There is something about being in close proximity to a butch woman that makes me go a little fluttery inside – kind of melty and shy, and occasionally, bold.
Perhaps this is accentuated by the fact that butches are rare and precious in my particular corner of the universe, but when and wherever they cross my path, something within me sits up and takes notice – because I share the other side of the secret.
I know the special magic that happens when female yin meets female yang, and the opposite polarity locks us together like magnets caught up in each other’s sway.
When you picture a butch woman, who comes to mind? Maybe it’s Poussey or Boo from Orange is the New Black, each sporting short hair and a boyish swagger. Maybe it’s Ruby Rose, who blurs gender. Maybe you picture an innocuous short-haired woman like Tig Notaro or Alison Bechdel, or a generic woman with dreadlocks, a strap-on and an easy smile, like Young M.A. Regardless, all of these images have something in common: “masculinity.”
Now what do you think these women like in bed? Go ahead, take a guess. If traditional straight men are anything to judge by, then butch women probably like to be dominant. They like to penetrate.
But that’s just not true. Remember Domo and Crissy, the butch/femme couple where the butch woman – gasp! – was the one to get pregnant? The Internet erupted in flames because the “wrong one” got pregnant.
Clearly, when we impose archaic homonormative and proto-masculine ideas onto queer couples, we end up wrong.
Arielle Scarcella sat down with several butch women to discuss stereotypes about what butch women want in bed. “What would people be surprised to know about you specifically?” she asked.
One butch woman admitted, “I’m really versatile. I’m usually the one to initiate and take care of her first – but then it’s my turn!”
Another woman looked proud when she said, “I can only really orgasm vaginally.” AKA, from being penetrated.
One woman explained why it’s so uncommon to believe that butch women can enjoy being dominated. It comes back to toxic masculinity. “If you do enjoy receiving penetration,” she says, “that takes away from your masculinity.” #MasculinitySoFragile it even applies to women.
Of course, not all butch women like to be dominant, and some dislike penetration. And that’s completely okay. But don’t make assumptions about what a girl wants in bed based on her biceps and buzz cut.
It ain’t Christmas until Starbucks drops its festive cups.
And this year, they’ve launched an inclusive campaign to run alongside their drinking vessels.
While we’re used to seeing gender/race/sexual diversity in adverts these days, Starbucks has done something slightly different and given lesbians centre stage. ‘The cup is just the beginning,’ their ad begins, before cutting to various scenes of families – including a same-sex couple.
We see a heterosexual couple skiing, a dad lifting his child to put the star on their tree, and at the end of the 30-second “Give Good” clip, an animated interracial lesbian couple looks up at the sky together and draws closer over a steaming coffee mug.
They then hold hands and lean in, as if they’re about to kiss.
“The holidays mean something different to everyone,” the commercial begins, before featuring illustrations of people of many colors, ages, sizes, and sexualities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53EgSWqQOwE
Sadly, right-wing Twitter users, are already upset over the lesbian couple. Far-right posters have long-criticized the coffee chain for its secular take on the holiday season, blaming Starbucks for the “war on Christmas” supposedly happening across the U.S.
They’ve also faced boycotts by the Malaysian and Indonesian governments over their support of gay rights. In fact, Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz has said in the past that he doesn’t want opponents of same-sex marriage buying their coffee or becoming stockholders.
They also have a large Pride Alliance Partner Network group, which is one of the largest resources for LGBT employees in the USA.
In Vice’s newest documentary Raised Without Gender, host Amelia Abraham goes to Sweden – the world’s most forward thinking country when it comes to questioning gender – to find out what it’s like to grow up without the gender binary.
The documentary comes at a time when transgender issues are at the forefront of liberation debate across the world and more young people than ever before are defining as something other than simply “male” or “female.”
In Sweden, the gender neutral pronoun “hen” has been in the national dictionary since 2015 and is now commonly used by most Swedes, the Swedish government’s school plan has since 1998 forbidden enforcing gender stereotypes, and government funded gender neutral kindergartens with gender aware teachers has made it possible for families to raise their children without a set gender identity, something that often sparks controversy in the foreign press.
In the film, Abraham spends time with one of these gender non-conforming families, mapa (mom and dad) Del LaGrace Volcano who was born intersex (both male and female), the children Mika (5) and Nico (3) and their grandma Margareta.
