There is just something about the rough and rugged country boy. Someone who’s worked hard and is dirty and sweaty with the musculature only hard manual labor can provide and the gym can’t. These men are the men of fantasies and can make a man like me weak in the knees. Some might be classified as a cowboy, others as a farmer, and some might even be called a good ol’ boy or redneck, but those are loaded terms.

The term redneck has expanded in meaning beyond the poor Southerner to refer to “a bigoted and conventional person, a loutish ultra-conservative.” It is often used to attack white Southern conservative. And while as a general rule this may be true, I’ve known many a Southern man who had a rough and rugged exterior, but a heart of gold. Not all of them are quite so conservative either. As the world changes, so do the rednecks. The younger generation is more accepting of gays men and especially gay women (not for the lesbian fantasy but because they are often very hard workers and can out man a lot of men). Religion sometimes gets in the way of this progress, but I think we will see that change as well. Religion used to be one of the factors behind racism, but that is disappearing as well, and is in fact, almost non existent. I think the same will happen with homophobia.

The term redneck and good ol’ boy is also used broadly to degrade working class and rural whites that are perceived by urban progressives to be insufficiently liberal. Living in a rural area myself, I can attest to some of the small changes. It’s slow progress, but the South has always been slow with progress. Even the Progressive Movement in America itself came to the South twenty to thirty years after the rest of the country. And though they are still catching up, they will. Progress comes slow, but I have the hope and faith that it will continue to come to the South.

At the same time, some white Southerners have reclaimed these words, using it with pride and defiance as a self-identifier. If you come to the South from a more liberal area, you won’t see it. You have to see the more subtle changes, but it will happen, if you get to know the people and don’t judge them. If you want to see the real change, look at the profiles on Manhunt, Grindr, or any other gay hook-up site in the South and you will see more of redneck gay culture than you’d expect. These gay men are men you’d never suspect to be gay, but they love the country life. They love their rural surroundings, and they love a sexy man in a pair of Wrangler jeans.

Don’t dismiss the South or other rural areas. They will come around. It may just take a while. Those sweaty, dirty, calloused handed, country boys are the stuff of legend. Save a horse, ride a cowboy.

I was torn on what to write about today, but not as bad as these guy’s pants. Honestly, I had no idea what to write about today, so I decided on a pun instead. I love puns. By the way, the picture below is of actor Matt Lanter, who it appears does not wear underwear. I find that pretty sexy.

First of all, I love a man who keeps his body hair natural, or at least trimmed. A hairless man can be very sexy, but I prefer a little fur. I can handle, and actually quite prefer, a shaved scrotum, but please leave the bush alone, except maybe for a minor trim if it looks like a jungle down there. The only men who look remotely okay like that are muscular men without any body fat at all. The truth is though I find pubic hair very sexy. I find chest hair very sexy. I even find a furry butt to be sexy. My thought is that manscaping can be okay in moderation, but too much can just end up looking silly.

With that being said, I despise shaving my face every morning. I don’t look good with scruff and it feels so weird to me. Now I will admit there are a lot of men that look very good with a beard or scruff. I know one friend of mine who looks pretty damn sexy with some scruff. Since I don’t, I shave everyday, unless I am not planning to go anywhere or do anything. Very rarely do I leave the house without shaving. I’ve also never liked using an electric razor, so I shave the old fashioned way like in the picture above. And as much as I hate shaving, I shave every day. Sometimes I’m in the shower and think, “Do I have to?” The answer is always yes. I could never go to school without shaving. It would be unthinkable to me. So as much as I hate it, I still shave every day.

I’d rather just stay in bed and not have to face the world today, but hopefully, it will be a better day today. I have some hope that I may be forgiven. That’s what great friends do, they support each other and forgive one another when one messes up.

I thought I’d decide on a post for today, but before I could, I was working on a project for school and suddenly I was overcome with a wave of nausea and a headache. I basically had to stop what I was doing and head to bed so that the room would quit spinning and maybe my nausea would subside. Subsequently, this will be a short post, as I found it hard to concentrate on writing much of a post.

