Queer Query #14: One Year ?

Yesterday as i graciously entered my GYM, i was met by the receptionist, and this what happened,

Receptionist: Hi Q, whats your ID No.
Me: hmm the ID is #####
Receptionist: Oh... your "annual" membership just expired time to renew it
Me: eshta!

The thing is, when i came back to Cairo the first week i came i did my GYM membership, so by the guy telling me my annual membership is due.. that practically means i have been back in Cairo for a full year.

1 full year back in Cairo !! ONE COMEPLETE FULL YEAR BACK IN CAIRO (okay maybe 25% of this year i was abroad due to work and shit) but still one year resident of good old Cairo... so what have i acheived in this full year of cairo... how have i grown up more how have i matured more what have i changed or accomplished in this one year

• Stopped having one night stands for a full a year
• Lost 13 kilos (i love my gym) ( oh and also its ramadan so i have feeling i might be regaining the whole of this year weight loss in one month!!)
  
• Finished paying off one of my credit cards and brought down the second to 25% of what i use to owe (which trust me is alot!!!!!)
• Done two European Cities, actually if you count 1 year and a 1 month it would be 5 European Cities.. i like to travel and i like Europe so on yearly basis i try to make my trip to a new city every time rather than doing the bulk in one go
• Have worked on my relationship with my brother (it still is a work in progress)
  
• Starting to exit the gay scene slowly but doesnt mean i am turning straight or ditching some of my close gay friends.. its just means slowly exiting the pop scene
• Rising up in work
  
• oh and how could i forget becoming more Spiritual

well i have done much more than that i am sure... OH SHOPPING!!! SHOOPPPINNG oh but every year i do shopping so nothing too much here BUT I LOVE SHOPPING OH THOSE NEW PRADAs and MARC JACOBS and DOLCES !!!!!!!!!!!!!! OKAY they cant really be counted as an accomplishment can they oh for fuck sake of course they can..!!!!!!!! we love marc jacobs!! and Dolce & Gabana (not the cheap shit d&g with letters, no the actual full name DOLCE & GABANA)


so one year done and one year to go!! so whats next year wishes ... what do i want for next year...
well very simple...

• i want my fat percent to go down from 16% to 12/10%
• be closer to owning my house/apartment
• work on reconnecting with some of my old straight friends and make new straight friends while retaining my really good gay friends
• oh speaking of friends my best friend is moving back to cairo in a month so YIPPPIEEEEEEEEEEEEE ... we are going to watch old movies in his house!!
  
• i want some more of Dolce & Gabana and Marc Jacobs,,... and i want to own something Hermes, suprisignly i dont have that Capital H belt or a nice wallet from them yet!!!
  

CONGRATS TO ONE YEAR TO ME IN CAIRO AND MAY MY NEXT YEAR BE FULL OF HAPPINIESS SUPRIFICIALNESS AND IN THE SAME TIME SPIRITIUALITY

Queer Query #14: i am who?!?!!

A Wise friend of mine told me once,

You are in a way the people you surround yourself with

meaning you are reflection upon the people you call friends, the way they act in a way is reflected upon you...


that's the end of today's post

Cheers,
Q

Queer Query #13: Religious Fashion ?

This post might be considered offensive by some .. so i will try as much as possible to tip toe and be non offensive...

Basically, like almost anything with a lifestyle where it includes a fashion, a trend, a following, religion is no exception. However whats interesting its not a uniform trend globally or even within the same country, at least thats how i observe it, so for example in Australia it might have been the trend a couple of years ago among to be paganist, while now the new "fad' is being Agnostic. While on the other side of the world our beloved Egypt the religious trend is dependent on which society you are in, if you are in the straight or gay society.. and then which straight society in. Within the straight society the trend is tending lately to be more pro-conservative, i.e. more religious, however in the same time if you look at the straight "High Society" you would notice well they becoming more religious in terms of words and preaching but not really by acting upon it... after all who filled Skybar and Marasi this summer ;).

Enter the queer world of Egypt, well the fashion in it is Agnosticism, we try to follow the west sometimes. you know what is funny for me sometimes, when i was reading the blog of IQ and his last post "Sin-me My Sunni"... the comments that came on his blog by some of his readers that was all pro his provocative anti-islamic comments seemed to have came out of ignorance, ignorance about Islam, or religion in general, at times i felt like i was a reading a comment of a stupid airhead red state American guy, who is just responding for the sake of responding and following the fashion with no real knowledge of the issues. I in general have no issues or a bone with agnosticism however i am just annoyed when people comment on issues that they are not best knowledgeable about..