She visits Mika and Nico’s gender aware kindergarten to find out what the teachers and the other kids make of Mika’s gender expression.
She also meets the founder of Sweden’s gender-neutral kindergartens, Lotta Rajalin, to learn how they go about deleting gender norms from education, as well as psychiatrist Dr Eberhard who is against Sweden’s attitude to gender in kindergartens.
The web series Carmilla has attracted millions of fans around the world over the last few years. So it’s only right that the show should be made into a feature film.
Inspired by the infamous novella by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla is all about a girl called Laura (Elise Bauman), who has left her home town for the first time to attend Silas University, which boasts its own Gnostic Mathematics department, many clubs for the students to enjoy like the Alchemy Club, and an extensive library where the books will search for you.
It’s kind of like a queer-er Buffy, blended with Scooby-Doo, and little bit Veronica Mars style action.
The new movie will feature the stars of the web series, Elise Bauman and Natasha Negovanlis, who return for the supernatural spinoff film.
Ari Fitz – a filmmaker, model, media personality who regularly produces the stylish web series Tomboyish – has launched a new project on YouTube.
The series is a hybrid of Fitz’s previous work, blending fashion, narrative, and questions of identity into a series of nutritious minute-long morsels.
Titled Sixty Seconds, Fitz uses the platform to talk about a number of queer issues, from relationships, the labels queer people often adopt, the imbalances of power central, appropriation, and unlearning the sexualisation of breasts.
New episodes will premiere Tuesdays and Saturdays; and Fitz says audience feedback will determine the existence and exact shape of future seasons.
Emma Stone’s casting as legendary tennis player Billie Jean King may have caused some head scratching, but this biopic comedy from Little Miss Sunshine duo Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton is piquing interest regardless.
With Steve Carrell as Bobby Riggs, the movie tells the knockout story of the infamous 1973 tennis match between the misogynistic huckster and the then-closeted trailblazer.
With a script by Slumdog Millionaire scribe Simon Beaufoy, the supporting cast includes out favorites Alan Cumming and Natalie Morales, as well as Sarah Silverman, Elisabeth Shue, and Andrea Riseborough.
If Battle of the Sexes ends up being a return to form for Faris and Dayton, it could be one of the fall’s biggest hits.
While HBO junkies know her from Westworld, Evan Rachel Wood began her career in provocative indies such as Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen and Julie Taymor’s lush Across the Universe.
Queer audiences have long enjoyed her outspoken sexual fluidity, which is enough to make A Worthy Companion a worthy addition to this list.
Though the description is vague and alluring, this dark feature debut from Montreal-based photographers Carlos and Jason Sanchez tells the story of a troubled 30-year-old woman (Wood) and the unhappy 16-year-old girl she befriends and convinces to run away from home.
She resorts to manipulation and co-dependency to keep her confidante in her clutches.
Also starring celebrated gay actor Denis O’Hare (American Horror Story), A Worthy Companion is full of intrigue.
In a superhero origin tale unlike any other, this film is the incredible true story of what inspired Harvard psychologist Dr. William Moulton Marston to create the iconic Wonder Woman character in the 1940’s.
While Marston’s feminist superhero was criticised by censors for her ‘sexual perversity’, he was keeping a secret that could have destroyed him.
Marston’s muses for the Wonder Woman character were his wife Elizabeth Marston and their lover Olive Byrne, two empowered women who defied convention: working with Marston on human behaviour research – while building a hidden life with him that rivaled the greatest of superhero disguises.
Directed by Angela Robinson, the movie stars Luke Evans as Marston, Rebecca Hall as his wife, Bella Heathcoate as the couple’s shared lover.
When developing the idea for the film, Robinson thought at first she was researching the story of a man, his wife and his mistress but she soon discovered their dynamic was deeper than that.
It’s fundamentally a love story between the three of them,” Robinson said. “It’s an exploration of their ideas [about feminism, bondage, and pacifism] and his relationship with Elizabeth and Olive, and their relationship with him, and then how all of that found its way into Wonder Woman.”
