Pink Loerie Mardi Gras & Arts Festival

The Knysna Pink Loerie Mardi Gras & Arts Festival has literally been painting the town of Knysna pink since 2000. Now in its 13th year, this very popular and highly colourful annual festival is a highlight on the international and local LGBTI - and straight - calendar. The Knysna Pink Loerie Mardi Gras & Arts Festival offers five days of non-stop entertainment, shows, mini-market and outrageous fun. The event takes place from 1 - 5 May 2013. The theme this year is 'Wicked Wonderland' and is brought to you by Globeflight.
Knysna is a very popular tourist destination and has earned the coveted title of officially being “South Africa’s Favourite Town of the year” (twice in a row). During the Pink Loerie Mardi Gras the entire town of Knysna, visitors, locals and businesses partake in a festival that highlights diverse lifestyles.

From all over South Africa and abroad, thousands of like-minded people absorb the carnival atmosphere for five days culminating in the street parade on Sat. 4 May at 3 pm. The Knysna Pink Loerie Mardi Gras is getting bigger, better and more outrageous by the year. It is a unique experience not to be missed!

Events taking place around the festival include drag shows, the Mr / Miss / Me Mardi Gras competitions, Best Window Display competition, the popular arts festival with Bruce Little's 'Little Poof' presented by Manhunt returning, VIP dinner, Charity Drive and of course the main street parade followed by an after-party featuring DJs Catherine from 5fm, Kevin Grenfell from EMI, DJ Ari and more.

A new edition is the well-known Therapy brand doing a recovery party on Sunday 5 May from noon at Zanzibar with DJ Stuart H. The Pink Loerie VIP dinner (where Emile Minnie and Godfrey Johnson will be doing the entertainment) will be attended by the Mayor and the Speaker, Mr. Gay World Andreas Derleth, all the way from New Zealand and no less than three Mr. Gay South Africas, Mr Mardi Gras 2011 and 2012 and various other luminaries. A three course 5 star meal incl. complimentary Barefoot Wine is offered and takes place on Friday 3 April at Simola Country Club - only R220 per person. (Mail dinner@pinkloerie.co.za to book.)



For a full programme of the festival, see here: http://pinkloerie.co.za/wptest/wp350/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Pink-Loerie-2013-Programme1.pdf
 

Website: www.pinkloerie.co.za
Entry forms: see www.pinkloerie.zo.za 'Forms' header.

Jo`burg pride Shut down!

Johannesburg, South Africa, 3 April 2013: The board of Joburg Gay Pride Festival Company (JGPFC) has voted to wind up the Section 21 (not-for-profit) company that has produced Joburg Pride over the past seven years. JGPFC was voluntarily wound up by unanimous resolution at a board meeting held on Wednesday, 13 March 2013. As such, the Joburg Gay Pride Festival Company will cease operation from 26 April 2013.

“It was a very big decision, and one that didn’t come easily,” says board member Samantha Durkin. “We have been successfully running Joburg Pride for the past seven years, growing it from a one-day event that attracted a few thousand participants into a multifaceted event over three days, including an evening programme, which has been attracting crowds of more than 20,000. It became increasingly time-demanding and operationally complicated over the past few years, especially as it’s been run by a board of volunteers who’ve contributed their skills, time, networks and contacts, with virtually all of Joburg Pride’s planning taking place after hours.”

“Looking back, we have a lot to be proud of,” says Durkin, “as we’ve supported the work of a number of worthy causes and charities over the years and have enjoyed the support of the local and international LGBTI community, as well as the support of great local and international artists, and greatly-appreciated sponsorship from a number of blue chip companies.”

Board member Fulvio De Stefanis says a number of challenges influenced the board’s decision, including the loss of the Zoo Lake Sports Club as a venue to host the event due to security risks, the loss of support by the South African Police Services (SAPS), as well as the loss of support by the two local ward councillors for the event to happen in their precinct.

“Joburg Pride been a passion project for each of our volunteer board members,” says De Stefanis.
“It’s been our way to try to help unite a very diverse LGBTI community, while building an annual event designed to have far-reaching positive impact on Johannesburg’s tourism and entertainment industries and showcasing the ground-breaking work by South Africa’s burgeoning NGO, arts and culture sectors. ”

“The interruption of last year’s Joburg Pride march by the activist group 1-in-9 was also a factor in our reasoning,” says De Stefanis. “1-in-9’s unfortunate interruption of Pride 2012 shifted the event from a low-risk event into a high-risk category, which would negatively impact on our operational structures and budgets going forward. It provided great short-term publicity for 1-in-9, but created far-reaching negative publicity for Joburg Pride. It’s ironic, as we agreed with their message – but not their medium, as it obviously negated our work over the past seven years, while providing a hint of potential operational and security risks – something we’ve always been prepared for, but never had to previously deal with on such a scale. Ultimately, all of these factors combined would impact on the time and financial limitations of the board,” says De Stefanis. “We assessed the financial and security risks against our collective personal obligation to
produce a safe and inclusive event that’s also creatively rewarding and financially viable – something that Africa’s powerhouse, Johannesburg, certainly deserves. After careful consideration we are, unfortunately, unable to guarantee meeting those obligations in the future.”

