I know that I am behind the times on this, but I have begun binge watching Downton Abbey. I had never watch the show before because my local PBS station never really advertised when it first started being shown. I tried watching an episode out of sequence, but I just couldn’t get into the show. I recently started from the beginning and I’m totally hooked.

First of all, I’m a big fan of several of the actors in the show. How can you not love Maggie Smith? I am also a big fan of Penelope Wilton who played the recurring role of Harriet Jones in Doctor Who. 

However, for years I have been an admirer of Allen Leech. In 2003 Leech played gay fashion designer Vincent Cusack in a little known gay movie called Cowboys & Angels. n 2007, Leech appeared in the HBO drama series Rome (another favorite show of mine) as Marcus Agrippa, Octavian’s top soldier and friend. In 2010, he appeared on the small screen in The Tudors as the doomed Francis Dereham, former lover of Catherine Howard. Leech, of course, appears  as chauffeur Tom Branson, whose political ideologies clash with the upper class, on Downton Abbey. As an Irish actor, I figured it was appropriate to pay homage to Leech in this post on St. Patrick’s Day.

I am about halfway through the third series, but I’ve fallen in love with the show. Each time I say how much I like the show someone asks me if I have seen the finale, but like I said, I am only halfway through the third series, so no spoilers please.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I hope you are wearing your green.

Last weeI, I talked about the popular TV/web series “Hunting Season,” created by Jon Marcus and starring Ben Baur, is set to debut its second season on Tuesday, May 5th at Vimeo.com/OnDemand/HuntingSeason. A new episode premiered every Tuesday for four weeks.

The show is available on Vimeo On Demand with a ninety-day exclusive window, but hopefully they will keep it online for viewing even after the ninety-days is up. After my post was published, I was told over Twitter that they want to make a third season, but I’m guessing that they are waiting for the ninety-day exclusive window to be over before they decide what they will need to do to make more episodes.

“Hunting Season” was enormously popular in its first season, racking up two million views across multiple platforms. However, LogoTV, where censored versions of the first season episodes aired, announced on February 21, 2012, that it would shift its programming strategy. Citing research that indicated that LGBT people were becoming increasingly less likely to prioritize highlighting their sexual orientation or identity, the channel entered into partnerships to produce programs that focused less on LGBT-specific interests and more on general cultural and lifestyle subjects. Sadly, “Hunting Season” premiered during this transition period in which Logo ceased its programming away from primarily gay-centric shows.

While the first season was funded by the producers of the show, the second season was funded with a $150,000 Kickstarter campaign backed by its enthusiastic and loyal fan base. If we want better quality gay programming then we’re going to have to show networks that we want it. But not only that, we’re going to have to show networks that it’s worth hiring the talent, in every aspect of the production. I’m not sure there are any fully LGBT specific shows airing right now, though LGBT television characters are becoming more common.

I personally would like to see HBO, Showtime, or Starz produce more gay centric shows, as Showtime did with “Queer as Folk.” One of the criticisms of “Hunting Season” was that it had too much gratuitous full-frontal male nudity. First of all, how is that a fucking criticism? Second, if you are going to have a sex scene, penises are going to be shown. When the penis and other parts of the male body are covered up artificially for sex scenes, it takes the reality of the situation away. I think it’s safe to say that all of us who have had sex didn’t hide our private parts during, before, or after sex sex (well probably during, but you know what I mean). Nudity was part of it, and when I have sex with my boyfriend, I’m not going to immediately cover up or slip on boxers to go to the bathroom, I’m going to get up and do that naked. The same is true with a shower scene or any other situation that calls for nudity. It is part of life and we should celebrate it.

The thing is that we do need to show networks that we need more shows that focus on us. If we want to prove that it is viable, we must support shows like “Hunting Season.” It’s a good and fun show, with great writing, and excellent and sexy actors. When I hear of whether or not, “Hunting Season” or another show like it will be using crowdfunding, I will be sure to let you know, in case you want to contribute. In the meantime, if you want to contribute to a good cause or know someone who does, please consider my own GoFundMe campaign:

http://www.gofundme.com/z837bk

I’ve raised about 15% of the funds and would like to raise the bulk of the money before the start of the Fall Semester of the Museum Studies Certificate Program which begins September 21, 2015. Thank you to all who have contributed, and as I said, if you know of someone who’d like to contribute, please spread the word.

