Brooklyn Artist Louis Frato Is Depictg Gay Male Sex and Intimacy the More Chill Gen Z Era of PrEP

Contents:

• CANNED CKTAIL ‘GAY WATER’ AIMS TO SH ON BUD LIGHT’S DYLAN MULVANEY DISASTER
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• BROOKLYN ARTIST LOUIS FRATO IS DEPICTG GAY MALE SEX AND INTIMACY THE MORE CHILL GEN Z ERA OF PREP
• THE GAY FIGURE ARTISTS ARE REIMAGG THE MALE GAZE
• TOP HOE PATERS GAY, GA
• JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH COACH COM OUT AS GAY IN A FIRST FOR U.S.-BASED PRO LEAGU

CANNED CKTAIL ‘GAY WATER’ AIMS TO SH ON BUD LIGHT’S DYLAN MULVANEY DISASTER

An entreprenr lnched a nned cktail this week lled “Gay Water” that’s aimed at LGBTQ drkers — and said he’s lookg to palize on Bud Light’s mistak. But “Gay Water” — which adopts a moniker the gay muny has long given to the simple vodka and soda cktail — has been spired by the dtup to bee even bolr about the dience ’s targetg, founr and CEO Spencer Hodson told The Post.

Gay Water — a nned cktail brand that plays on the gay muny’s lloquialism for the vodka-and-soda mixed drk — lnched on Wednday and promis to unrstand s dience better than Bud Light. The 30-year-old Hodson said he is g suggtive — albe playful — msagg and imagery Gay Water’s social media and webse, cludg a provotive nod to the 12-ounce n’s 6. “Our missn is to -stigmatize the word ‘gay’ and start to create reprentatn spac that tradnally don’t have queer-owned products, let alone products wh the word ‘gay’ their tle, ” Hodson told The Post.

“When was the last time you saw the word gay at a rtrant, bar, liquor store, or grocery store? The word ‘gay’ origally was fed as happy, and we’re hopg to remd folks of that by beg prent, ” he add. Founr Spencer Hodson, a gay man, says the brand is about reclaimg the word “gay” as a word that “jt means happy.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

Gay Water’s brandg is full of playful, suggtive msagg. “Part of the pot of lnchg outsi of Pri month is to rerce the msage that Gay Water is here to make the LGBTQ+ muny more visible 365 days a year, not jt a sgle month, ” he said.

Kev Maxen has bee the first male ach a US men’s profsnal sports league to e out as gay. Per Outsports, as of September 2022, there have only ever been 16 players NFL history to publicly e out as gay or bisexual.

Carl Nassib beme the first active NFL player league history to announce that he is gay 2021.

BROOKLYN ARTIST LOUIS FRATO IS DEPICTG GAY MALE SEX AND INTIMACY THE MORE CHILL GEN Z ERA OF PREP

Per Outsports, Maxen is the “first publicly out male ach a major Amerin men’s pro sports league, ” wh WNBA ach Curt Miller, who publicly me out to the media as gay 2015, also a publicly out male ach an Amerin profsnal sports league. In a sea of nned cktails, Gay Water wants to stand out. In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that.

“The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them, ” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer. Gay Water, however, is out and proud. The nned cktail is named after a lloquialism given to the popular mixed drk (vodka and soda) orred at bars by the gay muny.

“Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self, ” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh. He thought of creatg Gay Water about a year ago while on a vatn wh his iend that had got a job wh the beverage dtry.

THE GAY FIGURE ARTISTS ARE REIMAGG THE MALE GAZE

The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail. Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water.

“Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg. For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails, ” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN.

“There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns, ” Roth said. Of urse, other drks e the word “gay, ” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space. In the last 50 years alone, Keh Harg’s drawgs have raised awarens for the AIDS crisis of the ’80s; Nan Gold’s hntg photographs of New York’s unrbelly has shed light on the queer muny; Robert Mapplethorpe shocked the public wh his graphic imag of gay sex acts, promptg a revaluatn of bety and propriety.

TOP HOE PATERS GAY, GA

Thk Ryan McGley’s gay kissg photographs, Juliana Huxtable‘s provotive multi-media work and Wu Tsang’s vio and performance art, to say nothg of J. In the meantime, we’re takg you on a big gay art history tour through bohemian f, funky studs and dty mm basements to retroduce you to some well-known nam that you might not have known were queer.

David might not be homosexual, but he’s fely not heteronormative. There’s murky homoeroticism  the background of an artist’s work, and then there’s “wh the ck your asshole. But he was also bold enough to pat homoerotic and homosocial scen, like Dancg Sailors.

It’s a potent and necsary remr that gay love is jt about sex, pecially nsirg how lbian upl have appeared throughout Wtern art history: eroticized, fallen, impure, wchy and bched. When Robert Rschenberg died 2008, both the New York Tim and the Los Angel Tim “fot” to mentn one mor tail of his life their obuari: he was gay. Pavg the way for Pop, Rschenberg’s work might not openly reference his sexualy like some other artists’, but cric Robert Hugh lled Monogram “one of the few great ins of male homosexual love morn culture.

JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH COACH COM OUT AS GAY IN A FIRST FOR U.S.-BASED PRO LEAGU

And wh that, we’re roundg up our big, gay art world tour. Courty of Sikkema Jenks & someone (like this wrer) wh only a middlg knowledge of art, ’s hard not to immediately thk “gay Pisso” upon first seeg the patgs of Louis Frato, 27, the Brooklyn-based pater who’s gotten a lot of attentn om the art world recent years and jt fished up his send solo show, Morng, at New York Cy’s Sikkema Jenks & Co.

Frato’s imag of hunky, furry, young gay men havg sex or lyg around, alone or together, are cidly non-naturalistic, boastg a lot of the Pissoque featur of mornism, such as body parts pated out of proportn or perspective, or broken up to cubistic ponents.

From his stud Bhwick, Brooklyn, Frato talked to TheBody about patg durg a panmic, about jt how “gay” (or not) he wants his work to be, and his relatnship to an olr generatn of queer artists who ma work durg the AIDS Frato his stud. " Courty of Sikkema Jenks & I was thkg about how a gay artist like, say, Mapplethorpe wanted to take the most betiful photographs of flowers, so he wouldn’t get pegged as “jt” a gay artist.