Popsugar

The Sex Appeal of Dating a Plant Dad

Last summer, when my brother dropped off two giant plants for me to babysit while he moved to the middle of the jungle in Colombia for two months, I warned him it wouldn't be my fault if they died. I didn't care for children or animals: the closest I'd ever come to having a pet as an adult was my collection of leather bags. But as the days passed, I was caught off guard by the feelings I developed for those plants.
My god, how wrong I'd been to dismiss plants as an unnecessary responsibility tha...

Vice (translated into 5 languages)

What It’s Like To Be a Quadruplet

Our lives began in the Colombian capital of Bogotá simultaneously, my heart beating to the same rhythm as three others. The media celebrated the birth of my brothers and me in 1994 as if it were a miracle. It's weird to receive praise for just being born, but newspapers and magazines printed the news as such: ​"The first quadruplets safely delivered in 30 years."

Metro.co.uk (print)

I was a luxury proposal planner. I felt more like the secret service than cupid

‘You don’t think a scavenger hunt is romantic?’ asked my client Michael*. He’d just suggested sending his girlfriend on a wild goose chase across Manhattan, retrieving clues from his exes in the order he’d dated them – I was horrified.

But as a proposal planner, my role was to focus on logistics rather than acting as a gatekeeper of perceived ‘romance’.

Luckily, most men (and a few women) who came to my company for help weren’t married to their own ideas and I was usually able to provide them

Xtra Magazine

Love at first lust: A young writer explores a lasting love denied… or is that deferred?

Jared’s profile read 34 years old, six foot one, and muscular. As he opened the door, I saw an honest person. I didn’t fall in love with him immediately, but every visual detail indicated that I could. He looked beautiful in the most masculine ways: broad shoulders, full hair, a confident presence, immaculate posture and a seductive half-smile. At 19, I didn’t understand love—I usually hid from it—but I could still pick it out of a lineup. “He’s the one,” I thought immediately.

HuffPost

My Partner and I Were In A Throuple With Alcohol

I cut my first date with Brandon short, rushing off to an editor’s birthday dinner and a New York Fashion Week after-party. So imagine my shock when I woke up in his bed, with no memory of how I’d gotten there. Feeling disoriented, I hastily made my exit.

HuffPost UK

Nearing 30 And Single, I Decided To Date 4 Men From My Past. Here's How It Went.

I’ve lived in New York for nearly 10 years, meaning many random men have my phone number. But I prided myself on having met a lot of eligible bachelors; I started to wonder if I had met them at the wrong time, after four years of being off-market.

Business Insider

I met a fellow writer on a trip, and we decided to take a bath together.

The energy exuding from our bodies wasn't sexual but embodied the innocence of children running naked in a field holding hands. I connected with Kayla on a deeper level because we shared such an intimate setting together.

GayCities

Finding power in (small) numbers at St. Croix Pride

While snorkeling on Buck Island in St. Croix, I followed a school of blue fish, propelling my body toward their sphere, but I couldn’t infiltrate it.

Having never snorkeled before, I faced the wrath of the red-faced, blonde female captain of Caribbean Sea Adventures, who scolded me for not disclosing my inexperience before it was time to don the gear and plunge into the turquoise sea. I bit my sassy tongue, determined not to spoil my first encounter with a woman at the helm of a boat.

I was pl

The i Paper

‘You could feel the energy like an earthquake’: Argentina’s World Cup win offers welcome optimism for visitors

During the World Cup, you could hear the screams of Argentines from every block in Buenos Aires on match days. You didn’t need to watch Argentina play to keep track of the score.

I am not a sports person – what felt to me like mob mentality, rooting for your colour, has never appealed. But my Porteño (Buenos Aires local) friends threatened to exile me if I didn’t participate in what I hadn’t grasped was history in the making.

The first time Argentina were declared World Champions was in 1978 o

Vice

Grieving Without God: How Atheists Deal with Death

As part of an unabashedly Catholic family, I was shaped and moulded for a life of guilt from a young age. My Colombian grandmother, who was taught by nuns, lived by reminding us to give thanks to Jesus and avoid all sin. Just to play it safe, she often Our Fathered herself to sleep. It seemed everything ordinary deserved gratitude, and whatever I desired required penance.

Eaten Magazine (print)

The Evolution and Democratization of Food Criticism

No matter where you look online, opinions about food, the places serving it, and eating it are unavoidable. Yet, the line between expertise and criticism has become increasingly blurred, if not erased.

The Revealer

The Evolution of Pope Francis’s Stance on LGBTQ Rights (added to the syllabus of a course in the NYU Department of Religious Studies)

Pope Francis acknowledges my gay identity more than my own grandmother – a surprising contrast, considering they are both devout Catholics of the same generation. Somehow, a childless monarch of the Vatican City State has been more accepting than a woman who helped raise me.

My grandmother loves me unconditionally but never utters the word “gay.” I’ve always interpreted her silence on the matter as a casualty of faith. Catholicism’s condemnation of homosexuality feels deeply ingrained in histor

Fodors Travel Guide

How Bravo’s Real Housewives Transformed Desert Travel Into a Luxury Trend

The desert is not your typical dream vacation; its dry, barren landscape evokes a focus on survival rather than luxury. At least it used to. Enter the Housewives—who are not your typical women—who have collectively reimagined what desert travel can be. Although the franchise has thrived since 2010 on a pedestal of wealth, friendship, and drama, one more subtle theme has played a significant role in its success: the regular cast trips featured in...

