[img2=left]http://www.gayspeak.com/forum/images/news/sportsoutloud.jpg[/img2]A new study to be published in the Journal of Sex Roles suggests that one third of former American high school football players have had sexual relations with other men.

Sociologist Dr. Eric Anderson, who is credited with being the first openly gay high school coach during his tenure at Huntington Breach High in the early nineties, conducted research questionnaires with a small sample of ex-high school football players who said that they have had some sexual contact with other men.

The men interviewed were aged 18-23 and all had retired from football before college.

Anderson's study suggests that "society's increasing open-mindedness about homosexuality and decreasing stigma concerning sexual activity with other men had allowed sportsmen to speak more openly about these sexual activities."

The article "Heterosexual athletes contesting masculinity and the one-time rule of homosexuality" will appear in the January issue of the journal.

It found showed that over one third of the men interviewed admitted to having contact with other men whether with women present or alone.

The study also stated that most did not identify themselves as homosexual, but also did not feel shame or resentment for their relations with other males.

Anderson told Science Daily he believes that the "positive portrayal of homosexuality on television, the ease with which homosexuals could gradually 'come out' by using the internet, and the decline of religious fundamentalism has made homosexuality and homosexual acts considerably less controversial for university-aged men."

Anderson has written several books on the subject of homosexuality in sports and relieves his own account of coming out in his autobiography, Trailblazing: The True Story of America's First Openly Gay Track Coach.

[img2=left]http://www.gayspeak.com/forum/images/news/aidsribbon.jpg[/img2]The HIV virus arrived the United States in 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for a world epidemic, scientists said on Monday.

According to Reuters, Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist, said the 1969 U.S. entry date is earlier than some experts had believed.

The timeline laid out in the study led by Worobey indicates that HIV infections were occurring in the United States for roughly 12 years before AIDS was first recognised by scientists as a disease in 1981.

Many people had died by that point.

"It is somehow chilling to know it was probably circulating for so long under our noses," Worobey said in a telephone interview, according to Reuters.

The researchers conducted a genetic analysis of stored blood samples from early AIDS patients to determine when the HIV virus first entered the US.

They found that HIV was brought to Haiti by an infected person from central Africa in about 1966, which matches earlier estimates, and then came to the United States in about 1969.

The researchers think an unknown single infected Haitian immigrant arrived in a large city like Miami or New York, and the virus circulated for years, first in the U.S. population and then to other nations.

It can take several years after infection for a person to develop AIDS.

"That one infection would have become two, and then it doubles again and the two becomes four," Worobey said.

"So you have a period, probably a fair number of years, where you're dealing with probably fewer than a hundred people who are infected.

"And then, as with epidemic expansion, at some point the hundred becomes 200, you start getting into thousands, tens of thousands.

"And then quite rapidly you can be up into the hundreds of thousands of infections that were probably already there before AIDS was recognised in the early 1980s."

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The path the virus travelled as it jumped from nation to nation has long been debated by scientists.

The University of Miami's Dr. Arthur Pitchenik, a co-author of the study, had seen Haitian immigrants in Miami as early as 1979 with a mystery illness that turned out to be AIDS. He knew the government had stored some of their blood samples.

The researchers analysed samples from five of these Haitian immigrants dating from 1982 and 1983. They also looked at genetic data from 117 more early AIDS patients from around the world.

This genetic analysis allowed the scientists to calculate when HIV arrived first in Haiti from Africa and then in the United States.

The researchers have virtually ruled out the possibility that HIV had come directly to the United States from Africa, setting a 99.8 per cent probability that Haiti was the steppingstone.

"I think that it gives us more clear insight into the history of it (the AIDS epidemic) and what path the virus took -- and hard objective evidence, not just armchair thinking," Pitchenik told Reuters.

Studies suggest the virus first entered the human population in about 1930 in central Africa, probably when people slaughtered infected chimpanzees for meat.

AIDS has killed more than 25 million people and about 40 million others are infected with HIV.

The number of people with HIV has risen in every region of the world in the past two years, with the fastest increases being seen in East Asia and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

It was really fun watching this film yesterday!

Anyone seen it ? I wont say much i dont wont to spoil it in case you havent seen it but Robert De Niro was hilarious.:biggrin:

i just read in newspaper earlier this afternoon...
its' like there's this rule 377 that declared that activities of same sexual intercourse either public and private are both treated as a crime.. i totally pissed off hearing this news..

I HATE BEING ASIAN!!!

I loved these shows. I have both of them on DVD. I mean, don't you think Xena was a great asset to the gay and lesbian community (even though the sexuality of the characters is implicit). I absolutely adored how these shows could come up with action packed, emotionally intense, and then off-the-wall episodes that had nothing to do with the plot of the show at all.
Anyway, just wanted to get some of your thoughts on the subject.