About a week ago, a friend of mine told me that he had been watching this great little web series, and he thought I’d like it. The show is called Hunting Season and he described the show as a gay version of Sex and The City. In many ways that is exactly what it is, but it’s also a whole lot more. As he was talking about it, I googled the show to see what it was all about, and I was shocked at what I found. Hunting Season was inspired and largely based on the popular blog “The Great Cock Hunt” by “Alex” and the novel of the same name published by Kensington Books.

Alex chronicled his sex life in the blog “The Great Cock Hunt” from 2005 to 2008. I loved reading the blog and even read the book. I have missed Alex, and once I read that Hunting Season was based on his blog, I couldn’t wait to watch the series. I watched all of the first season in one day, almost in one setting, and then watched season two with the friend who introduced me to the series.

The basic premise of the series is that “Hunting Season” tells the story of Alex (played by the engaging and incredibly sexy Ben Baur ), who has been keeping a secret sex blog and enjoying all the benefits of being young and single in New York – where take out, dry cleaning and sex can be at your door in 15 minutes. The series also involves his best friends are Tommy (Mark Sinoway) and TJ (Jake Manabat) – both also grappling with their own ups and downs.

Written and directed by Jon Marcus, Hunting Season started out in 2013 as a censored version airing on LogoTV and an uncensored version available for purchase on Vimeo. The first seasons episodes ran for about 12 minutes each. The second season, which premiered in 2015, has notably abandoned its short web series format for a longer, cable TV –like “half-hour” length, consists of four episodes, and will cost $4.99 each to purchase and $2.99 to rent. Unlike Season 1, there is not a “censored” version. Both seasons have a slick, professional feel, with sharp, snappy dialogue, and grown-up gay sensibilities.

These are characters that may seem a little unlikeable at first but once you start to get under their skin a little it’s fascinating to see what makes them tick – a lot like real life to be honest.

As well as talking a lot about sex, and showing its characters having lots of sex, Hunting Season embraces the bodies of its characters – taking a realistic approach to how the world works and not shying away from full-frontal nudity when it makes sense within the context of the narrative.

I don’t live in New York City, and my life and experiences are a long way from those of these characters, but the questions, the conversations, the doubts, hopes, fears, and aspirations that all form part of these stories have a universality that most gay men will be able to identify with in some way.

Hunting Season is a grown-up gay series for grown-up gay men. Well worth watching. I hope they will have a season 3, and hopefully it will not take two more years.
 It needs support though, so please go watch it.

Website: http://huntingseason.tv

Season 1: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/huntingseason

Season 2: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hs2/126528348



The two hour season finale of “How to Get Away with Murder” aired last night. There were many OMG, OMFG, WOW, and WTF moments in last night’s episode. We got to see a little bit more about Connor and Oliver’s relationship, but sadly we haven’t gotten any steamy sex scenes since the first half of the season.

“How to Get Away with Murder” star Jack Falahee, who’s been steaming up TV screens with his gay sex scenes as Connor Walsh, expounded further on why he’s not announcing his sexual orientation any time soon. His approach to this question is quite interesting, and to a certain degree, I understand it. Even though, my curiosity is up too. Jack is incredibly sexy.

In a recent interview in Out that received lots of social media attention, he’d said it “seems reductive” to note his sexual orientation publicly, explaining that he doesn’t think it ”accomplishes anything other than quenching the thirst of curiosity,” and opined that, ”no matter how I answer, someone will say, ‘No, that’s not true.’”

Speaking with me on SiriusXM Progress, Falahee, who replied “Yeah, sure,” when asked if it’s important for young LGBT people to see out actors and celebrities, further explained his thinking on why, in his case, he’s not discussing whether he’s straight, gay or bisexual.

“I was basically trying to say [in that interview], for me it’s like asking an actor who plays an alcoholic what their relationship is with alcohol,” he explained. “It’s not necessarily — I think we’re projecting onto actors in a way. I think we’re expecting them to be their characters when, at the end of the day, this is my job and I’m an actor portraying a role on a fictitious television show.”

