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xxcxcs-blog · 3 years

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Everything You Need to Stock an at-Home Bar

So you finally found the bar cart of your dreams, and you’ve loaded it up with your favorite liquor. While those are two very important steps to curating an at-home bar, to really make your setup recall that of your favorite watering hole, you’re going to want to add some barware and cocktail equipment. But that can be an intimidating task, especially if you’ve had more experience drinking cocktails than making them. The good news is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money. “Most people in their home bar really don’t need that many tools,” advises Joaquín Simó, a partner at New York City’s Pouring Ribbons who was named Tales of the Cocktail’s American Bartender of the Year in 2012. “I say you start with the absolute basics and concentrate on the things that you like to use.”

If you’re in a pinch, Martin Hudak, a bartender at Maybe Sammy, says you can always use bartender tools you may already have on hand: “For your shaken cocktails, you can use empty jam jars or a thermos flask. For measuring, spoons and cups, and for stirring, any spoon or back of a wooden ladle.” But Stacey Swenson, the head bartender at Dante (which currently holds the No. 1 spot on the World’s 50 Best Bars list), notes that if you’re going to put stuff on display, you might want gear that’s both practical and stylish. “You want something that’s functional and also something that’s pretty,” she says. “If you’re putting it on your bar cart, you kind of put on a show for your guests.” With the help of Simó, Hudak, Swenson, and 28 other experts, we’ve put together the below list of essential gear for any cocktail-lover’s home bar.

Editor’s note: If you want to support service industry workers who have been impacted by the coronavirus closures, you can donate to the Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation, which has set up a COVID-19 Crisis Relief Fund, or One Fair Wage, which has set up an Emergency Coronavirus Tipped and Service Worker Support Fund. We’ve also linked to any initiatives the businesses mentioned in this story have set up to support themselves amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Simó, all shakers “technically do the same thing, and there are very cheap and very nice versions,” so there’s really no superior option when it comes to function. That said, many professional bartenders use Boston-style shakers, which are basically two cups that fit into each other and form a tight seal to keep liquid from splashing all over you. “If you want to look like a bartender at Death & Co. or PDT, and you want the same kit, then you’re probably going to go metal-on-metal,” or “tin-on-tin,” Simó notes. Six of our experts recommend these weighted tin-on-tin shakers — which come in a range of finishes, including copper and silver — from Cocktail Kingdom, a brand that nearly every bartender we spoke to praised for its durable, well-designed barware. Grand Army’s beverage director, Brendan Biggins, and head bartender, Robby Dow, call this “the gold standard” of shaking tins. “Behind the bar, there’s almost nothing worse than shaker tins that don’t seal well or don’t separate easily,” explains Krissy Harris, the beverage director and owner of Jungle Bird in Chelsea. “The Koriko Weighted Shaking tins seal perfectly every time and easily release,” she says. And because they’re weighted, they’re less likely to fall over and spill.

For some people, a two-piece setup like the above shakers might be tricky to use comfortably. “Say you’re a petite female — if you have very small hands, then maybe using a Boston-style shaker may be a little harder,” explains Simó. In that case, a cobbler shaker may be the better choice, because it’s smaller than a Boston-style shaker and thus easier to hold. The other convenient part of a cobbler-style shaker is that the strainer is already built into the lid, so you don’t necessarily have to spring for an additional wine tools. Karen Lin, a certified sommelier, sake expert, and the executive general manager of Tsukimi, suggests this shaker from Japanese barware brand Yukiwa. “The steel is very sturdy, and the shape fits perfectly in my hands,” she says. “It is also designed well so you can take it apart easily to clean.”

