Why I think Red White and Royal Blue succeded

One of the most realistic gay sex scenes I've seen

Romcoms are pretty much a dime a dozen and mostly just like a quick fix of sugar and gone in 5 minutes. The premise of RWRB is pretty silly in many ways -- a Prince of England and the First Son of the US--  like that's terribly likely. Throw in gay and it's getting even more tenuous on the reality front. But romcoms are supposed to be silly, so it's just hewing to the the genre. RWRB is more than that though.

First off there is Henry, the closeted prince. The intersection of celebrity and the closet has got to be a terrible place to live. Given the internet -- and its forever nature -- I think things are probably even worse than the bad old days. I like to use the analogy of Hollywood. In the old days you could be a gay celeb and the studios would run deflection for you. Hollywood was and is homophobic, but stars make them money and money > homophobia. So back then you could be more or less discreet and live a pretty gay life. Everybody around town knew so and so was gay, but the studios controlled the narrative and could take channel locks to the balls of the press if need be. With the internet -- "you're on your own, son". 

I think a lot of gay people really relate to Henry's predicament even if they haven't been in the closet forever or were never in it in the first place. The closet is a near universal experience for gay people and it can be soul crushing. The most typical reason is religion, but it can be for almost any reason where it's dangerous to come out. In Henry's case it's the shitty expectations of family. Even for those of us who had it pretty easy, we've all witnessed people and their closets and the stories about it and it is truly heartbreaking. While Nick Nelson in Heartstopper was also closeted, it was largely a closet of his own making. Maybe that's not quite fair, but his stakes were pretty low. Henry on the other hand is truly fucked. I think that kind of closet is much less common in gay movies, especially when you throw in how hard it is to be private. It makes you ache for him.

For Alex it's another angle that you don't really see. Alex isn't closeted because he doesn't understand his feelings. We know that he's obsessed with Henry, but he doesn't understand the real reason. He tries to rationalize that Henry is awful and entitled, but the book makes it much more clear that Alex finds other guys attractive and he definitely finds Henry very attractive, but he thinks it's normal for straight guys to be able find other guys attractive. That's certainly true -- I can find women to be beautiful but that doesn't mean I want to fuck them. But Alex always has doubt  as to which is which.

So I like the latent bisexual arc and it's pretty unusual. Unlike Nick Nelson from Heartstopper who is quite young and still in the phase where you're usually figuring things out, Alex is older and almost certainly dabbling in the hot chick circuit. His dalliance with Liam was in high school, so that too is easy to blow off since that's pretty common. We never know if Alex has had girlfriends before -- seemingly not -- but he's almost certainly had a fair amount of sex. Zarah more or less confirms that when she tells Alex "and no hookups" for his trip to make Henry his new bud.

Then comes the caketastrophy and the subsequent need to be buds. And then they start flirting. Henry is overtly and not so discreetly flirting with Alex, and Alex the great emotional intellect remains clueless. I'm not sure I've seen that done, like anywhere? Then comes the New Years Eve party and Alex is still clueless about his real feelings for Henry. Then Henry kisses him which is like a bolt of lightning out of the blue. Alex finally understands what this has meant. It's just that it took a clue-by-four to get him to realize it. Even his confession to Nora is weak: he's looking for an out and she reads him to filth. I really like this as it completely changed everything in his life and his understanding of himself. It doesn't really need to be a prince to have that sort of awakening, but it helps because you're probably not going to have a decade long obsession with the schlub across the street. 

So that's very unusual to the point of I don't think I've ever seen that kind of bisexual representation, especially male bisexuals representation. Male bisexuals are still pretty invisible and often find themselves in a weird no-man's land where gay men don't trust them not to run off to a little missus, and women are worried that they are really gay and just using them as a beard. The reality is there are probably tons of male bisexuals who just label themselves as gay or straight because a) it's easier especially if they are more attracted to one than the other and b) if the issue isn't forced. But Alex has definitely been forced and big time. He now knows that he's extremely sexually attracted to Henry and it was sexual tension all along. That's fun for a big old homo like me who's known he was from puberty on. True lots of people don't get it till much later, but it's usually repression. Alex just never makes the connection until Henry kisses him. 

The Red Room seals that they are now lovers. And boy can they not get enough of each other. The other thing that is sort of unusual is the banter both in and out of bed. Sex is not just animalistic or sensual, though it can be. Sex is fun and can be silly and playful too. That you definitely don't see often. The scene in New York where they are racing to get their clothes off laughing the entire way captures that playfulness. Matthew Lopez and his intimacy coordinator who are both gay really did a good job of capturing some of the dimensions of how gay men actual experience sex rather than the one dimensional crap that is all too common. Nick Galitzine is almost certainly straight, but my god did he get the making love scene right. Hats off.

The other part that works is that it really pulls on your heartstrings. Henry is perfectly happy with Alex as his plaything figuring Alex will get bored of him eventually. But that is incredibly sad because Henry has been in love with Alex all along. Even though the deleted fireside scene doesn't entirely make sense, you feel for Henry. He's trying to escape and let Alex love him, but he panics. That was just so horrible for both of them. Henry hurt Alex in the worst possible way. I read that in the KP bedroom scene where Alex gives Henry his ultimatum that Taylor started crying and then Nick heard him and started crying too completely unscripted -- that is very special. I figured it was scripted but to find out that the actors were so invested in that scene -- wow.  Bet that doesn't happen often in Hollywood. Then there's where Alex flies to London after the scandal and they meet on the stairs. When do you see with gay flicks two lovers who are in complete despair trying to comfort one another? Holding the Man maybe? That and it's it's almost impossible for me to not speculate when Alex is really in love with Henry. My feeling is that it was when they made love that Alex knew that he was falling.

From the comedy part of romcom, Zarah is just wonderful. Her mental breakdown finding Henry in the closet is beautifully acted. And of course there is the obvious irony of closeted Henry being in a real life closet.  But Henry and Alex both provide plenty too with their constant banter even when it's very obvious they are in love. My prediction is that Alex goes to his grave with Henry's contact as HRH Prince Dickhead 💩. From the very first time they really meet there is tension especially with Henry calling Alex sweetheart in a teasing way. In the book the scene with the turkeys Alex is trying to get the turkey to gobble for Henry and Henry tries to guide him "look the turkey in the eye..." and eventually "buy the turkey a vacation house in Mallorca". I think this is really a guy thing as guys are supposed to be competitive with one another. Too often that goes missing. The scene in the book with Henry after Alex fucks him and can't get any words out he thinks something to the effect of "if I had known that's what it takes to shut him up, I'd have done it months ago". Beautiful.

One last thing that may be a bit underrated was the cinematography. It was beautifully shot. The stairs scene. The overhead raft at the lake scene. The drowning scene. The shots with Bea in that beautiful garden. The first kiss scene. The deleted fireside chat scene. And my goodness the absolute beauty of the scene at the V & A. And of course the cake scene. I heard that they had a really famous cinematographer who also shot Angels in America. Now that had to have been a challenge at every level with Angels coming out of ceilings fergawdsakes so his pedigree is real. The sets were really well done too. They must have cost a pretty penny. The costuming is pretty ok too, though it's fairly easy because they are dressed in boring suits for the most part. And the infernal use of The Sheep May Safely Graze earworm that has burrowed into the center nucleus of my brain. The sound track was really good. Except for that. God damn you to hell.

It's not to say that the movie (and the book) don't have flaws. For the movie the near fatal flaw is that the  time budget of two hours was way too short. That's the studio's decision though. I really don't have a problem with a lot of what was cut -- Wimbledon was just another excuse to fuck and LA didn't work as well as the movie IMO (I mean, both drunk and Henry having just eaten an In-N-Out double double before getting porked?). But the cut from the polo scene to Paris was way too abrupt and lacked any context. Same with the DNC speech and the coming out scene. It took me a while to figure out that they were two different scenes since they were in the Oval Office but seemed like they were still in New York. And the entire last several scenes went by way too fast. The Miguel Ramos plot device was not great either. The book is flawed there too (er, what happened?), but a scorned journalist queen? Feh. 

So overall these are the reasons I tell myself why I'm not insane to be obsessed. The book and the movie had real innovations and things that you don't often see. I keep telling myself that I'm retired and it's not embarrassing to have something to obsess about since I'm kind of bored. It is, of course, but this is my defense. I may be convicted and sent to 6 years of hard labor at loser reform camp, but I'm at peace with that. My husband Aric even bought me a History Huh? mug and shirts. I was mortified. But popcorn. I need more popcorn. And a fucking sequel.