But an actor who plays an alcoholic might be asked what he brings to the role and if he’s had that experience in his life. If people ask what an actor like Falahee, whose character, Connor Walsh, had lots of hook-up sex with various men last season, what he brings to the role of a gay man, isn’t the interviewer simply asking what he brings to the experience?

“Right, but that wasn’t the question,” Falahee replied. “The question was, ‘How do I define my sexuality?’ And that’s a very different question than asking — actually we were in Atlanta, for the ATL TV Fest, and a young woman, she actually had a really great question. She said, ‘What personal experience do you bring to portray — what did she say? — a ‘manwhore’ homosexual on television?’”

“And you know, I was like, that is a great question,” he continued. “That is a different question than how do I define my sexuality. And to answer that question, I would say, well, you know, I went to NYU, and the Tisch School of Drama, and there we studied Stanislavski-based acting techniques. And while I have dabbled in the Lee Strasberg method of sense-memory and using your own experience to portray a character, I found that that was a fast track, maybe, to therapy. And so, I fell more into the Stella Adler method of acting camp, and create fictitious circumstances….I’m creating circumstances in which Conor exists to accurately portray him..I just think it’s interesting because I have a body of work before Conor Walsh that is primarily heterosexual and yet people want to ask — you know, no on asks any other man, or woman, on my show, about their sexuality, and that’s what fascinates me.”

He then added, “We don’t ask the actor playing James Bond what his sexual preference is. So I don’t know what it is, really, with trying to out actors who portray gay characters on television. But it is some sort of fascination in society.”

On Sunday, while promoting his new FX show “The Comedians” at a Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour panel, Billy Crystal was asked about playing a gay role on the ABC show “Soap” in the late ’70s and how television has changed since that time.

In his response, the comedian talked about being uncomfortable with how sexualized some shows have become and, in doing so, employed a few phrases like “a little too far for my tastes” and “shove it in our face” that always trip my homophobia sensors and make me want to protest by grabbing every man in sight by whatever appendage is handiest and dragging them into a studio to stage a gay sex telethon that will be broadcast into the living rooms of every family in the world.

This led some gay Americans to ask questions about Crystal’s statements. Was some kind of further context missing? Did you have to be in the room to see his body language or hear the tone of his voice? Was he really separating his displeasure with viewing gay sex scenes from his displeasure with viewing straight sex scenes?

However, in a follow up interview with Xfinity’s tv blog, the actor addressed his earlier comments, saying in part:

“First of all, I don’t understand why there would be anything offensive that I said. When it gets too far either visually…now, that world exists because it does for the hetero world, it exists, and I don’t want to see that either. But when I feel it’s a cause, when I feel it’s “You’re going to like my lifestyle,” no matter what it is, I’m going to have a problem and there were a couple of shows I went ‘I couldn’t watch that with somebody else.” That’s fine. If whoever writes it or produces it…totally get it. It’s all about personal taste.”

When I read some of the criticism of Crystal’s statement, I had to wonder: is what he saying really homophobic as many pundits are claiming? I’m not sure that I agree that it is. He clearly states that sex scenes on television go too far whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. Furthermore, shows like “Scandal” and “How to Get Away with Murder” produced by Shonda Rhimes, both of which I really enjoy (and the gay sex scenes are a major plus), unabashedly show gay sex in the same context that straight sex is often portrayed on television. Furthermore, Rhimes has explicitly admitted that she is pushing an agenda to see more equality in sex scenes on television. Crystal merely said what Rhimes herself has said, but he also said that it was too much for him. Sometimes the explicit way that straight sex is portrayed on television is too much for me, does that make me heterophobic. I don’t think it does, any more than saying the same makes Crystal homophobic.

We live in a very scary time in many ways. You can’t say this, you can’t say that, you can’t offend this group, that group. As someone who has lived in the Deep South my entire life, I’ve seen plenty of homophobia and racism. All across America, and especially in the South, what people say about race is often taken as being racist. So much of the country believes that if you are white and you have an opinion on race, then that opinion is racist. People claim that there is no such thing as “reverse” racism, but when you are the minority in your area, whether you are white or black, if the majority discriminates because of your race, it is racism. People get too easily offended and they take political correctness to the extreme. That’s offensive to me.