JOBURG PRIDE HISTORY
Africa’s first-ever Pride march took place in Johannesburg in 1989, with its roots firmly founded in human rights activism. The first Pride march saw around 1 000 brave activists assembling outside of the offices of the South African Institute of Race Relations in Braamfontein, before marching through Hillbrow and the Joburg city centre, many of them wearing masks or paper bags to cover their faces. Since then, Joburg Pride grew into the African continent’s oldest and biggest (and loudest and proudest) Pride march, attracting tens of thousands of supporter every year from throughout metro Joburg and Pretoria, as well as visitors from around the country, the continent and the world.

As noted in the definitive book outlining Joburg Pride’s history [Pride: Protest and Celebration, edited by Shaun de Waal and Anthony Manion; Jacana Media 2006], the first Joburg Pride took place on 13 October 1990, organised by the Gay & Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW), which was headed by the legendary Johannesburg-based human rights, anti-apartheid and AIDS activist, Simon Nkoli. In his famous pre-march address at the first Joburg Pride, Nkoli said, “This is what I say to my comrades in the struggle when they ask why I waste time fighting for ‘moffies’, this is what I say to gay men and lesbians who ask me why I spend so much time struggling against apartheid when I should be fighting for gay rights. I am black and I am gay. I cannot separate the two parts of me into secondary or primary struggles. In South Africa, I am oppressed because I am a black man and I am oppressed because I am gay. So when I fight for my freedom I must fight against both oppressions. All those who believe in a democratic South Africa must fight against all oppression, all intolerance, all injustice.” Nkoli passed away in 1998, but his work continues, his torch carried by a new generation.

Of course, like the city and country around it, Joburg Pride changed over the years – with dizzying highs and discouraging lows, occasionally changing organisers and attendant support bases, with new routes and updated themes. It was an organic product and process, carefully grown and finely balanced between the varying needs and interests of a diverse LGBTI community that’s spread out over a vast geographical area. Since 2007 Joburg Pride was organised by the Joburg Gay Pride Festival Company (JGPFC), a Section 21 (not-for-profit) company, that was run by a board of volunteers who donated their time, skills and energies in an endeavour to best address the LGBTI community’s needs, interests and requests – againsta back-drop of Pride’s sustainability and financial viability.

Since those early days, Joburg Pride has grown into powerful brand in its own right, attracting the support of big business over the years including Jacaranda 94.2, Play Energy Drink (Coca-Cola), SAB-Miller, Cell C, Lufthansa, Swiss Air and DGB. While Joburg Pride’s foundational past is acknowledged and celebrated, it’s constructing the future that’s most dreamt about and anticipated. Tomorrow will be better than today – it’s a concept that must be built upon for Joburg Pride, and for South Africa.

Concludes De Stefanis, “We trust interested parties in the LBGTI community will work together and perhaps form an organising body to take Joburg Pride’s legacy forward. We trust members of the community will keep the torch burning, building on this board’s hard work over the past seven years to grow Joburg Pride into an international event, as well building on the pioneering work done by countless individuals and teams since Pride’s inception nearly a quarter of a century ago. Looking ahead, it’s a well-known fact that South Africa’s LGBTI community is relatively powerful, extremely creative and tenaciously resourceful. Accordingly, we look forward to seeing what grows from the event we’ve built upon over the past seven years.”

