Table of contents for February 2019 in OUT

Me n Leo yakkity yak yak’d about writer’s block and the starchy long stroke of quote unquote God on the Meadow Walk and he didn’t know I was fully head over banana peels I mean in Kiehls I mean in straight up crappy love with him yet and maybe I didn’t either? Hindsight is Good & Plenty I mean 20/20 clearly the worst American candy And what is candy, but a crush? Leo said it’s tangled up in waves in dreams in therapy That writer’s block (or is it god?) comes from being blocked up in other parts of our lives This is a polysaccharide Effective deflection Rejection heavy, that he’d forgotten what the feeling of a good idea is. But I’m standing right in front of you? I thought…

Hi Ashley, I need some help. I identify as bisexual, but I have yet to be in an official relationship. I’ve smashed here and there, but I want consistency. However, I’m totally an introvert with minimal social skills. Any advice? I’m 25, and I don’t want to be a late bloomer anymore. Thanks if you answer, A. HELLO, A. I remember entering college in Indiana as a young, closeted bi with a long-term boyfriend, and thinking I had my shit figured out. Had you known me then, you might have assumed I had my shit together, too. You would have been wrong. I didn’t. Nobody did. Nobody really does. When I was 18, the fact that I’d been dating the same person since I was 14 somehow gave the impression…

IT’S NO WONDER THE OSCARS HAPPEN during Pisces season—this wonder-filled water sign appreciates fantasy like no other. Wrapped in fish-tailed, glimmery gowns, the sirens of the entertainment industry heed our collective call to feel inspired, uplifted, held, and heard. We turn to the screen to hear an echo of our hearts’ greatest longings, deepest hurts, and yearnings for redemption. The performer is a modern-day magician, shape-shifting into the different contours of the human condition. The imagination of Hollywood, however, is far from representing the depth and breadth of human experience. Far too often, Hollywood is limited to thinking the white, cisgender, heteronormative, wealthy, able-bodied experience is emblematic or reflective of most of us. Held up as the standard, the norm, and the ultimate truth, white men still hold most of…

1. “Before makeup, do an exfoliating scrub to start with a fresh canvas. I like this one, which has two formulas: one for sensitive skin and one for normal.” LANCER THE METHOD: POLISH, $75 2. “I love to use this face roller to depuff and relax muscles in the face. Use it on your neck, jawline, and around the orbital bone to see an immediate lift.” REFA CARAT FACE, $220 3. “Put a little bit of a rich moisturizer into your hands, and then massage it all over the face.” CRÈME DE LA MER, $325 4. “I always apply concealer using my finger, and then tap it gently into the skin until it melts for better blending.” CLÉ DE PEAU BEAUTÉ CONCEALER, $70 5. “For a really glowing look, I…

PAUL ROBESON IS CONSIDERED BY SOME TO BE THE FIRST BLACK SUPERSTAR. Born in 1898, he revealed himself to be an accomplished singer, athlete, and actor. Starting his career in features like the 1925 silent film Body and Soul, his standout moment came in the 1936 version of Show Boat—Robeson’s rendition of “Ol’ Man River” has become the most popular version of the song to this day. Intertwined with his impressive résumé is a commitment to activism, making him one of the first in a lineage of celebrities that pulled double-duty. “There’s a question whether one who wants to sing and act can have, as a citizen, political opinions,” he said in the 1979 documentary Paul Robeson: Tribute to An Artist. His answer was clearly “yes,” as he turned out…

DURING A BENEFIT FOR THE TREVOR PROJECT LAST YEAR, Dan Levy was approached by a total stranger. She opened up to him (in a crowd of over 800 people) about her upbringing as a queer person in a very religious family, alluding to difficulties with her mother, in particular. But then, she finished her story by thanking him. His show, Schitt’s Creek, was a favorite of her mom’s. And when the pansexual character David (portrayed by Levy) finally found love with Patrick (played by Noah Reid) in season four, it changed something in their mother-daughter dynamic. Her mom finally understood a little something about the distance between them. This is a story Levy has heard, in one version or another, over and over again since the show premiered almost four…

ANDREW RANNELLS ALWAYS KNEW HE WAS GOING TO BE A STAR—he just didn’t quite know how. So when he moved to the Big Apple all the way from his hometown of Omaha, Neb., fresh out of high school, he took the first piece of advice he could grasp. “Somebody told me, ‘If you take your head-shot to the stage door and give it to the stage manager, they’ll call you when they have an opening.’” And so, off he headed to Broadway, with a batch of freshly-printed headshots under his arm. Against all odds, the unexpected happened. “The fucking motherload,” he calls it. Rent asked him to audition for the role of Angel, all based on seeing his headshot. His luck would quickly run out sometime in between noticing Wilson…

