The month of May means IML in Chicago! Yes leather and the men that look so good in it will flock to the Windy City as they every May.

The world’s hottest leathermen will come together to compete for the title of International Mr. Leather 2013, as IML celebrates its 35rd Anniversary, Friday, May 24 through Monday, May 27, 2013 (Memorial Day Weekend) in Chicago.

About 400 gay leathermen gathered in Chicago in 1979 for the first International Mr. Leather contest. Today, the event has grown to be an annual tradition for thousands in the leather community – drawing contestants and attendees from around the globe. Once an event for “hardcore” leathermen, IML has expanded in recent years to include a more diverse crowd – from the experienced to the curious.

Well folks & Bears and those that love them–it’s just about here! Yes BeachBear Weekend will arrive next weekend and it looks like to be the biggest and by far best one yet.

It’s May and the temperatures in Fort Lauderdale just start to get a little balmy and allow our men & bears to run around with little or no clothes (one better reason to make your travel plans at the Cabana’s Guesthouse= two clothing optional pools and hot tub surrounded by our lush tropical landscape).

For a weekend of fun in the sun with some of the sexiest men both locally and of course from all over BeachBear Weekend is filled with activities and functions from Sun up to Sun Down! Please visit their website for a list of night life and other options.

In April of 2006, thousands of caring and thoughtful individuals from across the state gathered in Fort Lauderdale for the first Florida AIDS Walk, demonstrating their commitment to reversing the course of the AIDS epidemic in Florida.  One hundred percent of the funds raised went to HIV/AIDS program initiatives in Florida, providing testing, helping to purchase a new mobile clinic for the South Florida region, and supporting the Magic Johnson Healthcare Clinic.

Every year since then, Florida AIDS Walk has grown in number of participants and funds raised for Florida’s HIV/AIDS affected community.  While donations to the Walk continue to subsidize all of the Florida programs and initiatives from its first year, the Florida AIDS Walk has gone on to invite various different Florida organizations with programs that support its residents living with HIV/AIDS to be Beneficiaries of the event – enabling them to keep every penny of every dollar that they raise for themselves, and additionally receiving a generous financial gift, to add an extra boost to their own programs.

In 2012, the directors of Florida AIDS Walk re-invented the event as Florida AIDS Walk and Music Festival, moving the entire experience to Fort Lauderdale’s beautiful beach, and cutting the length of the Walk in half to make room for a celebrity-filled concert at the Walk’s end.  Feedback for the change was overwhelmingly positive, and the event has been infused with an entirely new energy!  As we look to 2013 and beyond, we hope to see Florida AIDS Walk and Music Festival continue to grow, and take its place among some of the larger AIDS Walks in the country which raise millions of dollars to support the community every year!

Florida AIDS Walk is produced by Event 360 for AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to HIV/AIDS prevention, education, accessible healthcare, research and patient advocacy.  In Florida, AHF currently serves more than 15,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. AHF’s Out of the Closet Thrift Stores, offers free HIV testing and treatment referral through an AHF Pharmacy built adjacent to the store.

For more information on how to join, help or donate please visit: takeaction.aidshealth.org

A baby born with the virus that causes AIDS appears to have been cured, scientists announced Sunday, describing the case of a child from Mississippi who’s now 2 1/2 and has been off medication for about a year with no signs of infection.

There’s no guarantee the child will remain healthy, although sophisticated testing uncovered just traces of the virus’ genetic material still lingering. If so, it would mark only the world’s second reported cure.

Specialists say Sunday’s announcement, at a major AIDS meeting in Atlanta, offers promising clues for efforts to eliminate HIV infection in children, especially in AIDS-plagued African countries where too many babies are born with the virus.

“You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we’ve seen,” Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, who is familiar with the findings, told The Associated Press.

A doctor gave this baby faster and stronger treatment than is usual, starting a three-drug infusion within 30 hours of birth. That was before tests confirmed the infant was infected and not just at risk from a mother whose HIV wasn’t diagnosed until she was in labor.

“I just felt like this baby was at higher-than-normal risk, and deserved our best shot,” Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi, said in an interview.

That fast action apparently knocked out HIV in the baby’s blood before it could form hideouts in the body. Those so-called reservoirs of dormant cells usually rapidly reinfect anyone who stops medication, said Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. She led the investigation that deemed the child “functionally cured,” meaning in long-term remission even if all traces of the virus haven’t been completely eradicated.

Next, Persaud’s team is planning a study to try to prove that, with more aggressive treatment of other high-risk babies. “Maybe we’ll be able to block this reservoir seeding,” Persaud said.

No one should stop anti-AIDS drugs as a result of this case, Fauci cautioned.

