By Janis Ian
The Dads (surely you remember them from previous articles) are worried that their son, Jason, will grow up with no sense of tradition. It's difficult enough parenting as a gay couple, striking new ground with every step; the child needs some sense of continuity. Not wishing to inflict their own religious stereotypes on him and being more inclined to paganism (or priapism) than to regular churchgoing, they've decided to teach him the religions of the world. Christianity seems a good place to start, since many of Dad 1's forebears were Catholic priests. "Besides," they reason, "if we start early, he'll have more time to get over it later on."
By Jeff Walsh
When Elizabeth Katz was 14, she had an experience that forever changed her life. "I had an experience I don't think very many people have," she says, now 18 and a first-year student at Vassar College.
"It was some sort of voice in the back of my head," she says. "I was sitting on my bed, alone in my room and the little voice said: 'Hey, know what? You're gay.' And it was just boom, everything made sense.
By Jeff Walsh
Before I was born, Janis Ian was making beautiful music. And with her spare, acoustic recent album "Revenge," the tradition continues. Going into the interview, I was more familiar with her humorous and poignant columns in The Advocate. For some reason, although I had picked her CDs up in stores, I never bought them.
I'm on Oasis! I'm so excited. It finally worked.
So I guess this is where I just start to spill everything - who I am, what I'm all about, where I'm from...
Well, Sat. night I found out that I suck at flirting. I went to this big pompous formal event with tuxedos and evening gowns and everything. I was at a table with this guy I hadn't seen in months. (Let's just call him Andrew). I knew he was gay when I saw him last September, at a friend's party, playing truth or dare in the hottub. Wow.
here is a list of painful memories:
watching my parents shoot up
listening to my parents fight
watching my arents fight
talking to the cops about my parents fight
going to a jail, and seeing my daddy through a glass window, holding back the tears so i could talk to him over the little phone
waiting for hours to see my mom on my birthday, when she promised she would come, but then didn't show
um...here it goes...just a little background:
when i was born my parents were both drug addicts, i was born addicted to heroin and coke. when i was four things at home started to get out of hand, and my grand parents got custody of me. I guess i have always known that im not completly straight...in preeschool i had a "friend"...Chealsea...she and i used to kiss and shit...all the stuff we thought only boys and girls could do. Now dont get me wrong, i have been raise in a very liberal, accepting house...i mean, for god's sake...i live in San Francisco, and my grandma teaches human sexuality at SF state university! we always had gay family friends over, i i was told it was perfectly normal...that it was better than normal, that it was beautiful. However, that is not what our storybooks said, and that is not what the tv said...the media had a major impact on my beliefs and values during the very early years of my life...anyway, chealsea and i would kiss and stuff, but i always, to some extent, thought what we were doing was wrong...but at the same time, i thougt it was normal, that every other four year old was experimenting in this fashion...

Am happy, like the bi-polar mania kind of happy! LOL! I'm pretty sure its not a chemical imbalance induced happy, but I imagine this is what it would feel like to be on the manic end of the bi-polar episode.
Anyway, I painted tonight. It was fantastic. When I stop and then go back, I always wonder why I don't just do it all the time. Oh wait, starving artist is not my style.
Okay people. I really need to know how "we" turn out as homosexuals. Is it the chromosomes (x and y genes)? Or do circumstances or incidents shape us into becoming queer? I mean I've always liked girls and I think along the way I got used to liking boys, because it was the "normal" thing to do.
On a totally different note....how can you really tell if a person is queer, without snooping for hints. Do we all have underlying qualities of homosexuality, which are just waiting to be triggered? Or are those "straight" people, just NOT attracted to the sexy girls and hot guys?!?
a treatise on the rise of the xerox.