Robinson said that she initially was approaching the story as a movie “about a guy who had a wife and a mistress and that they lived together.” However, her perspective changed when she learned that Elizabeth and Olive continued to live together for 38 years after Marston’s death, opening up the idea that it was a love story for all of them.
That one sentence totally blew my mind, because I was like, ‘I’m looking at it all wrong,'” she said. “This is a story about the three of them. They were all in love together. That really opened up the story to me and it became really important to also tell it from the perspective of Elizabeth and Olive and Marston— all three of them— and to kind of tell it as a love story and to try and really ground it and be respectful and investigate what Marston was trying to do and how their lives inspired Wonder Woman.”
Marston led an interesting and storied life, and Robinson hopes that, by learning more about the creator’s passions, fans will get a better understanding of Diana as well.
People have had all sorts of relationships since the beginning of time and they were really progressive, exciting, incredible people, who I think shared a deep love for each other. To me, they’re heroes in and of themselves. I really think it’s time for their story to be told and for them to kind of get the respect and admiration that I think they deserve,” she continued. “It’s their core ideas and core values that really infused this superhero who we all, right now, love.”
Robinson has had success with prestige television such as Hung and True Blood, and was a driving force as a writer and director on Showtime’s The L Word.
Her two feature films, D.E.B.S. and Herbie: Fully Loaded, have leaned heavily on comedy, which is a strong suit.
With Annapurna’s might behind her and subject matter this ripe, Marston heralds a new phase in Robinson’s career — a much deserved one that’s been a long time coming.
The first season One Mississippi – which Tig Notaro wrote, produced, and starred in – leaned heavily on the dramatic notes of Notaro’s real life.
The pilot began with her character, Tig Bovaro, returning to Mississippi after getting a double mastectomy and overcoming an intestinal disease, only to watch her mother get taken off life support.
At times, it was less a comedy and more a series of devastations, accentuated with a few punch lines.
However in Season 2, the show is going for a lighter tone with some romance thrown in.
It appears that Tig is still interested in her producer, who is played by Notaro’s real-life wife, Stephanie Allynne, who may or may not be expressing mutual desire.
Bavaro is advised to go for it, but will she?
See the trailer below, and watch season 2 when it debuts on Amazon Sept. 8.
A two minutes video circulated on social media a few days ago with the opening statement ‘Hi…I’m most hated lesbian in Egypt’.
The message came from a young Egyptian woman named Dalia Al-Faghal, who recently publicly came out as a lesbian on Facebook.
Last month, Al-Faghal – who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia to Egyptian parent – posted to Facebook about coming out to her father as a lesbian, providing screen shots of his supportive comments, and a picture of her with her girlfriend.
Al-Faghal wanted to show the public how proud she was of his acceptance, however her loving post was met with an unprecedented wave of attacks and hate comments.
She has received violent backlash from some social media users who saw her sexual orientation as a violation of the conservative Egyptian society and its Islamic ideals.
She was verbally attacked, compared to animals and told she was causing the apocalypse and should be stoned.
Her dad was sent death threats, her privacy was invaded and details of her personal life were disseminated.
While homosexuality is not illegal in Egypt, according to The Guardian, police routinely arrest individuals based on decades-old prostitution and debauchery laws.
According to media reports from earlier this year, Egyptian police have even been targeting gay men through hookup apps like Grindr.
Despite the hate, the trailblazer, who lives in San Francisco, is trying to focus on the positives.
I used to be a kid who was raised in Saudi Arabia. Now that I am all queer, head to toe, in f***en SF – that is a hell damn miracle to me”.
After months of the traditional speculation over what American Horror Story’s next season will entail, AHS: Cult has finally released its first real look at its new mystery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-27J0sR9268
As I mentioned last week, Allison Pill and Sarah Paulson play wives in this politically charged instalment of the series, and the trailer treated fans to a few glimpses of their on-screen dynamic.
By the looks of it, Ms. Paulson’s character is devastated by Donald Trump’s presidential win, and her trauma somehow involves killer clowns (because why not?).
As for Pill, her character is more calm and skeptical, so it’s safe to say the pair’s relationship will be tested.
Newcomers to the AHS world like Lena Dunham and Billy Eichner don’t show up in the preview (unless they are wearing clown masks), but we get our first glimpse of Billie Lourd as a nanny for Paulson’s son.
