Aussielicious

For all of you in the northern hemisphere having a white christmas and experiencing cold conditions I’m hoping some of you take advantage of the situation and brave a nude snow angel or snow fight. I’d love to do something like that if I had the chance but Sydney today is 28 degrees celsius and blue sky for miles. I’m certainly not complaining. I’m leaving town today for 3 nights in the countryside with friends for a very low key new year’s eve.

Sadly there won’t be any nudity. They are friends who fit in the category of “not getting nude with”. Strange how that works.

If any of you brave a nudie run on New Year’s Eve in the snow. Take photos and send them in!

Clothes Free TV pretty much does what it says on the box. It’s a regular series of reports from nudist venues around the U.S. One of the hosts is a guy called Aaron who appears to have been reporting on the show for quite some time and it gives us a bit of an insight into a man growing up in front of a camera.

The shots to the far left show Aaron’s earlier days. He looks like a fit, slim nudist and as the years have passed Aaron has clearly hit the gym quite a lot, got more and more tattoos and experimented with more and more grooming. The shot to the far right is the most recent I could find. Aaron is very groomed in the pubic region but seems to be dabbling with longer hair and now has a really big tattoo on his chest.

I wonder if he grew up in a nudist family or this is something he’s taken up on his own? (Click the image to see more detail)

So, we’ve all eaten too much, probably drunk too much as well and there may have been a few fights with family and over hyped children in tears but overall Christmas is usually a great time catching up with family. After 3 days down with my family I was very pleased to come back to Sydney and back to some quality me time. Santa was very generous to all of us this year although I might be in a bit of trouble for giving my 5 year old niece a Dora The Explorer skateboard but that’s what uncles are for. I hope you all had a great time!

2010 hasn’t been the year I was hoping for in a lot of ways but has far exceeded expectations in other ways. Friends have had a great year, other friends have had and awful year. What ever you are all up to over the next few days for Christmas or what ever holiday you might celebrate, do it with an open heart and a big smile.

I’m heading down to my parents place for a few nights in a couple of hours. There will be family time, family friends, and then some old and very dear friends. I’m looking forward to it. I have 3 weeks off work and plan on being naked on the beach, naked camping and just lazing around a lot.

All the very best from me to you with a huge thank you for all the support, feedback and generous spirit you’ve all shown me! I hope Santa is kind to you all. See you in a few days!

lots of love

Brenton x

A couple of days ago at work, my junior colleague, a young straight guy was telling us about something he saw. He lives near what used to be Sydney’s gay golden mile, a stretch of Oxford Street that used to have lots and lots of gay nightclubs and bars but has since lost it’s shine and is full of young aggressive straight guys out getting blind drunk.

My colleague was in a bottle shop and while he was waiting to be served there was a young camp gay guy in the shop and in walked an older “Straight acting” gay guy who then launched into a verbal assault on the camp guy. His rant was along the lines of “It’s you faggy guys that give us all a bad reputation and I fucking hate it”.

My question is, how on earth are we supposed to expect tolerance and acceptance from outside the gay community when we have so much intolerance from different segments of our own community? I would say the young camp guy is way more of a man for being comfortable with who he is and his style than the self loathing guy that is still trying to prove he’s a man. If you are a masculine gay man, great. If you are a drag queen, great. If you are a flamboyant twink, great. If you are a butch dyke, great. As long as you are being honest with yourself.

When new technology arrives it’s usually sex or porn related industries that jump on board first. Grindr is the new kid on the block and comes with new etiquette rules to learn and abide by.

When one has an encounter with a nearby gentleman and it is a less than stellar encounter where one relies on porn to reach a logical conclusion and the visiting guest relies on chemical stimulation to reach that same conclusion, would it not seem quite logical that the scenario wasn’t ideal for either party and best not be attempted again?

After said encounter I proceeded to block said visitor to avoid an accidental revisiting of the awkwardness. Said visitor then proceeded to send me a text asking if it had been so bad that he was blocked. Well… yes, actually. Did you really enjoy it? You had to visit an altered state without my involvement to reach a less than toe curling climax. I think we are done.

In my mining the clouds post below I mentioned a young 19 year old in the U.S. that contacted me about the video that caused so much scandal last week. I have to say he sounds like a very down to earth and level headed young man.

He was shown this blog by his college roommate who is also a nudist. Hi guys! From his emails I’ve gathered that they are both very sporty and active and apparently sports teams are still, even in these increasingly prudish times, prone to getting their clothes off without much provocation.