The thing is, we should all treat everyone as we wish to be treated. So if Billy Crystal says that sex on television, and gay sex on television in particular is not something he wants to watch, well that’s his right to have that opinion. If Billy Crystal has a sex scene on television or a movie, I don’t want to see him naked either. My opinion is that we have the right to watch what we want to watch. If that includes gay sex, or straight sex, or whatever kind of sex, then we had that right, but we also have the right to say, “Look, that’s just too much for me. I don’t think I want to watch that,” well that’s our prerogative. And if I don’t want to watch something because it has an agenda, then I don’t have to watch it.

Case in point, I will not go to the movie theater to see “Selma.” It’s not because of racial tensions or that I’m racist, but because the movie is politically bent to put forth an agenda and skew the history of that event. The makers of the movie have admitted to that and have admitted to changing certain facts because it fit their artistic vision (i.e. political agenda). As a historian, I constantly having to fight against how history is portrayed in movies because people take it as fact, when it is fiction. So for a movie about an event as important as the Selma to Montgomery March to purposefully skew those facts is abhorrent in my opinion.

So I won’t be going to see “Selma.” Does that make me a racist? No, it doesn’t, and neither does Billy Crystal saying that he thinks sex on television goes to far when asked about his previous role playing a gay man on television nearly forty years ago and how it compares to gay roles today. We have our opinions and we have the right to voice those opinions. We also have a right to call bullshit when someone takes our words out of context because something we said hurt their over sensitive ideas of the need to be political correct 100 percent of the time.

I am sure I am far behind on becoming a fan of the HBO series Game of Thrones, but I just got the first two seasons on DVD for Christmas. I spent much of the weekend watching the twenty episodes of the first season. If I subscribed to HBO, I’d probably have already seen the series before, but I don’t so I had to wait to get it on DVD. As soon as I watched the first episode, I knew I was hooked. Now I need the third season and can anxiously await the fourth season on DVD in February.

If you are not familiar with the HBO series, it is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin’s series of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled A Game of Thrones. I’ve never read the novels, but hope to one day. The novels and their adaptation derive aspects of their settings, characters and plot from various events of European history. A principal inspiration for the novels is the English Wars of the Roses (1455–85) between the houses of Lancaster and York, reflected in Martin’s houses of Lannister and Stark. Most of Westeros, with its castles and knightly tournaments, is reminiscent of High Medieval Western Europe. I am not an expert on Medieval Europe, but I have been fascinated by Medieval England since I took a class on it from a woman who I consider to have been one of the greatest history professors to ever live. She was also my mentor until her death, and she encouraged me to continue my study of history.

That being said, Game of Thrones has many redeeming qualities. There are a massive number of characters to keep up with, but the male eye candy is tremendous. With gay knights and nobles, there is a bit of gay sex thrown into the mix. The male nudity is not nearly as numerous as the female nudity, but each time it appears on the screen, it is well worth it. Amazingly, or maybe not so amazing, the most well-endowed actors tend to show frontal nudity, but there are plenty of male backsides to enjoy as well.

Game of Thrones star Finn Jones stated the obvious in one interview: There’s “not enough hot gay sex” on the show. Jones plays Loras Tyrell (pictured on his back in the above screenshot), a rather unique character for American television. He is unreservedly gay, but fierce as any other Westeros warrior.

Actor Kristian Nairn is best known as the dim-but-loyal Hodor on Game of Thrones. His character carries a crippled child around and only utters the word Hodor. Hodor is said to have giant’s blood in him and by the looks of his nude scene in season one, he’s a giant in more ways than one. But more interesting than his prodigious member is that he is openly gay. In an interview he said of being a gay man, “I had an upbringing to respect other people’s privacy, and their right to be and choose what they want, and I expect—no, demand—no less for myself. It’s a very small part of who I am on the whole, but nonetheless, in this day and age, it’s important to stand up and be counted. I have and always will stand my ground. So, yeah, people have been great, on the show, but I don’t see why it would be an issue.”