American Horror Story: Cult premieres September 5 on FX.
You wouldn’t think off the top of your head that Lola Kirke would be the intuitive choice to play a small-town lesbian — scooping ice cream at the carnival, fixing cars, signing up for the Army — whose relationship with a married woman gets her swept up into making some big decisions.
However after watching AWOL – the new film from writer/director Deb Shoval which is now streaming on Netflix – you really buy it.
Kirke plays Joey, a young women from a nowheresville Pennsylvania town, who falls in love with Rayna (Breeda Wool).
The two meet at a local carnival and quickly fall for each other but circumstances threaten to crush their romance before it can even begin.
AWOLunderstands first and foremost that while love is easy, relationships (and arguably everything else in the world is hard). Sometimes what you want and what your environment is able to allow you to have are two very different things.
It’s the mark of a good film that it’s got you as worried about a character’s emotional well-being as much as AWOL has you worried about Joey.
Love Connection – hosted by the Emmy-winning Andy Cohen – is returning to Fox this week, and it promises to bring an updated format and with a new, queer-friendly twists.
The long-running series, which partners hopeful singles with three possible dates seeking a Love Connection, has never included same-sex contestants in more than a thousand episodes… Until now.
As you’ll see in the exclusive clip below, contestant Liz Baxter is all kinds of adorable and, like many of us, is looking for that special someone to share the rest of her life with. Did she find it on the show? And is one of her dates actually coming out on national television? Check it out…
Here’s an exclusive promo for this week’s episode of Love Connection:
Charlize Theron is currently promoting her new film Atomic Blonde, where she plays a bisexual MI6 spy named Lorraine Broughton.
However, appearing on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, she opened up about her own bisexual experiences.
Discussing the new film, Cohen had asked her if she had personally “swam in the lady pond”.
Theron replied:
Ooh! When I was young, yes. When you’re young you’re just kind of exploring it all. But it was pretty clear that I really like dudes.”
Asked about playing a bisexual character, she added:
Why not? It’s just so strange when we talk so much about it. It should be normalised by now. It’s something I feel is not represented enough in cinema… I feel that when you make movies, if you’re going to hold that mirror up and reflect society, then you should reflect society.”
I just loved it, for so many reasons. The first reason, she said, was her “frustration of how that community is represented in cinema, or lack thereof. And also, it made perfect sense. It just suited her. It just felt there was a way through that relationship and the fact that it was a same-sex relationship to show a woman not having to fall in love, which is one of those female tropes.
It’s a woman; she better fall in love – otherwise, she’s a whore!”
This isn’t the first time Theron has played a queer character. In 2003 she played real-life mass murderer Aileen Wuornos in the film Monster, which earned her the Best Actress awards at the Oscars and the Golden Globes.
The first trailer for Pitch Perfect 3 has been released, and the Bellas are officially college graduates.
Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson and Brittany Snow are all back for the third installment in the franchise, while there are also special cameo appearances from DJ Khaled and Ruby Rose.
But as the new trailer for the film makes clear, things are looking pretty bleak: Nobody can keep a job and their musical skills aren’t getting them very far.
The solution? Ditch the grind, get the gang back together, and play for the troops on an overseas USO tour. (If only every post-grad had this option.)
Pitch Perfect 3 is scheduled for release in December 2017, so we’re all going to have to be extremely patient until then.
Out musician Julia Weldonnewest single, Til the Crying Fades, is a tribute to the victims of the PULSE massacre.
The video was directed by Alessandra Lacorazza and producer Justine LaViolette, the song is seen as a celebration of diversity of the LGBTQ community.
The location of the video is aptly set within a queer bar, which Lacorazza says underlines the importance of safe spaces for marginalized communities.
Lacorazza also felt it was important to highlight the tragedy as something that especially shook the Latinx community, saying, “While the attack on Pulse deeply affected the whole LGBTQIA community it disproportionately affected the Latinx community, as most of the victims were Latinx.”
The song itself can be found on Weldon’s album, Comatose Hope, which alsos focuses on the dark realities of the world, and how these occurrences deserve to be acknowledged rather than overlooked.