A rant on people's constant whining about gay movies that involve AIDS or have sad endings

Yes, everybody knows about the Hollywood trope of dandy gays or dead gays which was starting to change by the 80's. There were starting to be more movies and series that didn't involve gay men dying and even if it were a sad ending, you can chock a lot of it up to recognizing society's homophobia which was definitely not the same as the dead gays trope which was that we had it coming. Movies like Maurice and Another Country can't have happy endings because the times didn't allow that. That doesn't make them bad for being sad, it means that homophobia sucks. It still sucks; it's still relevant. In the 80's that was something that needed to be shouted out at the top of our lungs. If that offends people's tender sensibilities today, well, fuck off. It's bad enough to have so much gay history erased at the hands of homophobes, but to consciously self-censor what things were like 100 years ago and other historical dramas is to erase our history willingly and I call bullshit on that. We need to constantly be reminded that we now are the historical oddity and how fragile that actually is.

The other thing is that historical fiction is usually done from the point of view of the victor. Well guess who the victor was back then? And the victor's literal goal was to not speak its name. Sure you can pull the Hollywood series's stunt of rewriting Hollywood's history in a farcical and completely unrealistic way but while I get what they're trying to do -- being aspirational -- it's annoying as well because it is so false. I mean, if they did a movie about Oscar Wilde, are they supposed to omit the fact that he was thrown in jail for being gay? Or maybe we shouldn't see anything about it all because it has that inconvenient sad fact. Or maybe Alan Turing to whom we owe a great deal of having this conversation at all, and omit that he was driven to suicide by the homophobic state just so it isn't sad?

Now onto AIDS. There seems to be this notion that in the 80's all movies that dealt with gay content were AIDS related. That is utter and frankly offensive bullshit. I don't think the first film that dealt with AIDS came out until around 1985 and it was a low budget affair (Buddies?) without much reach. So half the decade down without a single mention. The other thing to realize is... there was no public internet. Information moved at a glacial pace compared to today. Gay men were dying because we didn't know what was going on. So something like An Early Frost which also came out in 1985 was extremely needed just to get the word out. That's true from a health standpoint, but also from a political standpoint since nobody gave a shit because it was "killing all the right people". Oh but that was then you say. But that's true of anything that involves history which these films have become.

By the late 80's more AIDS related movies were available but they were far from common. Heck just about any gay content was hard to find. By the early 90's it was a little more common but again we are talking about a very tiny universe. We are now swimming in a sea of gay content and there's maybe a dozen or two movies that dealt with AIDS. What's the fucking problem? Some of them were even funny like The Living End. Not every movie has to be happy. Like it or not, it's part of our gay past and it's maddening that people want to erase it as if it never happened -- because it's sad. Yes, Holding the Man is extremely hard to watch but it's our history too: that gay men of my generation were practically wiped out from a disease that nobody knew about. That it was a historical accident that it embedded in the gay community in the West unlike the rest of the world where it's primarily a straight disease. That it informed a lot of the politics of the day. Everybody should watch BPM just to get a sense of how desperate it was and frankly the heroes most of whom are now dead who transformed not only their times, but generations to come. Oh, you say, I just don't want to watch it now. Ok if not now, when?

I wonder if the same people who hate sad gay content avoid movies like Schindler's List and the like that deal with the Holocaust. Or heck, even Fiddler on the Roof for that matter. Or movies that deal with Black slavery in the Americas. What, no Kunta Kinte in Roots because: sad? I'd much rather people not watch ahistoric pieces of revisionist history like Gone with the Wind that erase Black history instead. I'm neither Black nor Jewish, but I am gay and movies about our pasts need to be made and watched because god fucking damn it: NEVER FORGET.

My Tawdry Youth

Me helping build my bf's house

Ok, this is very frank and doesn't hold back. If you're prone to clutching your pearls, you might consider closing this tab. Coming of age in the 70's during the sexual revolution and gay liberation was an experience that not many people had. But for me it was just the way it was. Put together with my living in conservative Orange County but close to the gay haven of Hollywood and its bizarre reality gives a view of the complexities of the time. But the fact of the matter is that Orange County was also crawling with gay boys, me being one of them. And boy oh boy did I take full advantage of that.

First not quite an inkling

 

I sucked at playing, but love to watch

When I was probably 7 or 8 I would have recurring dreams. There was one dream that a volcano would open up right under my bed which was clearly a reaction to the Parícutin volcano in Mexico that popped up out of a corn field at the time. At the time I was, I guess, starting to understand about relationships and dating most likely from TV shows and the like. This dream always involve me sitting dressed up at a restaurant and was either from the other side of the table or from standing next to the table. I guess I figured it was just how you'd film such a thing. I never saw who was on the other side of the table. It was years and years later when I remembered that dream I realized that I wasn't looking at myself, I was looking at my date. I guess my subconscious was already figuring out what was going on, but I was clueless about it. I never had any feelings for girls -- or boys for that matter -- back then. I didn't have a lot of friends and never hung out with girls which is a stereotypical gay trait. Girls sort of didn't interest me and very much intimidated me. 

One of our friends when I guess we were probably about 10 whipped out his dick to show us his boner. I'm not sure why he did that and it seemed rather weird, but it stuck with me. Nobody else did so it wasn't some sort of dare that kids do. But I still remember it pretty vividly so it obviously meant something. But of course his mom used a ping pong paddle with holes drilled into it to spank them (less air resistance) and I remember that too, so maybe it was nothing after all.

Why am I not feeling it for girls?

When I was about in 6th grade I noticed that the boys were starting to get interested in girls. They did nothing for me, but there were plenty of boys who were indifferent to them too so I didn't think too much about it. I had found a porn magazine which was definitely straight that I'd jerk off to. I never recall being especially attracted to the models, just attracted to naked bodies I guess. I did have sort of a crush on two different guys who I was in class with and one of them and I would hang out. Nothing ever happened but it was pretty clear I was a little infatuated with both of them. I had a friend from the apartment complex I lived in and he asked me to look at my fingernails. I looked at them in full Judy Jetson style (hands out) and he made fun of me for not looking at them with your fingers curled into your palm, which was supposedly the straight thing to do. Hmm.

When I got into 7th grade, however, it was the first time with gym class and locker rooms. Boom. There was definitely something going on and it was not very straight. I never really had a crush on somebody at that school that I recall but I was in the choir which was pretty gay including one guy who was definitely gay. I, of course, didn't want to be associated with him. Imagine that. But I guess he also sowed the seeds for actually being really attracted to very gay guys. Too bad I wasn't attracted to him personally or I may have gone for it because horny > shame for me.

I was friends with my neighbors' kids across the street when we lived in Huntington Beach and when we moved because my parents divorced, I'd take the bus there once in a while to see them. I sort of had a crush on one of them who was my age and honestly he was really good looking but I was confused and not confused at the same time. I absolutely let none of this show because I didn't know how to approach such things. Of course I had no idea that it isn't uncommon for randy teenagers to experiment with whatever they can find at that time but that was that.

My first time

I was living in an apartment building in Garden Grove when I was about 14. There was a bowling alley called Garden Square Bowl and I became addicted to bowling. I would keep score (they didn't have the automatic ones back then) and that would give me the money to do things.  One of those things was seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Grove Theater with some friends. When we got done we were all like "what in the fucking fuck was that?" I don't recall anybody being homophobic but that's probably not very surprising because it was in the middle of Glam Rock and celebrities and especially pop singers were allowed to be over the top. But my oh my was that movie crazy for a young budding gay boy.

I had one friend from the apartment complex who was about 2 years older than me, so about 16. His parents were what we called Jesus Freaks presaging the religious right movement later in the decade. But he wasn't religious that I could tell and seemed mostly beyond it which suited me as somebody who grew up (thankfully) without any religion at all. We would hang out in his bedroom listening to pop albums all afternoon and we especially loved Elton John. He actually turned me on to quite a few bands and ironically The Tubes and their What Do You Want From Life -- it was decades later when i figured out what a baby's arm holding an apple meant. 

So like I said, I bowled a lot and it was basically my life. Being a geek I was rather obsessed with the pin setter machines. I made friends with some of the mechanics who were always there as there were breakdowns all the time. It was my first introduction to electronics too and how they could control things. My friend ended up getting a job there filling in as needed as a mechanic. I would go back there and hang out with him. One day he went to the little bathroom stall at the back of the room and he was gone for longer than he should have been. I went back there and he had his pants to the floor and was sporting a very nice boner that he was playing with. I had a lot of trepidation but this wasn't a "go away, I'm jerking off" pose, it was "come and get it." So I did. 

