Oscar Wilde Tours

07/26/2025

An art historian and handwriting expert say a tiny signature on the work was scratched by Da Vinci. But experts say t...

07/23/2025

Pedro Almodóvar’s films are a celebration of q***r excess—a world where passion, melodrama, and vibrant color collide. His work doesn’t just include gay characters; it immerses us in their desires, flaws, and triumphs, refusing to sanitize or apologize for their messiness. From the tangled, drug-fueled love affairs of Law of Desire to the fierce maternal bonds of All About My Mother, Almodóvar crafts stories where q***rness isn’t a subplot but the beating heart of the narrative.

His early films, born in the post-Franco era of La Movida Madrileña, burst with s*xual freedom and anarchic humor, defying Spain’s conservative past. Pepi, Luci, Bom and Matador revel in kink, camp, and chaotic relationships, while later works like Bad Education delve into darker, more complex explorations of q***r trauma and memory. Almodóvar understands that desire is never simple—it’s tangled up with power, violence, and sometimes even the divine, as seen in the religious transvestites of Dark Habits or the tortured priests of Bad Education.

What makes his films feel so distinctly gay isn’t just the subject matter but the sensibility—the way emotions are heightened to operatic levels, the devotion to aesthetic pleasure, the unapologetic embrace of artifice. His women—often played by icons like Carmen Maura, Rossy de Palma, and Penélope Cruz—are just as q***r-coded as his men, embodying a fierce, theatrical femininity that feels like drag in the best possible way.

And then there’s the s*x—raw, messy, and unromanticized. Almodóvar films don’t shy away from the physicality of q***r desire, whether it’s the sweaty, dangerous encounters in Bad Education or the bittersweet intimacy of Pain and Glory. He captures the way gay men navigate lust, love, and loneliness, often with a wink but never without depth.
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07/23/2025

Ben Barres was a groundbreaking whose work significantly advanced our understanding of glial cells, which were long overlooked in favor of neurons. His research revealed that glia play critical roles in brain function, synaptic development, and neurological diseases, challenging long-held assumptions in neuroscience. Beyond his scientific contributions, Barres was a vocal advocate for gender equality in science, speaking openly about the systemic biases and discrimination faced by women and LGBTQ+ individuals in academia.

Barres transitioned in 1997, becoming one of the few openly transgender scientists at the time. His unique perspective allowed him to compare firsthand the differing treatment he received before and after transitioning. He noted that as a woman (Barbara Barres), his ideas were often dismissed or attributed to male colleagues, whereas as a man, he experienced greater respect and recognition—an observation he used to highlight pervasive s*xism in science.

In 2013, Barres became the first openly transgender member of the National Academy of Sciences, a milestone that brought visibility to scientists. He used his platform to push for more inclusive policies, mentorship for underrepresented groups, and fairer peer-review processes. Even while battling pancreatic cancer, he continued advocating for equity, emphasizing the need for systemic change rather than relying on individual resilience.

07/22/2025

Love this

Darrin Gayles became the first out gay Black federal judge in 2014 after he was nominated by Barack Obama. ⬇️

07/22/2025

The shock and horror of 1995 also 30 years!

07/22/2025

The Black Sabbath singer gave money to gay causes and was outspoken in his support of the LGBTQ+ community. ⬇️

07/18/2025

Andy Warhol was already a myth by 1968—a silver-wigged specter haunting New York, turning soup cans into icons and celebrities into ghosts. Then, a single bullet turned him from artist into something even stranger: a survivor, a medical marvel, a walking wound. Valerie Solanas, the woman who pulled the trigger, was a radical feminist whose rage was as jagged as the bullet’s path inside him. She had handed him a script, Up Your Ass, months earlier—Warhol lost it, or pretended to. Maybe he thought she was just another Factory hanger-on, another desperate voice in the chorus of freaks and stars. But she wasn’t. She was a woman with a manifesto and a gun.

The bullet entered through Warhol’s torso and ricocheted like a pinball, tearing through organs as if his body were just another of his silk-screened surfaces—something to be punctured, altered, made into art. His stomach, spleen, liver, esophagus, lungs—each one damaged, each one forcing him into a new relationship with pain. Doctors cut him open, sewed him back together, declared it a miracle he lived. But survival wasn’t clean. For the rest of his life, he wore a corset to hold his ravaged abdomen together. He feared hospitals, slept with his hands clenched, saw death in every corner. The Factory, once a playground of decadence, became a place of paranoia.

Solanas, meanwhile, became a distorted footnote—sometimes framed as a feminist avenger, sometimes as a madwoman. Warhol, ever the observer, turned the shooting into another layer of his myth. He filmed his scars, documented his recovery, made his suffering part of the spectacle. But the truth was messier. The man who had turned detachment into an art form was now forced to feel, deeply and constantly, the fragility of his own body.

The bullet didn’t kill him, but it changed everything. It was as if the violence of the outside world—the riots, the assassinations, the unraveling of the ’60s—had finally pierced his carefully constructed bubble. After that, Warhol’s work took on a darker edge. The obsession with death was no longer theoretical. He had stared into it, and it had stared back.

