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The Gay & Lesbian Review

Finding Hope in Minneapolis

A historic winter storm was forecast to sweep across America, and as the wind howled outside my window on a Thursday night in Minneapolis, I welcomed the sub-freezing temperatures as a possible escape from the ongoing tension between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Minnesotans. I wondered whether extreme weather could momentarily pause the civil unrest. Could it halt the degradation of our constitutional rights and the reversal of American dreams?
Perhaps I was naïve to think the...

Metro

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...

Metro (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

Vice (translated into 5 languages for global company channels)

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."

Elite Daily (digital cover story)

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

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. Or, at the very least, sex and a date. I didn’t necessarily care about the order.

Tamron Hall (ABC Network)

Jamie Valentino joins a panel on the"Tamron Hall" show to candidly discuss dating struggles

The author reflects on his controversial HuffPost article about rekindling with exes.

Metro

I never expected my one-night stand to pursue me after our casual fling

On our first date, John* hit every possible green flag like my attraction was a video game he’d already mastered. 
For starters, he picked me up before dinner, was easy to talk to or sit in silence with, and focused on every word that came out of my mouth in a way that made me want to kiss him. 
The thing is, I’d already done the latter with him – and then some. Five months earlier, to be exact.
Our paths had first crossed as two anonymous torsos among many on Grindr in December 2024.
On a fatef...

Popsugar (digital cover story)

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...

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.

Metro

I thought he loved me - but I was blind to the red flags

Dancing beneath a giant disco ball on a multicoloured dancefloor, I should have been having the time of my life.
After all, I was in LA, surrounded by hundreds of people dressed in 70s attire, at a party designed to transport us back in time to the heyday of Studio 54 – it couldn’t have been a more perfect event for me. 
But, there was one big problem. John*, the party’s host and, coincidently, the man I was dating, wasn’t by my side.
The only reason I’d flown across the country to attend this e...

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 threw a dinner party to avoid spending money on holiday gifts for friends. Now, it's my annual tradition.

In 2018, I considered my army of close friends a blessing — until December rolled around. Suddenly, these friendships came with an overhead I couldn't afford, just for the sake of tradition.

Dozens of women who considered me their gay best friend sounded great until it was time to exchange presents with all of them during the holidays. I was too cheap to buy all my friends expensive Christmas gifts but too classy to give them something, well, cheap. I had also grown tired of spending $50 on som...

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....

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.

Business Insider

I flew next to a family, and they taught me to appreciate what parents do for their kids.

A downside to traveling alone is being squeezed between random people during transit, but I was thankful that had never happened with kids. I'm not the first childless person to believe there should be a separation between happy individuals and burdened families.

Then one day I sat next to a sick person. She wouldn't stop wheezing and coughing, and I cursed the day she was born because she hadn't canceled her flight. It was post-COVID, so airlines were no longer required to feign concern for th...

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.

Observer

The Everlasting Appeal of The Real Housewives

I used to be cynical about watching The Real Housewives until I unexpectedly found myself inside New York’s Sonja Morgan’s hotel room for her Halloween party at the Kimpton in 2018. Her hairstylist invited me, as Morgan embraced a more-the-merrier mentality for gays.

I was shirtless, and Morgan quipped about my nipples, managing to partake in several conversations simultaneously. Production made every extraneous person sign a release waiver before a crew member yelled, “Action!” Countess Luan d

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

Remezcla

From Día de los Santos to Día de Muertos, Remembering the Dead is an Act of Love

Death has consumed my thoughts for the past few years, so much so that it’s made me abandon my once-atheist identity and find a belief in God, in heaven. Somewhere, anywhere, really—where my Abuela’s soul could rest safely, surrounded by goodness, until mine joins her. She’s not dead yet, though. She was diagnosed with stage four cancer in 2021, went into remission, and has now decided to let God’s will be done the second time around. She didn’t seek a biopsy for a new tumor because it wouldn’t...

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.

Midwest Design (inaugural print issue)

What Does a $100,000 Kitchen Look Like?

No two humble (or not-so-humble) abodes are created equal. For homeowners tackling the most luxurious remodeling project of all—the kitchen—luxury encapsulates a daily feeling shaped by your tastes, wants, and needs, along with that certain je ne sais quoi that distinguishes a space executed with the finest materials and impeccable craftsmanship. Of course, this brings us to money—the only vehicle that can deliver the ubiquitous promise of your dream kitchen. We asked local experts where a $100,000 budget stands in today’s market and what clients can expect for a kitchen remodel that’s one zero shy of a million.

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.

The New York Times

Tiny Love Stories: 'He insisted on keeping things casual'

The clock strikes 6 a.m., and I’ve watched Paul sleep for nearly an hour. It’s the only time he seems helpless, incapable of hurting me. Before I parachuted into his Los Angeles world from Minneapolis for the weekend, he insisted on keeping things casual to make long-distance work. But that condition didn’t stop me from imagining our future together, once we could commit to FaceTiming more than three times a day. I start kissing his body, but he complains it’s too early. He turns over, and I cud...

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...