You know how James Bond always ordered his martinis shaken, not stirred? Well, if you were to ignore Mr. Bond’s order and make a stirred martini — or any other stirred cocktail, like a Negroni or a Manhattan — you’d set aside the shaker to use a mixing beaker instead. A mixing beaker is essentially a large vessel in which you dump your liquors and mix your drink. And though you can purchase handsome crystal ones for hundreds of dollars, both Simó and Swenson agree that they’re kind of superfluous for a basic bar kit. “I don’t think you should spend any more than $25 on a mixing glass,” says Swenson. Harris agrees, saying that since they are the most broken item behind the bar, you should stick to a well-priced option like this mixing glass from Hiware that “doesn’t have a seam, so it’s stronger and very attractive.”

One of Simó’s hacks to getting a glass mixing beaker for not that much money is to use the glass piece from a French press, which is something else you might already own. If you want a dedicated one for your bar cart (that could serve as a backup for your French press), he says you can buy a replacement glass like this one, which has a capacity that is particularly useful if you’re making drinks for a lot of people. “I generally will take one or two of the big guys with me when I’m doing events, because then I can stir up five drinks in one, and it’s really convenient,” Simó explains.

According to Paul McGee, a co-owner of Lost Lake in Chicago, “finding vintage martini pitchers is very easy, and they are perfect for making large batches of cocktails.” Plus, they’ll look more visually striking on your bar cart. This one is even pretty enough to use as a vase when it’s not filled with punch. The photo shows the pitcher next to a strainer, but you’re only getting the pitcher for the price shown.

If you’re making a stirred drink, a mixing or bar set spoon is also necessary. “Three basic styles exist: the American bar spoon has a twisted handle and, usually, a plastic cap on the end, the European bar spoon has a flat muddler/crusher, and the Japanese bar spoon is heavier, with a weighted teardrop shape opposite the bowl,” explains Joe Palminteri, the director of food and beverage at Hamilton Hotel’s Via Sophia and Society. None of our experts recommended specific American-style bar spoons, but Simó told us that one of his favorite Japanese-style spoons is this one made by bartender Tony Abou-Ganim’s Modern Mixologist brand. “It’s got a really nice, deep bowl to it, which means you’re able to measure a nice, level teaspoon” without searching through your drawers, according to him. Simó continues, “The little top part of it has a nice little weight to it, but it’s not too bulky. So it gives you a really nice balance as you’re moving the mixing spoon around,” making your job a little easier.

Should your at-home bartending require a lot of muddling, Swenson recommends getting a European-style spoon like this, which he says will still allow you to stir while eliminating the need to buy a dedicated muddler. “You can actually use the top of the spoon to crush a sugar cube if you wanted to for your old-fashioned. I have one of those, so I don’t have to have two tools; I’ve got both of them right there.”

You don’t necessarily need a strainer if you’re using a cobbler shaker, since it’s already got a strainer built into the lid. But if you’re using a Boston-style shaker, you should get what’s called a Hawthorne strainer to make sure the ice you used to chill your drink doesn’t end up in your glass and dilute the cocktail. Three experts recommend this one, including Lynnette Marrero, the beverage director of Llama Inn and Llama-San and the co-founder of Speed Rack, who says it’s her absolute favorite because “it is light and easy to clutch and close correctly.” If you choose to buy this Hawthorne strainer, Simó also recommends getting “the replacement springs that Cocktail Kingdom sells,” telling us they’re a good way to give a worn-out strainer a face-lift. “They’re really, really nice and tight, and you can generally slip them into any Hawthorne strainer that you have.”A jigger is what you use to measure the liquor into the shaker or mixing glass. A hyperfunctional, albeit nontraditional-looking, option is the mini measuring wine decante from OXO. “I know some bartenders, including the ones at Drink in Boston, one of the best bars in the country, swear by those graduated OXO ones because they love the ability to read them from both the sides and the top,” explains Simó. “You can measure in tablespoons or ounces or milliliters, and it’s all on the same jigger.” Part-time bartender Jillian Norwick and Ward both love it too and keep the stainless steel version on hand (which looks a little nicer when left out). Noriwck adds that she’s in good company: “The peeps at Bon Appétit love it.”This fancy-looking jigger combines the functional appeal of the OXO measuring wine glass (it’s basically a cup that grows wider to accommodate different amounts of liquid) with the aesthetic appeal of a classic bar tool. It also makes measuring a snap: “This handy measuring bar table and stools is super-easy to use and enables the imbiber to essentially build all the ingredients of a drink in one go,” says Confrey.If you’re going for a more classic look but still want something practical, Simó recommends this double-sided metal jigger that has a one-ounce cup on one side and a two-ounce cup on the other. The one-ounce side on this strainer also has a half- and three-quarter-ounce lines etched into it to make it even more precise. “That gives you a lot of wiggle room” and will allow you to measure for most basic cocktails, Simó says. “From there, you really just have to learn what a quarter-ounce looks like in there, and you’re pretty much good to go.”