Business Insider

My ex-lover turned to me for dating advice with his new boyfriend.

Most gay men would agree that the bedroom is not just where the magic happens; it's where lifelong friendships are made. While it may not be as common for straight people, it's normal for gay men to become friends after sleeping together; two bodies rubbing against each other is often a prelude to future interactions — whether that's dating, keeping it platonic, or something in between.

Metro.co.uk

I'm a quadruplet - my brothers and I couldn't be more different

‘Bro, you’re just using being a quadruplet to get your five minutes of fame,’ Pablo complained.
‘And three days of luxury in a chateau!’ I added quickly.
It was May 2024 and I’d been trying to convince my three brothers that appearing on the Vanderpump Rules spin-off, Vanderpump Villa, was indeed a good thing.
I argued we’d be ‘guests of honour’, mere spectators to any drama in the show – unlike the hotel staff who were on the payroll for the plot – and that it was an obvious opportunity.
‘I sug...

Observer

What’s Next for ‘The Traitors’?

All hell has broken loose in Alan Cumming’s castle, and America is here for it. The Traitors has been praised as the best thing to happen in reality TV since the crossover genre revolutionized the billion-dollar industry. With the recently wrapped third season setting viewer records for Peacock, it’s clear why the concept has become a global hit, originating in the Netherlands and replicated in more than 20 territories: The viewers love a bad guy almost as much as we enjoy catching them, and the...

The Revealer

The Churches of Artificial Intelligence

Although artificial intelligence may seem on its way to omnipotence today, it was in 2015 that former Google executive Anthony Levandowski became the first to promote AI as God and file the paperwork to register the church. He founded Way of the Future as a nonprofit religious corporation in California, with the mission to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence, and through understanding and worship of the Godhead, contribute to the betterment of socie...

HuffPost

Why I Struggled To Say Goodbye To Gay Bars

Gay bars used to be the safest places I knew. They were also the most fun. I learned to proudly embrace my sexuality and humanity in these liberated, rainbow-marked establishments that stood for so much more than just drinking. Every time I stepped into a gay bar, it was one more step away from all my heteronormative insecurities.

Gay bars used to be the safest places I knew. They were also the most fun....

Matador Network

I Traveled Solo to New Orleans for a Date With Jazz Fest, and This Hotel Was the Perfect Base Camp

Traveling solo to a new destination can stir up a mix of emotions. But when I landed in New Orleans, I felt all the excitement with none of the accompanying hesitations. I didn’t worry about whether the restaurants’ vibes would welcome a table for one or if I’d end up lingering without making friends while going out. I was there for Jazz Fest, nothing more, nothing less. As someone who grew up in Miami and went to Ultra Music Festival every year before I learned to drive, massive musical celebrations hold a special place in my solo traveler heart.

Elite Daily (Pride month cover story)

Once I Came Out, Dating Suddenly Became So Hot... And Complicated

Now, it appeared to me that gay men would rather entertain sex without chemistry than the grueling burden of getting to know each other. This was new for me. Being closeted had made my pursuits of vaginal intercourse gradual, to say the least. Usually, a girl would have to throw herself on top of me. I never felt like I had the option to say no then, and to a certain extent, I didn't now.

I wasn’t opposed to casual sex, but I wanted romance, too. I craved everything: the white picket fence with a sex swing inside the house.

WIRED

In Praise of AI-Generated Pickup Lines

We're at the height of a global technological revolution, and yet this is the modern state of dating: You swipe left, swipe left again, and again, and again—in fact, you mind-numbingly swipe left so many times that when the app finally lands on a person you deem worthy of swiping right, you accidentally swipe left on them, too. You continue swiping.

My thumbs are bloody with disappointment that dating apps, once the face of innovation, have become relics of the status quo. But I've seen the lig

Men's Journal

This Malbec Is the Best Wine for Dinner Parties—and It's Just $10

Your friend invites you to a dinner party, which sounds fun until the burden of bringing something dawns on you. Bringing alcohol is part of the sacred ritual of social etiquette for going to someone's home, even if BYOB isn't specified on the invite.

But when you're faced with overwhelming aisles of wines, whiskeys, and tequilas, anxiety creeps in. You don't want to arrive e

Business Insider

My childhood friend invited me to their destination wedding. I turned it down because I wasn't given a plus-one.

When I was invited to a friend's three-day wedding celebration in Colombia, I was ready to book my flights. We'd met in high school more than a decade ago, and though we weren't as close as we once were because of time and distance, I felt like I wouldn't miss it for the world. As I looked into the logistics, I was more hesitant, but still on board. It would cost me more than $2,000 for flights from the Midwest to Colombia and back, plus hotel accommodations. I changed my mind, however, once...

Penguin Random House UK

The importance of raunchy gay literature | Queer novels

As American teenagers, my friends and I hung out at the mall on weekends doing what older teens with driving licenses called 'loser laps' – walking around aimlessly until we’d meandered around most of the shops, then walking around them again. One day, my mom was late to pick me up, so I lingered in a bookshop. I browsed books to pas