Uninvited Celibacy

Soul Embraces

Relax, this is not a woe is me story. It’s more of a story of discovery of what it has been like to be loverless for the longest stretch in my life since I lost my virginity. (OK, I actually didn’t lose it. I know where it went.)

Not making love for so long has given me new insights about what the experience is all about.

Celibacy is more than not having sex, which is to say that not having sex is more than not engaging in sexual activity — which is to say that sexuality itself is more than mere orgasm production. It’s a cornucopia of body, mind, heart, and spirit.

SEX IS WHOLISTIC

Sex combines both physical/sensual and nonphysical ingredients. There are the words that flow before, during, and after. The tender words, the hottie words, the encouraging words, the silly words.

I dearly love my female platonic…

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The Grandmother Prince George Never Knew: Revisiting Diana and the True Love of Her Life.

©ourtesy of VanityFair

Princess Diana, photographed by Mario Testino in London, March 1997.

Vanity Fair contributing editor Sarah Ellison reports in the September issue on Princess Diana’s 1995-to-1997 relationship with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan. Jemima Khan, Diana’s close friend and the former wife of Hasnat’s distant cousin Imran Khan, tells Ellison, “Diana was madly in love with Hasnat Khan and wanted to marry him, even if that meant living in Pakistan, and that’s one of the reasons why we became friends.” Many close to Diana say her relationship with Khan was the most significant after Prince Charles, but beyond a secret romance, it was her shot at a normal life. The forthcoming film Diana, starring Naomi Watts as Di, focuses on the last two years of her life and specifically her relationship with Khan, who has not cooperated with the filmmakers. Jemima Khan tells Ellison that Diana “came to visit me twice in Pakistan to help fund-raise for Imran’s hospital, but both times she also went to meet his family secretly to discuss the possibility of marriage to Hasnat. She wanted to know how hard it

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Pinhead: Terry Richardson’s diary

©ourtesy of terrysdiary

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Drag Queens Hit the Beach in a Super Swimsuit Extravaganza

©ourtesy of PAPERMAG

Queens of summer

Misty Meaner

How did you come up with your name?
I started off as Misty Newaters, then met a queen named “Teena Bortion.” I died, and knew I needed a name that was memorable and catchy. I also wanted to be feared and respected, so Misty Meaner was a perfect fit.

What drew you to the drag scene in NYC?
I started doing drag on Fire Island because I grew up 10 minutes from the ferry. After doing it a few summers in a row, going back to the L.I. gay nightlife scene was like slow torture. So one summer I saved up and used all my Fire Island contacts to get and keep me out here.

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Art of the Day: Artist Moods

©ourtesy of ArtisticMoods

Sasha and Ruby by Loretta Lux

ArtisticMoods is a blog devoted to serve you daily inspirations from the art world. Please Visit to view the ARCHIVES.

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Retrospective of Chicago’s African-American community in the 70s

©ourtesy of theAtlantic & (John H. White/NARA)Day 3 of Documerica Week on In Focus — a new photo essay each day, featuring regions of the U.S. covered by the photographers of the Documerica Project in the early 1970s. Today’s subject is Chicago’s African-American community, primarily the South Side, documented by photographer John H. White, who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photojournalism in 1982. White landed a job with the Chicago Sun Times in 1978, and continued to work there until May of 2013, when the newspaper laid off its entire photojournalism department. His portraits of everyday life stand the test of time, inviting the viewer to travel back a few decades, and see just how we lived. The Documerica Project was put together by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1971, with a primary goal of documenting adverse effects of modern life on the environment, but photographers were also encouraged to record the daily life of ordinary people, capturing a broad snapshot of America.

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Humans of New York ‘Love this Blog’

©ourtesy of humansofnewyork

“Five years ago I got hit by a jeep on my bike. I woke up in the hospital, my face was messed up, I was on lots of morphine, and my family had all gone home because they’d been told I wouldn’t wake up that night. I was really scared. The next few weeks, while I was healing, I told myself that if I ever got better, I’d never live a mediocre life.” 
“And what are you doing now?”
“I got a BS in Mechanical Engineering and now I’m getting a PhD in Biomedical Science.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m going to save humankind, of course.” —

So Inspirational !

