Nightwing Cosplay at Gay Pride

Hey guys,

A few weeks ago, I asked you all to help me choose a raccoon outfit for the 2015 Pride in London Parade. I also said that if enough people commented, I would post pictures of the slightly kinky outfit I wore in the 2014 Parade.

Seeing as how that became one of my most commented blog posts... here are pictures with me in my casual Nightwing costume (black t-shirt with blue Nightwing insignia, and black superhero mask):

I know the costume's not as good as my other Nightwing costume, but I wanted to wear something comfortable for my first outing to an LGBT Pride event.

Special thanks to Kye and the rest of the Puppy Pride walking group for making the Parade fun despite the awful weather. Additional thanks to all the photographers, who own their respective copyrights to these pictures.

Three years ago, I said that I wasn't fully proud to be gay. Today I'm still not necessarily proud to be gay. However, I am happy with most of my characteristics... including the fact that I am one of many millions of men who like other men.


Over the next few weeks, I plan on posting raccoon outfit pictures from this year's Parade and a backlog of dominant videos.

Leave a comment letting me know what you think of these pictures, and which new content you'd like me to post first!


Take care guys,

Dylann W

On Coming Out - Part 9

Hey guys,

It's been a while since I wrote about my ongoing coming-out and so I'm briefly writing today to tell you all about some good things that have happened lately.

A few weeks ago, I joined my university's LGBT Society. I was a member last year as well although I was a bit too scared to do much with my membership.

This year though, with Master Mark's encouragement, I plucked up the courage to attend a few coffee hours. Although I've felt really awkward, I've gotten into a few conversations and have started to get to know some of the other members.

I even got invited to a Pub Quiz organised by the Society and went along. I didn't have a team with me but I introduced myself to a few strangers who also didn't have a team and we formed a group. We scored last but it was still great to leave the house and socialise.

Apart from the people at LGBT Society, I've not come out to anybody else although when I do, I'll be sure to blog about it.

Pride

Today is the beginning of LGBT Pride Month in America. As a result, it got me thinking about how proud I am to be gay and honestly, I'm not fully there.

Those of you who read my 'coming out' posts will know that the last few months haven't been great for me. At the time of writing: my mother's okay but not completely happy with my sexuality, I'm not out to all of my friends yet and I'm completely closeted to all other family members.

I'm not going to any Pride events this June either (though you'll see why next week) but I do want to go to a parade in the future; maybe next year. I'd also like to visit a gay club at some point but I'd rather go with someone I know, so that might have to wait a bit.

For the future, I'm planning on coming out to more people at university. Although I'm not in the closet at university, most people on my course still just assume that I'm straight. I suppose I should also come out to my friends although it's a bit difficult since some of them know my less-accepting family (who I don't want tell about my sexuality just yet).

Anyway, I hope all you LGBT readers have a fun Pride Month and even though I won't particularly enjoy it, June 2013 should be better.

A Gay Manifesto

The fear of coming out is not paranoia. The stakes are high: loss of family ties, loss of job, loss of straight friends. These are all reminders that the oppression is not just in our heads. It's real. Each of us must make the steps toward openness at our own speed and on our own impulses. Being open is the foundation of freedom: it has to be built solidly.

Hey guys, I'm in a bit of a militant mood...

As some of you may know, I recently had an exam. What you wouldn't know is that the exam involved a number of topics including the media's representation of 'others', including homosexuals. In preparation, I read some things by gay authors and so on, including Carl Wittman's "A Gay Manifesto".

Although "A Gay Manifesto" was written in 1970, I found it to be really interesting. Now, I don't agree with everything he says, partially because he was writing about San Francisco 40 years ago. Nevertheless, the reason why I'm writing about him today is because I highly recommend that people read it.

I won't spoil everything Wittman says because you can just read everything in full by clicking that link but I will tell you a couple of things that I agree with:

1. Homosexuality is the capacity to love someone of the same sex. For some reason, people seem to think that being gay is so much more. You don't have to be gay like musicals just as you don't have to be straight to enjoy a beer. If you like some things and dislike something else,  it's because you're you, not because you're gay. TV Tropes has a fairly extensive list of the various stereotypes about LGBT issues in film, television, etc. if you want to read it.
2. Coming out isn't easy. It's not, I'm not going to act like it is and so I'm not going to tell anybody in the closet that I think they should come out right now. I do think that people should come out when they're ready and I think that the problem with coming out is not necessarily your sexuality, but rather how other people view your sexuality. When you plan on coming out one day, I highly recommend that you first come out to friends that you can trust and know will be okay with it. They can support you if things go wrong.