Weldon found inspiration to create the album after falling into coma a week after receiving gender affirming surgery. The singer experienced major setbacks after waking, as her damaged sensory perceptions made simple tasks like walking, talking and eating a challenge.
Her perseverance led to a speedy recovery and to create a KickStarter page to fund Comatose Hope, nowscheduled for premiere on July 13.
After teasing a new album due out later this year, St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark has announced that she will be hitting the road this fall for the Fear the Future tour.
St. Vincent released her last album back in 2014 to rave reviews. The self-titled LP not only got her a performance on the season finale of Saturday Night Live when it came out, but she also won a Grammy for Best Alternative Album.
The Fear The Future Tour announcement comes in the midst of an eventful year for St. Vincent.
The singer and “bona fide guitar god [and] pop visionary” (Rolling Stone) made her directorial debut in February when The Birthday Party from the XX horror anthology premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (she also wrote and scored the piece).
More recently, she was named ambassador for Record Store Day 2017, recorded a 7” single with John Legend to benefit Planned Parenthood, and unveiled updates to her signature collection of Ernie Ball guitars.
In recent conversation with Rookie Mag, St. Vincent shared her words of wisdom for teens struggling to stay positive about themselves. Not only did the musician admit that she was “very, very, very shy and very anxious” growing up, but she also explained that she “felt very uncomfortable talking to people.” To remedy these kinds of thoughts and feelings, the sexually fluid rocker reminded fans that “no one’s looking at you and no one cares because everyone is obsessed with themselves … and know that other people are feeling the same way as you.”
St. Vincent also added:
Fake it till you make it. If you don’t have confidence, pretend to be a person who does, and eventually, you will have confidence because you’ll see the fruits of your reaching out to people.”
Tony Hawk was the most daring skateboarder of all time – until Lacey Baker hit the scene.
At just twenty-five years old, she has already made skateboarding history as one of the first queer women to be sponsored by Nike in skateboarding’s 60-year-history.
It’s hard to pin Baker down. In the same paragraph, Vogue calls her a skateboarder, guitarist, designer, barista, queer, straight, male, female, both, neither, dog-lover, cat-lover, with long hair, pink hair, green hair, orange hair, or no hair.But there’s one thing for certain: She’s got a technical expertise that is unmatched in the skateboarding world today.
But there’s one thing for certain: She’s got a technical expertise that is unmatched in the skateboarding world today.
Nike gained interest in her after she won the prestigious SLS Super Crown World Championship in 2016. Since then, she has been working with Nike to transform skateboarding teams from teams of men with a few token women, to teams of men and women working together.
She’s optimistic about the future of women in skateboarding, partially because more women are joining the sport, and partially because skateboarding is poised to become an Olympic event, which will lend it international credibility and value – not that Baker puts much stock in what other people think.
She describes herself as more masculine and is comfortable with that. She’s always wanted to have short hair, so she recently took the plunge and shaved her head. Her clothing style is purposefully androgynous and minimalist – yet deceptively complex as well.
If she gets an item of clothing, she will alter it to make it her own, even if that just means cutting off the bottoms of shirts or tapering her pants. Everything that she puts on her body must be distinctly Lacey Baker.
In a recent interview, she talked about how quitting her job to pursue skateboarding was the best decision of her life. Read it here.
The cast of Rough Night, including SNL’s Kate McKinnon – our lesbian national treasure – recently sat down with drag personality Paige Turner to talk about the LGBT-inclusive film.
Rough Night follows McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Scarlett Johansson, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz on the night of a bachelorette party that quickly turns hilariously lethal.
Rough Nights is out in cinemas now. Watch the trailer below.
Columbia Pictures released the trailer for its upcoming film Flatliners this week, and it looks outright terrifying, if not completely original.
The film, which stars Ellen Page, is a follow-up to the 1990 cult psychological horror of the same name about a group of medical students who seek to find out the truth about the afterlife by subjecting each other to near-death experiences.
But it turns out that dimly remembered memories from their respective pasts emerge to haunt and torment them as the lines between the dead and the living blur.
The movie includes an original cast member Keith Sutherland, who said last summer it’s understood he’s playing an older version of his original character – making the film really a sequel, not a remake.
As if that wasn’t enough, Chaiken – who is now an executive producer for hit Fox show Empire – was then joined in her Twitter conversation by some of the cast.