07/18/2025

The sculpture of the two Egyptian women, Idit and Ruiu, from the late Middle Kingdom or Second Intermediate Period, remains a significant and debated artifact in the study of ancient society. Its importance stems from its striking use of artistic conventions that were, in virtually all other known examples, exclusively reserved for the depiction of a husband and wife. This has led many scholars to interpret the statue as a memorial to a same-s*x couple, one of the very few potential pieces of evidence for such a relationship from the ancient world.

In typical Egyptian funerary statuary, the married couple is presented as a unit, meant to endure for eternity. The husband and wife are shown either standing or seated side-by-side. Their poses are highly formalized to signify their bond: often, one partner will have an arm wrapped around the other's shoulders or waist in a gesture of supportive embrace. Their bodies are in close proximity, and their gaze is typically directed forward, united in their journey to the afterlife. The statue of Idit and Ruiu conforms to this template with remarkable precision. The two women are depicted standing close together, with one woman's arm affectionately placed around the other's back. The composition, scale, and intimate gesture are all hallmarks of marital portraiture from the period.
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07/18/2025

Michelangelo’s Victory stands frozen in time, a masterpiece of marble and muscle, yet pulsing with an energy that refuses to be contained. The young, triumphant figure—his body taut, his pose effortless—looms over the older, bearded man beneath him, their forms entwined in a dance of dominance and surrender. But look closer. This is no mere allegory of conquest; it is a silent dialogue of desire. The way the victor’s knee presses into the other’s thigh, the way their bodies almost sigh into one another—this is intimacy carved in stone, a secret language spoken through the curve of a hip, the tension of a torso.

knew the male form like a lover. He studied it, worshipped it, shaped it with hands that understood both strength and tenderness. In Victory, he captures something beyond the political or the heroic—he captures the electricity between men, the unspoken pull that exists in glances, in fleeting touches, in the way one body leans into another. The sculpture breathes with homoeroticism, not because it is explicit, but because it is undeniable. The Renaissance was a world of coded glances and forbidden longings, where desire between men had to be whispered in myth and allegory. And here, in this marble embrace, Michelangelo whispered loud enough for history to hear.

The intimacy between these two figures is not just artistic—it is personal. It is the same intimacy found in the hush of a shared bathhouse, the brush of fingers passing a wine cup, the way a younger man’s body arches under the guidance of an elder’s hands. It is the kind of closeness that exists in shadows, in stolen moments, in the way art becomes a refuge for what cannot be spoken aloud.
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07/15/2025

Let's take a moment to honor Al Pacino: our favorite Oscar-winning legend who recently turned 85. From playing a bis*xual bank robber in "Dog Day Afternoon" to his quiet support of LGBTQ+ causes behind the scenes, Pacino has shown he's both a masterful actor and a genuine ally.
Recently revealed in his memoir, he even donated his entire "Cruising" paycheck to LGBTQ+ charities after being troubled by the film's negative portrayal of our community...

07/14/2025

Arthur Laurents was a complex, often contradictory figure whose work and personal life left an indelible mark on gay culture, theater, and Hollywood. Openly gay in an era when that was rare—especially for someone of his prominence—he navigated the closeted worlds of Broadway and film with a sharp tongue, ruthless ambition, and an unapologetic sense of self. He wrote some of the most enduring works in American theater (West Side Story, Gypsy), yet his personal relationships were frequently fraught with drama, jealousy, and power struggles.

Laurents lived through times when being gay meant coded language, double lives, and quiet suffering—yet he refused to play by those rules entirely. He had long-term relationships (most notably with Tom Hatcher, who was with him for over 50 years), but he was also famously difficult, holding grudges and wielding his influence like a weapon. He could be generous to young talent one moment and viciously dismissive the next. His memoir, Original Story By, pulls no punches, airing grievances and naming names, a rarity in an industry built on artifice and discretion.

He survived the AIDS crisis, Hollywood blacklists, and the constant pressure to conform, yet he never softened his edges. His legacy is a reminder that q***r icons aren’t always saints—sometimes they’re brilliant, messy, and uncompromising, carving out space for the rest of us to be just as unapologetic.
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07/13/2025

In 1957, Frank Kameny, a Harvard-educated astronomer working for the U.S. Army Map Service, was fired simply for being gay. It was a time when the government viewed homos*xuality not just as immoral, but as a security risk, and thousands of q***r employees were systematically purged from federal service in what’s now known as the “Lavender Scare.” Kameny didn’t just accept his firing; he fought back. He appealed his dismissal all the way to the Supreme Court—becoming the first known person to do so over anti-gay discrimination, even though the Court refused to hear his case.

Instead of retreating, he transformed his rage into activism, co-founding the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., and organizing some of the earliest gay rights protests in the United States. In the 1960s, he led pickets in front of the White House, the Pentagon, and the Civil Service Commission, insisting on the humanity and dignity of gay people when it was considered radical to even say the word “gay” in public. He coined the phrase “Gay is Good,” a simple but defiant counterpunch to decades of shame.

Kameny’s work forced the Civil Service Commission to reverse its ban on employing gay people in 1975, opening doors for q***r people to live openly while working for their government. His courage in standing up against institutional homophobia at a time when being out could mean total ruin helped pave the way for every LGBTQ+ person working openly in government today.
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