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Honestly, where would we fags be without our hags?

Seriously, after the hype and subsequent come down of Mardi Gras I had a bad case of writers block...

“I have no idea what to write about,” I complained over dinner.

“Why don’t you write about me?” one of my hags suggested?

On the drunken stumble home I thought, “why not?” They’ve always been there for us, quietly (sometime not so quietly) supporting from the shadows while the fags take the spotlight.

So now it’s time to give them a little bit of kudos.

Often, I’ve find that hags kind of slip into the role from a young age. They will be the ones young gays turn to just after they’ve come out, the parents are freaking and the gay needs a place to hang out until the shit storm blows over. The would-be hag is there to nurture, support and convince the gay that everything will be OK (while stroking their perfectly conditioned teenage hair). Come on, we’re born that way – we know good hair takes work from a young age!

From there, they are set on a one-way course to Fag Hag-dom. The gay knows she’s a solid rock and so she accompanies him on all of his homo milestones; they are there for the first gay clubbing experience, they hear about all of the first sexual experiences (all of the gory details which she secretly loves and soon she is fluent in gayenese – top, bottom, douche, etc.) She is also sat next to her fag for every episode of the essential Queer As Folk marathon that every young gay embarks on in order to earn his stripes. The hag experiences every Rite of Passage as if it's her own and at no point does she want to share the glory. She’s like a zookeeper raising a Galapagos turtle till it reaches its sexual peak and then remaining present to steer the horny little bastard on the right path.

A lot of people think that hags only hang out with gays because they can’t get a man of their own. However, in my experience the fact that she can’t get a straight man is a byproduct of the bitch’s bulldog-like loyalty. I guess this is becoming less of an issue now that social boundaries are breaking down and it’s more acceptable for straight dudes to party topless in clubs like ARQ. But that’s where our loyalty kicks in – “Hell no are you going home with that fugly Westie, he’s off his face and I’m not picking you up in the morning. WERQ! Back to the dance floor, betch!”

Now I know I’m evangelising hags, but I know there are many (many!) feral hags who get caught up in the gay lifestyle just as much as their twink and become quite nasty. They take too many drugs, pick fights and are quite often ‘that gurl’ in Smoker’s Alley at ARQ. Laugh her off. She won’t last.

So here’s to the hags; seasoned or up-and-coming, young or old, past or present. Even though we may say we love you all the time, you really don’t know how much you mean to us and how much you’ve done for us. We lover you!

Tx

I fucking love this time of year – Mardi Gras time! I love everything about Mardi Gras – Fair Day (which I couldn’t attend this year due to a bout of food poisoning, the mild weight loss was so not worth it), the Mardi Gras Film Festival (the guys art Queer Screen rule!), the theatre shows, the parties and, of course, the Parade.

This will actually be my last Mardi Gras for a few years as I’m leaving Sydney and moving to London. So what better time to look back on my first Mardi Gras and re-live all the great Mardi Gras memories I’ve had since?

I’m fortunate enough to have a fellow gay for a brother (love that betch’s face off!) So when I was 19 or 20 he and his posse took me to experience the Parade for the first time. I actually can’t describe the overwhelming feeling of pride that overcame me as we made our way up Oxford Street. To see all of those hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets in support of equal rights, acceptance and love was insane. The excitement in the air was electric. For a young kid from Newcastle who wasn’t out to his parents and family, I was overcome with a sense of belonging and in that moment I knew: there’s nothing wrong with you.

As Magda said recently, “there’s nothing wrong with being gay… if there was a pill to cure it, I wouldn’t take it”

After shuffling, ducking and diving through the crowds for over an hour, we found ourselves standing out the front of the Columbian taking swigs out of a bottle of $20 vodka and searching for a spare milk crate to stand on. (Hey – you can take the boy out of Newcastle, but you can’t take the Newcastle out of the boy!)

The Parade was so much more than I had anticipated – colourful, wild and sexy – but the one thing from that night that I will always remember is this: a little boy (about three or four years old) was dancing around to the music holding the gay flag and waving it above his head. His (straight) parents were watching on and encouraging him as he danced about. It occurred to me that this kid probably had no idea what he was there for or what it all meant, however his parents were attending the Parade to show their support and so would likely pass on their open mindedness, acceptance and support of gay rights as part of his upbringing. After all, isn’t that what Mardi Gras is all about?

All the warm and fuzzies aside, as soon as the Parade was dying down we ran into Stonewall and proceeded to consume as much alcohol as possible. Pretty soon we were totally trolleyed, getting dangerous on the d-floor and kissing every cute boy that ventured into our field of gravity.

I remember the first time I went to the Mardi Gras Party – I was dancing in the RHI as the Freemasons took us to places we’ve never been before. I was surrounded by some of the hottest, shirtless men I’ve ever seen. Packed in like sweaty sardines, you could hardly move, flesh on flesh. But I didn’t care. That is until the condensation built up so much that the RHI turned into the steam room at Bodyline and sweat started to drip from the ceiling…

Part of the Mardi Gras experience used to be going to Sleaze Ball on October long weekend. The one thing I remember from my first Sleaze Ball was dancing with my friends, eyeing off some hot stud when a crippled leather daddy in a wheel chair rolled up to a dude with arseless chaps and began to rim him in the middle of the dance floor. Not something you see everyday, but hey, good on him. These are my people!

I loved Sleaze Ball – so dirty and sexy. But onwards and upwards and it was a sinking ship, not making enough money so it will remain just that: memories.

I know there’s a tonne of politics that goes along with Mardi Gras and every queen has an opinion (mostly negative about how the committee, board and staff run the show), but you know what? Fuck that. Every year we all band together, have a fucking awesome time and show the world how fucking fabulous we are!

Just think what that means to every young gay, lesbian, bisexual, budding drag queen or transgender kid in the crowd this year. It means the world. There’s nothing wrong with you and this is where you belong.

Happy fucking Mardi Gras!

Tx

Externally we are united, internally we are divided. There are multiple ‘scenes’ which make up the gay community portrayed to wider society. From the outside we are one big happy family striving to be accepted – on a mission to eradicate the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality. However, scratch beneath the microdermabrasioned surface and you’ll discover there are numerous cases of ‘us’ and ‘them’, which I’m keen to explore.

I was a fat child. I was a fat teenager. In my mind I’m a fat adult (but that’s a different story). I was bullied when I was young. Never for being gay, but for being fat. It would get really upset, but then one day I began to view my bullies differently. Their words no longer affected me in the same way, which went a little something like this: