archivecasual homophobia

There are secrets and betrayals we must take to the grave, as to utter them would cause untold destruction. There are opinions we can never admit, secret crushes we can never act upon, and sworn enemies blissfully unaware they are at war, because nobody says it out loud. But I cannot hold back this confession any longer. It burns inside me, a raging fire that will consume me unless I finally get it out in the open. And it's all for you, straight guys at my gym. At last, the truth: yes,...

Last night my boyfriend and I were on a train coming back from a few drinks with a friend. At one stop, a group of younger people got on. They were in their twenties, I guess. They had been to some sort of concert and were wearing various items of band merchandise. I suppose 10 years ago we’d have said they were “emo” – nobody says that any more, do they? There were four of them. One looked like an artist’s impression of Guido Fawkes, there were two more devastatingly...

We all have that oversharing friend, don't we? The one who posts millions of selfies or is always checking in on Facebook, drowning under the weight of their own humblebrags or passive-aggressive attention-seeking. And only the very kindest of us wouldn't have a quick sneer with other mutual friends – maybe fire off a bitchy text or a moany DM. "They're at it again!" And that's OK, that's human nature. Unless you're very careless or downright malicious, nobody finds out and nobody gets hurt. One opportunistic person wanted to take this...

Spare a thought, everyone, for Jonah Hill – the character actor caught on tape this week telling an irritating, confrontational paparazzo to suck his dick, signing off with the beautiful "faggot". No sooner had the first bored internet user finished listening to the second syllable of “faggot” spill from Hill’s mouth than the Wolf Of Wall Street star was hastily beating a retreat, apologising profusely, his Hollywood bankability draining before his very eyes like an iPhone battery at a festival. Hill has flung not one but two apologies out into the...

Being gay is very political these days. What with the world and his wife sticking their noses in about whether we should be getting married and Twitter confusing homosexuality with paedophilia in the wake of the BBC sex scandals from the 1970s. Like the unavoidable pink square in a slice of Battenberg or the writing running through a stick of rock, there’s always a constant air of homophobia which lingers around the reporting of such stories, but it’s not just the heavyweight news events we have to watch out for,...