If you enjoy semi-historical television with a mix of fantasy, Game of Thrones is well worth watching.

The CW has a new superhero drama, The Flash. There are two superheroes that have always fascinated me: Superman and The Flash. More recently, I have a thing for Captain America, but that mainly has to do with Chris Evans, so it’s not a long time obsession. I’m pretty sure that I’ve talked about my superman obsession, though I don’t think it’s really a full on obsession, but I’m sure I’ve never discussed The Flash before. The blog QueerClick (NSFW, it’s mostly porn but with a few interesting non-porn articles here and there) posted one of their QC Open Forums the other day which was provocatively titled “Is The Flash Too Gay For His Own Good?” The main text of the post (which was mostly pictures, like the one above which I swear has a nice outline of Grant Gustin’s privates in it) stated:

If you have seen The Flash you have probably noticed how Grant Gustin’s gay comes shining through. We’re not saying he is gay (we totally are) but there are moments where The Flash just comes off as very gay, loud and proud. Don’t you find odd the lack of chemistry with his leading lady on the show? That’s like awfully suspicious. And there are times when the inflections of his voice or the way he acts sets our gaydar off like a klaxon. Is that because he has trouble with the character or because the melodrama is over the top? Or is it a vestigial trait from when he was on Glee?

There’s no denying that Grant is super charming and his portrayal of Barry Allen as a good-hearted superhero in the learning stages of his career is not grim or tortured, nowadays that is totally refreshing in the genre. One thing that could disprove our theory is that if he were gay, he wouldn’t have choose such awful variation of the suit.

But we can’t help going back and forth with the primary question, is The Flash too gay for his own good?

I left a comment on this (the featured comment for the post “woot woot”) that said, “Grant Gustin makes the perfect Flash. I seriously see no flaw in his portrayal. He’s sweet, kind, dorky, and so damn cute. I think I’m in love.” Honestly, I really do enjoy the show, and I enjoyed The Flash when it was on in the 1990s with John Wesley Shipp, who by the way plays Barry Allen’s father in this incarnation of The Flash.

While some of the other comments tended to be along the lines of mine and a few were just horny male comments like you’d expect on a gay porn blog, many of the comments were angry at QC for publishing such a post that asked of the character “is too gay.” A comment by Tyrone said:

This kind of commentary actually sets our community back. Neil Patrick Harris, Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer, and T.R. Knight are examples of queer performers who have successfully played straight roles (and the list is endless). Actors, by definition, are portraying something or someone they are not. Their sexuality shouldn’t be a factor, and when you are saying it is, you’re effectively saying a gay performer can’t be taken seriously as a leading man or as a main character in a mainstream movie. That’s a problem.

Now here’s my thought on this: if it were a more serious news blog or a non-gay blog doing a post like this, then I’d say he had a right for his indignation, but QC is a gay porn blog. Even when they try to do something serious, it’s always tongue-in-cheek. Rarely do they every have a serious post. The most ridiculous comment in the whole thread was by “batGRRRl4ever” who wrote “I thought better of this site to even ask a question like this.” Really, she thought better of a gay porn blog that is often satirical was better than to “even ask a question like this.”

In my opinion, Gustin plays Barry Allen perfectly. I don’t think it’s “too gay,” and though I thoroughly wish Grant Gustin was gay and they would have some gay characters on the show (Wentworth Miller plays one of the [maybe recurring] villains and there is rumors of an actual gay character), it doesn’t matter one way or the other because I enjoy the show. Furthermore, just because someone acts dorky and awkward doesn’t mean they are gay. Sure in the case of me it does, but it’s also the reason I was unmercifully picked on as a child and still face some discrimination based on how I am perceived without someone knowing the truth. I give QC a pass for asking the question because I know I’ve been having a similar train of thought, but I give them a pass because of the type of blog they are and that’s a blog that actually publishes the dirty thoughts that gay men often have and do so unabashedly.

I only have one real bone to pick with the QC post. I like The Flash’s costume. I love the dark red leather look much more than I ever like the bright red spandex that The Flash has always been seen wearing. I think it’s a good look, and it looks great on a Grant Gustin, and I sure it would look even better crumpled on the floor while he was naked next to me in bed.