



It's Friday, reader. You know what that means - it's Queerty ReBUTTal time! Yay!
You guys did super with the comments. Really. Just super - lisp and all. While we have plenty of thoughts on your thoughts on our thoughts, we're switching it up these week. As you're well aware, we've just kicked off The Style Issue.
Before things go too far, however, we'd like to have a brief look back on some of our other issues and some of the bits that didn't make it. Take a look at some unpublished excerpts, after the jump.
CONTINUED »
This, the final installment of the The Totally Frightful Issue actually wasn't on the original editorial schedule.
Like so many good scares, it snuck up on us and sprung from We Want Your Art: our petition for you, our darling (and attractive) readers, to send us your aesthetic wonders.
While we've loved everything we've seen so far, Alabama photographer Eric Sizemore's eerie, evocative work caught our eye, if you will. A real mensch, young Sizemore allowed us the abrupt interview found after the jump, along with some select images from "AutoBioPhotoGraphs".
A grainy recreation of Sizemore's coming out process, this series successfully conveys the universal homo-horror of coming out. Further, The burnt edges and blacked out faces enhance the message, reminding the viewer of the identity-consuming anxiety surrounding closeted sex.
Talk about totally frightful.
(Oh, and to all the people who've sent us art that's yet to be posted: never fear, you'll get your turn.)
CONTINUED »
You may have noticed our Happy Endings posting yesterday on how South Africa's new Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (who took over following Jacob Zuma's corruption scandal-related ouster) has charted a new course on HIV/AIDS. Among Mlambo-Mgcuka's first orders of business was to finally acknowledge the link between HIV and AIDS.
While those efforts will no doubt lead to wider prevention and treatment programs, a new report suggests that gay youth in the Western Cape region have not heard the calls for more vigilant safe-sex practices. South Africa's Independent reports:
The focus on safe sex in the gay community in South Africa seems to be "dropping off", according to the executive director of health services for the City of Cape Town, Ivan Toms."Young, crazy people are starting to play young, crazy risk games," Toms said on Monday at the internationally attended founding meeting of the Africa Genome Education Institute's Biotechnology and Health Economics Working Group of South Africa.
Toms attributed this "scary change" of an increased taking of sexual risks - especially among younger men - to their thinking that Aids was a chronic disease that could be managed with medication.
...[P]eople living with HIV in SA in 2005 between 5,2 million and 5,5 million. The HIV prevalence rate among the adult population (15 to 49) was between 18 percent and 19 percent.
We tend to think withholding sex entirely's a better method.

Whether appearing as the Luciferian guest of honor at this year's Black Party or starring in Brian Mills' demented sideshow-themed Cirque Noir, FTM porn star Buck Angel has always courted the dark side in his work. But striking fear in the hearts of certain gay men with hang-ups just comes with the job when you're the only cigar chomping, double-fist taking, bad ass Daddy with a vagina in the business.
Fresh from working hard and playing harder at Berlin's Hustlaball and Venus Fair, a recuperating Buck was too under the weather to talk on the phone, but he graciously put up with Matt Sussman’s needling over email.
Unless you're a total scaredy cat, you'll dive into the jump to ch-ch-check it out...
CONTINUED »
No matter how many times we see this video for Swedish rock outfit The Knife's "Silent Shout", it still manages to disturb our oh-so-delicate sensibilities. But, in the same way we can never get enough slasher flicks, we keep going back for more.
In fact, you could say the same thing for the entire album, Silent Shout: their first US offering from earlier this year.
It may surprise you to know that The Knife first made their impact in Sweden back in 2001 with their self-titled album. Deep Cuts, their 2003 follow-up, bolstered their status as aural wonders.
To celebrate their upcoming two-night gig at the CMJ Music Festival in New York City, Mute Records (the same folks who brought us the new Frank Tovey collection) will be releasing both The Knife and Deep Cut for the first time in The States.
Appropriately enough, they drop on Halloween, meaning you'll have the perfect soundtrack to scare the pants off that certain trickster.

It’d be a glaring omission not to include the Irish-born painter Francis Bacon in The Totally Frightful Issue.
Though he started his artistic career as an interior decorator, Bacon made a name for himself with his vivid, figurative depictions of humans in pain, yearning to capture, as he said, “sensation.” As is so often the case in art, the form of this sensation depends largely on the viewer.
While some insist his work draws on the violent, world war torn period in which he came of age, others narrow in on his homo-ways to explain the radical sexuality in his distorted, often grotesque images.
Regardless of one's take on the matter, we think he's dreadfully frightful - in the best way possible, of course.
See a few of our favorite Francis Bacon paintings, after the jump...
CONTINUED »
With the New Jersey Supreme Court's affirmation of gay "marriage," we felt the uncontrollable urge to dance around like complete homo-buffoons.
The only problem was that we couldn't decide what song best fit our celebratory mood. Luckily we found ourselves paying a visit to our friends at Gayz of Our Lives (you know, the fashion mavens who brought us the top ten Freaky Fashion Trends for The Totally Frightful Issue).
While there, we found this link to DJ Revolucian's myspace page where you can find the dance remix of Barbara Streisand's recent "Shut The Fuck Up" flare up.
If there's a better song to dance to while telling homo-haters to "shut the fuck up" and let gays marry, we haven't heard it. Enjoy!