When we'd hang out either in the back of the bowling alley or at his place we'd go at it, randy teens that we were. I don't think that we ever kissed and I'm not sure he ever reciprocated but he did make a half assed attempt to fuck me, probably just as clueless as I was that you can't just stick things in. This went on for probably at least a year and I'd remember the taste of his cum while I was keeping score and being both "gross" and "yum" at the same time. We never really had a break it off kind of moment because I think we just drifted apart. I want to think he joined the military which very much ended the possibility. I didn't think of it in terms of a relationship or anything romantic at all, I just like sucking his dick very much and he was a friend.

Finally, a car

When I turned 16, I did what every other kid did in those days and got my license. I was living in Huntington Beach again at the time so there weren't a lot of opportunities for anything naughty -- or so I thought. The following summer I stayed up at my dad's place in West LA for the summer. I think that Star Wars had just come out and I had a major boner for Mark Hamill. My dad's girlfriend really liked me so I guess I had a "girl friend" after all. I suspect she knew that I was gay and liked to get me clothes and dress me up. I happened onto one of those alterna rags at the time and it had an actual dick pic in it. I kept that thing well hidden and well used. 

My dad let me use his Chevy Vega so I'd toodle around. One day I decided to go to the beach in Malibu. I'm not sure how I knew this -- maybe one of those rags -- but there was a nude beach next to Zuma (or maybe it was just part of it) called Pirate's Cove. I timidly made my way over but didn't get naked. There were quite a few people there but what caught my eye was this beautiful blond guy, naked as I recall with a big old schlong. I was absolutely smitten. How I manged to get the courage I'll never know, but I hit on him. Not directly, but in a way that any gay guy would know what's going on. I asked him if he'd like to smoke a joint which he agreed to and we went back to my car to smoke it. The next part is so stereotypical that he grabbed my thigh and of course he didn't need to ask if it was ok because I had a raging boner. 

We went back to his place in West Hollywood and had sex. I think he tried to fuck me too, but I was not comfortable getting fucked (as in we tried and I failed) and I was perfectly happy sucking dick anyway. It was electric for me and I'm sure that's the first time that I had kissed a guy. He was so fucking hot: smooth, tanned, big juicy lips and very, very blond. One life long obsession discovered. He was also 28 so the second lifelong obsession discovered too. Yes, I know 16 and 28... yeah. But it was me who initiated all of this and while it's definitely sketch what he was doing with me, I was totally into it and was exactly what I wanted.

We boinked a time or two more with me just showing up at his place, but eventually he wasn't into it and made excuses. I on the other hand was a perpetual boner machine for the rest of summer. He told me two interesting things. One was that he had spent time at Spahn Ranch -- you know, the one that Charles Manson and his cult lived at. He never told me what his involvement was and I had no reason to believe that he had anything to do with anything. So just a weird connection for me. The second is that he told me there was a gay under 21 dance club in Hollywood called the Odyssey which I'll get to.

Well, um, yeah I was 16 and stupid...

So that wasn't the only thing that happened after I had access to cars. You see, in Hollywood runs Santa Monica Blvd and in one part of it there were... street hustlers. So I did what any other sensible 16 year old would do and... cruised them. And picked some of them up. I never had to pay or anything but it was definitely not the brightest idea I ever had. Some of them were trouble, some of them told me I shouldn't be doing this. I did meet this one who was blond with curly hair and a perfect surfer boy body. While with most of the others we just fooled around in the car, he actually took me back to his place in La Mirada I think -- sort of a schlep from Hollywood. I'm pretty sure he was the first guy I ever fucked and boy did I like it. We fucked several other times and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy but it was purely physical. I never considered it as anything but that, not that I had anything against him unlike a lot of guys who have contempt for the hustlers they pick up. I still wonder what led him there and what happened to him, though I'm sure I know what happened in a few short years later. He was about 18 so it's quite possible he was one of the many kids who were kicked out by homophobic parents just trying to get by.

Michael (not Mikie!) goes to Hollywood

Me around this time

 

So as I said previously, the summer hookup I had told me about this gay club The Odyssey so when I turned 18 I made a mad dash for it. I don't think it was literally on my birthday but it was not very long after. I was of course terrified but if nothing else, I always had my horniness to overcome that. The first night I went there I met -- get this -- a cute wavy haired blond boy. We actually hung out a few times and the sex was good, but he lived in Downey which was not geographically desirable. I started having a lot of sex at that time and found out that Garden Grove in Orange County where I lived actually was crawling with gay bars so I didn't have to go all the way up to Hollywood all of the time.

I met this one guy in Hollywood and started hanging out with him and staying over. I was going to UC Irvine at this point, but I decided that being a full time homosexual was more important so I dropped out for the time being. He was -- you guessed it -- in his mid to late 20's. He introduced me to his friends and we'd sometimes hang out with his friend who lived in Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach for those who don't know was an art colony and had a very large gay population, along with lots of gay Hollywood types that would slum there in the summer. His friend had this beautiful boy toy that I lusted after but never went after. The one memorable thing we did is that we went to this restaurant there in Laguna Beach and there was this cute blond curly haired busboy. He came over and leered "hot buttered buns?" at me. I was so flustered that I didn't get that he wanted me to take him into the bathroom and fuck his brains out. I'm 99% certain that he became a famous porn star named Jeremy Scott. Everything fits both with looks, timing and location. 

They also pretty much forced me to go to this infamous hustler bar called The Numbers. I was petrified as I was not 21 so they told me to button down my shirt a bit to show my chest hair. I got in which was no surprise as nobody cared. It was an interesting place, to say the least. There was this dramatic stairway down with mirrored walls so that you had to make An Entrance. It was full of pretty boys and studio execs of a certain age. John Waters has written that he loved the place because it was so out there -- a parody of itself. Nothing happened because it was mainly for shock value to me that they were after. Achievement unlocked for them. I was more or less living at that guy's house in Hollywood and he was a carpenter. So he made me schlep along with him being a grunt and gopher. Mostly a grunt. My running away from college days were numbered after that. 

Another strange coincidence happened around this time. My step father and I had gone down to San Diego to go albacore fishing. There was this cute boy on board with the crew and we kind of eyed each other. Later he was at a gay bar in Garden Grove and he remembered me. It turns out that he was 16 at the time of the fishing trip and I may have been a year older. We ended up being buds and though I was attracted to him and wanted to have sex with him, he was mostly interested in being a friend but that was cool with me. It was a strange friendship as I was a geeky smart boy and he wasn't the smartest or more driven, but we liked each other and I've never been snobby about such things. In fact it makes me really angry when people are like that.

I also met another boy at a gay roller rink night. I was really attracted to him and liked his kinda really gay pretty boy style. I took him skiing up at Big Bear and we fooled around in the middle of the desert after. Somehow on another date we ended up at West Street Beach in Laguna which is the gay beach. I fucked him there and found out unlike From Here Too Eternity that a beach is not an ideal place to have butt sex. Nothing romantic came of it as I don't think he was into that way and I had lots going on anyway. We were always friendly to each other when we bumped into each though.

One last memorable tidbit around this time is that I hooked up with this -- get this again -- hot blond boy. We dated for a little bit but again, he lived in Downey so wasn't geographically desirable. He mentioned to me that he was a male model and that he had a spread in Playgirl Magazine. It was nominally for straight women, but their audience was clearly and maybe mostly oriented at gay men. He also told me that he was their first model to sport a full boner. It was a very nice one even if he tried to stick it in me -- I was never good at getting fucked. I laughed out loud at the article's backstory about the women he liked after my dick was just in his mouth. I found out through Facebook that he's still around, happily married for decades. Thank god he made it through. So many didn't.

Suffice it to say I was having lots of sex. I found out that Quaaludes aka Disco Biscuits were sort of the perfect going out drug (I never tried MDMA, though it was around). You'd take it, bounce around the club for a while, find somebody to fuck around with and by the time it was time to go it had mostly worn off. The next morning you'd check for bruises you didn't remember getting. I had stopped drinking at that point so it was sort of the perfect setup.

When Michael met Bobby

Bobby Pyron, aka Lee Ryder

During one of my many trips up to Hollywood to the Odyssey one night this guy picked me up. He was conventionally attractive though not exactly the type that I would predictably like. But he had this charisma that was undeniable and he didn't even need to be blond to get me going. We ended up back at his place in Laguna (this is a very long schlep from Hollywood).  I was completely charmed by Bobby even though That Thing tried to have its way with me. It was also my the first time really hanging out in Laguna as I stayed there a few days. He was so comfortable in his skin being gay and was he sort of like a mentor to me getting me used to being gay even though he was less than a year older than me. Everybody has internalized homophobia when they start figuring things out. Even though Bobby did not look stereotypically gay he definitely had gay sass. He would go on about the tacky A-gay queens of Laguna, etc. I loved it. When we walked around town with his Levi cuffs rolled up, I was completely scandalized. But I was also realizing that I really liked guys who were really gay and not hung up on being super butch, etc. He really helped me and I've always been thankful for that.