On Coming Out - Part 8

I'm writing about this a bit sooner than I thought I would because I've been receiving a few concerned messages... but basically I'm feeling a lot better.

I saw my bisexual crush two days ago (with a few other hundred people at a social event) and he now knows I'm gay. He thinks I'm a nice guy, as a bisexual he admits that he's more heterosexual than homosexual and that he fancies a few girls.

Honestly, I was a bit disappointed but I got over it very quickly. I've had crushes on straight guys before and I've learned how to move on. I think now that I've dealt with having feelings for him, we're able to be friends. I won't see him much but when I do, I won't be afraid to go up to him and chat.

In other news... my mother's still rather annoying. Having said that, I think she's realised that she's done some things and so she has tried to make an effort. She's tried to talk about gay issues and ask if I've met anyone, she happily accepted a "not really" by the way. So with that said, I'm relieved. Things between us could be better but I appreciate that they will be, one day.

To everyone that's sent me concerned messages, thank you very much but trust me, I'm in a good place now.


Oh, it's likely that I won't be posting anything for a little while anyway since I have a 3500 word essay due on the 12th. After that, not much is planned that I haven't already mentioned.

On Coming Out - Part 7

The following post was written with very little sleep and some emotion behind so please forgive its rambling nature and any spelling, grammar or punctuation errors you find. Thank you.


It's now 2012: a year which will hopefully be better than the last.

A few nights ago, I went to a party at my best friend's house to celebrate the arrival of the new year. At the party were all of my friends who knew I was gay and a lot more who didn't know. Also at the party was a bisexual guy that I'd had a secret crush on.

Seeing as how I had only been drunk one other time in 2011 (which is awful for a fresher who has been able to drink for over a year now), I decided to make use of the alcohol at the party. A few rum and Cokes into the evening and with a few more hours left until the countdown, I realised I was drinking too fast for a lightweight and so I just sat in the corner.

It was at this point that one of my friends who knew about my sexuality walked over, sat down next to me and asked how everything was going. We conversed for a bit before she confessed that she had been going around letting people know that I was gay.

I was very briefly annoyed but then I realised that nobody else had said anything to me. When I asked how they took it, she said that they took it well. When I asked if she or anybody else had told my secret crush, she said "No."

At this point, the mixture of my emotions and the rum got the better of me and I started feeling really down. I wanted to embrace him or ask him out. But I couldn't, I thought about the very real possibility of rejection. Then I started thinking about standing in the middle of the room and bluntly saying "I'm gay" to all of my friends, present. But then, the thought of being rejected from them made me even worse.

I left the loud music and found a quiet place to sit down. After thinking about everything, I returned and went up to each friend who knew about my sexuality. I gave all of them permission to let my other friends know that I was gay, but not to let them know that I want them to know. For the rest of the night, I was quite relieved, I still wanted to approach my secret crush but I realised that it may not be such a good idea in case he rejected me on such a happy occasion.

A few hours later, which I spent drinking and DJing, a few friends approached me and congratulated me for being out. Honestly, I wasn't expecting any of them to take it badly but I like to be over-cautious. I somewhat hoped that my crush would also approach me too but he didn't, instead he just seemed to enjoy the party as much as everyone else.

At midnight, we celebrated the arrival of 2012. A couple of hours later, we headed off back to our homes.

Now that everybody's sobered up, I feel like I should find out who exactly knows I'm gay and who doesn't. Finally, I do need to make sure that my crush knows. I'm going be seeing him again in a couple of days and I'd like to be able to be more honest with him.


On another related note...

After the party, when I got back home, I told my mother that a few more friends knew that I was...

That's the thing, I couldn't say that word. She told me to just come out with it but I couldn't say it to her. Her response was that I shouldn't be coming out of the closet if I can't say that I'm gay. Very drunk and angry, I had the sense to go to bed before we got into an argument.

In my room, I thought about the various things she had said over the last few weeks. Although she had certainly improved since I came out to her, she was still more homophobic than she'd probably like to admit.


As a result of these non-ideal circumstances and other complications, I'm not going to be in a real mood for blogging so don't expect any regular posting.

On Coming Out - Part 6

Let me just start by saying that the content of this post is a few weeks old but I've been too busy with uni work to just sit down and focus on writing it.

