Posts made by leatherbear

More Frank ~  some without hair. He is quite the bodybuilder and keeps the hair shaved most of the time 

A few more…...

Roxana Hegeman
AP

WICHITA, Kan. – An Air Force sergeant convicted of exposing multiple sex partners to HIV at swinger parties was sentenced Wednesday to eight years in military prison and will be dishonorably discharged after serving his time.

A court martial judge earlier found Tech. Sgt. David Gutierrez guilty on seven of eight counts of aggravated assault and violating his commander's order to notify partners about his HIV status and use condoms. The judge also convicted Gutierrez of indecent acts for having sex in front of others and eight counts of adultery.

The judge, Lt. Col. William Muldoon, delivered the sentence after a brief hearing, during which Gutierrez had begged between sobs not to be discharged so he could keep the military medical benefits he will now lose. Gutierrez also will be reduced to the lowest enlistment rank while serving out his military confinement.

Before he was sentenced, Gutierrez told Muldoon that he was willing to spend more time in jail rather than lose his medical benefits he needs.

"The possibility of a future without assistance does scare me - scares me to the core," he tearfully said. "The cost of medicine is very expensive and I don't know if I can afford it."

Gutierrez, 43, apologized to the court, the Air Force, his family and his sexual partners. He said he thanks God every day none of his partners contracted the disease and asked the judge to have mercy on him so he can live to see his two children graduate from college and get married.

Prosecutors had argued Gutierrez played Russian roulette with his sexual partners' lives.

"The accused was not thinking about how his victims would pay for their medications," Capt. Sam Kidd said.

Defense attorneys asked for imprisonment in the "single digits" and pleaded with the judge not to impose the punitive discharge that would strip his benefits.

"He is looking at his own mortality as he looks down the road," said defense attorney Maj. James Dorman.

Dr. Donna Sweet testified Wednesday that the cost of HIV medication typically runs between $1,700 and $1,800 a month, and HIV infected patients on average spend between $28,000 and $30,000 annually for their medical care.

Without medical care, infected patients usually die within 10 years, she said. But with proper care and mediation, a 20-year-old person who contracts HIV can easily expect to live to age 70.

A Wichita woman who said she has lived a swinger lifestyle for six years returned to the stand during Gutierrez's sentencing hearing to give a victim impact statement, saying she found out from news reports about the case that she had been exposed to HIV.

"Actually I started crying," she said. "I was kind of mortified."

Several people who participated in swinger and partner-swapping events with Gutierrez and his wife testified this week that they never would have had sex with him had he told them he was HIV-positive.

Gutierrez repeatedly denied that he was infected, and he was encouraged by his wife to carry on with swinger events, several witnesses testified during the airman's court martial at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita.

Gutierrez originally was charged with 10 counts of aggravated assault and with violating his squadron commander's order to notify partners about his HIV status and use condoms. The judge granted a prosecution request Wednesday to drop two of the assault charges and one of the adultery charges.

The man who invented the macho gay image could be the hero of 2011's European city of culture.

* Alfred Hickling
    * guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 January 2011 21.59 GMT

Finland's cultural gifts to the world include Sibelius, the Moomins and an artist that the country has been less eager to celebrate. The name Touko Laaksonen may not be immediately familiar; and unless you are acquainted with homoerotic art, his alter ego Tom of Finland may not mean much either. But you have almost certainly seen the style he created: a pantheon of bikers, leather-men, lumberjacks and rodeo stars that defined the macho-gay image of the 1970s.

Born in 1920, Tom came from Turku, this year's European Capital of Culture. Only the fifth-largest city in Finland, Turku has a well-preserved castle, the country's oldest cathedral and a museum containing Sibelius's final, half-smoked cigar. But it is hardly so culture-rich as to be able to ignore the region's most internationally recognised artist.

A self-taught draughtsman, Laaksonen's earliest homoerotic drawings were inspired by his service in the Finnish armed forces. After the war, he worked in advertising, but another career arrived in 1956 when the American publication Physique Pictorial – a bodybuilding magazine serving a predominately gay audience – published Laaksonen's drawing of an Adonis-like lumberjack on the cover. The editors credited the work to "Tom of Finland", a pseudonym Laaksonen was never entirely happy with, though American "beefcake" magazines became the major outlet for his work. In 1973, he was able to move to California and live exclusively from sales of erotic pictures.