Unbeknownst to me, Bobby was orbiting the nascent gay porn industry. Catalina Video was based out of Laguna: he was always really protective of me and didn't want me to get involved. Later I found out that he used to live in Huntington Beach and would scout the hot surfer boy types. But he did introduce me to a bunch of my high schoolmates who I had no clue were gay. One of them was this absolutely beautiful -- I know I'm being repetitious -- blond boy. God was he so my type. Like a lot of gay boys in the area, he became a creature of Hollywood and it swallowed him up. We went out several times and the sex was great, but our lives were taking us in very different directions. I really disliked the Hollywood scene and he was busy climbing it so it wasn't to be. He was I think the first person that I knew directly that had died. Bobby told me.

He also introduced me to another classmate and though I was rather attracted to him we were really just friends. And more to the point, partners in crime. We were always skulking around trying to find coke which was a big part of the Hollywood life back then. We even managed to go to Alan Carr's Malibu beach house, though he wasn't home. Probably for the best. See: tacky A-gay queens. This was right after Grease came out. I lost contact with him so I never knew what happened to him. I think he was a classic gay-for-pay kind of guy. I'm sure he was really bisexual, but I think he mostly preferred girls. So maybe he got married and had 2.5 kids. One of the problems of living in the burbs is that there were so many people you just didn't know what happened.

As for Bobby himself, we were never best pals or anything like that and it could go years between when we'd bump into each other. But we were always very friendly and genuinely happy to see each other. When Bobby told me about that classmate dying it was obvious that he had The Look. He had become a rather famous porn star -- with That Thing it was inevitable I guess. He too would die in the early 90's. There was a pronounced pattern of hit the scene at 20, dead by 30 that wiped out my generation. It's really weird seeing him in the old porn vids obliterating this bottom boy or that knowing they all probably died. But for me, he was just Bobby Pyron.

First boyfriend

So while all of these things were going on above, I also managed to meet this hot guy at some club. He was an ag teacher down in northern San Diego county staying up in Laguna Beach for the summer. I need not tell you what color his hair was or how old he was because, me. He was a late bloomer so I'm pretty sure I was the first guy who ever fucked him. It was a complete revelation for him -- he was one of those natural bottoms and boy was he good. I totally fell for him over that summer in a way I hadn't with other guys I liked. But he was fully formed and out of the closet even though it was all pretty recent for him. Of course I was the one who pursued it because nobody in their right mind would pursue an 18 year old.

When summer ended we decided to keep it up as a long distance relationship. He was a couple of hours away so I'd only go down there like once every week or two. He lived in this old adobe cottage on the school farm which I loved. It was very grounding. He scrimped and saved to be able to build his own house a mile or two away. He had a jeep -- the stereotypical gay kind -- that we'd toodle around having fun. He had a Great Dane named Beau who was the lord of his land on the farm. When he was up in Laguna the owner of the place he stayed at had this yappy mutt who would nip at Beau's heels until he finally got fed up and launched it across the room. Oi.

He finally managed to scrape the money together to build his house. And I helped. Unlike my previous foray into construction, I loved this. I was helping to build my boyfriend's house and how cool was that? I still remember hoisting a 6x10 beam for a deck with just him and me. How the fuck we did that I don't know because that fucking thing was heavy.  

Alas, I was young and stupid. I for really stupid reasons decided to break up with him after a couple of years. As it turns out it was the right move just for the wrong reasons. We had super different life trajectories with me in tech and him as a property developer so it couldn't have worked out long term, but he was my first boyfriend and I'm better for it.

An open relationship is normal, right?

So all of the above is more or less happening simultaneously. Which means that a lot of it was happening while I had a boyfriend. We never had any talk or anything like that about being open or what the boundaries might be. Part of this is that we were long distance so it didn't make much sense to be all blue balls while we weren't together. Plus this was during the sexual revolution and being gay meant not having to conform to picket fences. I mean we are guys. Guys like to play the field and can separate sex from romance. We can even separate feelings for romance. It was sort of natural that you weren't going to be monogamous. In one super cringe conversation with my dad he confided that he was jealous of me because getting with guys was so much easier. Yes, I thought, but I was still mortified.

When I was with Keith my boyfriend, he was very like minded. I don't know exactly how much he took advantage of it on his side, but we were not hung up about it. We would have three ways -- one in particular was this very cute boy we picked up at Black's Beach in La Jolla which was a nude beach with a gay section. We took him back to the bf's farm and I gave the boy a tour of it... and fucked his brains out. My bf was pissed, but mainly because I got it first. We all had sex again and we made good. The very first time I went to a bathhouse was with the bf. The night we went was completely dead so not much happened other than me surreally watching Alien in the TV room. Um, ok? 

At the time I was working as a busboy/waiter at a country club in Huntington Beach while I was in school. Yes, I finally got my shit back together with school. They had this stupid tournament called the Steak and Beans tournament where the winners got steak and the losers got beans. I decided to get dressed up as a waitress to serve the losers' beans in combat boots and total scag drag. The senile old coots thought I was real though which I thought was hilarious. 

One summer this boy came out for the summer and was hired as a busboy. He was um, $haircolor that I like. He was also studly as fuck as he was a dancer and I was completely smitten. I didn't know if he was gay or not, but I decided to take him to the Odyssey to dance. He was down but at the last minute I chickened out and went to Westwood instead which was intensely boring. We decided to drive back to his place in Long Beach and hang out. We smoked a joint and laid on the floor a foot or so apart. Then our fingers touched. Electricity. Like San Onofre nuclear power plant electricity. We made mad passionate love that night and was probably the most intense sex I've ever had before because it was so unexpected. I think we hooked up a time or two more before we were at my parents home in bed having sex in my parents' bed. Then there was a knock at the door. It was the bf with a big box of avocados from the farm. Oh shit. Awkward. It's not that I was cheating, but getting caught in the act was really weird. The boy was non-plussed -- for all I know he was into me and didn't like this turn of events. But even though there was clear chemistry between us I didn't feel the need to tell him before especially since he was only out for the summer from the east coast. I knew this was just a fling. He should have too, but love and passion can be like that. He was so fucking beautiful. It's not like I have low standards.  I've always punched way above my weight.

I've always wanted to know what happened to him. He had a fairly unique name but I've been able to find out nothing about him. He, I fear, was one of the unlucky ones. It was his demographic: young, beautiful, in the arts, that got completely wiped out. Fuck. Fuck that fucking disease, god fucking dammit.

Moving out

So I started working as a software engineer after dropping out of school again -- ironically over a tech writing requirement since I now like to write and am pretty good at it I think. I was 21at the time and still living at home. I was sort of sneak dating this guy who was tall and slim but with just enough body fat to be really snuggly. When we had sex it was incredible. He was nominally partnered but I think it was mostly a convenience thing. He was from Flagstaff which I thought was pretty cool. I had a big fight with my step dad and we both I think decided it was time for me to move out.

I'm not sure how it came to be, but I ended up moving with him down to Dana Point. He really liked to cook and even though I did too, he had a lot more time on his hands. To this day, I still use his simple recipe for croutons of good bread cubed up and a little stale, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with garlic powder and paprika. So simple and so good that you'll never get shitty ass store bought ones again. He was pretty promiscuous and I was pretty busy, so he was definitely getting more on the side than me. I was mostly OK with that though I wished that he had better taste.

The apartment was small, but nice and we started getting the implements of living alone. This was obviously the first time I had lived with a boyfriend so it was definitely a new experience. The one thing I can say is that you can be madly in love with somebody but still be terrible as partners. I wasn't madly in love with him, but he was fun and especially in bed. To this day we really should have been friends with benefits because I really liked him as a friend and he was very fun both in and out of the sack. And boy did he have a personality. I loved that. I can still hear him in my head with his deep sonorous voice.

The apartment's manager was this mad queen who would get drunk and start screaming "NO WIRE HANGERS!" at the top of his lungs at 2am. He was quite a character. He also had an altercation with a springing palm in Palm Springs. Eventually I think after we moved out, we found out that he had died on a beach. I never found out whether it was foul play or not. Probably he was just drunk and drowned.