I didn’t expect to live long enough to write this when, 20 years ago today, my doctor called to tell me that my HIV test had come back positive. The news hit me like a bomb; hyperbole or not, back then it was still pretty much considered a death sentence. Dazed, I replaced the phone in its cradle. Almost immediately it rang again.

“Are you all right?” asked the voice on the other end.

“Mom?” Huh? Had the doctor immediately phoned her to tell her that I had seroconverted? Then again, when I came out at 19, it was more my mother announcing that she had “always known” than me spilling my big gay news to her. But still! “Um, yeah, I’m fine,” I told her. “Why?”

“I just heard the World Trade Center was bombed.”

From the living-room window of my apartment, you could see the Twin Towers, but where I lived in the East Village was distant enough that on the morning of Feb. 26, 1993, I was well out of harm’s way. I assured Mom that I was fine and hung up.

My thoughts then turned back to my health status. Though new to my bloodstream, the virus had already had a big impact on my life. Living in New York City in 1993 meant that I had many friends who were infected. My partner, Bruce, was HIV-positive when we met three years before. And the “death sentence” aspect of it didn’t throw me as much as one might expect; I had been an avowed atheist since I was a teenager and possessed an unshakeable belief that there is no life after death. As far as I’m concerned, the end is the end. Full stop.

But the community of theater folk to which I belonged had already been decimated by the disease, and more and more people were dying on a depressingly regular basis. It got to the point that I was afraid to pick up the phone. With black humor I kidded my ill friends that they’d better let me know well in advance when they planned to expire, because my services as a eulogist were in great demand. In those days, if you went for several months without hearing from a friend, you just assumed that he was… pfft. Even general conversation suffered; you didn’t ask how So-and-so was, or how many T-cells Whatshisname had, simply because you were afraid of the answer.

Mostly we didn’t discuss our individual situations more than necessary, on the theory that if it wasn’t talked about, it might just go away.

On the afternoon of my diagnosis, Bruce and I took the train up to his folks’ house in Rhode Island for the weekend. All day Saturday I ruminated silently, hoping to confirm that my ideas of life and death were as rock-solid as I claimed they were. Here was my foxhole; would I remain a nonbeliever in the face of what was sure to be a premature, possibly horrific death? Sunday morning, when Bruce and I went to pick up the bagels, we drove past a cemetery that is known to have graves that predate the American Revolution. As I rested my forehead against the cold glass of the passenger window, looking at the ancient markers, it occurred to me that most of the folks lying there in the ground had probably faced similar existential crises of their own. Like me, they pondered the uncertainty of their remaining days. I imagined them lying awake, fretting over their fates.

And still they all died.

Boom. That was just the kick I needed. Yes, I really did believe the things I said I believed. Of course, I didn’t want to die young, but why spend any of the time that I was still breathing worrying about it? No, I probably wouldn’t live to see the year 2000, an event that I had looked forward to since I was a kid. OK, but the important thing is, what’s for lunch?

On the trip back to the city, waiting in New Haven while they swapped diesel for electric, I gazed out the train window and looked at the advertising posters lining the platform. One in particular caught me eye, and I turned to Bruce and said flatly, “I just want to live long enough to see Cats close.”

Bruce died three years later, in the spring of 1996, our strategy of denial having failed. That November my counts had fallen to the point that my doctor suggested that I start on meds. I refused; any interest I had in seeing in the new millennium had died along with my husband. Fortunately, like a determined ray of sunshine that finds its way through a sidewalk grate to the subway platform below, a moment of clarity pierced the fog of my grief, and I realized that there might come a day when I did want to live, and that if I died because I refused medication when it was offered, I would feel really, really dumb.

So how do things stand today as I mark the 20th anniversary of my initial diagnosis? I’m healthy as all get-out; my counts that should be high are high, and them what should be low is low. And it turns out that being alive is terrific; I’ve had a heck of a lot of fun since my drugs kicked in.

Sadly, I lost Bruce and most of my friends. I even outlived the World Trade Center. And much to my surprise, I was around to celebrate as the 20th century slipped into history. But I’d have to say that of all the milestones I’ve passed since that shocking morning two decades ago, the thing that pleases me most is that I lived to see Cats close.

Source: Tom Judson via The Huffington Post

A Russian coach furious about the International Olympic Committee’s recent decision to remove wrestling from the 2020 Olympics has made an inflammatory claim about who is to blame for the move.

Speaking to Russian sports site R-Sport, Russian wrestling coach Vladimir Uruimagov said that the IOC’s decision was evidence of a gay conspiracy.

“If they expel wrestling now, that means that gays will soon run the whole world,” Uruimagov said, adding that cutting wrestling from the Olympic program was “a blow to masculine origins.”

Visit R-Sport to read what else Uruimagov had to say.