Although the Museum of Modern Art in New York contains examples of Tom's work, and he has been shown at the Venice Biennale, the Finns have been slow to embrace him. This may not seem so surprising given that homosexuality was illegal in Finland until 1971, and same-sex partnerships were sanctioned only in 2002. Even today, the country isn't noted for tolerance: last July, a gay pride march in Helsinki became the target of a gas attack.

The artistic director of Turku 2011, Suvi Innilä, admits that showing Tom was a controversial choice. "At first, I was not sure if you could include such images in a mainstream arts festival," she says. "But then when I saw the quality of the original drawings on paper, there could be no doubt. He is, without question, the most significant and influential artist to come from this region. The idea of having a cultural year in Turku without him was unthinkable."

Tom's homecoming has been facilitated by the Liverpool-based arts organisation Homotopia, which mounted the first UK showing of his work, and expanded with contributions from the Tom of Finland Foundation in LA. Although Tom published his work in America, the illustrations explore a distinctively Scandinavian milieu – the Finnish cultural cornerstones of the sauna and the sausage stand feature prominently. Yet despite the explicit content of some of the images, this retrospective has not been hidden under the counter. It runs for a full year at Logomo, a new space that forms the focal point of the Turku 2011 celebrations. More than 50,000 people are expected to visit; in the experience of curator Gary Everett, fewer than half of them are likely to be gay.

"When we first showed Tom in Liverpool, 55% of the audience were straight women," Everett says. "I think Tom can be quite liberating for women because it gives them the chance to see men objectified in a way that women have been objectified for centuries."

So is it art or is it porn? Durk Dehner, founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation and a close friend of the artist, insists it can be both. "Tom is a unique case in that he is simultaneously found in mainstream galleries and adult bookstores. The vast majority of his output was masturbatory material to be kept under the bed, yet it also comes packaged in coffee-table volumes for open display."

The drawings in the exhibition are modest in scale and mostly executed in pencil. They show Laaksonen to be a naturally gifted draughtsman who deliberately limited his range. Yet he arrived at a style that was instantly recognisable. Simply put, without Tom of Finland, there would have been no Village People.

"Tom created a kind of sexual Valhalla of Scandinavian gods which became a fantasy boot camp for the founders of the gay rights movement," Dehner says. "Before Tom, gay men were seen as effeminate sissies. He was the first person to show gay men as macho, proud and assertive."

Towards the end of Tom's life, the drawings took on a darker hue: the sex becomes more joyless and a new addition appeared – the condom. "There's a deep sorrow in the later pieces," Dehner says. "After the spread of Aids, Tom experienced a huge burden of guilt. He had given people confidence to go out and explore their sexuality and he began to wonder if he was partly responsible for sending all those young men to their deaths."

Yet 20 years after his death, the artist's influence seems stronger than ever. "If you've ever bought a pair of Calvin Klein briefs, looked at a Levi's ad or seen Freddie Mercury perform, you've experienced Tom of Finland," Dehner says. "He's unavoidable. In a sense, we are all Tom's men now."

I love this recipe and will make this soonest :jaj:

The owners of a hotel who refused to allow a gay couple a double room acted unlawfully, a judge has ruled.

The couple had intended to visit the Chymorvah Hotel, near Penzance

Peter and Hazelmary Bull, of the Chymorvah Hotel, near Penzance, said as Christians they did not believe unmarried couples should share a room.

Martyn Hall and his civil partner Steven Preddy, from Bristol, said the incident in September 2008 was "direct discrimination" against them.

They were awarded £1,800 each in damages at Bristol County Court.
'Sincere beliefs'

"When we booked to stay at the Chymorvah Hotel this was not, as some have suggested, a set up sponsored by a pressure group.

"We just wanted a relaxing weekend away - something thousands of other couples in Britain do every weekend," Mr Preddy said.

"Because we wanted to bring our new dog we checked he would be welcome. It didn't even cross our minds that in 2008 in Britain we needed to ask if we would be."

He said that the judgement showed that civil partnerships were legally the same as marriages.

"Judge Rutherford has found that our treatment was an act of direct discrimination and therefore a breach of the law," he added.

Speaking outside court Mrs Bull said she and her husband were considering an appeal.

"We are obviously disappointed with the result," she said.

"Our double-bed policy was based on our sincere beliefs about marriage, not hostility to anybody."

In his ruling, Judge Rutherford said that, in the past 50 years, social attitudes in Britain had changed and it was inevitable that laws would "cut across" some people's beliefs.

"I am quite satisfied as to the genuineness of the defendants' beliefs and it is, I have no doubt, one which others also hold," he added.

