I started Queer Ottawa Blogs over a year ago, because I wanted an online list of local queer blogs and nothing of the sort existed. I wanted to hear about the lives of other queers living here and local voices and experiences I could relate to.
Basically, I just wanted to meet dykes.
In my search, I discovered half a dozen from Ottawa and a whole whack from the rest of Canada. Blogs, that is. Not dykes.
About a month ago I decided to ditch the regional requirement and focus my efforts on compiling a comprehensive blogroll of diverse queer voices both from across the country and from Canadians living abroad. I enlisted the help of West Coast blogger Feral Geographer and Queer Canada Blogs was born.
As you can imagine such a list is as diverse as Canadians. From a gay kid in Vancouver to Queer Parenting in Halifax, you name it and there is a queer blogging about it. They range in topic from parenting to pets, prostitution to piety. From Yellowknife to Halifax, from Boston to Berlin, queers from Canada make up a surprising number of bloggers, finding community and support online, which maybe they can’t find elsewhere.
In this new feature in Capital Xtra, my co-conspirator and I will troll through the ever-growing list of queer Canadian blogs and pull out the little gems we like the most.
With well over 100 diverse eclectic voices to choose from, I’m sure you+re on the edge of your seat waiting to hear which one will be my first pick. The choice was a lot easier then I expected — I just chose the blog that I find myself spending the most amount of time on. The title says it all:
The Naked Black Guy
thenakedblackguy.blogspot.com
That’s right. His blog is neither informative, political nor prolific. He is just a gay guy in Toronto, who loves getting naked and posting pictures of himself on his blog.
I love it.
I fully embrace the desire to post hot photos of oneself on the internet. The Naked Black Guy takes it to a whole other level. His alluring gaze, the pose, the props — not to mention the professional photographers he gets to photograph him. This man takes himself and documenting his naked body seriously.
I love deciphering both what he must think other men find sexy and what he thinks is sexy about himself.
The person and the personal is what I think all blog readers are looking for at some level — and the voyeur in us finds that anyway we can. Although The Naked Black Guy is posed and well lit, there is something modest in his attempt and playful in his approach, allowing you to see him just as he is — a naked guy in Toronto.
And really, truth be told, people like looking at sexy naked people. It+ doesn+t need to be more complicated than that.
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Find Mae Callen at maecallen.blogspot.com.
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