HUNTER SCHAFER Acting was not Hunter Schafer’s desired career goal. She was a theater girl, but lived backstage and actually wanted to work as a fashion designer. Making it to New York City from her hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina wasn’t going to be easy (or cheap), but she knew she fit some of the standards of a “conventional” model, so she reached out to agents she found on Instagram. During a visit to the big city in her senior year of high school, the now 19-year-old signed with Elite Model Management. “A little over a year of modeling made the camera a lot less intimidating,” she says. So when the audition for HBO’s Euphoria came her way, she was prepared. The drama, which is Schafer’s first role, follows a…

Paying for porn is ethical consumption. Sex workers are a marginalized group of people under siege by federal policies like FOSTA/SESTA, laws that further criminalize sex work arranged online. The effects of the laws have curbed online sex work and endangered the ability to engage in safe, consensual transactions—and could lead to the further eroding of internet safe harbor protections. Our community has come under siege by the tech industry, like Tumblr’s porn ban, or Facebook’s heightened censorship regulations. These are not public forums; they are privately owned and profit-driven. These places are not subject to the Bill of Rights, but state-sanctioned censorship laws like FOSTA/SESTA have already started to trickle down to affect private industries, making porn more underground and, therefore, more dangerous to produce. If porn weren’t forced…

February 18, 1934 Audre Lorde is born in New York. February 13, 1972 The film version of Kander and Ebbs Cabaret premieres in the United States. February 3, 1978 Tom of Finland has his first solo exhibition in San Francisco. February 27, 1978 The Village People release their second LP, Macho Man. February 6, 1981 Thousands in Toronto protest Operation Soap, a police raid on gay bathhouses. February 16, 1990 Keith Haring dies of AIDS-related illness at 31. February 14, 1985 Whitney Houston releases her self-titled debut LP. February 24, 1998 Sir Elton John is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. February 12, 2004 San Francisco issues its first marriage license to a lesbian couple.…

WHEN JASON BOLDEN DRAPED A CUSTOM DEEP BLUE Alberta Ferretti gown on Taraji P. Henson for the 2017 Oscars, he felt like more than just her stylist. “It was that quintessential moment when I saw my mom, my sister, and my best friend come to life,” he says. “The power in that moment and that look spoke to me on so many levels.” That night, Henson was on the red carpet for the Academy-approved Hidden Figures, and the sought-after stylist had given the star (and her audience) a vision of elegance. Beyond Henson, Bolden’s styling roster includes marquee names like Ava DuVernay and Yara Shahidi—a career trajectory that might not seem obvious for someone with his background. “It was tough for me,” Bolden says of getting into the business. “I…

IF HOLLYWOOD IS FILLED WITH STARS, BOB MACKIE DRAPES THEM in supernova shine. Nearing his 80th birthday, the prolific costumer is equal parts witty, charismatic, and humble—a contradiction of sorts to the “sultan of sequins” moniker he’s earned over the decades for his extravagant, rhinestone-encrusted garments. He’s dressed Elton John as Minnie Mouse, Carol Burnett as a curtain rod, and Cher as—well, pretty much everything. In fact, as the icon’s resident costume designer, he minted a look that was both mind-bogglingly excessive and barely there. Three Academy Award nominations and nine Emmys later (including the first in history for costume design), his résumé reads like a kitschy roster of Snatch Game: Bette Midler, Madonna, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, RuPaul, and beyond. Yet somehow, these stars only hem the skirt of…

B.SCOTT IS NERVOUSLY EXCITED, like a toddler ready for their first show-and-tell, to reveal a different side of himself. His hair is slicked back, as if varnished. His face is impeccably beat, within an inch of death. Then there’s his attire: a slim-fitting men’s tuxedo. It’s a far cry from the more femme look his fans, or “love muffins,” are used to. When you’re a visible Black, gender nonconforming, and gay media personality—especially one who leads one of the top celebrity news and entertainment sites in the industry, LoveBScott.com—people of the public can sometimes lay claim to your identity. Luckily, transformation has always been at the heart of B. Scott’s career. Scott moved to Los Angeles from Washington, D.C. in 2005, with nothing but three red suitcases in tow. At…

It’s kismet that Hari Nef and Tommy Dorfman would end up—despite torrential downpours—making the most of this photo shoot on a Venice beach. The two were introduced over a year ago through mutual friends, who had orchestrated a “fun beach day,” which reached an untimely end when Nef answered a Skype call from her ex and was dumped on the spot. “Tommy met me at the worst possible moment,” she says. But that can only be partially true. Sometime after that encounter, the two bumped into each other while walking down the street in New York (which, every New Yorker knows, is a statistical anomaly reserved only for romantic comedies), had an impromptu breakfast at a diner (also something that only happens in romantic comedies), and then moved in together…