After a while, we decided to move into this house in Laguna Canyon in this place that flooded from the creek to fix it up for cheaper rent. This wasn't the greatest idea as I was always busy and neither of us knew what the fuck we were doing. I really don't know why we ended up breaking up, but it wasn't anything dramatic. I really did like him and his personality but we really weren't intended to be boyfriends in the end. That's probably the outcome of lots of people who move in together for the first time and especially when there is some sort of forcing function like I had. 

When we broke up, I ended up moving to this guy's house in Laguna Niguel. He was this pissy southern queen who really grated on me. I like really gay guys, but not this one. See: pissy. After I had had enough, I moved out unbeknownst to him and moved in with my manager and a coworker's house. Imagine my surprise and horror when my next boyfriend (see below) had rented the same room when he took me home. Awkward. It turned out that the coworker had a crush on me and I wasn't into it too. More awkward. 

When I got together with my next boyfriend we even visited him in Flagstaff where he had moved back. My then boyfriend and I even went skiing there and on the top of San Francisco peak where you can actually see the Grand Canyon. We even had snow thunder which is pretty rare while he was cooking. I really liked him and like a lot of people I have no idea what happened to him. I fear the worst because, of course, he was a total bottom and this was the early 80's. I still remember going to the Boom Boom Room -- a gay bar in Laguna Beach -- and seeing this thing on a bulletin board about something really fucked going on in West Hollywood. AIDS completely wiped out Laguna's substantial gay population. It never recovered. 

Michael, if you're still out there I miss you. If you are not, you are remembered.

Single basically for the first time

After breaking up with my previous boyfriend, I was single for basically the first time in my adult life. It was probably for about 3 years. I was working in tech at a startup in Irvine and very busy. Through this I still would have various flings but nothing very serious. I was perfectly happy with this and not in any hurry to be in a relationship again. I've always been rather passionate when having sex. A guy I met once told me that he was the author of the book Confessions of a Rock Lobster. I never knew whether my memory was apocryphal or not, but I managed to find him on Facebook and my memory was correct. As it turns out, he kept a diary of all of his hookups and he found me. Apparently I was doing "boyfriend sex". Is that really unusual? 

Since I was working, I had a project that I wrote the software for which was a point of sale terminal and a PC which drove them and collected the transactions which were sent to a central office. A couple of things came out of this. They did a commercial which sent me to Hollywood to babysit my box. I learned being on a set is boring as fuck. It also sent me to Chicago for a convention which allowed me to check out Boy's Town. I went to some dance club and cruised this really hot guy (yes, it was) and he took me home. We fucked that night and I spent the night with him. In the morning we were chatting and he was going on about this diva and that for which I had no clue. Disgusted he said "I'm taking your queer card!" I had to fuck him again to get it back.

I had several recurring fuck buddies including one that cut my hair. I didn't have a place to drag him back to and he was partnered so he couldn't always host, so I'd key into my office and we'd have sex in the computer machine room on the floor. He told me that those VAX's imprinted on him. I had many more friends with benefits at that time but though I liked them, they didn't click as boyfriend material. Others were just situationally not available even if I'd consider being boyfriends with them. I just wasn't in a hurry to find a new boyfriend and had enough sex so that it wasn't a priority. Work was my priority as I was at the beginning of my career and starting to stack up some really nice achievements. Plus I was getting a lot of sailing and skiing in, so it wasn't like I didn't have a life.

My first really long time relationship

So in 1985 my life was going to change drastically. My ex-manager got a contract with a company in San Diego to build a laser printer controller. There were nominally four of us, but one was mainly absent so the reality is that I was the only software guy and had to support dozens of engineers at their company along with all of the code I was writing. To say that I was busy was an understatement. Month after month of 100 hour weeks kind of busy. A little after we created the company I was going out with a couple of guys, one of which was my now ex. Guess what color his hair was. He was a couple of years older than me and... 28. So it was fate. I had to choose between the two and then told the other one and he cried. I always hated that for the other boy because he was so sweet and so fucking beautiful. But my ex was an IT guy so we had that as a connection. I taught him how to ski and sail so we'd go on races and up to the mountains for the weekends. I bought a condo on Lake Mission Viejo and we settled in while I was working so much. After the initial burst of work, a few years later we had more employees so I wasn't quite as frantic. It gave me time on weekends and we'd often go camping with my folks up on the east side of the Sierra. This was like a 5 hour drive so it was a little insane. But it was a lot of fun where I'd fish with my step dad and he'd hike and hang out with my mom who would sketch and paint. Often me and my mom would sheepishly call each other after a trip to see if we wanted to go the next weekend. Meal planning would promptly ensue. 

 

Painting by Ramon while in Santa Fe

One aspect of being with him was that I was out but not "out". I mean it was obvious we were boyfriends but I really never talked about it with my parents. On one of our camping trips my mother and I were drunk and I finally asked her what she thought about having a gay son. She then proceeded to tell me that her brother Ramon was gay and in some fashion came out in the 40's. He had lived in Hollywood and Laguna Beach (which was an art colony and very gay) and was an amazing artist before moving to Santa Fe. I never knew him in an adult context and by the time my mother told me this he had already died. I have a million questions that I would have loved to ask him. Did he have boyfriends? Twinks or Bears? Did he get outed? What did he think about me who had it so comparatively easy? Alas, I'll never know. Gay history is pretty much erased history. We too need to never forget.

Our relationship went on for about 9 years. It was mostly good but given how busy I was it was easy to mask the things that weren't. I know that I'm not the easiest person to live with so that was taking a toll on him. I being much less busy at the end gave me time to evaluate how I actually felt. I was starting to feel sort of... nothing. A year before we broke up I was having serious problems with my business partner and wanted out. I even ran away from home and went to San Francisco telling nobody. It was really magical even at the height of the AIDS crisis before effective retrovirals. I really liked that there were more guys that were more sort of grunge alterna boys which really got me going. That was different than in LA for the most part and I liked it. There was one guy that I hooked up with who was just that type and he was adorable in his grunge way. He was the first guy I had ever fucked who told me beforehand that he was poz. It was a little weird, but as I said I've most likely have been with tons of poz guys who just didn't know.

After a year, I got bought out. I was feeling rather flush and silly so I decided to go to... The Numbers just for shits and giggles. I chose this hot Hollywood pretty boy type and he took me back to his place. As I said, I have absolutely nothing against sex workers but still it was really a weird experience but I just felt like doing it. I had decided that I wanted to move to San Francisco so in January 1994 we moved up there, a few blocks from Castro St. The stress of the previous year and moving caused my relationship to completely fall apart. I was absolutely not even thinking about a new relationship as we hadn't officially even broke up but fuck if it didn't happen anyway. I met Aric. I was beyond smitten and he was the hookup that never left. Oh and his hair wasn't blond. It was mousy. But he just turned 29. Oh well.

Conclusion

As with a lot of people who survived the AIDS crisis, I've had a fair amount of survivor's guilt. Why not me? I was fucking around like crazy. Even though it was the dumbest of dumb luck, I think that some of my behaviors back then had an influence on it. First of all, I was never really focused on anal sex early on and especially just with hookups. For one, for a long time I thought that it hurt them because it sure hurt for me. So I rarely asked. I was perfectly happy with oral and the rest. The second is as I said that I was never good at bottoming. Some people are naturally good bottoms and I was definitely not one of those. It's not to say that I never got fucked, it's just that it wasn't my thing. I wasn't against it and the thought of it was a turn on, but I guess I wasn't built for it. Topping is about 10x less risky though so there's also that. So even though I probably fucked plenty of poz guys and just didn't know it -- heck the first guy I fucked from Santa Monica Blvd could have had it -- for the most part I only fucked my boyfriends mainly because it was more convenient than with some random hookup. So life is strange. And very unfair. Some guys got it who hardly ever hooked up. I was just lucky. 

I had a crazy youth. It shows that if you put yourself out there, a sorta-good-looking(?) guy like me can have a lot of fun. There is so much more I could write, but this thing is entirely too long as it is. I can't figure out how all of this happened in that amount of time.  And all of this beginning just after Stonewall. We need more representation of all aspects of the gay experience. We need to make sure we aren't erased like my uncle was. The good the bad and the tawdry. With PrEP I hope that other gay boys can have the same chaotic and wonderful time again I had. I am genuinely happy for you. Love out xoxo, Mike

Epilog: I read the book version of Red White and Royal Blue

Heartbreaking

 

Most fan boys read a book and then criticize the film almost universally for deleted scenes and other compactions along with other alterations for things in the book that don't translate well to the screen. I on the other hand saw the film first and have now read the book too. I stand by what I wrote in my review of the film because that's what I saw but I can see how people who read the book first might not agree with some of it. My main takeaway is that they are both really good and different. There is really no point to complain because they are just not the same. Most of the film is pretty faithful to the book but frankly I think the film did some things a lot better than the book. The book and the film largely were the same at least until around the New Year's Eve kiss so I won't dwell on that.

