The 12 Gifts Every Gay Man Needs This Christmas Season
The ‘Most Wonderful Time Of The Year’ is here. That time of the year when we drink our weight in alcohol, forget our love-hate relationship with sugar, and greedily tear open gifts just to get them exchanged a couple of days later.
IT’S CHRISTMAS TIME!
Since I’ve been incredibly naughty relatively nice this year, I tried to compile a list of everything I (and other gay men) would want for the holidays. And as you can clearly see, I tried not being too selfish. (PS: It’s the season of giving after all, and all I’d want to do right now is give you ideas.)
Now pour yourself another glass of rum-infused eggnog, and scroll through my wish list just like you’d scroll through the men’s section of your favourite online shopping portal:
1. A dating app that changes everything
Goodbye, Grindr. It was great knowing you, but I think it’s not working out.
Whatever happened to good ol’ fashioned dating, you ask? 2017 did. Most dating apps are breeding grounds for fuckboys (and other such men) who’d rather have you than the crème brulee you plan to share with them after dinner. How about we go for a movie, have fajitas and cola at a hole-in-the-wall, drinks at the friendly neighbourhood gay bar (read below), and then laugh over how great a time we had over dessert before I decide whether I want to be your dessert or not?
2. A FINAL goodbye to section 377
I said it last year, and I’ll say it again. While section 377 bans consensual sex between any two consenting gay men, what it really bans is my hope for the future of humanity. It’s finally time to say goodbye to the century old law, just like it’s time to say goodbye to the ex who never called back after the seventh date.
PS: Let’s just keep the regression to our primetime soaps for now?
3. An end to homophobia and oppression
Wouldn’t that be an excellent little treat for the Yuletide season? An end to bigotry? Giftwrap it for me, please.
4. Heartwarming gay fiction
How about we see a LGBT story that doesn’t follow the same coming out trope? I want to read a love story between two men that didn’t seem like it was written by a middle schooler (or their mother) – one where the leads don’t have loose wrists, and looser morals.
Here’s to reading more gay fiction (and non fiction) that tells untold stories, books that you can snuggle up to and read with multiple mugs of accompanying hot cocoa (or a bottle of wine – who’s to judge?)
5. A lifetime supply of condoms (and lube)
Think of it as a lifetime supply of pleasure and protection. Now go wrap your troopers, just like you wrap those gifts tonight.
6. Diet love
It’s almost 2018. If we can have diet chips and diet coke, where can we get rid of the empty calories and find ourselves some diet love?
Hold the sugar.
7. Acne cream that actually works
Here’s looking at you, pimple-on-my-temple that just won’t go – If I wanted to look like my geeky high school self, I’d go back to 2004 (not really). How many of us want our skin to match our glowing personalities?
Everyone.
I am officially done with activated charcoal masks and DIY scrubs, give me something that is as effective as Taylor Swift’s shade to her string of ex boyfriends.
8. A friendly neighborhood gay bar
No, we don’t want a bar that seeks us out every other Saturday of the month – we want a bar where we can be ourselves every single day of the week. Although we might like drinks and drunken banter at the niche pub halfway across town, we’d love it a lot more if we could have them without the masks and your musky colognes.
9. Adoption rights for LGBT folk
India does not routinely allow same-sex couples to adopt a child. That’s a shame for both, couples looking to start a family, and kids missing out on one.
I think it’s safe to say that having two dads (or two mums) is better than having none – because we can all agree, the world can never have too many self-aware fashion conscious children who know the benefits or organic eating and working out five times a week, can it?
10. An Adele concert
Eighty percent of gay men will tell you (over multiple glasses of wine) that they ‘identify with Adele’s music’. The other 20 percent are lying, or simply don’t know what they want in life (much like my string of ex boyfriends).
Now how about we get an encore of ‘Someone Like You’ as we chug an entire bottle of vodka?
11. Socks
As a very important man once said, one can never have too many socks. I prefer polka dots.
12. Nicer gay men
We might have religious fanatics, bigots, homophobes and extremists in this world, but no one hates the gays like the gays themselves. The Mascs hate the queens. The gym boys hate the chubs. The cubs hate the twinks. The bears hate the daddies. The Katy Perrys hate the Taylor Swifts. Everyone hates the sapiosexuals.
This hamster cycle of homosexual hate needs to stop. How about we enter 2018 with nicer, gay men instead of entering a heated argument over who’s better – Britney Spears or Madonna?
Let’s not go there now.
Illustration courtesy Amrai Dua