Kate Moennig, who played the inimitable, irreplaceable Shane McCutcheon, replied to the post.
Queer music is on the rise across North America, Europe and even South America. But while we celebrate artists like Choco and Young M.A., we can’t forget that, in many countries, it’s not just dangerous to be LGBT – it’s punishable by death.
However, that does not stop brave artists from sharing their voices with the world.
The new Rainbow Riots charity album centers these voices. Each song is written and/or performed by LGBT artists from countries where being gay is illegal, and/or where anti-LGBT violence is a constant fear. All proceeds go to the Rainbow Riots charity, which fights for the LGBT rights of people across the world.
The artists’ countries include Uganda, Malawi and Jamaica, among others.
Swedish composer, writer and activist Peter Wallenburg began the project in order to amplify the voices of people who’d often been silenced.
Wallenburg says.
Imagine that your very existence is a crime and that the police, authorities, and lynch mobs chase you simply because you are who you are. I created Rainbow Riots as a movement to fight for freedom against tyranny.”
Wallenburg was spurred on by the 2016 Ugandan Pride parade which, unfortunately, the police shut down with a brutal and violent raid.
While the album isn’t set to release until mid-June, the first single, Mista Majah P’s “Equal Rights,” has already dropped, to much applause. The U.N. even used the song as the anthem for their Global Goals campaign.
While many artists remained anonymous of fear of death, some are boldly attaching their names to their music in order to take a public stand. These artists include Brayo Bryans of Uganda, Shivan of Uganda, Kowa Tigs of Uganda, Umlilo of South Africa, and Ivy B of Malawi.
Rainbow Riot’s previous projects include a 2016 Orlando fundraiser, where drag queen Lady Bunny and queer rapper Jwl B teamed up for a song for charity. The organization also teamed up with UN Global Goals in order to make being LGBT legal worldwide by 2030.
Check out the album teaser or pre-order your copy at the official website.
A trailer for Game of Thrones Season 7 teases a lesbian kiss – and it could seriously upset the power balance of the show.
The latest trailer for the fantasy series dropped this week, and it has left us absolutely wanting more.
Jon Snow is announcing that the great war is here, Cersei is ready to murder literally anyone, and Dany’s dragons are ready to GO.
However – blink-and-you’ll-miss-it – at 1:22, the trailer teased a kiss between Yara Greyjoy and Ellaria Sand!
Yara Greyjoy, who was revealed to be a lesbian last season, was most recently seen in Mereen, agreeing to an alliance with everyone’s favourite mother of dragons, Daenerys Targaryen.
Greyjoy pledged the Iron Fleet to form part of Daenerys’ massive invasion force, giving a boost to her bid to claim the Iron Throne.
We had speculated that the show might embrace Daenerys’ bisexuality, which featured heavily in the books, by connecting her to Yara.
However, the clip suggests she has her sights set on a different ruler – Ellaria Sand.
While we know Ellaria is a crafty one (the last woman she kissed ended up dead, RIP Myrcella), we’re not getting the feeling that this is a trick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxK92bDmrfA
The trailer apparently confirms that Dorne has joined the invasion, and the two women could be one hell of a couple, bringing two of the seven kingdoms with them.
You can see the moment in the trailer below. Game of Thrones returns on July 16.
Most people only know one Reggaeton song, which is Gasolina. But the genre is wide and diverse, and easily one of the most popular genres in Latin America.
Unfortunately, the genre is also dominated by men and misogyny. It’s nearly impossible to find a song that doesn’t mention using women as sex objects, or a music video that doesn’t twist women into compromising positions.
Choco is changing that.
Choco is the pioneer of lesbian reggaeton and the reggaetonera movement, which is taking the genre from men.
She initially started branding herself as a lesbian reggaeton artist as part of satire. She kept the trademark dembow rhythm and the perrero, a type of doggy-style dance, but changed the lyrics to reflect the pitfalls of male masculinity. In “Lo Que Las Mujeres Quieren” (What Women Want), she sings, “Hey macho reggaeton man, listen to what I say / You don’t know about women / A woman prefers two well-placed fingers.”