For starters I don't think anything could surpass the scene of Alex talking to Henry on the phone after they had been cut off while in crisis. There is a raw emotion about it that was just heartbreaking with the minimal amount of words said. Alex's "baby" and Henry's "Hurry. Please" captures everything about what they are going through. The scene on the stairs when Alex gets to Kensington and the tenderness of comforting his lover who is in utter despair is just beautiful. I suspect that this is because Matthew Lopez understands the pain of the closet at a visceral level. In general I think that the film captures the agony of Henry's closet better which is what most of the film is about. In the film, you can see that Henry is crying often with his puffy eyes. That's hard to get across in a book.

The other scene that I think the film did much better is the platform on the lake scene. The "drowning" scene is really not possible in a book but it perfectly captures Henry's despair of not being able to have the one thing he wants above all others: Alex. He can have anything in the world materially but he can't have happiness. His closet is suffocating him. Drowning him. Alex's clueless about his situation was a dagger into his heart. Alex falling for Henry while the one thing Henry wanted most, was the one thing he could not have. In the book there was much, much more dialog in that scene while the film was about symbolism. The symbolism wins hands down in my opinion.

The making love scene in the film was better too, in my opinion. In the book, they are pretty torqued having been out drinking all night. That's usually not the best time to try to fuck and even if it's successful it's not going to have the tenderness that the film showed. As the book explains later, Henry has been in love with Alex since the very first time they met. It was bearable because he never thought that Alex would love him back. In the film, it's very clear that Alex is falling hard for Henry even if that surprises him both with him being a guy and Henry of all people. But in the book, it makes it clear that Alex was absolutely obsessed with Henry from way before they ever met. The scene in the film is sort of emblematic of Alex figuring out what that obsession was about. And for Henry it is possessing for the most fleeting amount of time the only thing that he really wants and you can see it in his eyes looking at Alex. That sort of scene and introspection is just not going to happen after a night out drinking in LA. And Paris, of course. Who the fuck doesn't fall in love in Paris?

I agree with the film that compressing June and Nora into Nora is fine. June doesn't really do much if anything that drives the plot. Getting rid of Wimbledon was fine too. It was basically a repeat of the polo match so didn't really bring much to the table other than giving Alex and Henry more together time. The karaoke being in LA was a little more believable than some bar in bumfuck Texas. It's debatable that the Texas venue would be more anonymous because most Americans know who the front line royals are and they'd certainly know who Alex was. But in Hollywood it would have raised a lot of eyebrows and iPhones though.

I think that the meeting with the queen (vs king in the film) made more sense. If they married off the stair scene with it it would make more sense. I don't like throwing in Henry's mother -- who we've never met before -- to stand up to the queen. The film has it right that that was Henry's fight. That's mainly because it finally allows him to become his own man and own his own destiny. A destiny he didn't think was possible. Henry grew leaps and bounds in that scene. He finally allows himself happiness. "I certainly hope not". Perfect.

One major difference between the book and the film was how Alex and Henry were outed. In the film it was a one-off fling reporter of Alex's who did it. That really didn't make a whole lot of sense. And that is certainly not a good way to make friends and lovers in gay land. In the book, there is an entire subplot of Alex's mentor becoming a mole in the republican candidate's campaign. In today's hyper polarized climate that's a hard ask. But what doesn't make sense is that they don't seem to do anything once they find out with the book version. There are vague allusions to it after being in the press, but they don't really resolve whether it was even damaging.

In the book it makes much more sense for Alex to give his coming out speech after having resolved it with Henry in London. In the film, he's basically giving Henry no agency in his outing which puts Henry in another bind. How can you deny anything when the other half has already come clean? So the book makes much more sense. If I recall correctly, the outing speech had a much more personal aspect that wasn't in the book. As in why am I here? I'm fucking in love with him. 

I liked the small subplot of Alex's high school fling Liam having a part in the book. It doesn't push the plot forward at all so I understand why it was cut, but it's probably nice for Liam to finally have closure as a gay man that Alex wasn't just an experimenting straight guy. Small, but nice. I do really wish that Alex had grabbed Henry to introduce him to Liam and his boyfriend on election night. It would be best if he just introduced Henry as his boyfriend and maybe Henry being curious to speak to Liam later since he knew Alex back in the day. Basically Henry disarming the elephant in the room that Alex is dating a prince.

Alex pulling Henry up to them by the arm: "Hey Liam and Spencer, this is my boyfriend Henry"

Liam, nervously: "Nice to meet you, uh...", not knowing how to address him

Henry, breaking in: "Nice to meet you Liam, we really must get together and talk young Alex. And just Henry...", with a mischievous smile 

Liam, laughs and says: "I don't want to scare you away from him", with a broad smile

Alex: "God knows, I've been trying to scare His Royal Highness off for years and can't shake him" and Liam understands their relationship dynamic while starstruck Spencer giggles

Henry, rolling his eyes: "I keep threatening him with dungeons and locked towers for his impertinence and still nothing works. It is my lot in life" and they all burst into laughter

The other thing I want is when Alex butters up the audience at the convention and finds Henry after he gets off stage is to drag Henry back onto stage and say:

"Hey! Have I introduced you to my boyfriend? Meet Henry!"
 

On a personal level... The Emails. I am one of the people who invented an email authentication protocol called DKIM. It wasn't our intent at the time, but as it turns out DKIM makes for pretty air-tight non-repudiation. That is, if you wrote something you can't deny you wrote it and say that it was hacked. It's not quite that simple but suffice it to say it would be very, very difficult to deny it. Imagine my surprise years later after Her Emails (ie, Hillary Clinton's) was a brouhaha that I found out that DKIM was being used to prove that they were real. In the book which has their actual email correspondence (in the film it was really confusing because all they did was text each other) and more importantly the email correspondence of the republican campaign's plot to out Alex and Henry would not be able to be denied. In the book, they needed to get the mole senator to come clean because they didn't have time. In reality running the raw email through one of the many available DKIM verifiers online would have taken only a few minutes. It doesn't really make any difference, but it's just an unintended quirk that any time I hear of a controversy involving email... there I am.

Just to be perfectly clear I am not bagging on the book in any way. Or the film for that matter. They were bound to be different. That's just the way it is. It's just that the film took advantage of the visual media in ways that would be almost impossible in the book. Henry's intense stare as Alex is fucking him for the first time. How can you represent that in a book? The image is raw and visceral. Same with the stair scene. Lopez really took good advantage of his medium without really altering the overall arc of the book. 

So in conclusion I am glad I saw the film first and then read the book. I'd probably be much more critical of the film if I had read the book first, and my takes in my first post about the film would have probably been different because I'd already know the back stories which I didn't have, not having read the book. I don't think that my takes were wrong, per se, it's just that the film doesn't give as much context so you have to infer more. But the long and short of it is that I'm still sort of amazed at how much this has transfixed me in a way that although I loved Heartstopper, it did not. I guess it's the corrosive effect of Henry's forced closet that is just too real. The closet is something pretty unique to the gay experience and you don't see it in gay media very much. Or at least where it's the driving force of the plot. It deserves more attention because our project is far from done. We gay people who are out and happy need to be reminded that our experience is far from the norm. Oh, and last but not least from the book: Henry has a big dick. Big dick bottoms are my fave.

Epilogue

So they've been dropping a few cut scenes and of course there is an uproar about not including them. The problem is that Matthew Lopez was given a two hour time budget so if you're going include them, what are you going to cut or compress? I've scanned through the movie looking for what could be done and I frankly don't see it. The movie is already rushed especially at the end. The one that is causing the most controversy is the fireside chat scene where Henry tells the tale of the prince born with his heart outside his body. In the book this was one of their email exchanges and Alex is trying to understand what makes Henry tick. In the cut scene, it is the night before the lake scene and Alex is basically asking Henry if he has permission to love him. Although it's somewhat ambiguous Alex doesn't think so and thinks that Henry's answer is "yes". What doesn't make sense is why he would have waited? He would have told Henry then and there and it would have been a very different movie. So while the scene is absolutely beautiful and Nick nails it, I understand why it got cut. We should just be happy we got to see it (and hopefully more) instead of complaining it wasn't in the final cut.

Why the fuck am I so smitten by Red White and Royal Blue?