[img2=left]http://www.gayspeak.com/forum/images/news/jkrowling.jpg[/img2]Harry Potter author JK Rowling has outed the Headmaster of Hogwarts school.

At a fan event in New York, she revealed that Albus Dumbledore is gay.

Her shock announcement was greeted by applause and gasps of amazement from her audience.

The most successful author of modern times described her seven-book saga as a "prolonged argument for tolerance."

Dumbledore, who was a significant character in all the Potter books, "was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards.

"Falling in love can blind us to an extent," she said, according to AP.

She went on to say that he was: "horribly, terribly let down."

[img2=left]http://www.gayspeak.com/forum/images/news/afghanistan.jpg[/img2]Young boys are being sexually abused in Afghanistan in line with a tradition where they are bought by older men to dance at parties.

The practice of "bacha baazi", meaning "boy-play", is enjoying a resurgence in the North of Afghanistan where ownership is seen as a status symbol by militia leaders according to Afghan news site, e-Ariana.

While condemned by clerics and human rights groups, authorities are doing little to end it.

Dancers, known as "bacha bereesh" or "beardless boys", are under 18, with 14 being the "ideal" age.

Owners or "kaatah" meet at bacha baazi parties in large halls where the boys dance late into the night, before being sexually abused.

Bacha baazi also serve as marketplaces, with good-looking boys being traded for money.

"Some men enjoy playing with dogs, some with women. I enjoy playing with boys," said 44-year-old Allah Daad, a one-time Mujahedin commander in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, who participates in bacha baazi.

"I am married, but I prefer boys to women," he adds. "You can't take women with you to parties in this region, and you can't make them dance. These boys are our prestige."

Often poor and orphaned, the boys are lured into bacha baazi by money. Some receive a monthly allowance while others have jobs of their own and only work at parties.

Many are treated to expensive clothes and even cars by owners eager to have them reflect their own wealth and social standing.

But if they refuse to perform or don't meet their owners expectations, they are beaten.

While the long-standing tradition enjoys some public support in the north, religious leaders have denounced it as one of the most sinful acts.

In the Taliban controlled south of Afghanistan, where a strict moral code is enforced, it is no longer practiced.

Mawlawi Ghulam Rabbani, a religious leader in Takhar province, told e-Ariana:

"Making boys dance and sexually abusing them is strictly prohibited by Islam. Those who engage in it should be punished. They should be thrown off a mountain and stoned to death."

As those who organise bacha baazi are usually leaders of armed militia groups, however, police and government are fearful to intervene.

Hafizullah Khaliqyar, head of the prosecutor's office for Baghlan province said:

"Regional commanders engage in this practice and support it.

"They have money, power and weapons, and neither the district heads nor the local population dares to tell us about this."

Mohammad Zaher Zafari, head of the northern branch of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, sees a dark future ahead for the boys involved. And he believes that without external aid, the situation will continue long into the future.

"It's shocking from both a humanitarian and a legal point of view," he told e-Ariana.

"If the United Nations and the government don't take this issue as seriously as they do child-trafficking and drug-smuggling, and punish the offenders, it's going to be almost impossible to prevent it."

[img2=left]http://www.gayspeak.com/forum/images/news/gaywedding.jpg[/img2]Ten of thousands of gay and lesbian couples tied the knot during the first twelve months since civil partnerships were legalised.

Detailed information from National Statistics said that 18,059 civil partnerships were formed between when the act came into force on 5th December 2005 until the end of 2006.

There were 1,953 civil partnerships formed in the UK in December 2005 and 16,106 in 2006.

The act gives same-sex couples the same rights as straight couples when it comes to benefits and responsibilities such as property, employment and pensions.

Although the statistics indicate that more men than women were forming civil partnerships in the UK overall, the gap was narrowing,.

In December 2005 and the first quarter of 2006 66% of civil partners were male, with this proportion decreasing to 57% in the last quarter of 2006.

90% of civil partnerships took place in England, with a third of male registrations taking place in London, a large figure when considered that the region only contains 13% of the UK male population.

The statistics also showed that the age of men entering partnerships is decreasing, with more than half of gay men being 50 and over in the first few months of civil partnerships, with this decreasing to only a third by the end of 2006.

Ages of female couples stayed around the same level.

There were no statistics available for 'divorces', or civil partnership dissolutions, as couples had to have been in a relationship for twelve months.

Although civil partnerships are identical to marriages in practice, some have criticised the fact that it will never be officially recognised as one. Jennie Bristow wrote for Spiked at the time:

"A civil partnership between two homosexual individuals is just like marriage. But it emphatically isn't marriage, and it does not treat gay people as if they are straight. It is a different kind of institution, explicitly designed for different kind of people."

However, most gay rights organisations such as Stonewall have supported civil partnerships along with all three main political parties.

In 2003, the then minister for equality Jacqui Smith explained why the law was changed.

"Civil partnership registration underlines the inherent value of committed same-sex relationships. It supports stable families and shows that we really respect the diversity of the society we live in. It opens the way to respect, recognition and justice for those who have been denied it too long."