Biggens, Dowe, and Swenson prefer a Leopold jigger, which has a unique bell shape (with one bell holding an ounce, and the other two ounces) as well as lines etched on the inside marking both quarter- and half-ounces. “They’re really easy to hold and they have some weight to them,” Swenson adds. “Somebody who’s not really experienced using a jigger is going to be fine with something with a little bit more weight to it. And they look cool.”

Though it’s easy to want to get a different type of glass for every type of drink you make, that’s really unnecessary when you’re first starting out. According to Simó, “You can make 90 percent of drinks into a good, all-purpose cocktail glass like a rocks or a collins glass.” (While this section contains our bartenders’ favorite glasses, if you want to shop around, you can find most of these styles at various price points in our list of the best drinking glasses.) A collins — or highball — glass is the one that looks like a chimney, and generally you’re looking for something that’s about 12 ounces, like these collins glasses from bartender-favorite brand Cocktail Kingdom. “You don’t want a 16-ounce Collins glass because you’re going to be hammered after your second Tom Collins,” advises Simó.

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newtknight · 5 years

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First draft of paper against anti-gay BL and Bromance.

This is the rough draft. I will likely print it out and review it later. I am sure it will need some editing. I will be interested in comments.

Anti-Gay “Boy Love” media and Inherently Anti-Gay Bromance: Or those rotten girls really are rotten

- Ed Sebesta 11/22/2019

First thing to understand is that “Boy Love” is a term in East Asian English meaning a man attracted to a man. In American English we use “boy” in referring to male adults in such expressions as “good ole boy network.”

“Boy love” is a term from a subculture of straight women in Japan, known as fujoshi in Japanese, translated as “rotten girls” in English. Often “Boy love” is just called “BL.” To these fujoshi, “boy love” isn’t gay love. To quote an article in an American publication Daily Beast, about this subculture, in which they interview Hana who is a fujoshi:

“BL is not gay,” she begins, “this is the most important thing you need to know.” The cover art of most of the comics, however, depicts two males embracing, which can make it difficult for the foreign eye to separate a homosexual romance from the themes at hand. But to a rotten girl like Hana it’s all about “pure love.” In fact, the entire genre itself is squarely targeted at a straight female readership and is almost always created by female artists as well. [“The Japanese Women Who Love Gay Anime,” by Brandon Pesser, Daily Beast, 12/6/2014, https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-japanese-women-who-love-gay-anime, retried 11/22/2019]

The article explains how BL meets with Hana’s needs for a romantic world without heterosexuality.

The article also interviews Professor Patrick Galbraith, a visiting researcher at Sophia University, a university in Japan, who researches the BL genre. Galbraith explains the typical four sections of a BL story.

As Galbraith explains, the first part of the story is a “seme,” who is also sometimes called “the attacker or inserter” “pushing himself” upon a weaker or softer “uke.” What “pushing” might mean is explained in the article:

Although Galbraith cites “rape as a common motif fueled by extreme love,” the most crucial element of the narrative’s first section is the crescendo of tension between the two potential lovers.

“Motif” is defined as a “decorative design or pattern.” [From Lexico, Oxford Univ. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/motif, retrieved 11/22/2019.] Galbraith is normalizing rape in BL as artistic and is framing it in the language of aesthetics.