[I should say I haven't read the book (yet), so people who have might have more context about my takes]

Ok, I fully admit that I love the gay rom com genre so I'm an easy mark. It's probably because there was no gay equivalent of things like the Breakfast Club and things like that when I grew up. RW&RB is completely formulaic in the star crossed lovers kind of way. I get that. But they all are to varying degrees: that's not a bug, it's a feature. So why is it that I'm sort of obsessing about it having watched it about 5 times in the last few days? It's even caused me to write some fan fiction about a possible sequel. What in the fuck is wrong with me?

First off I think the acting was superb. I don't know if in the book that Alex was supposed to come off as a typical douchey straight frat boy, but geeze is he annoying even when they are together. If the intent was to be cringe, Taylor Zakhar Perez really pulled it off. His creepy inappropriate familiarity in situations that should have more decorum is every bad stereotype. But in some ways I do see myself much more in Alex's shoes than Henry's. While I'm not a douche (seriously. ok, fuck off) Alex is much more confident of himself and his situation that allows him to be a douche. It took a lot of vulnerability with Henry to tell him that he was scarred when they met and that's why he reacted the way he did to Henry. Bit by bit, he de-douches himself. It allows him to enter a world he had not really contemplated. Even in the end he's still pretty much a douche, but he shows that he is absolutely committed to Henry. I like that. Redemption for douches? Who knew?

Then there is Henry. Yes, Nick Galitzine and especially those lips slay me. But there is something about him and the trap he finds himself in that is so relatable. Being in the closet is bad enough but to be in the closet with the public starring at you 24/7 is horrible. In the old days before the internet and social media you could be gay and famous and live a semi-normal life if the powers that be were complicit with the game. Think old Hollywood. There were plenty of gay actors where it was an open secret that so and so was gay but the studios controlled the narrative. We all knew that Rock Hudson, for example, was gay in and around Hollywood but the studios put up the facade of plausible deniability and everything was good. But for Henry in the internet age, that is not possible and freakishly makes his closet far more miserable. There is no such thing as "confirmed bachelors" anymore. That is something actually new and refreshing because it's new. It's easy to shit on celebrities, but I mean they are still people and have to go through a lot of shit that they don't like just because of their visibility. I certainly don't know what it's like and I don't want to excuse bad behavior but I sure as hell wouldn't want that life. Part of my life is that I just didn't really care what other people thought and was always horny so I can empathize with Henry for whom that is just not possible.

But there are many scenes that kill me. First and foremost is the scene when they've been outed and Henry has his phone taken away from him. When Alex finally manages to get in contact with him and Alex asks him if he's ok, Henry answer "No. No I'm not" and when Alex says he's jumping the next flight London Henry says "Hurry. Please". Their meeting and the tenderness of the scene was just heartbreaking. It's a cliche trope of the top protecting his bottom, but I don't care about the stereotype because it felt very real. You could feel Henry's anguish and hopelessness. Nick did such a good job of conveying that. I don't know where Nick is on the gay spectrum, but geeze does he seem to have access to the emotions. Hey Nick, it's ok either way but if you are it's ok... the water is fine especially if you're bi like Alex.

The butt sex scene is somewhat unusual too for the gay genre. Let's face it, they're usually terrible. Usually it's done under the covers, fully dressed and shown with wild animalistic passion which is not how I experienced sex much. That and the trope of throwing them to a wall and fucking them from behind standing up is too cliche for my taste too. But in this scene they are fucking missionary slowly and passionately taking in every bit of the experience (update: apparently a lot of straight people didn't know we do missionary. It's like what the fuck? It's honestly my favorite because I like to see who I'm having sex with). Henry's expression is especially emotive and shows that he is falling hard for Alex. Alex delivering "making love" in the scene is quite beautiful because Alex is clearly a wham bam thank you ma'am kind of guy. He's clearly falling for Henry too but he is much more conflicted about it. Maybe conflicted is the wrong word, but I think it's because Alex is still rather surprised that he can fall for a guy in a romantic way. That seems like a genuine phenomenon with bisexuals because finding women attractive both for sex and romance is the easy path. Finding guys attractive especially in a romantic context is the hard path and a lot of bi guys can be oblivious to it until that one guy causes them to wake up. Henry on the other hand is terrified. Terrified to allow himself to have feelings. So while the scene is a bit unusual, it did what it needed to do: watching them falling in love while making love.

The lake scene of course was devastating. When Alex talks about taking Henry around Austin hand in hand and Henry's eyes pop open, it perfectly captures Alex's complete naivete as Alex was about to tell him he loved him. The metaphor of Henry drowning because of his closet underscores the terrible toll the closet is taking on him. While I was never especially closeted I can just feel the horrible situation that Henry finds himself in. That Alex is oblivious to that is crushing to Henry. There is no way out because there is no way out. That I think is pretty unusual for the genre and certainly is pretty unique to the gay experience. 

The New Year's Eve scene is similarly unusual for the genre. Alex is still pretty oblivious that in reality he's quite obviously flirting heavily with Henry. Again, a bisexual angle that you don't often see. Henry knows he's as gay as a maypole(!) but Alex is oblivious to his feelings. It takes Henry's kiss to allow him to connect the dots about his feelings for him. And then, why Henry of all people? Love is like that, dude. Weird shit happens. In that I see some of myself in Alex. Instead of weirding out, he is much more like "huh. didn't see that coming, self" and rolls with it. That's the sign of somebody who lives much more in the moment unlike the over thinker Henry who has to calculate everything out to the nth degree. (update: in the book, Alex is definitely an over thinker, but not for sex and love, in my opinion)

The meeting with the king was a little stilted. I mean in this day and age would actual royals be this uptight about a gay prince, especially a spare? I guess with all of the drama with Prince Harry, maybe they would but it's hardly a secret that there were gay princes and kings for that matter. But I'm certainly no expert on all things royal so what would I know? Plus the king rolled over way too easily if it was his serious intent to quash the entire thing. The entire flash mob thing was also a little too clever by half. Not my favorite scene, but they had to drive the plot forward somehow on that front.

Likewise with the election scene... Texas? Seriously? I know it's Hollywood and you have to suspend disbelief but that's an especially hard ask. I guess they had to tie it back to Alex's work but it's really hard to imagine that happening these days with Trump and the crazy party ruling the roost. The final scene at Alex's house reinforced the bromance narrative. But that is a dynamic that a lot of gay couples have that is not as socially acceptable with straight relationships. It's ok to be bros and lovers too. Aric often compares me to his older brother Michael who he fought with every day. That's a look that's a little unusual too. All too often Hollywood forgets the playfulness of relationships.

One more minor thing I like is that Nick actually plays the piano. I had to look it up, but yes he is an accomplished musician. I have been having the Bach Sheep May Safely Graze he was playing become a very annoying earworm. That and Rachel Maddow. Girl, you need to stop doing these things. They are not a good look.

So why am I so smitten? I think it gave some new and refreshing twists to the age old genre. I thought that the acting was "on the nose" (sorry, Henry). While I have had nothing like Henry's experience (mine was much more like Alex's minus his cluelessness) I as a gay man really empathize with his predicament. This shit does happen up and down the social pecking order.  That and Nick Galitzine is beautiful. And a bottom. At least in the movie. The American hegemony of being the top makes all things right in the world. And that is yet another reason to love this.

My Red White and Royal Blue Sequel

 

[I've been completely smitten by Red White and Royal Blue and do think that a sequel is possible. Here's my ideas of the flow. Note that succession like things and royal protocols is definitely not my strong suit so it's more the ideas here. The time line is probably dodgy here too.]

Henry: I have been smitten by you from the first time we met. Charming. Insufferable. Impossibly handsome. Impossibly impossible. You rescued me from my agony and hopelessness and dared to love not just the man you thought I was, but the man that was actually there. Vulnerable. Trapped. I have never been so happy in my life or even dared to believe I could be. You are my prince charming, and I want to live happily ever after with you. Will you marry me?

Alex: I have been obsessed with you since I was 13. I didn't know why and I didn't understand my feelings. I projected my obsession onto you in the worst possible way. Then when we were forced to make good I finally saw you for who you really were. Beautiful. Warm. Giving. That our bromance turned into romance surprised me. And I loved everything about it. I grew as a man and I knew that I needed to protect and free you so that I could have the man I fell in love with. My forever. Will you marry me?

Cut to: another royal wedding, this time with Prince Henry and Alex a year after the election. Who will be in attendance from the royal family? Phillip shows, but very grudgingly. Set it in America to bookend the first wedding. The King has kept very distant. Drama: minimal, though everybody drew a deep breath at the cake feeding ceremony. Alex was very dainty with Henry causing everybody to exhale. We finally meet Henry's mother.