However, she also exploits women in her own way. In her music videos, she depicts women in sexual pleasure, albeit absent from men. She also sings, “I like cheaters / I like ugly girls,” and “I like women empoderada (empowered) / But I like it even better if she eats this empanada (slang for vagina).” Because of this, she’s received backlash from women who say she’s doing just as much harm to feminism as the men are. However, she sees her music as an opportunity to shrug off the taboos of sex and allow women to express their love of sex and consensual sexual powerplay.
She also sees herself as part of the reggaeton feminista – feminist reggaeton – movement, side-by-side with other female reggaetoneras like Ms. Nina los Santos (Argentina), Tomasa del Real (Chile), La Favi (San Francisco, US), Farina (Colombia), and Tremenda Jauría (Spain), among others. “Currently reggaeton is the most popular music at all the feminist parties.”
Her debut album is fittingly called Sátira (Satire), because she began the project as a satirical middle finger to the hypermasculine machismo culture. Listen to it here.
Having recently announced her second album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom,Halsey is in the middle of a promotional blitz.
As such, she’s been spilling all kinds of interesting tidbits about her next project, from the breakup that inspired it, to how she rediscovered herself in the process of making it.
The latest piece of information on the LP, though, is about a specific track — namely, the one she shares with Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui.
“This is the first song that I ever wrote where I openly used female pronouns,” Halsey recently revealed to Zach Sang, adding that she tried to keep her previous LP gender neutral.
The songs her new album switch between male and female pronouns, reflecting the real-life relationships that loosely inspired the music.
That’s why Jauregui, who came out as bisexual last November, was the perfect fit for a collaboration.
If I want this song to be believable it needs to be real, so I’m not going to put a girl on the song to sing who’s straight. I’m just not going to do it. So I reached out to Lauren and she came in and she cut the vocal and it sounds awesome.”
Strangers tackles what happens when Halsey’s and Jauregui’s characters meet at a house party.
I just love that Lauren and I are two women who have a mainstream pop presence doing a love song for the LGBTQ community. It’s unheard of. It’s very rare to see it from a female perspective. … Sam Smith obviously made waves making records that were so human and so amazing and emotional that it didn’t matter what your sexuality was, you just identified with what he was singing. That’s kind of what I wanted to do with Strangers.“
So you know that Black Mirror episode set in the ’80s? Well, here it is with Poussey (Samira Wiley) and Taystee (Danielle Brooks) from Orange Is The New Black.
(Spoilers for Orange is the New Black Season 4 below!)
The short skit titled Orange is the New Black Mirror, mirrors the plot of Black Mirror’s beloved gay love story San Junipero.
The clip features fan favourite Taystee reunited with her dead friend Poussey.
At the end of the last season, Poussey was dramatically killed, sparking a riot inside the prison.
But in the clip Taystee dreams of seeing her one more time in Black Mirror’s virtual afterlife, San Junipero.
The pair reconcile and dance, but a few moments later Taystee is sent back to the land of the living – waking inside the prison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCmGiiinH1M
Although we’re struggling to accept that this is the last time we’ll ever see Poussey back with a Litchfield inmate, we’re still excited to see how the prison has changed following her tragic death.
Season 5 promises to be an explosive one, with the show left on on a cliffhanger as the pregnant Daya points a gun at prison officer Humphrey – and a gunshot is heard.
The Netflix show will be back on our laptop and TV screens on June 9, picking up exactly where it left off.
Musical theatre is pretty gay. There’s a reason that gay men are stereotyped to all love musicals and that the lesbian-centric Fun Home won Best Musical.
But with the exception of RENT, which touched on the spread of AIDS among gay and gender-nonconforming men, musical theatre tends to gloss over the darker parts of gay history. Want to watch a queer cross between Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Wizard of Oz?
Welcome to Straight Outta Oz. Want to date the gay book characters you fell in love with as a teenager? Catch a run of Normativity.
But if you want to look at the darker parts of gay history, like the dozens of devastating mass killings of LGBT people, then you won’t find that on stage.
Until now.
The View Upstairs is a groundbreaking musical about the devastating fire that burned down a prominent gay lounge in New Orleans in 1973. Thirty-two people died, making it the deadliest LGBT hate crime in the US until the Pulse shootings.