As Galbraith explains the typical second part of the story is that the two men initiate a sexual component of their affection, which the article explains “can range from a single kiss to something far more explicit.”

As for the extent of this culture, Galbraith estimates “that there are well over a million self-titled rotten girls in Japan,” and that the sale of BL materials is “more than $120 million annually.”

This subculture exists outside Japan. A search on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/) will show movies labeled as “BL” or “Boy Love” made in multiple East Asian localities and languages.

Of course the idea that rape can be somehow a matter of love, or that the victim of rape could end up in love with the person who raped them, is injurious to the safety of women from rape. This whole idea of rape and love being somehow related has been denounced by feminists thoroughly and I will not discuss this aspect further except to note one thing. Though homosexual rape is usually the act of aggression of a straight man against another man, BL materials, comics, movies, etc. are consumed by some gay men. The gay community doesn’t need to have gay men thinking that rape is an expression of extreme love.

The idea that the victim of rape might eventually love their rapist in real life is the idea of psychotics who you read in the press of having kidnaped and held a woman against her with the rapist thinking that she will eventually love him. However, BL movies have little connection to real life.

In the Japanese “Fujimi Orchestra” the gay orchestral conductor rapes a straight violinist, but they manage to have a relationship of sorts anyways. In the Thai “My Dream,” one male character rapes another male character, but in a later episode the person who was raped grabs and kisses his rapist. In the Japanese film, “No Touching at All,” the boss rapes his employee saying that the victim secretly wanted to have sex but couldn’t admit it. They later form a relationship.

This idea that male-to-male love is injurious to gay men in another very dangerous way. When men who have murdered gay men are on trial for their murder, a common tactic by their defense lawyers is to argue that the murder felt threaten that he was going to be sexually assaulted by the gay man and panicked and killed the gay man. It even has a short hand name, “panic defense.”

It also has been asserted in defense trials where a gay man was killed that the person who killed a gay man didn’t panic and was defending himself from a rapist. That was the claim of Uber drive Michael Hancock who killed Hyun Kim June 1, 2018, who was his passenger. Kim’s account of what happened isn’t known since he was dead. [“Denver Uber driver tells jury that his passenger made unwanted sexual advances, attacked him before fatal shooting,” Saja Hindi, The Denver Post, 10/7/2019, https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/07/denver-uber-driver-testifies-murder-trial/] Hancock was found not guilty by the jury. [https://kdvr.com/2019/10/10/uber-driver-michael-hancock-who-fatally-shot-passenger-found-not-guilty/]

There is a risk that this very obvious problem with so-called boy love dramas will obscure other negative problems with boy love movies that are less obvious, but have the potential for much greater harm to the gay community.

Notice that the Daily Beast article explains that the fujoshi don’t see these male-male relationships as gay and as “pure love.” This implies that gay relationships with sexual desire are not pure, that the love of gay men is impure. The boy love world is about male-to-male bonding without gay people or recognizing the validity of gay people having relationships.

The fujoshi mentality defends bromance movies that result from government censorship, but that will be covered in a separate section in this essay.

The ideology of the fujoshi results in anti-gay movies.

Feel Good to Say Goodbye

The worst is a 2016 Thai film, “Feel Good to Say Goodbye.” A brief summary of the plot is this. Two guys had a romance and strong feelings for each other and a sexual relationship in high school. After they graduated they went separate ways. They happen to meet up going to a vacation island. They still have very strong feelings for each other. One however has a girlfriend who he is going to marry. All three spend time on the island together going to the beach, eating meals together.

There is a long section which is a movie in a movie in which the story of high school romance is portrayed. The guy with a girlfriend in the retrospective even saves the guy without a girlfriend from an attempted rape. It is that “motif” thing for BL movies. It isn’t clear that the guy with a girlfriend is gay, but instead it is one of those things in which he falls in love with the other guy and after saving him from a rape they have sex immediately afterwards because of their intense love.

One night on the island, the guy with the girlfriend, after she has gone to sleep early because she drank too much, goes to see the other guy with intentions that they have sex.