Since last time, quite a lot has happened so I'll skip the details.


One day, I was at an ATM when I found out that my non-food money ran out (don't worry about me, I can still survive!) I thought that the logical thing to do would be to e-mail my mother (because my phone broke since we spoke).

Immediately, she booked a train ticket to my university without really asking me. I was extremely angry for her being so stubborn and not understanding the phrase "I need more time." which I had repeated to her again and again.

Nevertheless, when the day of her arrival came, I did meet up with her and well... basically... things are not as bad.

We previously agreed not to mention the subject of my sexuality but after seeing how calm she was, I did bring it up and she was reassuring.

She's still a bit ignorant and wants to make sure that I'm sure of my sexuality before I do anything regrettable as if it might be a phase. But generally, she just wants to make that I'm not forced into doing anything I don't want to. (I suppose it's a great thing she doesn't know about this blog.)

Overall though, she basically reassured that although I'm very likely to face some obstacles such as my somewhat homophobic family, it's going to get better.

Oh and she also gave me a bit of money which I've mostly spent on pasta and sauce although my student loan is finally coming through in a few days time. This and the fact that I suddenly have some free time now that one of my modules / classes is finished... I should be able to do some filming again.

Thanks everybody for being so supportive but I think it's time to have something fun on here again!

Thank God for gay porn! (how I came to realise I was a homosexual)

And also, hooray for oxymoronic blog post titles! Now I feel like I should explain.

This is not about something new that is happening in my not currently fabulous life but rather, this is something that I was thinking about rather recently because I saw a quote from a possibly mad Pastor Mark Driscoll:

First, masturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman. If a man were to masturbate while engaged in other forms of sexual intimacy with his wife then he would not be doing so in a homosexual way. However, any man who does so without his wife in the room is bordering on homosexuality activity, particularly if he's watching himself in a mirror and being turned on by his own male body.

Now, I'm not going to go into the many problems I have with this. But that first bit "masturbation can be a form of homosexuality" got me thinking about how I realised I was gay and the fact of the matter is that I know I'm gay... because of gay porn. Some of my life story coming up...


You see, I was never attracted to girls and I think we both know why. This didn't bother me but when I got to about 16 and going through puberty, I was wondering why I wasn't attracted to girls. All the other boys around me were talking about how they wanted to go out on dates with the hot girls or which celebrities were the fittest. Some of my friends even asked me who was my ideal woman (I lied and said Uma Thurman if you're curious) but I knew that I wasn't attracted to any of them. Something was clearly wrong...

Also because I was 16 and definitely maturing in a number of ways, I felt like I should definitely have masturbated by this point. There was a period where I spent hours playing with my cock every night to masturbate but I just couldn't get it up. I started to consider that maybe I had something physically wrong with me. Then I recalled that I was capable of having wet dreams so that definitely wasn't the case.

I thought I'd do what every teenage boy should do and watch porn. After 3 of the most boring porn videos I've ever seen, I didn't get aroused once. Then suddenly... I had a revelation. It all made since in an instant... I was asexual. In my head, that was the only explanation. I went back to school thinking this and being okay with it. Then I got really annoyed when I started getting hard in lessons! If I was asexual, what was arousing me?!

I got back home and came up with a third theory: I was doing it wrong.

So, I did the incredibly nerdy thing, went online and looked for tutorials. Now, I'm not going to tell how many techniques I tried but believe me... I tried a lot. Most times, I got hard watching videos of guys jerking off and following along in real time. I knew that I was making progress! Unfortunately, I still wasn't able to actually cum but being able to control when I got hard was a big step up for me.

I still knew that I missing something though... so I decided to look at other videos of guys jerking off on sites like Xtube. Now, to find these videos, I had to say that I was interested in Men. No big deal, I was just looking for a method of jerking off that worked for me. Although... I did see a lot of thumbnails of gay porn. Out of curiosity, I decided to have a look at the most viewed videos on Xtube and well, this video caught my eye:

  

That video was incredible and it was finally something I could masturbate to! I checked out the other videos on this guy's channel and found them really hot too. After watching quite a few other videos of gay porn, I laid back on my bed fantasising about how I could be in a video like that and jerking off and after an hour of concentration, I came on my 17th birthday.

Once I got over how incredible it felt... I slowly realised that I was gay. My initial reaction was depression because, let's face it, the world isn't 100% happy with homosexuality just yet, is it? After a few days though, I was okay with it. I just knew that I had to be straight in public, at least until I was ready for my friends and family to know.

