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Cosmopolitan
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
Why I Love Grey Pubes on a Woman
Nine years ago, the summer of the Pulse nightclub shooting, I discovered my love of the silver bush on a built butch. We were one thousand miles north of the queer Orlando club, in a Manhattan apartment I was house sitting to supplement my intern's 'salary.' It's been nearly a decade since my initial introduction to greying pubes that summer night, but the mere suggestion of a silver streak still remains one of the fastest ways to turn me on. And in more recent years, as I've entered my 30s, what I first fell in love with on a former lover's body has become a secret weapon for falling in love with my own. My knight in shining silver and I met up for the first time in Washington Square Park where, just 24 hours earlier, the Dyke March had spilled out of Fifth Avenue, transforming the park into our make-shift dance floor. It was 2016 and far from my first pride parade—I came out as lesbian in high school. But with 'One Dance' blasting, the fountain splashing, and glitter glitzing just weeks after the Pulse Massacre, it remains the most impassioned one I've ever been part of. Equal parts hungry and horny, I looped the spitting mouth masterpiece, hunting for the muscled frame I'd only ever seen, unclothed, on my phone screen. Later, when we were covered in sweat and cum and city, she'd tell me she'd used those moments before I spotted her as an excuse to watch how the animal of my body moved in real time. Finally, I felt her—heard her. A 'hi' in my ear, a thick hand on my lower back, a smile more smirk than sugar. Finally, her. With the same urgency that marked that entire summer, I took her back to the brownstone I was babysitting and we fucked on the first date. Although, with the 'mine' and 'yours' braided in between our every 'on,' 'under,' and 'now,' I've always thought it might be more accurate to say we made love in the Manhattan moonlight. On account of my recent arrival to the city and her upcoming departure (she was days away from a West Coast relocation), we intended our romance to be a one-night stand. For her, a last hoorah, a happy ending. For me, a chance to be with someone older, established—to have the kind of May-December relationship I didn't need to see in Babygirl or The Idea of You to know I'd enjoy. But chemistry quickly consumed self-control and our one-night fling became a full-blown age-gap relationship. In fragments as horny as Anne Carson and as incessant as Sam Delaney, I confessed my love for the visual markers of our 13-year age difference: 'I want to lick your crows feet, feel my tongue caress the creases. I'm going to braid my hands through your hair, spot the silvers while you swallow my cum.' 'If you like the silvers that speckle my scalp,' she responded, 'you'll love the ones I can grow between my legs.' The next time I saw her, my older lover sported a silver-streaked bush where she'd previously been bare, just for me. I wanted to feel each buttery bristle against every pink part of me—and I did. Again and again. For the remainder of our love affair, each time we met up, she came to me like that: grey, glistening, and gloriously mine. Eventually our fling ended, as the most fiery ones always do. But even today, our sex life continues to have a lasting impact on my desires. So while my silver-bush kink might have bloomed in a specific moment in my personal and queer history, my love of grey pubes remains. This affinity for grey pubes has not only encouraged me to date people across multiple decades (fun!), but as I gradually begin to transition from hot bisexual babe to queer elder, I suspect this formative experience of eroticizing my lover's greying pubes has helped me embrace my own signs of aging. Over the past few years, with my 30th birthday in the rearview mirror, I've started to notice a few such signs. Smile lines that linger when I've stopped giggling. A neck creak that creeps in while giving cunnilingus if my lover's hips aren't sufficiently lifted. Fingers that fatigue before I'm finished, well, finishing. Certainly, there are moments when I miss the smooth skin and endurance that marked my sex life of a decade ago. But just as often, the passing dawn of my youth makes me think of her—and I feel hot. But more than just hot, I feel as hungry and horny for my own body as I once was for that salt-and-peppered summer fling. My early experience of loving someone older for all her wisdom and wiry greys, as it turns out, has become a kind of blueprint for admiring my own gradually aging body. 'The only exposure most of us have to sex in middle and later age is Viagra commercials and jokes about 'undesirable' older bodies,' says sex therapist Stefani Goerlich, a kink expert and author of With Sprinkles On Top: Everything Vanilla People and Their Kinky Partners Need to Know to Communicate, Explore, and Connect. '[This] can leave us to internalize the false message that our erotic lives are over the minute we get our first grey hair or pube.' But when we can find specific signs of aging in our past or present partners that turn us on, Goerlich says, we're better able to see ourselves as sexy and desirable when similar changes occur in our own bodies. Joan Price, the 81-year-old author of several senior sex books including Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex, agrees. 'Accepting—and even celebrating—your partners' bodies for the delights they give you can help you celebrate your own, which is ultimately key to a spicy sex life throughout a lifetime.' Will my love of grey pubes alone dismantle the ageist rhetoric about good sex—especially in queer spaces? Probably not. But that won't stop those silver tufts from starring in my fantasies, or from reminding me of those unforgettable summer nights with my silver-bushed butch.