This is where the fujoshi ideology kicks in. The guy without the girlfriend refuses the advances. That night he writes a letter which he leaves for the other guy about leaving each other forever. He leaves the island early before the letter is discovered so they won’t see each other again. The guy with a girlfriend is frantic and looks from him, but he is gone.

The letter is an anti-gay manifesto asserting the worthlessness of gay love. From the English subtitles it reads as follows:

The story of love between us could not possible to live together forever.

It’s just one piece of good feeling in our lives.

You have met the right person I’m happy with you and I will walk away.

Aek, I love you! From Chai.

Feel good to say good bye.

Also, earlier the guy with the girlfriend had given an expensive wrist watch to the other guy so that he would remember their love always. The watch is left behind.

The letter is read on a sea shore after being read is dropped and the wind blows it away symbolically representing the relationship being over. The girlfriend comes out to the beach and they walk away.

The love letter asserts that there is no way they could live as a gay couple. It is a flat out rejection that it is possible that it is possible for gay couples to have lives in Thailand. It further trivializes their relationship as “just one piece of good feeling in our lives.”

The guy without the girlfriend is proving how pure his love is, by sacrificing it for the other guy’s heterosexual relationship. The assumption is that the homosexual relationship is nothing compared to a heterosexual relationship and pure love is abandoning it so the other guy can get married and have a heterosexual relationship.

The obliteration of their relationship is held up to be heroic. What is especially poisonous about this movie is that the anti-gay message is slipped into a movie which represents itself initially as valuing their relationship. Instead it is building it up to demolish it.

It needs to be pointed out that this movie was made in 2016 where there is a gay community in Thailand which is working to secure its rights and support itself and develop its community and show people that a gay life is possible. It is also mostly a Buddhist country which is very accepting of gay people and one of the more favored places to have a relationship on the planet.

Yet this movie was made in 2016 and the producers had no concern with its anti-gay message. The reason is likely that the producers knew that the intended audience, fujoshi, wouldn’t care, in fact wouldn’t even perceive or realize the fundamentally anti-gay message in it. Their minds would just endlessly gush over what a cute couple they were and how romantic and pure there love was in endless repetition.

SOTUS The Series

Another anti-gay film is a 2016 Thai series, “SOTUS,” which stands for Seniority, Tradition, Unity, and Spirit. It is about hazing and the feelings of love of an underclassman for an upperclassman who is the leader of the hazing. In the final episode the upperclassman acknowledges his love for the underclassman. They wrap threads around each other’s wrist at a social function for the class. Someone asks the underclassman does that mean he loves men. He says no, he doesn’t love men, he just loves the upperclassman.

During the episodes the fact that neither individual is gay is emphasized by having all the gay characters being visibly effeminate and fit a stereotypes of gays. In contrast the upper and lower classmen are absolutely not gay in any way.

The anti-gay elements of this movie isn’t just that it re-emphasizes stereotypes, it promotes the idea that the love between these two is pure, because neither is gay and neither classman has any same-sex erotic desires. It is a reaffirmation that gay love is impure love. It is a denial and erasure of gay love since the producers have rejected the two classmen as having same-sex desires and coming to a recognition of their identities and forming a relationship and instead have a totally unrealistic plot line that two straight men become a loving couple and sleep together because of their fujoshi pure love.

2 Moons The Series (Original, not the remake)

The author wasn’t able to watch the 2017 Thai series “2Moons” through. Some of the episodes were so creepy that it was just impossible to stomach. For this essay I watch episode 12. “Moon” is a title given to a student who is considered an attractive representative of a class, it is sort of like home coming king in America. The story is about a freshman student selected to be a moon and a sophomore who was selected to be a moon the prior year. As persons with these titles they are to work with each other for some school events. The freshman has had a crush on the sophomore since when they were both students at the same high school. The freshman has a dozen or so pictures of the sophomore on his dresser in his college dorm room. His behavior towards the sophomore is borderline stalking if not actual stalking. The sophomore is very clearly straight. In the 12th and final episode, he purchases a car trunk full of flowers for the freshman, kisses him on the cheek, gives him a wrist bracelet while they lie in bed together and asks if he will be his boyfriend and date him and tells him that he loves him and they end up having a prolonged romantic kiss.

