There isn’t a way to depict the gay community without at least mentioning the existence of online dating apps like Grindr. People are not just going to bars and meeting people they’re connecting through social media. Your character Alex pops up when he and Dom hook up on Grindr- what's your take on dating apps? caught up with him to learn more about what it's like pretending to do the dirty on camera, hanging out with Jonathan Groff in San Francisco and more.
In the second episode of HBO's new series Looking, cheekily titled "Looking for Uncut," Keenan-Bolger plays Alex, an eager hookup on the gay dating app Grindr.
Please Like Me airs on ABC1 Thursday’s 9.30pm, is available now on iView and airs on the Pivot network in the US.Andrew Keenan-Bolger won our hearts in Broadway's Beauty and the Beast, Mary Poppins and as Crutchie in Newsies, but now he's about to make a very un-Disney cameo.
With the discussions on sex-ed with a LGBT focus in schools continuing to move forward to a hopefully happy and progressive conclusion, perhaps for now we can take solace in the fact that even if the next generation learn about doing the dirty from TV and pop-culture, much like we all did, at least there are shows like Please Like Me, which, with a simple click of a lube bottle, are reflecting the truth of sex and relationships on screen. A primetime TV show on the national broadcaster showing realistic intercourse between guys is a glorious step in the right direction and has the potential to show young gay and questioning Aussies an honest impression of how this whole thing works between consenting adults.Īcross its two seasons thus far, Please Like Me has introduced some wonderfully relatable and genuine characters, straight and gay alike, and so it’s not a huge surprise that Thomas would continue to make praiseworthy steps moving into season three, but I feel this one in particular needs to be heralded as a big moment for Australian TV production, and the realistic depiction of LGBT lives. This is why Josh Thomas’ inclusion of something so small as some KY in shot is much more significant than you might think.
Several years, and many regretful boyfriends later, I now know that spit-lube, much like the concept of “scissoring” between ladies (might be wrong on this one, feel free to me, lesbifriends) is not actually a thing and nearly all on-screen depictions of dude sex, is vastly unrealistic with nary a squeeze of a lube tube to be seen.
I still recall secretly hiring the DVD from my local VideoEZY and huddling in front of my TV late at night to view something I still saw as “different” and “wrong”, brought to life in full technicolour and surround sound.Īt the time I viewed the famous tent-fucking scene, in which Heath Ledger’s character spits onto his hand, quickly rubs it down below and dives straight on in to Jake Gyllenhaal for some passionate, fresh-mountain-air boning, as simply how it must be done. I do that” to a sex scene.Īs any young homo figuring their shit out in the noughties would, I remember Brokeback Mountain being a big deal for me. Not until last year’s sorely underrated HBO series Looking, had I ever witnessed someone on screen whipping out some god damn lubricant prior to slipping it in, (this includes the sickening amount of porn I, a gay millenial, have catapulted into my eyeballs) and I remember, during that particular Looking scene, for the actual first time in my TV watching experience, going “Hey, that’s me. The strong jaw-lined lovers engage in some rough smooching before removing just enough clothes and BOOM there’s off-camera penetraysh and our two gentleman are Going. Gay sex on mainstream media, up until pretty much now, has been presented as a mostly fantastical melding of bits under bed sheets.
Despite LGBTIQ equality obviously still a far off ideal and the further representation of the wide-range of rainbow identities on our screens of vital importance, last night’s particular cinematic illustration of homosex, deserves to be commended for more than just its existence.Īt the penultimate and spectacularly adorable, pre-penno moment between Josh and Arnold, something pleasantly surprising appears on screen, and, even if only for a moment, is a hugely important progression for gay sex on TV: a small, humble bottle of lube.