While male bonding involving nudity can get people in trouble, just ask the St Kilda AFL club today, surely it’s healthy for young guys to see each other nude. Especially in a non sexual way. If young guys, and girls, don’t see other people naked it’s got to lead to very warped views on what is normal or strange. The world we live in is putting so much pressure on us to look a certain way and creating a lot of body image issues, that I think we really do need to see the real world.

It’s really nice to hear that there are 19 year olds out there not doing strange acrobatics to get dressed under a towel at the gym and in their dorm rooms. The guy that emailed me actually told me that their dorm is getting more nude with he and his room mate there to inspire them.

As usual on a Monday it’s time for me to mine the clouds for silver and find the positives around us.

Yesterday I may have had an awkward coffee date (seriously why do I end up on dates when I log in to Grindr and everyone else gets sex?). I may have also had an awkward hookup kinda scenario later in the day. That doesn’t matter, today I got asked out on a date (and the word date was used) by someone I met a few weeks back that was really nice, so that’s put a smile on my face.

Three of my friends have lost their mothers this year, one of them just a week ago, which is tragic, but it has made me appreciate my mother even more. My mum is a strong woman with a great heart.

I may be working right up until Friday afternoon but work is relaxed and easy this week and then I have three weeks off.

A young nudist in the U.S. read my post about removing the video that showed potentially too young guys in it. He showed it to his nudist father and friends and none of them thought there was anything to worry about and I have also now gained a new person to talk to whose perspective on nudism is a more uncommon one.

One of the things I really liked today was finding the image above through a new Tumblr buddy who shares a lot of beautiful images. I had seen the photo cruising around tumblr but forgot where I saw it. Now my mission is to find out who the photographer is. That shot is stunning and would look amazing printed large.

So that’s my mining the clouds Monday. Anyone got some silver they want to chat about?

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is guaranteed to be repealed now with a vote in the American Parliament successful in passing the legislation. It’s a great thing that the government has seen sense (the majority of the senate anyway) and can see that allowing the LGBT community to openly serve in their armed forces will not weaken the strength of the Nation or it’s defences.

Congratulations. Now, please move on with Marriage Equality. Where the U.S. goes, we tend to follow.

In just over 6 weeks time, my first exhibition will open and the combination of nerves and excitement is a pretty interesting one. I’m sure any artist or performer knows the feeling when they are about to put their work out there publicly for the first time. Will it be successful? Will people like it or hate it? The images are all at the printers now.

I’ve still got a lot of organising to do. I’d love to find a booze sponsor to cover the wine/champagne for the opening night. I need to find people to serve drinks and a lot of other things. AussieBum have come on board as a sponsor and covered my costs for printing and framing. Without them I’m not sure I could have made it happen. A huge thank you to Sean and his amazing team.

There have been a few very restless nights’ sleep but in general I’m confident and excited.

News broke this week of a man in Berlin who has been cured of HIV. He was suffering from Leukaemia and had a very intensive treatment of chemotherapy, total body irradiation and bone marrow transplant which, by chance, also cured his HIV.

Doctors are quite surprised by the result but are very reluctant to offer up a miracle saying that this treatment is too dangerous to be offered widely to a broad spectrum of HIV Patients. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if it did offer a breakthrough that did lead to a widely plausible cure?

It looks like a few Christmas shoppers got more than they bargained for when they were perusing the displays at Selfridges in London during the week. AussieBum sent 7 undie clad gorgeous men through the department store to promote their brand and the new MyDay range. Why does this shit never happen where I am?

A while ago Samesame.com.au brought us Surf Camp, a series about 5 gay boys learning to surf. Well over our Australian winter, the people that brought you Surf Camp took some hotties to New Zealand for Gay Ski Week and ran another competition to see who could ski the best, and survive the hot tub!

Brought to you by Samesame and Wallaby Way, here’s the trailer for Ski Camp!

Here is a promo video for Mardi Gras 2011 for all you folks still not sure if you are going to make the trip down under to play with some hotties down under. Mardi Gras definitely brings a different vibe to this beautiful city of ours. If you live here, get out and be friendly to the tourists and if you are a tourist, enjoy the friendly locals!

Mickey here lives in China and isn’t out. He was reading my blog and found the readers’ self portrait challenge I posted some time back and decided to share this lovely photo of his very perky bum with us. Thanks Mickey!