Uruimagov’s allegations follow recent criticism leveled at the IOC for not pushing back hard enough against participating countries that criminalize homosexuality, R-Sport notes.

Meanwhile, Russia’s anti-gay propaganda bill, which is expected to pass the legislature, may be indicative of the pervasiveness of homophobia in Russia.

Homosexuality was a criminal offense in the Soviet Union from 1934 until 1993, according to The Moscow Times, resulting in thousands of jail and asylum sentences for members of the LGBT community.

Gay rights advocates have protested the bill, which would ban the “distribution of ‘gay propaganda’ to minors,” the Washington Post reports. However, as the news outlet writes, “opponents fear [it] would make gay pride marches, demonstrations for gay rights and public displays of affection by same-sex couples illegal.”

The country is hosting the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, which has caused some gay Olympic hopefuls to wonder if they should be concerned, USA Today notes. The Russian Ministry of Justice has already decreed that Sochi will not feature a Pride House the way recent Olympics in Vancouver and London have.

A new “medical prediction” app aims to help you easily uncover what really comes between a boy and his Calvins.

Reportedly developed by a Toronto-based family physician, “The Predicktor” attempts to predict a man’s penis size, using stats such as his height, sexual orientation and finger length while cross-referencing trends from scientific studies, according to its website.

Though the site stresses that the app is strictly for humorous purposes, Dr. Chris Culligan nonetheless tells Raw Story he also hopes the Predicktor to dispel myths and relieve the “penis-related insecurity, anxiety or dissatisfaction” men have about themselves.

“It’s not how long your pencil is, but how you write your name,” he says, quoting his father.

Though he says a man’s race “has never been shown to be related to penis size in any reasonable published study,” Culligan refers to studies that found that many gay men have longer, thicker genitalia than heterosexual men on average. “Gay pride just got a little prouder,” quipped Culligan.

At present, the app is only available for Androids.

Mark your calendars! The 23rd Annual Walk for the Animals will be held on Saturday, March 2, 2013 at Huizenga Plaza in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Last year over 5,000 people and 2,000 dogs participated and raised over $530,000 net! We hope you will join us this March as we try to break another fundraising record.

For more information please visit: www.humanebrowarddonordrive.com

LONDON — British lawmakers on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage championed by Prime Minister David Cameron, despite stronger-than-expected opposition from within his Conservative Party.

In a first House of Commons vote, lawmakers voted 400 to 175 in support of the legislation. There was strong support from the left-leaning Labour Party and Liberal Democrats party, but many Conservatives rejected the proposals.

The bill will have to go through more detailed parliamentary debates and a vote in the House of Lords, where a vote in favor is likely given the strong support Tuesday. If it becomes law, the proposed bill would enable same-sex couples to get married in both civil and religious ceremonies, provided that the religious institution consents.

Earlier, Cameron – who did not attend the debate – said passing the bill is “an important step forward” for Britain.

“I am a strong believer in marriage. It helps people commit to each other and I think it is right that gay people should be able to get married too,” he said. “This is, yes, about equality. But it is also about making our society stronger.”

Officials have stressed that all religious organizations can decide for themselves if they want to “opt in” to holding gay weddings. However, the Church of England, the country’s official faith, is barred from performing such ceremonies unless it changes its laws.

The bill would also allow couples who had previously entered into civil partnerships to convert their relationship into a marriage.

Critics say the proposals would change long-standing views about the meaning of marriage. Some Conservatives also fear the proposals would cost the party a significant number of votes in the next election.

“Marriage is the union between a man and a woman, has been historically, remains so. It is Alice in Wonderland territory, Orwellian almost, for any government of any political persuasion to seek to come along and try to re-write the lexicon,” Conservative lawmaker Roger Gale said.

If passed, the bill’s provisions would come into effect in 2015, ahead of the next British general election.

Honey Boo Boo’s beloved “Uncle Poodle” has revealed he’s HIV positive.

Uncle Poodle — whose real name is Lee Thompson — tells Atlanta’s Fenuxe magazine he was diagnosed with HIV last year, and now hopes to lend his newfound star power to promoting safe sex in schools.

“I was adamant about getting my HIV status checked on a regular basis,” Thompson told Fenuxe writer Dino Thompson-Sarmiento. After learning he’d tested positive in May 2012, he said, “I knew it had been my boyfriend who infected me. I later learned he had been HIV positive and was not taking medication and had not bothered to tell me about it. I was advised that I should press charges and, hesitantly, I did. It was the right thing to do.”

Thompson, who reportedly tied the knot with his husband Josh last August, calls people who are having unsafe sex “damn fools,” and noted, “They are playing Russian roulette; they are playing with their lives and that of their sexual partners.”

He added, “I know what it is like to be bullied. I know what it is like to live with HIV. I can help and I want to.”