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Santa Monica Pier, in 1900’s LA

©ourtesy of Brooke Burton @ LAweekly

The last time Angelenos had something to celebrate on September 9, ’09 was one hundred years ago today when the Santa Monica Municipal Pier first opened to the public. Ever since its beginning, the 1,600-foot-long concrete pier has been popular with tourists, fishermen, and hungry locals. To celebrate the “pleasure pier’s” centennial, the city of Santa Monica is hosted numerous events that evening including a fireworks display and musical performances by The Big Bamboo Steel Band and the “king of surf guitar,” Dick Dale. Hungry visitors were invited to picnic on the beach or visit one of the many restaurants on the pier to watch this evening’s firework display. Between the ocean-side amusement rides and trinket stands, there were plenty of eating options that range from gourmet to gut wrenching. Dining choices on the pier included food court fare from Harbor Grill, shrimp and ribs from Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, crustaceans from The Lobster, funnel cakes from the Funnel Cake Factory, and something called Dippin’ Dots–an ice cream served in the form of day-glow beads. If a self-catered beach picnic is more your speed, then a stop at Bay City’s Deli for essentials or just a Godmother sandwich to go was in order.

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Carline Ray, pioneer jazz singer R.I.P.

©ourtesy of vintageblackglamour

Carline Ray, a pioneering jazz multi-instrumentalist and singer, circa 1940s. Ms. Ray, a member of the all-female International Sweethearts of Rhythm in the 1940s who played bass with luminaries like Mary Lou Williams, died on July 18th in New York City at the age of 88. Ms. Ray’s father, Elisha Ray, was a 1925 graduate of the Juilliard School of Music and she graduated from the school in 1946. Ms. Ray, the mother of jazz singer Catherine Russell, released her first recording as a lead vocalist this year. Photo: James J. Kriegsmann, Sr.

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Mammoth delivery to La Brea tar pits

©ourtesy of Scott Harrison

Jan. 18, 1967: A life-size imperial mammoth is towed behind sculptor Howard Ball’s 1958 Volkswagen for installation at La Brea tar pits.

In a Jan. 19, 1967 story, Times staff writer Ken Reich reported:

A life-sized model of an imperial mammoth was placed beside the largest of the tar pits in Hancock Park Wednesday, the first of 50 prehistoric animals’ replicas to be installed in the park in a plan to recreate a “Pleistocene atmosphere.” Sculptor Howard Ball, commissioned to do the 13-foot-high, 25-foot-long, fiberglass creature, pulled it to the site from his Torrance studios on a trailer with his 1958 Volkswagen. The 2,000-pound mammoth was then transferred with a minimum of difficulty by city crane to the four small iron platforms upon which it will rest.

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Now You See it, then You won’t?

©ourtesy of wandrlust

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See Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange in New The Fifth Estate Trailer

©ourtesy of Abby Schreiber @ Papermag

Our favorite actor-slash-otter doppelgänger, Benedict Cumberbatch, has transmogrified into silver-haired, Aussie-accented Julian Assange for the upcoming movie The Fifth Estate. Directed by Bill Condon (The Twilight Saga, Dream Girls, Kinsey), the film focuses on the rise of Wikileaks and Assange’s complicated relationship with his colleague-turned-opponent Daniel Domscheit-Berg (played by Spanish-German actor Daniel Brühl). As you’ll see in the trailer, above, the whole thing feels very dramatic (it’s already drawing comparisons to The Social Network or Argo), and also stars Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, Stanley Tucci and Dan Stevens. No word on whether the script calls for any dance scenes, though — fingers crossed we might get to see Cumberbatch put his own spin on Assange’s sweet, sweet moves.

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‘A CHORUS LINE’ Broadway Sensation

©ourtesy of nypl: 

These photos taken from NYPL’s Billy Rose Theater Collection, show cast members from the 1975 Broadway musical, A Chorus Line. The musical opened on Broadway on this day in 1975! The original production went on to win 9 of the 12 Tony awards it was nominated for in addition to winning the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Check out the NYPL Digital Gallery to see more photos from the original production of A Chorus Line!

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…..MORE PICTURES FOLLOW