It is a commonplace for young gay people to have to explain to one of their peers that having a crush on a straight guy is heart break waiting to happen and that no matter what you do to try to induce him to like you it isn’t going to lead to romance. Sometimes the person wises up and gets over the crush, and sometimes the person learns the hard way. It is a self-destructive behavior.

It also advances the idea that gay men are pursing straight men to the point of stalking. Gay people have enough problems with paranoid straight guys thinking that we will be stalking them.

However, in the fujoshi world, where sexual orientations aren’t thought of, chasing after a straight guy is a thing with real prospects.

Unfortunately a lot of gay people lacking critical thought don’t perceive these differences between gay love and “boy love.” Likely because they rather gush over a cute actor and have low self-worth and expectations of having their being respected.

For fujoshi, it is simply that they don’t care really about the gay community despite what many might say.

Another negative impact of fujoshi is that they view and disparage actors and dramas in how they aren’t BL drams.

In the Hong Kong movie, “I Miss You When I See You,” is a sensitive story of gay man whose family moved to Australia separating him from his high school boyfriend. His high school boyfriend visits him later in life where he is living in a home facility for people with mental health issues. His boyfriend in Hong Kong is planning to get married. He later returns to Hong Kong for a high school reunion and he and his boyfriend get back together.

The guy in the facility has a long facial hair it looking like a traditional Chinese facial hair. A fujoshi comments that she finds it really repulsive and that is her comment. It might be repulsive to someone wanting a youthful shaven BL type protagonist, but the facial hair of the guy was fine. In a gay bar or online in an app there would be gay men who would find it attractive.

The 2015 Thai drama, “Father and Son,” in particular aroused the ire of fujoshi. The father and son are both gay. The father has an active sex life as does the son. The comments are no longer there but fujoshi stated how they hated the drama and condemned the father.

(Youtube videos of these dramas appear and disappear and the persons posting the videos also review for homophobic comments. So I wasn’t able to find the original comments for movies.)

Fujoshi attack serious gay dramas and series because they don’t fit their idea of super cute guys falling in love in dramas where there is often little representation of physical affection or sex. Often Fujoshi express that some scenes are too sexual.

This whole phenomenon of “boy love” love would have limited impact if there was only these movies and series and fujoshi viewers. It would be largely the issue of getting gay fans of BL to wise up. Though it might be good to make sure in cases where gay men have been bashed or raped that fujoshi aren’t allowed to be jurors.

However, gay dramas on YouTube and elsewhere are listed as BL, and BL content itself spills out to the general public and the LGBT public. It isn’t contained in a sealed vessel.

Fujoshi attack LGBT material also.

It is the issue of Bromance movies created because of the censorship of the Chinese communist government that the fujoshi most seriously injure the gay community.

BROMANCE

In this section I am taking about bromances that are created in response to government censorship of LGBT content. Note that I am not using words and phrases like “work around” or “circumvent.” This implies that a bromance is somehow successful in response to government censorship. These bromances are distortions, deformations, destructions of LGBT and need to be understood as such. Their creation in which a LGBT story is stripped of LGBT content need to be understood as collusions with anti-LGBT oppression and a form of LGBT oppression.

I am not talking about bromances where the author’s original intent was to write about a close friendship between two men. That is a legitimate subject.

Before we can understand fully the appalling impact of these bromances born of government censorship we need to examine what LGBT video does for the LGBT community.

LGBT series in East Asian use fiction to teach the gay community about coming out, relationships, safe sex, living with HIV, homophobia and other important issues about LGBT life. Often they come with English subtitles so other East Asians who can read English can view and understand the movie or series.