Gay to Str8 Dictionary

175 - slang term for a gay male, the same number was used to identify homosexuals in the Nazi Germany concentration camps.
4-real - term for someone who wants a real and lasting relationship.
Abareskin - embarrassing.
Abigail - an older gay male who hasn’t yet come out.
Absolute code - idea dating back to the 1950s where friends don’t out each other to others.
Ace gear - homosexual willing to try anything.
Active - person who takes the top position during sexual intercourse.
AIDS Terrorist - someone who has unprotected sex after being diagnosed with AIDS.
Andro Lesbian - lesbian who looks both male and female.
Angel - passive person in a sexual relationship.
Auntie - older gay male, usually feminine.
basket - the bulge of male genitals through clothes  
Baby butch - a masculine lesbian of a young age.
Baby lesbian - a lesbian 25 years old or younger.
Bareback - sex without protection.
Barbie - a drag queen that acts flighty.
Bean Queen - derogatory term for a drag queen of Hispanic origins.
Bottom - submissive in a relationship.
Bull or Bulldagger - lesbian with masculine qualities and features.
Cake Boy - homosexual man.
Chapstick Lesbian - lesbian athlete, refers to the fact that others believe the only form of makeup they wear is Chapstick.
Chicken - a younger gay man who looks for older men.
Closet - hidden secret, usually referring to a person’s homosexuality.
Closet case - a homosexual who frequently worries about what others think if they reveal their lifestyle.
Diesel Lesbian - lesbian who dresses like a male truck driver.
Dom - partner in a sexual relationships who likes controlling their partner.
Fab - shortened term meaning fabulous.
Flaming - gay male who acts flamboyant and feminine.
Flannel shirt lesbian - lesbian women who prefer the outdoors and often wear flannel shirts.
Flipping - turning a dominant into a submissive or vice-versa.
Gaydar - slang term for the ability to identify other homosexuals.
Gold star - homosexual person who never sleeps with a person of the opposite sex or anyone who has.
In the life - a person who announces their homosexuality and lives in a gay community.
Lacy - extremely feminine gay male.
Lipstick lesbian - highly feminine lesbian.
Outed - having someone else announce a person’s homosexuality before the individual can.
PC lesbian - lesbian that acts politically correct in public and private.
Play - sexual activity that takes the form of bondage or S&M.
Sapphic - lesbian.
Saturday Night Lesbian - woman who acts straight during the week.
Scene - any type of unusual sexual activity.
Smurf - young gay men with blonde hair and a negative or rough attitude.
Stone lesbian - lesbian with a strong masculine look, may even look like a man to others.
Submissive - someone who likes their partner to take control.
Switch - person who acts as both a submissive and dominant and switches back and forth.
Top - dominant person in a sexual relationship.
Twinkie - pretty and shallow homosexual, often flighty or lacking in substance.
U-Hauls - lesbians who fall in love and move in together within a few dates.
Vanilla - plain, ordinary or boring sexual activities.
Mind4 -Persistent with the idea of homosexual behavior. Internet slang for anything undesired, outdated, lame, or queer. Can be used as an insult or a proclamation. Typically used to classify someone as a lifeless bag of douche.

Ex. 1:"Dude, that child molestor had a mind4 little boys"
Ex. 2:"You know how I know you're gay? Your screen name is mind4"

homolol - A combination of the term homo (short for homosexual) and the internet slang "lol" (laughing out load).

Afterhours - where you go when the bars are closed, and you still haven't found someone to sleep with (or you're not high enough)
Baggage - the excuse people use to punish their current boyfriends for things that their past boyfriends have done to them
Beefy - a well built guy lacking muscular definition, but nonetheless attractive and appealing. see Jock
BiCurious - gay
Bisexual - gay
Bitter - what all gay men are destined to become. Caused by drama and stress (see below).
Bottom - sexual position preferred by 95% of the gay population
B-yotch - what some fags consider a much cooler way of saying "bitch"
Butch - what gay men who don't think they act gay call themselves. Actual butch men will never need to use this term.
Coke - 1) Soft drink beverage most gay men mix with rum, whiskey, or vodka (only when really drunk). 2) Illegal narcotic imported from Columbia but illegal in the United States; gay man's favorite.
Cuddle - sexual activity in which there is no exchange of bodily fluid
Drama - an imaginary condition made up by sad, lonely individuals with no real problems in their life who feel the need to drag stabile, well-balanced individuals who are trying to make a valuable contribution to society down to their level in hopes of making themselves feel better.
Ex - 1) anyone you've slept with more than once. 2) a club drug popular in the late 90's.
Excedrin - what every gay man should have in his medicine cabinet
Fag - You
Foam - not sure anymore, as we haven't seen it in over a year
Forward - the geographical direction in front of you. ex: "Go forward." not: "Go straight."
Gaylights - an unnatural highlighting of the hair that no straight man would be caught dead with.
Gurl - the first word of every sentence. "Gurl, you 'bout ready to go?",
"Gurl, I haven't had sex in 3 days!"
Gym Bunny - a troll who has realized that his only chance of getting laid is to work out every day.
Hayyy - a greeting. The gayer you are, the more Y's you put at the end.
Hoe - see Whore
Homewrecker - the person who stole your ex (definition 1).
Homo - you
Issues - see Baggage
Jacked -- term used to describe the ugly attributes of another person.
Jock - a well built, athletic looking gay guy with attractive, masculine qualities.
Jockular - see Jock
Mullet - hairstyle utilized by lesbians to make themselves easily identifiable to other lesbians.
Muscle Boy - 1) a well built guy commonly synonymous with clubbing, dancing all night, narcotic consuming, while leading a narcissitic and shallow existence. 2) see Beefy; Jock
Nellie - 1) Harriet Olsen's daughter on Little House on the Prarie 2) nickname for the Loch Ness monster 3) not butch