Well i myself am a muslim, and i do believe in Islam and i do respect other peoples choices on religion, one of my best friend has a wierd mix of sufism mixed together with kabbalah spiced up with some christianity, my other best friend prays all his five prayers, oh i forgot to mention they both live in london, not in Egypt. ... speaking of religious fashion, i get asked this wierd question this ramadan, that i dont think have been asked before on any ramadan ....

The conversation usually goes something like this ..

Friend: Are you fasthing this ramadan ?

Me: Yes

Friend: Like Fully Fasting ?

Me: huh is there more than one kind of fasting ?

Friend: Yes there is fasting from food only, while smoking and having water... there is fasting from everything other than cigarettes .... there is fasting while having sex ,,,

Me: NO I AM FASTING FULLY!!!!

is this a new a trend? new forms of fasting has developed, is there a new fashion for fasting ?

I believe that regardless of which religious belief you have, having some spirituality or faith in a deity is important for ones soul, so this ramadan, regardless of who or what you believe in... explore your spiritual side ... ? ask your self some questions like seriously, whats the point of this life... is the point of me living.. to blog, or to do the worthless 9-5pm job to advance humanity, or is the point of us living is for us to our soul mate ? what is the point... this ramadan do a bit soul searching, and understand when it comes to religion .. following a fashion trend can be dangerous for your soul, and try to following what you believe in and try find what you believe in and do understand finding what you believe in is not an easy journey...

peacefully yours,

Q

Queer Query #12: RESPECT?

with my new blog, Queer Queries, its been accused by some friends of being "boring", undaring as it didnt have in it what my old blog use to have, the sex element, more like my exploration with guys how i discover more about myself through these guys, its probably because with this new blog i am doing something new with in me, i am becoming more toned down hence my blog became more toned down.

When i was starting this new blog there was something i had put in mind to be respectful in this blog, try not to offend people, my last post in my earlier blog had to do with religious blasphemy, where i might have been considered blasphemous myself. So you can see the 180 degree i took around with in blog. when are beloved IQ posted a new post titled Sin-Me my Sunni i was in shock, he did tell me a couple of days before him posting it that he is going to post something around his religious fetish however i didnt expect it to be offensive to a religion in specific. what shocked me even more was his "Scene II" where he went infront of a guy who is praying and did the spread eagle while practicing his abs!!! talk about disturbing a man's peace, even if the guy was turned on, the idea of disturbing a guy when he is praying regardless of which diety he is praying to ... is just not so respectful

the point is ever since the blogospher was created, god knows when, i remember there was a lot of debate on it and there still is. debate was mostly bloggers becoming news reporters, bloggers have no censorship at all on them, etc. Not that i am pro censorship, but there is one thing i know though, when blogging a person should try to be respectful of others, as IQ said offensive is subjective, as you can see on some of the comments on his new post some of it are pro it and some of it are against it, so obvoiusly its not offensive to all, YET!!!!!! WAIT WE HAVE A BRAIN, GOD GAVE US BRAIN, if you dont believe in god, then which ever deity you believe in gave us a brain, science gave us a brain, which we us to think, when posting something of the nature of what IQ said, we will be quite sure that a lot of people will be offended after all not all his readers, followers, are of similar thought to him.

E, the blogger of awkward sex in the city has left an interesting comment on IQ post

"There is one thing to have a religious fetish, and its a totally different thing to resort to distasteful insinuations to increase your readership.
I personally find it pathetic and a very sad excuse for being "controversial".
But then again, ever the attention-seeking queen that you are, you will do anything to get people talking about what you "write", if I can call it "writing" at all.
And what I find absolutely infuriating is that pseudo-serious attitude you take towards established religion.
You are not "taking down" religion, God forbid, to actually critique it or give us some new insight, or even let us question age-old negative attitudes, no, you are being vulgar, disrespectful with half-baked ideas that are very badly written!
If you don't have anything better to say about homoeroticism of same-sex communities or the traditions that Muslims believe in (being negative or positive) than you would do us all a big favor and keep your "intense, sexy Scorpio" mouth shut!!"

now while most of the times, me and E have had our differences in the blogosphere where we dont agree on the same thing, but i think here E i do agree with you. IQ you can always blog about your religious fetishes nothing wrong with that, but there is always a good way to blog about it and the way you did. oh and i still cant "Scene II" out my head i cant believe you actually did that. Yes as you said its something "you" liked to do... but the key thing about respect is NOT "you" its respecting the other, so if a guy was praying we shouldnt disturb him, and dont give me the whole he choose to to pray here stuff, secondly with regards to your blog entry, well i am sure if you did some rewording you can convey the same point, with the same strength while not offending other people, Yes i am one of the gay guys who is offended by this. Just because we are gay, or agnostic it doesnt give us the automatic right to talk down about other religions, a true respectful person would respect all of other people beliefs.


respectfully yours,
Q

Queer Query #11: US, push the limits? what limits?