This week is my spring break, but I’ve been working all week getting ready for a play I am directing. Today, I will be building the set. I plan to wear more clothes than this guy, and I will be on the stage most of the day working, but I liked this picture. I do wish this guy was helping me out though. We might have more fun than work though, especially if he was dressed like this.

Following weeks of back-and-forth negotiations, the organizers of Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade have once again decided to prohibit LGBTQ groups from marching. As a result of the prolonged unpleasantness, several corporate sponsors have ended their support for the parade.

Back in February, under pressure from Boston’s new mayor, Martin Walsh, it seemed that LGBT Veterans for Equality would be permitted to march as long as they refrained from broadcasting their orientation in any way. (In other words: No homosexual propaganda.)

But on March 3, officials from the Allied Veteran’s War Council, which organizes the event, claimed that statewide LGBTQ advocacy group MassEquality had lied about the number of veterans who would be marching with the gay group, and it withdrew permission. AWVC has repeatedly accused MassEquality of “using a ploy to enter this parade under false pretenses.” Essentially, it suggests that MassEquality manufactured the gay veterans group just so it could march.

Corporate sponsors have taken note, and many have said “Slán go fóill!” to the South Boston parade. Earlier this month, the parade’s website prominently featured the names and logos of the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel, Sam Adams (Boston Beer Co.), and Gillette as primary sponsors. When Westin and Gillette officials denied their support for the march, their company logos were removed from the website. Sam Adams was listed as a sponsor until yesterday, when the brewing company formally withdrew its support. Currently, the parade’s sponsor page says, “We’re updating our supporters, thank you for your patience.”

Irish-American communities, particularly in Boston and New York, are known for being cohesive, having a strong community spirit, and, despite tilting Democratic come election, for being socially conservative.

Back in the Ireland, however, they stand accused of being bigots. Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny has come under fire for agreeing to participate New York’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, because it bans marchers carrying posters promoting LGBT rights. Kenny has attempted to walk a political tightrope on the question of identity, saying: “The St. Patrick’s Day parade is a parade about our Irishness and not about sexuality and I would be happy to participate in it.”

Nonetheless, a series of gay rights groups, supported by prominent campaigners and a trade union, have asked Kenny to cancel his plans to attend the “exclusionary” parade – something the city’s mayor, Bill De Blasio, has already said he will do – or at least wear a rainbow pin badge in solidarity with gay groups.

Ireland’s attitudes are changing when it comes to LGBT rights. David Norris, an Irish senator and former professor, has been at the center of the Irish gay rights movement for four decades. In fact, it was his lawsuit against the country in the European Court of Human Rights that resulted in the country’s 1993 decriminalization of homosexuality. Norris wrote, “I find it extraordinary that Irish Americans can be so far behind the actual inhabitants of the island of Ireland; that 10 years ago the gay float won first prize in our national St. Patrick’s Day.”

Ireland was slow to see the march of gay rights, but much changed in the last two decades. With a yes vote in this year’s referendum on gay marriage considered a foregone conclusion, Ireland is drifting ever further from the Catholicism-dominated days of yore.

Mr. Norris sees the issue as being founded in a sectarian dispute. “As an Irish man who through my mother has direct descent from the ancient kings of Ossory, Leinster, and the High Kingship of Tara,” he says, “I find the claiming of the parade as an exclusively Roman Catholic festival – despite being originally founded in the US by exiled Irish Protestants – completely ridiculous,” he told the Christian Science Monitor.

HAPPY ST PATRICK’S DAY!!!

The doctor told me that I needed plenty of rest to get over my bronchitis. With the medicine he gave me, I guess he wanted to make sure of that. The two cough syrups he gave me (each covers different symptoms) have been very successful at making me sleep. So it looks as if I will, hopefully, just sleep off this cold.