The musical centers on a young gay man named Wes who, through the power of magic, is transported back in time to the Upstairs Lounge, where he meets lesbians, drag queens, and gay rights pioneers.
Nearly ever show has been sold-out so far. RuPaul has enthusiastically endorsed the show, and famous people like Michael Kors have purchased tickets. Although it’s currently Off-Broadway, it will be a short leap to Broadway.
One of the best parts about the show is its racial and age diversity. The show includes aging drag queens, young gay men of color, a Latina mother figure and, of course, Henri, the black lesbian who runs the bar.
It has been hailed for doing many things: for fighting back against the whitewashing of LGBT history, for humanizing and honoring those who died at the Upstairs Lounge, for talking about a chronically underreported hate crime, and for providing a safe space for queer people to see themselves and their history.
At least, that’s what you’d think if you watched movies like Blue is the Warmest Color or Carol. Movies just can’t depict lesbian sex correctly. Is it really as hard as it seems?
Most lesbian sex scenes, especially those shot by straight male directors, suffer from inauthenticity. After all, having a man watch and direct two women making love is the dictionary definition of “male gaze.”
Blue is the Warmest Color made headlines not just for its 10-minute, puzzling lesbian sex scene, but also for director Abdellatif Kechiche’s notoriously awful treatment of the actresses.
Luckily, Canada’s doing something right. The new lesbian drama, Below Her Mouth, centers on the queer female gaze. And the movie is one hundred times better for it.
Here’s how the movie gets it right.
The lesbians don’t look like Victoria’s Secret models.
When shooting lesbian sex scenes, straight men like to shoot attractive women that they would like to have sex with. But Below Her Mouth stars an intimidating butch lesbian who does not play by the rules of the gender binary.
There is an all-female crew.
Everyone on the crew was a woman, from the director (April Mullen) to the writer (Stephanie Fabrizi), who is openly queer. This created a safe space. And while shooting the sex scenes, only the director and the female director of photography were allowed in the room, for intimacy.
The movie actually shows sex positions that actual lesbians actually do.
Below Her Mouth focuses on real things that women do in order to come. Spoiler: it’s not just scissoring.
The movie let the sex happen organically.
Directors often interrupt and adjust actors during scenes, in order to get the perfect shot. But Mullen took a step back. She let the two actresses get a feel for each other on their own and have sex in a way that felt natural to them. “I would never have interrupted them just to be sure we got the right angle or the right light,” says Mullen. Sex doesn’t happen that way in the real world, and it shouldn’t on camera either.
Judge for yourself. Rent Below Her Mouth on Amazon.
The newest arrival is the spitfire Niña Dioz, a rapper who hails from Monterey, Mexico. She just moved to the US and released a hit music video for her song Dale.
However, although she now lives in LA, her heart belongs to Mexico. She holds the notable, and perhaps dangerous, honor of being Mexico’s first openly lesbian rapper.
When she was a child, her inspiration came from many different sources. She sat in front of MTV for hours at a time, watching everything from Beasty Boys to Missy Elliot to the Fugees to TLC.
She said in a recent interview, “It really blew my mind!” One of the most awe-inspiring experiences was when her friend brought a Dr. Dre album back from the US in 2001. When she wasn’t marveling at the marijuana leave on the cover, which she called “artwork,” she was listening to Metallica, Madonna, Cypress Hill and Nirvana.
When she entered the rap scene on her own terms, she didn’t face much blowback or bullying for being a woman, but her sexuality made men uneasy. Men felt territorial about a queer person encroaching on their heterosexual machismo culture. That’s why Dioz is Mexico’s first rapper, male or female, to be openly gay.
Since coming out, Dioz feels more open about herself and more determined to create safe spaces for people like her. “Where I’m from,” she says, “women are getting killed just because they’re women. It’s necessary to keep fighting for equality, and I can use my music as a tool.”
She has some advice for young women hoping to follow in her footsteps. This could apply to any queer woman trying to break into the arts:
Do the music (or art) that is real to you.
Be unafraid of being different.
Don’t worry about what other people say.
Dream big and remember that everything is possible.
If you love it enough, it will become a necessity.
While she’s in the US, Dioz will be touring, so catch her at a concert hall near you. Get connected with her music here.
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