My gay dad asked for one Father's Day gift and at age 22 I refed him

Contents:

• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• 100 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN LOVE
• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMorn LoveAs a gay Korean Amerin, I yearned for the privilege of beg heterosexual or whe. In junr high school, I wonred: What do love even look like for someone like me, surely the only gay Asian guy town? ”I yearned to have the privileg of beg eher heterosexual or whe bee I wasn’t jt gay and Asian; I was kky too.

But my stat as a triple mory felt like a sick joke, a ath all, on gay datg apps, East Asians routely face humanizatn that rc to nothg more than featurels clon the ey of others.

100 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN LOVE

But we also e the ntext of racial fetishism, that empty flattery that sts people of lor as cursi and turns to trophi, makg tough for to tst anyone’s pot: “I love Che food, ” whispered a betiful whe man after we had ma out at a Manhattan gay bar. A send were tim my 20s, as I ventured to the sordid pths of the gay kk world, when I wished I uld disappear to that send sk forever. ”“You n’t be this elevator wh , ” said a dnk whe man a cheap harns at one of Ameri’s largt gay kk events, shovg me to the floor.

I didn’t realize then that this is what they ll sexual time, whether the digni happened a schoolyard, gay bar or fetish club, they blend together a toxic stew, and wasn’t long before I shied away om datg altogether, like so many queer people of lor do to avoid racial fetishism or hatred. 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.

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY

“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 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.