USA Today
06-07-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Pride reminded me capitalism can't save us from Trump. Only we can do that.
As Pride Month fades away and the summer heat blazes on, I'm left thinking about what queer resistance should look like during a second Donald Trump presidency. On the last weekend in June, I walked down Fifth Avenue alongside people dressed in their best rainbow regalia and parade floats blasting Beyoncé for New York City's annual Pride March. Commemorating the June 28 Stonewall uprisings, the march has taken place every year since 1970. But most of the LGBTQ+ people I am in community with were far away from the colorful, bank-friendly festivities. There's sort of an unspoken rule of pride in the city: The annual Dyke March and Queer Liberation March over pride weekend are for the politically active members of the community, while the city's official celebration is for corporations. But as Pride Month fades away and the summer heat blazes on, I'm left thinking about what queer resistance should look like during a second Donald Trump presidency. Will we miss corporations as they become more squeamish about supporting the LGBTQ+ community? Or is it time for us to reclaim our history and show people that we are a force to be reckoned with? LGBTQ+ folks know the fight is just starting If you didn't know, Trump spent June antagonizing the LGBTQ+ community. That month, his administration announced that the 988 National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline would be severing ties with LGBTQ+ organizations and that Harvey Milk was no longer worth honoring. The transgender community was specifically targeted. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that trans youth did not have a right to gender-affirming care. Trump threatened to pull funding from California because a single 16-year-old girl competed in a high school track and field state championship. The Stonewall National Monument didn't put up any transgender pride flags to commemorate Pride Month, even though trans people were central to the fight for liberation that took place all those years ago. This has affected how corporations are willing to interact with the community, too. NYC Pride March and other pride celebrations across the country saw corporate donors back out of supporting the events. Target and other stores pushed their pride collections to the side. Sure, we're still visible, but the political climate is telling us it's better to be seen and not heard. Now more than ever, we must remember the origins of why we celebrate the month of June. It's not just about rainbows and glitter. It's about defiance. It's about our rights. Rainbow capitalism won't save us. Community will. After the march, I made my way to PrideFest, the street fair hosted by NYC Pride. 'RuPaul's Drag Race' alums Jan Sport and Jackie Cox were emceeing the main stage; the dating app Grindr had a yellow bus parked down the street. Folks were sipping various frozen concoctions out of tall, skinny cups and sweating under the June sun. I spotted a miniature poodle named Scuttle, dyed purple and orange and wearing a rainbow costume, and stopped to talk to his owner, Zach Aaronson. Aaronson was also dressed for the occasion, sporting a rainbow skirt and matching dyed beard. 'The experiences that we've had this month show you that you're not alone, that you can express yourself and live outside of the binary all year,' Aaronson, 35, of Manhattan, told me. Maybe that's the true beauty of Pride Month in its current form – it gives people a springboard to jump from, so that they can be themselves all year long. As I was walking to exit the festival, I spotted Emily Clark, 18, of Staten Island, who had 'Baby's first Pride' written in pen on her arm. She smiled as she told me how supportive and loving everyone she'd met that day had been. I still have my qualms about rainbow capitalism and the way pride has been reduced to a party rather than a protest. I don't believe corporations will save us – if it weren't profitable to be aligned with the LGBTQ+ community, their support would disappear. For some companies, it already has. At the same time, I feel lucky. Lucky that I have found community in New York City, lucky that I stopped being 'straight' years ago. Lucky that my mother and father put up a pride flag outside their home in my small, conservative hometown. Lucky that I'm even able to critique what pride has become, thanks to what pride once was. None of us stop being gay just because June is over and Target is no longer selling rainbow T-shirts with cutesy slogans. None of us will go back into the closet when J.P. Morgan is no longer sponsoring a float. We don't need your performative activism on our behalf. We are here, in spite of it all, and we have something to say. Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter:@sara__pequeno
Toronto Star
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
‘It's time to really show up' : Large turnout at Toronto's Dyke March highlights LGBTQ+ resilience in the face of sponsor challenges
Jam Louisy scanned the growing crowd on Church and Hayden Streets, patiently waiting for their friend to arrive as Toronto's annual Dyke March commenced. Thousands of revellers gathered at the Pride Toronto event on Saturday afternoon to march, dance, cheer and celebrate all things queer, and they rolled up to the city's Gay Village donning all shades of the rainbow while waving around lesbian, trans and other flags representing 2SLGBTQ+ communities.
