K-pop fandoms by engaging with them on Twitter in a blatant play to artificially grow their followers. Some critics felt that BTS was snubbed at the Grammys for the second year in a row, but that didn’t stop the Recording Academy from inviting them to perform on the big night, in what some pointed out looked like an effort to boost ratings. BTS’ most recent album, Map of the Soul: 7, was the biggest U.S. release of any band so far this year (double the debut sales of Justin Bieber’s Changes), but the band’s music continues to be largely ignored by American radio.
Foreign-language music has never had an easy time climbing the charts in America. But K-pop presents another added barrier to entry: the look and style of its male artists. Despite K-pop’s rise in the West, its integration into the U.S. mainstream might be awkward because it has forced Americans to confront and reckon with long-held stereotypes we have regarding masculinity — especially when it comes to Asian men. By specifically looking at male K-pop groups’ beauty in the context of traditional American views of masculinity, many of our biases and hangups are becoming more evident.
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Finn
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Six
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A dream come true
The moment a trans boy learns he can finally start hormone therapy… pic.twitter.com/nwoNngFcTj
— milkboys
(@milkboys) May 16, 2020
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Sporty Sunday *82
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Straight people unbox queer NSFW items
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