They've mainly been living together in America though Henry still keeps up with his royal duties. Alex has been working both behind the scenes and doing outreach and campaigning building on his success in Texas. Basically climbing the ladder for his ascent into politics. Henry is enjoying being less in the bright light of the public eye, though obviously not completely. A little bit of domestic bliss that he thought he could never have. He has even started to learn to cook. He can finally say that he as at peace and is happy.

A month later, Henry is summoned to Buckingham Palace. The news is not good: the king has lung cancer (those ciggies were foreshadowing!). The prognosis is unknown, but lung cancer is never a good thing. He will undergo surgery and radiation therapy and more will be known after. 

Alex finally decides to take the plunge into elected politics and run for congress. Henry is wary of this as he told Alex before of trading one prison for another. Plus it's pretty much a no-no for royals to be part of politics, though being American politics makes it a little easier to bend the rules. Henry makes it clear to Alex that he doesn't want to be used as a prop. His inclusion in the presidential race was a fluke due to the circumstances of being outed. They have to work out boundaries and the friction that causes. 

The campaign is underway in earnest. The good thing about it just being for congress is that most of the time the campaigning is local, but duties both from the White House and the Palace drag them apart more than they'd like. They start talking about having kids, something that Henry could never have dared to imagine other than through some sham marriage. They find out there is a new somewhat experimental procedure that allows both of them to donate their DNA into an egg so the child would be completely their blood. They then playfully banter about who would donate the X and who would donate either the X or Y.  Should it be a boy or a girl? Who will be the surrogate? 

The news from London is not particularly good. Nothing is imminent, but lung cancer is a bitch. The king is becoming more frail due to the ravages of treatment and the disease. The nation and world hold their breath. 

Then disaster strikes. Prince Phillip had a diving accident in the Maldives that has left him in a deep coma and most likely brain dead. The horror sets in for Henry: he may be king. In fact he will be king, it's just a matter of time. He is inconsolable as much as Alex tries. Alex is completely torn between his ongoing campaign which is nearing election day and Henry's existential crisis. Henry knows that this will destroy them and the only happiness he's ever known. Alex ever the optimist says they'll just have to figure it out. Alex reaches out to his mother but all she can do is offer a shoulder to cry on. He has to contemplate whether he's willing to give up the career he's always wanted to be with his man. Henry on the other hand never expected or wanted to be king. Should he abdicate? 

Election day. Alex wins handily. The charming young congressman and the face of the new generation of democrats. A very bright future lies ahead. Or does it? Henry shrinks into his cocoon rattled by the fear of what lies ahead. Alex brings up kids again. He thinks they should do it. Henry desperately wants this too, but just can't reconcile it with his reality. In the context of mostly being in America and living a mostly normal life, that made complete sense. Now though? He's back in the trap of not thinking about the future because there is no future that Alex freed him from before.

Phillip is indeed brain dead. The painful decision to remove him from his ventilator is made. Henry is officially next in line to be king. Media explodes and his and Alex's lives are thrown into complete chaos.  On the bright side, the king has stabilized and although the prognosis is not great it's not grim either. The king summons both of them to Balmoral where he has been recuperating. It's never been entirely clear what the king thinks about the two of them. He was taken aback by the support Henry received but beyond even his homophobia he has been very wary of being intertwined with American politics -- the less the better. The king makes it clear that it is duty before love as it has been for centuries. Henry must have a plan and that plan must include being king.

Alex makes plain that he will give up everything to stay with Henry. It's that important to him. And oh by the way? This settles who gives the Y chromosome. Succession demands it. Instead of comforting Henry it sends him into a funk anew. He knows the life that Alex is setting himself up for and knows that it will probably defeat him. Alex is hopeful though and after all a lot of politics is cutting ribbons and the like too. And by the way, what would his title be? Could he be the first male queen? His gay friends would be howling in laughter. 

Henry approaches Bea about the prospect of carrying their baby. He's trying to be hopeful and allow himself a future again, though he doesn't know what it might be. Bea says she'd be honored and when does he want to do it? Alex is ecstatic about the news and is insistent about doing it right away. They make the arrangements at the fertility clinic and the treatment will soon start.

Alex is inaugurated and is now officially a congressman. The in vitro fertilization was successful. But being crown prince means that he has many more duties than the spare and that is eating into their together time. Of course the life of a congressman is no cup of tea either. The king is still hanging in there so nothing is imminent. Henry is doing a better job of allowing life to happen rather than brooding about the future. Henry likes to razz Alex about how much better he is at schmoozing since that is basically his job title. So it's working. Kind of. One of the first orders of business is where the baby will reside when he's born. He will be the second in line to be king, after all. They decide that it would be in DC so Henry can spend as much time with Alex as possible, but the Palace is very not happy. They will have the proper English royal nannies as a compromise.

The baby is born and the media goes completely nuts on both sides of the Atlantic. He will be Prince Richard. As with life as a congressman, when the baby is born, Alex is in full campaign mode with the election being about a year away. But Alex has also been busy with his day job. He and others bucked the past and actually picked up enough seats to retake the House. This has allowed him to introduce legislation that actually has a chance to pass. He picked one sore point for gay people and especially young gay men to make PrEP freely available on demand along with the testing required. This covers the trap a lot of young gay men find themselves in when they are closeted to their parents and are on their insurance. He works his fellow congressmen for sponsors and gets solid support. This will be a solid achievement for his reelection. He has also excelled at constituent support holding many town halls and coffees. His biggest achievement is bringing much needed infrastructure investment back to his district and especially with renewables with batteries for Texas's notorious grid. Henry is deeply proud of Alex even though he is ridiculously busy. Henry even with his duties back in England has been the one who has the most time to spend with Richard.

It's September and the campaign is nearing the end. Alex's PrEP bill passed and made it through the Senate on reconciliation which allows an appropriation bill to not be filibustered along with his infrastructure investments. His mother signs the bill at the White House Lawn with Alex, Henry and Richard in tow. The dads are beaming with pride. Grandma is pretty proud too.

Back in London, things have taken a turn for the worse with the king. Henry is terrified because he knows that he will have to make a decision soon. Henry is crying uncontrollably as Alex tries to comfort him reiterating his promise that he will do anything to be with Henry. 

It's election night and the results are streaming in. Henry has been back and forth between the US and UK constantly leaving very little time to be together with Alex, but he promised that he'd be with Alex for this no matter what. Unsurprisingly the race is called for Alex: his hard work has paid off. Then the news starts to trickle in: King James has died. Henry is now king. Henry is both ecstatic for Alex and in complete dread of his worst fear coming true. The time has come. 

Alex prepares a resignation speech in anticipation that he will have to be the full time consort to King Henry. Unknown to Alex, Henry has written an abdication speech. Alex gives Henry his speech to read. Henry then gives Alex his speech. Alex says "I love you". Henry says "I love you more" making clear that he intends to abdicate. England can deal with a caretaker in the time in between when Richard is old enough to reign. It is, after all, an archaic institution says Henry. 

On New Years day, Henry delivers his speech. In it he says although he grew up knowing that it was duty and country first, he cannot give up the thing that he never thought he could have: a family and love. It's too much to ask of a person who has gone through what he has gone through. He can't destroy Alex and his life to be consort to a figurehead. Alex beams with pride and love for Henry. He whispers in Henry's ear: "Love you more more!"

On circumcision

Ouch!

 

Once upon a time a flamewar was had about the subject of male circumcision on soc.motss. OK, it occurred regularly with twits presuming to know our sexual pleasure better than us. But one time in particular there was an exchange that resulted in an exchange that perfectly set up Steven Levine to finish the job:

From: Steven Levine (steven@cray.com)
             Subject: Re: Having an Affect on the Outcome
             Newsgroups: soc.motss
               View: Complete Thread (1147 articles) | Original Format
             Date: 1998/11/03


            foultone@mtcc.com (Charlie Fulton) writes:

            > I can slam my dickhead in a drawer, yet I can't feel it.


            Michael Thomas writes:
            >  One of the great things about being mutilated is
            >that I can pound the head of my dick with a hammer
            >and watch it turn pretty shades of black and blue.


            Oh piffle.  You boys don't know what it means to

            have religious justification.  When *I* slam my dickhead

            in a drawer, I am doing it to fulfill my covenant with

            the Lord.  When *I* pound the naked scarrified mass of
            cells at the crown of my penis with a hammer,

            I am doing it in the name of the God of

            Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.


            "Barchu baruch Shmo" I say, when I behold the

            mutilated stump of the dick that once was.  "Baruch

            atah adonai elohenu melech haolam shelo asani
            goy" I shout to the hills, and, of course, the

            ever-subtextual "shelo asani esha".



            -Steven Levine
             steven@sgi.com

Ba-dum-ching!