CBS News
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
San Francisco's Dyke March returns with new organizers after 6-year hiatus
The Dyke March was back in San Francisco and after a six-year hiatus, new organizers came together to put on the event. "The energy is great," said Morgan Campbell, who attended the event. Campbell and Vaanity Tuscegli are part of the queer community and were spending the day at Dolores Park for Pride. They were just planning on observing the march, but after watching the beginning, they knew they had to join in. "I think it's a big deal with where the state of the world is," said Tuscegli. "I think it's good to celebrate what we do have and where we are with it and claim it back while we have the chance." Campbell says growing up queer, the term "Dyke" was used as an insult, but events like this change the narrative. "That's about reclamation, too," Campbell explained. "We all got called that in school, now it's just so nice to see it used positively." San Francisco Dyke March Interim Project Director M Rocket said the mission of the march is to bring the community together, to raise awareness, and create visibility. "It's essential for Dyke Visibility to be out and proud and to show our force and our activism and our art and our culture," Rocket said. This year, there was also a focus on disability access. Rocket said she's grateful to be a part of bringing the march back for its 33rd time after a six-year hiatus. But it took a lot of work, and they did it in a different way. The march organizers did not focus on grant funding, but instead on donations from over 300 individuals. "We've had a ton of support from the city and from individuals who have all donated to our crowdfunding campaign to be able to get this work done this year and come back," said Rocket. There was a rally before the march with entertainment and speeches from members of the queer community. Tuscegli said at a time like this, when LGBTQ rights are being threatened nationally, spaces like this one are needed. "I think any little bit of activism makes a difference," Tuscegli said. "It really does. I think we're bringing justice back to our community for the things we've had taken from ourselves."
San Francisco Chronicle
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Pride weekend kicks into high gear with Dyke March, Pride Celebration
A year after the abrupt cancellation of 2024's Dyke March, the fun was more than back — along with a strident note of defiance. Tens of thousands of queer women and their allies thronged Dolores Park on Saturday for a party in the sun, filling the public space with bursting joy and laughter as they gathered to celebrate this year's Dyke Rally and March. Abi Everywhere, 36, was setting up early Saturday with her friend, Ren Hamm, 28, as a steady stream of revelers arrived. They had an inflatable unicorn mostly puffed up, blankets spread across the lawn and cheese plates and sparkling water ready for friends who would be arriving throughout the afternoon. Everywhere and members of her Burning Man community, Camp Beaverton, were among the thousands of queer folk congregating at Dolores Park for Pink Saturday and the Dyke Rally. 'It's a unique opportunity for our community,' said Everywhere, who grew up in a religious household in suburban Houston and couldn't come out until college. 'It's like a family reunion and a good way for the old guard to welcome the new folks.' The first Dyke Marches were held in 1993, with a parade in Washington D.C. in April of that year, and others in New York and San Francisco later that year. Over the decades, the event has drawn tens of thousands of marchers and revelers. Saturday's rally was set to go from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with performances by musicians, comedians and a drag king, as well as speeches by San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson and Imani Rupert-Gordon, president of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights. The march immediately follows, leaving from 18th and Dolores streets and traveling its usual route to the Castro and back to Dolores Park. A mile and a half away, at Civic Center Plaza, an equally large crowd was assembling to hear music, eat carnival