We have to admit: we were a little scared to interview Reichen Lehmkuhl about his new book, Here's What We'll Say.
Our fear stemmed not from nerves over interviewing a so-called "celebrity," nor did they come from some deep-seeded attraction to the former Amazing Racer turned activist.
We were actually afraid that we'd end up offending him. Much to our surprise, however, we didn't. In fact, we weren't even tempted. Shocking, right?
As we made our introductions, touching on the fact that Reichen's from Cincinnati (love the 513) and a mutual love for The Grateful Dead, it occurred to us that maybe we were wrong to criticize him: maybe Reichen's actually a really nice, sincere guy whose using his elevated social status for good.
And, you know what, we were right: he's nice, he's informative, and he's nothing if not passionate.
Did the entire experience make us want to worship him? We'd really rather not say.
What we can say, however, is that Reichen made a point of mentioning he was going to "Justin's" fashion show later in the evening (Timberlake, that is: apparently they're on a first name basis, which is good, because Reichen basically only goes by his first name).
Anyway, after the jump, read what Reichen had to say for himself, including his opinions on Christianity in the armed forces, the very special message he has for his critics, and how he's already started his second book.
CONTINUED »
Diseases are pretty scary and if there's one disease we're particularly frightened of, it's Hepatitis B: the acute virus that targets the liver and has been cited as the second-leading cause of cancer (after cigarettes, of course).
Like so many diseases, many people assume that Hep-B's someone else problem. But, of course, they're are wrong. To curb infection, some do-gooder Brits have launched a new campaign to spread the word.
The B Aware Campaign estimates that "approximately 2 billion people are infected with the virus worldwide, it is the 10th leading cause of death globally..." Holy shit, right? That's a lot of people. What's even more frightening is this little tidbit from Pink News UK: "...gay men are said to be particularly at risk being approximately 10 times more likely to carry the diseases..."
Ahhhhh!! We just shat our pants.
Luckily, immunization against the virus is readily available in most developed. So, readers, if you haven't already taken the necessary precautions, head over to your friendly neighborhood doctor and get the needle prick so you can then get the human prick (relatively) worry free.
Oh, and just to up the ante: peeps with Hep-B aren't supposed to drink. Now that's frightful...
Woof, talk about a scary statistic! Grand National Party Representative Moon Hee told his legislative peers that out of the 4,227 (known) HIV positive Koreans, 3,842 are men. For those of you not mathematically inclined (don't worry, we're not, either), that means that 90% of HIV positive Koreans are men. (Note: Given that our source, The Korea Times, is based in Seoul, we're assuming this is South Korea we're talking here.)
Moon goes on to deride the government for its lax policy on testing men. She says:
"Despite an alarmingly large number of male HIV-infected patients, the government has been less keen on promoting specific measures to prevent men from contracting the disease..."
Many of those men work in the "massage/entertaiment industry" (hooking?), the same industry that requires HIV testing for women.
Oh, if you're interested in the "gay/straight" breakdown, here it is: out of the 3,842 men infected with HIV, 1,377 contracted it via M4M, while 1,801 got it from lady-lovin'.
Remember The Tom Tom Club? Sure you do! How could anyone forget the Talking Heads' spin-off new wave girl group?
If you don't know them, you've certainly heard at least some variation of their monster single, "Genius of Love:" it's allegedly the most sampled song in the world.
Sure, it's a great song and all, but we've always been partial to "Wordy Rappinghood," which you may recognize from the Chicks on Speed cover. We love it so much, we've posted a vintage video above.
So, why does this qualify as part of The Totally Frightful Issue? Their lip synching scares the pants off us, their dancing reminds us of a strung out zombie, and the random Spanish announcement caught us off guard.
While there may be a few scary things about this video, it's still totally fucking awesome.
But, don't take our word for it...

For today's installment of The Totally Frightful Issue, we're handing the reins over to performative character and all-around nice guy, Jack E. Jett.
While those of you in Australia and Canada may know him from his talk show, Queer Edge, soon everyone can enjoy his eccentric, yet socially conscious humor when he launches his new Internet television channel, FU-TV, on Monday, October 30th on World of Wonder, ManiaTV! and The Akimbo Service.
Before that, however, read his ruminations on the rise of AIDS, how fear helps forge new directions, and how the hell he came up with Jack E. Jett in the first place.
In case you're too scared to figure it out together, you can find his piece after the jump.
CONTINUED »