Ryan Field's Blog, page 67

Preserving San Francisco's Gay Disco History, Ryan Field Books

Preserving San Francisco's Gay Disco History

Even though we now live in Palm Springs, Tony and I come from a town in Bucks County, PA called New Hope where almost all gay history has been erased. I spent most of my life there, as a gay man supporting gay businesses. We owned our own businesses, too. Sadly, thanks to the greedy developers and good old-fashioned gentrification, there's very little gay activity left in New Hope and little talk of gay history. 

One gay bar is now a bank, another is ju...

Past Convictions For What the Straights called "Homosexual" Activity Are Wiped Out, Ryan Field Books

Past Convictions For What the Straights Called "Homosexual" Activity Are Wipe Out

I despise the word "Homosexual." For me, it's almost as bad as any pejorative toward LGBTQ people ever spoken. I know straight people are used to it, and the straights rule the world. But that's how I feel.

With that said, this is really a bittersweet story about how gay men were treated years ago, and how long it took for them/us to get some kind of satisfaction.  This is happening in the UK, not the US. We still ha...

Dark Shadows Star Jonathan Frid Was Gay, Ryan Field Books

Dark Shadows Star Jonathan Frid Was Gay

Over the years I can't even count the number of older gay men I've known who never actually came out in public. And each one had his own private reason and it was never questioned. And these men weren't even actors or celebrities. So it's no surprise that a man who was as well known in pop culture as Jonathan Frid was a closeted gay man. 

There were all kinds of fears associated with being openly gay that ranged from the fact that it was illegal to the shame...

The Hypocrite Patton Oswalt Faces Criticism for His alliance with Dave Chappelle, Ryan Field Books

The Hypocrite Patton Oswalt Faces Criticism for His alliance with Dave Chappelle

I feel passionate about all LGBTQ issues all over the world. And when someone like Dave Chappelle goes after transgender people, I'm siding with transgender people. With me, there's no question about it. 

Recently, nasty Patton Oswalt aligned himself with Chappelle and now he's making statements about it. He actually performed with Chappelle on New Year's Eve. It's so typical of straight white privilege it's almost si...

Forced to Register as Sex Offender for Having Gay Sex, Ryan Field Books

 Forced to Register as Sex Offender for Having Gay Sex

This story is happening in South Carolina. And I'm stunned that's it's happening at all in the US. A man was forced to register as a sex offender for having gay sex, and now he's legally challenging the state. 

They aren't giving out his name, but he was convicted of some antiquated anti-sodomy law back in 2001. Then in 2006, he was pardoned. However, that wasn't the end of his terrible ordeal. 

He was still forced to register as a sex offender...

As a Gay Man Why I'm Not Thrilled About Lil Nas X's Song About Gay Sex, Ryan Field Books

As a Gay Man Why I'm Not  Thrilled About Lil Nas X's Song About Gay Sex

Lil Nas X is being nominated for several Grammy awards and I'm not too thrilled with it. He has a song out titled, Montero (Call Me By Your Name), which of course is based on that horrible movie where an older straight man has sex with a barely legal young gay kid. Even in this article, they refer to the book as a gay romance novel and it is NOT a gay romance novel. A romance has a happy ending, and this book was written by a...

Tony and I are Moving Again and Leaving The Diplomat in Palm Springs, Ryan Field Books

 Tony and I Are Moving Again and Leaving The Diplomat In Palm Springs

After we sold our home in New Hope in 2020 we thought we'd move into a new place and spend a while there. After all, we lived in the New Hope house for almost 20 years. Prior to that, we lived in a townhouse for 7 years. We don't like to move and we usually stay put. That's been our history.

However, due to circumstances beyond our control with the sale of the New Hope house, we wound up losing the first house we wanted in Palm ...

Top Gay New Year's Eve Parties 2021, Ryan Field Books

 Top Gay New Year's Eve Parties 2021

Over the last 29 years, Tony and I have done so many different things on New Year's Eve I tend to forget sometimes. When we first met we would to New York City and spend New Year's Eve with my gay brother and his partner, Greg, at the time. After that, two good friends of ours started having home parties for NYE, and we loved them because we were so close to home. Then around 1999 we got into a routine where we spent New Year's Eve up in Provincetown every yea...

Aging Gay Man Talks about the Negatives of Getting Older in Gay Culture, Ryan Field Books

 Aging Gay Man Talks about the Negatives of Getting Older in Gay Culture

I've seen it all my life. As gay men age, they become invisible and it really sucks. Unless of course, they have a lot of money. The young ones still flock to the older gay men with money. And don't tell me it's for love. I've seen it before too many times. If these older gay men didn't have money there would also be invisible. Aging is a rough part of being a gay man. And here's an article about a guy who talks about it ope...

New Approach to Gay and Bisexual Men with Prostate Cancer, Ryan Field Books

New Approach to Gay and Bisexual Men with Prostate Cancer

A lot of gay men get a prostate cancer diagnosis and the typical thing to do is remove the prostate.  In this particular case, in this article, the gay man had the surgery and it all went well. But he had issues with the fact that so many involved with his situation were not equipped to handle a gay man. There are a lot of emotional and psychological factors that weren't being addressed, and he felt frustrated. So he looked for help in a d...