Omaha Diet - unnatural weight loss caused by non-prescription medications. Also known as Jenny Crank.
One Night Stand - a very short-term relationship, the end of which is signified by someone putting on their pants.
Philson Sex - sexual activity in which everybody wants to get off, but nobody does. Enables you to have a one night stand without actually becoming classified as a whore, yet still significantly more intensive than cuddling.
Power Dyke - 1) a successful and wealthy lesbian 2) a lesbian with a mullet who hates both straight and gay men.
Rough Trade - a one night stand that you will later pretend never happened.
Shot - when you need to get drunker faster
Stress - an non-imaginary condition brought on by the drama of others
Top - see Bottom
Trade - what you bring home from the bar, paid for in services rendered.
Troll - anyone older than you that wants you to gohome with them.
Trick - see Trade
Twink - a young gay boy with no muscular, or sinewy, build whatsoever, rarely eats, and perhaps consumes narcotics to maintain his petite "physique." Resembles an emaciated supermodel.
Twit - anyone younger than you that won't go home with you.
Twelve - how old you are if you're not 21
Unemployed - what most fags have to list as their current occupation on job applications
Universe 1) the area of space contained within a 3 foot diameter of every gay man. 2) a club no longer open in San Francisco where muscle boys reigned and danced with Betty Crank into the wee hours of the morning.
Versatile - glorified Bottom (but will top if absolutely necessary)
Whore - anyone who has more sex than you
Zima - for fags who are afraid that a brown bottle will clash with what they're wearing.

 

Bear 101

We all pretty much love a bear: Winnie, Teddy, Smokey, Yogi (and Boo-Boo too)--the bears of our childhood (and in the case of mommy bloggers, also the bears of adulthood), potent and mythological. Images of bears clawing salmon from streams, bears on frozen snow, and bears with fuzzy cubs bop through our memories courtesy of Wild Kingdom and its modern offspring. We all love a bear.

What is a bear?
Superficially, a bear is a chubby, hairy, masculine, gay male who likes beer and flannel shirts. However, according to many bears and their admirers, the bear culture is not so much about physical appearance, rather it is about living a particular philosophy of acceptance, respect, and the celebration of diversity (Bill Picture, SF Gate). Furthermore, a bear is a gay man who rejoices in his masculinity (masculinity of a relaxed and undemonstrative nature) rather than suppressing his true gender identity to assimilate into the pretty-boy standards of much of the gay "community." A bear is, well, a big teddy-bear of a man--gruff and bristly on the outside but mellow and squishy-sweet on the inside. Bears are considered almost universally friendly and likeable.

Those who study such things, theorize that the bear phenomenon is a "maturation of the gay culture (Andrew Sullivan)" in that most bears feel no need to take on conventional gay identities and display--they are simply masculine dudes who really, really like other masculine dudes. Bears see no conflict between being gay and being a genuine man and therefore achieve a kind of identity-based personal harmony that does not require any sort of outside validation. Unlike much of gay cultural identity--which equates being gay with somehow not being a regular guy--bear culture simply accepts the notion of masculinity. That being said, most bears eschew politics--the politics of being gay included.

So when and how did this all start?
The origins of the bear movement are unclear but it is believed that it first began 15 to 20 years ago in San Francisco (of course!). It is my belief--if we hold the theory of bear culture being a maturation of gay culture to be true--that beardom evolved out of the ashes of the first scourge of the AIDS epidemic. Years of burying dead lovers and friends, years of fear and rage created a populace of battle-wearied men that began to turn their backs on the hierarchal and carefully orchestrated customs of gay society. The do's and don'ts and other bullshit possibly seemed less important.

Hey! This sounds cool, but I'm not quite up to the physical standards.
Well, you're in luck. As in almost every other group, there exist subgroups--in this case, if you're not old enough or hairy enough or chubby enough or cuddly enough, you can be a cub, an otter and/or a wolf.

Cubs
Cubs are simply young bears. Cubs have all the physical and mental attributes of a bear, they just aren't old enough to be a full-fledged bear.

Otters
Otters are slimmer and less hairy bear-admirers (BA's?).

Wolves
Wolves are bears that are typically more aggressive and OVERTLY masculine.

Bruins?
My oldest and dearest friend and I were discussing bears and he lamented that although he is old enough and hairy enough, he is not chubby enough to be a bear. I suggested we call men like him, "bruins."

How does a bear greet another bear?
Easy, one just says, "Woof!" and/or growls.

Where can I see and learn more?
Well, a GREAT and fun portrayal of bears in action is to be found in John Waters's 2004 film A Dirty Shame. Also in August, be sure to check out the annual Hairrison Street Fair in San Francisco--the largest (and only) Bear Festival in the world. Most recently Bear City and Bear City 2 -The Proposal

 Some Bear Candy!