(Bibliographic note I am not supplying any links to Mydramalist because of their refusal to accept gay productions from a set of six nationalities resulting in the exclusion of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Malaysia, and Indonesia. I don’t accept their flimsy excuse why they won’t allow these nations.)

In the 2005 Thai film, “Right By Me,” three Thai gay high school students deal with coming out, coming out to parents, self-acknowledging gay identity, relationships and jealously. [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/right_by_me].

The 2017 Thai series, “Bangkok G Story,” in 20 episodes deals with a variety of issues about gay relationships, gay health, online practices in the gay community, and dating issues using the apps. With humor it deals with the issues gay people will face. (There have been additional episodes added to the original series, but I am just going to mention this one.)

The Singapore series, “People Like Us,” also discusses issues of gay life and has in its drama Chinese, Malay, and Indian gay characters. The whole reality of gay life is present. There are gay bathhouses, sex parties, and clubs in the series. In the first episode, there is a pause in the story and the characters in everyday clothes talk to the viewers that “HIV is real and getting tested regularly is super important.” The episodes have English subtitles so they are accessible by anyone who can read English.

FuFuKnows is a Taiwanese channel in which they report on LGBT news, go to gay pride parades in Taiwan, and produce short dramas which deal with issues of gay life. The short dramas have English subtitles so they are accessible by anyone who can read English. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLl4XWZ9GmoRRhSb27smqPw]

The Vietnamese two-episode “S Boys” series, “S Boys,” and “Sboys 2” is about safe sex, the “S” meaning safe. [I think it has two episodes, might be more.]

I want to bring special attention to an Indonesian series, CONQ, a web series exploring the issues of gay life including HIV. It used to be online by the producer on YouTube but was moved to a non-profit group Viddsee based in Singapore which makes available independent producers’ video free to the public. I suspect that the series was moved because of the increasing anti-gay pressure of the Indonesian government. [https://www.viddsee.com/] The first episode is at https://www.viddsee.com/video/conq-episode-1-unstereotype-me/y8k57

The movie has episodes about gay apps, gay stereotypes, getting tested for HIV and also living with an HIV positive status, parental pressure to get married and rejecting that pressure, relationships, breaking up, and other real issues in gay life.

Besides these series which aim to educate the gay community through fiction there are other gay productions which seek to reference wrongs committed against gay people.

The short film, “Tanjong Rhu,” deals with a raid on a park by the Singapore police and the damage it does to gay lives.

Additionally there are other dramas which though not produced by LGBT groups, nevertheless deal with real life issues of LGBT. For example there is the 2016 Vietnamese short film, “Let Love Heal,” a Lukas film, which deals with issues of a gay couple dealing with a homophobic parent.

Another Lukas film is “The Perfect Plan,” which has over 15 million viewers on YouTube, and deals with coming out with a parent, but also points out that your mother might already know and has been waiting for her child to talk about it. (Yes, it has over 15 million views, but Mydramalist rejects it.)

The Hong Kong movie, “For Love, We Can,” deals with how a gay couple comes to term with becoming HIV positive and feelings of guilt of one partner. It deals with the issues of parental non-acceptance also. It is an excellent movie.

Beyond how films educate the LGBT community, it is important to for LGBT to see themselves in film and to see that they are not out of society or out of life, but part of society and life. When there is oppression it is important to communicate that oppression exists.

The need for these films is a matter of life and death. The issue of practicing safe sex, getting tested are important to curb the spread of HIV and save lives. Also, the issues where gays get alienated from gay society and as a consequence are depressed, depressed because they are HIV positive, or feel alone, are important to be addressed to prevent suicide.

To borrow Larry Kramer’s slogan, in a very real way, when gay content is censored and prevented from being accessed, “Silence = Death.”

The Chinese government has instituted a crackdown on LGBT content on the web. There is the banning of LGBT forums, movies, media, and criticism of this ban. The repression has been getting worse over time. In June 2017 audio-visual content was banned. [https://www.thedailybeast.com/china-keeps-trying-to-scrub-lgbt-content-from-the-web]