STEVEN CANALS STEVEN CANALS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE. He’s not supposed to be succeeding in Hollywood—Black, brown, and queer from a working class family in the Bronx. He’s not supposed to be a graduate of UCLA’s MFA screenwriting program. And he’s most certainly not supposed to be the creator, co-executive producer and writer of the Golden Globe-nominated television show, Pose. He’s just not supposed to be. And yet, here he is—and somehow, he’s working harder than ever. “Every time I attack the page, I write as if it’s the last time I’m ever going to have the opportunity to write–because it could be,” he says. His career so far embodies the mantra that often drives people of color: To get even half of what white folks have, we must…

Dear Reader, You’re holding the first issue of Out magazine to hit newsstands in 2019, a year that marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. As we speak, cities all across the world are preparing to be bigger than ever for their respective Pride Weeks—readying the banners, commissioning the floats, and booking the talent. (Long live the Queens!) Publishing this magazine at this particular moment is a privilege not lost on us. Out was originally founded in 1992, with the declarative coverline, “Out Is In!” At the time, that phrase was probably more rebellious than true: Our community was still reeling from the AIDS crisis, queer military members were in fear of being discharged for their identities, and our fights for things like trans liberation and gay marriage surely…

I GREW UP IN THE KIND OF HOUSEHOLD WHERE MY PARENTS would cover my eyes during all the sex scenes. A vanilla morning romp in Mission: Impossible II or a nearly nude Catherine Zeta-Jones in The Mask of Zorro and my parents would (and still do) put their hands over my face to shield me from reality. But censoring these moments manually made me even more aware of sex itself—my other senses seemed to heighten. I’d wait behind my mom’s palm, listening to disembodied moans and wonder what Tom Cruise’s penis looked like. Explicit sex in film has come a long way since then, and more-than-PG-13 scenes are not just for HBO. So when the book-turned-movie Call Me By Your Name debuted in theaters, the scene everyone was waiting for—what…

HUNG VANNGO IS A MAKEUP ARTIST WHO TRANSCENDS time zones. When he’s finally able to make the time for this interview, he’s about to pack yet another suitcase (for Brazil), despite having just returned from Moscow a day earlier. In 2018 alone, he traveled to Dubai, Singapore, Australia, London, and Paris—all while living between New York and Los Angeles. But when asked whether he’s tired, he swats away the question. “This is a blessing for me,” he says. That message can seem contrived, especially in the age of #blessed selfies, but Vanngo means it in earnest. “It’s an immigrant mentality,” he explains. “My family never would have had a chance if it wasn’t for people giving it to us, so I’m passionate about the opportunities I have.” Vanngo and his…

“We’re seeking to crystallize a microcosmic alternative to the status quo,” says Alex Jolicoeur, one of three founders of Black Charmed, the artist collective behind the “radically queer” party, otherclub. Formerly known as “Ostbahnhof,” the party started with a motivation to plant the glitter-crusted seed of Berlin’s nightlife into the evenings (and early mornings) of gay Los Angeles. Since then, it has shape-shifted and scaled into a mostly queer/trans, mostly brown, very underground, turn-a-look fête for people who often feel unwelcome in gay spaces. “Subculture has the potential to challenge dominant paradigms,” says Jolicoeur. “This party is a meeting place to stimulate that force.”…

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A QUEER PERSON IN 2019, inhabiting these spaces that were traditionally safe havens for straight, cisgender white men? Where you could hear a gay joke (hell, even the word “faggot”) or a transphobic quip and have an entire room laughing along? It means that when you decide to step on a stage and bare yourself to a crowd, you’re aware that the audience is historically used to you being the punchline. Recently, there’s been a surge of queers in the comedy space, but not in the cursory way they appear in film and television, as the comedic relief or confidante to the heterosexual heroine. As noted by E. Alex Jung in Vulture last year, “Queer comedy has moved out of its early gestational period…

ON THE MORNING OF March 16, a crush of people (including a few celebrities) crowded Hollywood Boulevard for the uncovering of a new star on the Walk of Fame. There, on an elevated stage, the event’s host announced that the assemblage comprised “one of our most enthusiastic crowds in a long time.” The honoree: RuPaul Andre Charles, the first drag performer to be canonized in this way. “I look down and I see the star that’s going...into this Walk of Fame, but I think it should be at least three sizes bigger than any other star,” Jane Fonda said in her tribute to RuPaul at the event. “I don’t think anyone else on the Walk of Fame has ever launched an industry like RuPaul has. He created an industry that…