"It is a very clear example of how social attitudes have changed over the years for it is not so very long ago that these beliefs of the defendants would have been those accepted as normal by society at large.

"Now it is the other way around."

Judge Rutherford granted the Bulls leave to appeal against his ruling.
'Victory for equality'

Mr Hall and Mr Preddy's case was backed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

John Wadham, a director at the commission, said the hotel was a commercial enterprise and subject to community standards, rather than private ones.
Chymorvah Hotel The couple had intended to visit the Chymorvah Hotel, near Penzance

"The right of an individual to practise their religion and live out their beliefs is one of the most fundamental rights a person can have, but so is the right not to be turned away by a hotel just because you are gay," he said.

Human right's campaigner Peter Tatchell described the verdict as a "victory for equality and a defeat for discrimination".

"Although people are entitled to their religious beliefs, no one should be above the law," he said.

"People of faith should not be permitted to use religion as an excuse to discriminate against other people."
'Cloak for prejudice'

Gay equality charity Stonewall said it was delighted at the outcome.

"You can't turn away people from a hotel because they're black or Jewish and in 2011 you shouldn't be able to demean them by turning them away because they're gay either," Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill said.

"Religious freedom shouldn't be used as a cloak for prejudice."

Mike Judge, from the Christian Institute, which funded the Bulls' defence, said: "This ruling is further evidence that equality laws are being used as a sword rather than a shield.

"Peter and Hazelmary were sued with the full backing of the government-funded Equality Commission.

"Christians are being sidelined. The judge recognises that his decision has a profound impact on the religious liberty of Peter and Hazelmary."

Analysis
Dominic Casciani BBC News home affairs correspondent

Over the past five years, the law has swung decisively against Mr and Mrs Bull's expectations that their religious beliefs should influence how they run their hotel.

Everyone in British society enjoys equal protection of their right to live the way they choose.

But if your particular beliefs or actions unreasonably impinge on someone else's right to live the life that they do, then the law will find you in the wrong.

That is exactly the issue at the heart of the B&B discrimination case.

The Bulls said their double rooms were only for married couples - but Mr Hall and Mr Preddy, as civil partners, enjoy to all intents and purposes the same legal rights and protections as a married heterosexual couple.

The 2010 Equality Act has consolidated the law in this area and cleared up some grey areas.

So we may soon see more claims of sexual orientation discrimination before the courts - and probably more victories for those claiming they were treated badly.

By Rob Shuter  Posted Jan 18th 2011 12:59PM

EXCLUSIVE: Count one prominent gay rights group as unsurprised by the gooey soft opening for Ron Howard's buddy flick, 'The Dilemma,' over the long weekend. Despite the appeal of having a huge director and major-draw stars like Vince Vaughn and Ron Howard, the film grossed a mere $21.1 million during the four-day period. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) tells me that producers alienated fans when they opted to keep the now-infamous "electric cars are gay" joke in the finished film.

"Although there are a million reasons why a film can fail, we hope that Ron Howard and Universal will recognize from this that alienating audiences isn't a recipe for success," said Herndon Graddick, deputy director of programs at GLAAD, who oversees GLAAD's work with TV networks and film studios.

Back in October, CNN's Anderson Cooper started a firestorm when he said he was offended by a movie trailer he had seen wherein an actor repeatedly used the word "gay" in a derogatory way.

"I was shocked that not only they put it in the movie, but that they thought that it was OK to put that in a preview for the movie to get people to go and see it," he told Ellen DeGeneres without naming the movie. "I just find those words, those terms, we've got to do something to make those words unacceptable cause those words are hurting kids."

After pressure from GLAAD and others, Ron agreed to remove the offending words from the trailer but not the movie. Now a friend close to Anderson tells me, "He's happy America found those words as unacceptable as he does."

One film executive points out that the $21.1 million total ($17.4 for the first three days) is "very very low for a Ron Howard-directed movie," especially one starring Vince and Kevin who are accustomed to big openings. Just a sample: 'Four Christmases,' $31 million; 'Couples Retreat,' $34 million and 'Grown-Ups,' $40 million.

Moviefone's resident box office expert, Gary Susman, summed it up perfectly. "Blame poor marketing, from the ill-conceived 'electric cars are gay' joke in the trailer that made the movie seem gratuitously controversial, to the ads that misrepresented it as a goofy buddy comedy when it turned out to be more of a serious exploration of male friendship. At this rate, it's going to be a struggle for 'Dilemma' to recoup its reported $70 million budget."

Nope works the same as any other Lube  >:D