I certainly don't agree with what they said, but free speech is free speech (article quoted from 365gay.com)

College Paper Calls Gays Freaks
by The Associated Press
Posted: October 8, 2007 - 1:00 pm ET
(Columbus, Missouri) Ah, college life. All-night study sessions in the library. Professors challenging the conventional wisdom. Snowball battles on the quad.
Get real.
For students at the University of Missouri-Columbia, college is all about casual sex, meddling parents, foul-mouthed friendships and partying until you puke -- that is, if you believe the portrayal in The Booze News, a new weekly newspaper that glorifies the wonders of heavy drinking.
The publication's founders, a pair of University of Illinois graduates, call The Booze News (motto: "Today's News ... Under the Influence") an over-the-top satire modeled after The Onion, the popular parody newspaper started by college students in Madison, Wisconsin, that has since gone global.
But some Missouri students and local business owners aren't laughing. A Booze News book review about interracial gay adoption that referred to the two male parents as "freaks" drew a formal protest and request that university officials censure the paper.
Several downtown business owners have thrown out the free paper, which has published seven issues, afraid of offending customer sensibilities. Even some campus fraternity houses deem the material too edgy for members.
"The paper is not for 8-year olds," said co-founder Atish Doshi, a 2004 Illinois graduate from suburban Detroit. "It's about being immature college kids. That's what makes it successful. We don't take ourselves seriously."
Success has come quickly for Doshi and Derek Chin, who said they started the paper three years ago "as a complete joke."
The Booze News can now be found at Illinois State, Indiana, Iowa and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, along with Missouri and Illinois.
Doshi, who works in Chicago with a full-time staff of six, said he expects to expand to another dozen campuses in the next year.
"I would love to be at as many schools as possible," Doshi said. "There will always be college students."
For Missouri senior Kyle Ali, a Chicago native, such a scenario is troubling. As a peer educator who works to control drug and alcohol abuse, Ali said The Booze News sends the wrong message, humorous or not.
"This is a publication that clearly condones high-risk behavior," he said. "There's nothing that talks about alcohol poisoning, or drunk-driving."
A recent issue of the Missouri edition does contain a public service announcement by the U.S. Department of Transportation about the dangers of drunken driving. There's also a small disclaimer that the paper "in no way promotes, encourages or supports binge drinking and/or underage drinking."
"This newspaper is designed for entertainment purposes only," the disclaimer reads.
More prominent, though, are features on the local bartender of the week, alcohol reviews, drink recipes, drinking game instructions and guidelines on how to beat hangovers.
The paper's Web site boasts that its writers, editors and advertising sales crew members "are drunk at least four hours a day, six days a week" but assures readers that "we are not obnoxious drunks."
The recent article about the adoptive gay couple -- a supposed book review in which the unidentified author looked solely at the cover of the children's book -- crossed the line from satire to threatening speech, said Ali.
He wrote a letter to other campus activists and the university's vice chancellor of student affairs urging a potential boycott of local businesses that distribute the weekly paper.
"That article was specifically threatening to the social environment on this campus," he said.
The paper's managing editor, who has since stepped down, acknowledged in a note to readers that the article, though intended as humor, "went a little far." Doshi said he regretted publishing it, adding that the writer has since been fired.
Broader community acceptance in Columbia will come with time, Doshi said.
"Everyone thinks and does the same thing at some point in life," he said, "but when they see it in print and have it become a realization, all of a sudden it's morally wrong."

[img2=left]http://www.gayspeak.com/forum/images/news/kylie.jpg[/img2]It appears Kylie Minogue has been so mesmerised by London's club scene that she's decided to turn herself into a drag queen for her new music video, Two Hearts.

Following a DJ set in East London's Boombox during London Fashion Week, the pop diva, enamoured by the weird and wonderful get-ups on display, set out on the circuit looking to establish her new look.

She is said to have quickly made two new friends in the shape of queens Tasty Tim and Princess Julia.

The pair apparently gave Kylie some advice on pouting, strutting and how to pull off latex catsuits.

Next, she sought counsel with Boy George, who designed her B-Rude baggy pant outfit for her Showgirls tour, and pinned down two of London's most famous designers - Gareth Pugh and Christopher Kane - to design her and her band's outfits.

An insider on the shoot told the Mirror: "It's just visually amazing. It's like nothing you've ever seen Kylie do before.

"Kylie vamps it up in a black latex catsuit that's so tight and figurehugging, you can clearly see the shape of her bum. And it looks great.

"Then she writhes on the floor provocatively and cavorts on a grand piano.

He continued: "Everyone shines in camp Spandex outfits, killer heels, and vamped up make-up and lots of glitter - it all looks totally futuristic.

"She wanted to do something different that no one would expect and the video is no holds."

Kylie's new album, X, is out November 26th.