food and celebrate queerness under the sun at the annual Pride Celebration. As the march began Saturday evening, hundreds lined the sidewalks along 18th Street as the Dyke March filled the street. Dykes on Bikes, a group of women motorcyclists, led the parade, followed by a truck filled with dancers and speakers blasting music. Some demonstrators held a sign reading 'Dykes for a Free Palestine,' surrounded by marchers carrying Palestinian flags. Other signs called for an end to deportations and called Immigration and Customs Enforcement 'cowards.' The two themes provided some dissonance, if not a contrast in vibes. Marchers near the very front of the parade danced and clapped and celebrated the event, while about 100 yards behind marchers shouted common pro-Palestinian chants. The festival, which is open to the public Saturday and Sunday, includes six stages with DJ sets, bands and singers, dance battles and other performances. Lara Starr, a Marin County resident, came to the Pride Celebration as part of Free Mom Hugs, a nationwide organization of people supporting LGBTQ events. Starr, who joined the group after her son came out as gay, said the volunteers are there to give hugs — or high fives or fist bumps — to bolster queer people, especially those who do not have support from their parents, as fill-in family members. 'Hydrate. Use sunscreen. Eat your vegetables. We are doing the full mom schtick,' Starr said. Another mom, Beth Stapleton, whose teenager is trans, said she had already hugged hundreds of people hours into the event. 'Some people really need it,' Stapleton said. The theme of resisting rising anti-LGBTQ hate ran throughout the celebration. At a booth on McAllister Street, volunteers with Headcount were offering chocolate to anyone who checked their voter registration. Luis Aguilar, a team lead with the Bay Area chapter of the voter registration organization, said that LGBTQ people face barriers to voting, especially trans people who have to show IDs, so he was particularly motivated to encourage voter registration at Pride. 'There's no other act of rebellion that's bigger than registering to vote and mobilizing a community,' Aguilar said. On the main stage, in front of San Francisco City Hall, performers were connecting discrimination experienced by LGBTQ people with that faced by immigrants. 'None of us are illegal. None of us are aliens,' said Anjali Rimi, board president of the Center for Immigrant Protection. Rimi said her organization works with LGBTQ immigrants seeking asylum due to threats and violence facing them in their home countries due to their sexuality. Kiki Lopez, an artist, also connected Pride with other political causes, including the call to free Sudan, Congo and Palestine. But, despite the political messages, the festivities were still fun. Back at Dolores Park, people lolled in the late morning sun, laughing with friends, sipping on tea, water and harder beverages underneath a cloudless sky. Others set up tents or sun shades as music from nearby speakers filled the air. Venders grilled hot dogs, hawked ice cream bars and drinks. 'I look forward to Pink Saturday as much as Christmas,' said Imani Brown, 42, who was there with her wife, Jenny Kline, and friend, Esther Crane. Brown sported a T-shirt emblazoned with the words 'She/Her/Daddy' — and had her own inflatable unicorn. 'I love this city,' she said. 'It's beautiful, diverse, and not special to be a queer, Black woman. ... It's wonderful, empowering.' The day felt particularly poignant for her and others amidst the current political climate, as jurisdictions around the country have passed legislation to curtail queer rights: On Friday, the Supreme Court had handed down a ruling siding with parents seeking to opt their children out of school instruction involving LGBTQ+ books. 'We're being terrorized by the U.S. government,' Brown said. 'This us us showing up and saying 'We can't be erased.'' Across the park, Aeryn M, 37, and Lauren Stanton, 40, stood under a tent at the 'Screen Door' handing out sunscreen, drinks and snacks to passersby. 'Joy is resistance,' said Stanton, who'd traveled from Long Beach for the party. 'If you're mad because we're thriving, die mad.' This article will be updated as the festivities progress.