A while later, I felt a bit guilty about watching all this porn and felt like I had to bring something back to the community especially since there seemed to be so little good fetish porn out there featuring guys! The problem is that I was afraid that my friends would find out about my rather strange interests so I hid my face in my earlier videos and only showed my feet.

Soon though, I gained confidence in what I was doing and I think you can work out the rest.


...That post was longer than I thought it would be. I honestly didn't think I'd write an almost 700 word essay but I suppose it's easy to write about what you know. Anyway, there is no moral of the story. I suppose that it does confirm that masturbation is a form of self-discovery that should be encouraged although I don't think I need to tell that to most of you. Honestly though, this is just something I was thinking about and wanted to have in written form.

I guess I hope you found it insightful and if you feel inspired to leave a comment or ask any questions, go ahead.

On Coming Out - Part 5

Since my last coming out post, I have come out to a few friends who all accepted it in different ways. They were all supportive though

I also recently came out to my mother... The good news is that she still loves me.

The bad news is that she's a bit disappointed with the fact that I am gay.

Furthermore, she doesn't fully appreciate that I was born like this so she thinks that I chose to be like this, that I chose to have all the problems associated with homosexuality.

All she seems to know about homosexuality are the stereotypes; mostly the negative ones... I tried to educate her over the phone but she wouldn't listen to it.

After that I was feeling very depressed but after speaking to my friends, I felt a bit better. Right now, I do feel a bit down but I'm not going to do anything regrettable.

The blog shouldn't be affected and if I have to stop posting for a while, I will give you guys notice.

On Coming Out - Part 4

Yes, I am posting a Part 4 already.

Basically since last time... I came out to my friend at the university with me. She's bi so she was very understanding and supportive of course.

I also went to my first LGBT event. It wasn't anything big, about 20-30 people met up and chatted whilst we had tea and coffee. It was nice though; chatting with like-minded people, getting to know a bit about the local scene, hearing about upcoming events.

There were also a lot of cute guys there if I'm honest but I don't think it would be a good idea to ask any of them out just yet... I've still got more people to come out to, including my family.

On Coming Out - Part 3

Yeah, I know I posted about this yesterday but my life's moving very quickly now that I'm at university.

This morning was the start of Freshers' Week, which, if you don't know, is a week where first year university students go do lots of fun things.

Today was the start of the Freshers' Fair too where I was able to join a number of general interest clubs and societies. A few of them caught the interest of the nerd in me; sci-fi, comic books, etc.

However after a little bit of hesitation, I decided to pluck up the courage and join the LGBT society.

I was initially afraid of being judged but I realised that I've not lied about my sexuality to anyone at this university (besides some friends from my old school) so I didn't really need to actively come out.

At some point in the near future, I'll attend one of their meets but today I think I'll just rest a bit.

On Coming Out - Part 2

Well, I'm writing this with a rice pudding related accident which may impair my writing ability slightly. Nevertheless, this couldn't wait any more.

A few days ago, I told my best friend that I was gay.

First thing he asked was how long I knew so I told him that's been over a year.

Then he asked if I was sure so I told him honestly that I'm 90% sure.

After that, he made me aware of his surprise to hear this... honestly, I expected him to be.

The whole time, he completely agreed not to tell anyone else.

After that, he asked a few questions about how out I was already.

Then he asked how I found out, to which the answer is experimentation or in other words... jerking off.

His final question was how much I knew about the LGBT community, which I'm ashamed to say is not much.

After that, he was extremely supportive. He offered me a few useful links, offered to tell any people I haven't told already and so on.

Finally, we joked a bit about it and he sent me this great video which made me laugh a lot:

On Coming Out - Part 1

Now I'm assuming most of you know I'm gay. If you didn't know, read my profile over there on the right somewhere, it's not long.

What some of you may not realise is that I'm still in the closet, to my real life friends and family anyway.

The reason for this post and any future ones like it is so that I can keep track of how life progresses as I come out to more people.

Hey, this is the 21st Century! Blogs are the modern diaries.

So then, very recently I told a friend that I was gay. Honestly, I was surprised at how well she took it. As it turns out, she is in the closet too so she understood the situation I was in.

When I asked her if she was surprised to find out about me, she wasn't because she doesn't believe that everybody has to be straight by default.

I personally think that's a good attitude to people, I think I may start doing that from now on.

We'll see how this progresses as more people find out, shall we?