The issue of the magazine is a collaboration between 303 mag and the Center, just in time for this year's PrideFest.
The photographs highlight the theme of this year's festivities, and depict sexy men in uniform. Apparently, the demolition of Don't Ask, Don't Tell has inspired this twist of politics into a party theme--leave it to the gays! I'm both ecstatic with the photos because they raise a lot of questions for me, yet I know Denver and the ever-widening LGBT community can do a lot better.
Our stylist, Charlie Price, opted to feature mostly vintage, uniform-inspired clothing. The location was the Denver Eagle, a well-loved local leather bar, blurring the lines between dominance, order, submission, obedience, a sense of duty and what's bound to get wild. Charlie set the mood and I selected the spots and set up the shots--in the walk in cooler, back room, bathroom--all those places we are not supposed to go, especially when we are drunk.
I suppose this is some unconscious tribute to how gays were never "supposed" to be in the military, but they are. I find this change of policy both encouraging and disheartening--while I sorta appreciate the long fucking overdue too little too late acceptance of the miraculous embracement of the masculine and feminine (read: QUEER) into this military, I regard war, hierarchy, etc etc as facets of this trapped, overly simplified, glossed over and exclusive world, something that our human evolution (read--the integration of all genders) must transcend. Are we doing contemporary society a favor by joining the fucking military and getting married in a church that continues to perpetuate lies to control the vast intricacies of "human nature." I find myself believing that gender/sexually/spiritually ambiguous folk should have boycotted all this to begin with, not the other way around. But there we are with our hands out and our leashes ready to feed on the sloppy piggy trough of rotting curd and take a walk around the jail yard track, with little more than a "yes please." Please.
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Which is why I have mixed feelings about these photos:
Distilling this intense history of livelihood, murder, discipline, disobedience, hate, mission, civil rights, sex, love and fear into a six page fashion spread feels like both a positive, flippant fuck you to the ties of history and a blatant reinstatement of a stereotype that proclaims that if we put a gay man in uniform, he's going to just want to take it off....take it alllll off, and then take it off of all the other soldiers' uniforms around him. And the stereotype also continues through the shoot with the archetypical gay man dressed in leather, downing Coors Light, rubbing up against a bathroom stall. Never turn around in the bathroom of the Eagle.
It's confusing to watch an episode of Glee on Fox, all pro-gay rights, applauding the fashion of Chris Colfer and the strength of Mike O'Malley to bring him gay boy pamphlets, and then watch fucking Bill O'Reilly and whats his face--I can't even remember his stupid fucking name--on the same channel blatantly bash what all media has agreed on calling "gay rights." Who's really winning when they are all on the same team. There's got to be a Benedict Arnold in some of them. But is that movement strong enough to buck it from within?
At the end of the day, I know one thing---a steamy makeout session in a bar ALWAYS fucking wins, as does playing with fire--bondage, boundaries and social norms.
Here's the rest of the spread, please click to enlarge:
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