In a European Mediterranean city sat 4 guys waiting for another two friends to passby to go have dinner, out of these 4 was Me, M from The Affirmation blog, and two other friends... we were recaping the night before, where we went to this club, where when you enter its a pretty much normal gay club, you know mens shirts off , boys dancing on podiums, but in addition it had a top floor which had a dark rooms, in the dark rooms, guys where just having sex in the club ... ?

So one of the four boys as we recapping the night asked, why is that we gay men always pushed our limits.. why is it that sex, drugs, are so easily found in clubs and so easily accessible, if i want to go have a lay i just walk in the room grab some guy in a dark room where i cant see the guys face or having any meaning and just let him stroke me! or something in that meaning

i offered an explanation, i was like gay men are men. and men dont really have inhibition between eachother and well men are by nature horny creatures and because gay men are men and men understand eachother hence we live in our dream world of preversion.

M offered another explanation that, Gay Men are repressed hence they hmm act out majorly ...

i was like but lesbians are also repressed, why dont they act out the same way, is it because when it comes to the nature of the genders, women are more emotional, soft, decent, and men are more primal, sexual, well indecent ?

its confusing its a very good question, and like if you think in Egypt going to the gay parties and having men make out in them is too much then you havent really seen the European ones, where when you walk in a party they would be giving you condoms for free as you enter, its like look we know you are going to have to sex so do it safe,... they dont do that in straight clubs ? better yet the little condom pack they gave us as we walked in the clubs had a little advertisement, GHB, IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO WHILE HAVING SEX, IT MAKES YOU NOT ABLE TO MEASURE RISK CORRECTLY SO PLEASE HAVE THIS CONDOM ON YOU AT ALL TIMES!!
seriously so they know that gay men are going to do this dangerous drug and that they are going to have sex, its like we are going to party not to have clean fun, but to have for the soul reason of having drugs and doing sex...

Me & Others, did some like 3 consecutive parties, where we didnt do drugs, where two of the guys with us dont drink in the first place, and we just danced, we had clean fun, and it was fun, it was so much fun that we commented on how much it was and how sad it was to look at the other poor souls faces looking so lost when they are on drugs, ...

look guys i am no angel i am not saying i have never dabbled with the substances, i am not saying i am the incarnation of virgin marry, i am just saying my friends question on why do we push the limit is avery interesting question? because i multiple times have tried to think of that but i couldnt... but hey there is something i also know that isnt the only gay world out there, the one we are known for the partying, the drugs, the sex, i know for example in UK of the movememnt gaylawyers.co.uk where they try to bring respectable gay ment together, i know of a lot of people who live off of that scene happy, the only thing is that those people are not the appearant scene, they are not the guys that you see all the time, and i guess what i am trying to say it might be a good refreshing time to see the good side of being gay or of the gay people rather than always the dark side... oh by the way another thing please dont think when i say that i mean straight people are angels in themselves, they do have their party, sexism etc culture too, which might be less appearant than ours, and even within the straight society its looked down upon, would a man marry a durg addicted women ??

anyway leaves your responces,
Q

Q Music #4: Your not alone (2009) - Liz Kay

as i am in the airport about to depart in 15 minutes there is a song thats on my play list that i love the lyrics of it and love the tune of it...

Liz Kay - Your Not alone 2009

lyrics:

In a way it's all
A matter of time
I will not worry for you
You'll be just fine

Take my thoughts with you
And when you look behind
You will surely see a face that you recognize

You're not alone
I'll wait till the end of time
Open your mind
Surely it's plain to see
You're not alone
I'll wait till the end of time for you
Open your mind
Surely there's time to be with me...

It is the distance
That makes like a little hard
Two minds that once were close
Now so many miles apart

I will not falter though
I'll hold on till you're home
Safely back where you belong
And see how our love has grown

You're not alone
I'll wait till the end of time
Open your mind
Surely it's plain to see
You're not alone
I'll wait till the end of time for you
Open your mind
Surely there's time to be with me...