BOYS WILL BE BOYS

I live in Manukau City, South of Auckland; New Zealand. We have the densest pacific island population of any country in the world. The given is that meeting other like minded queers like yourself is easy, since geographically we’re all in the same city. You would think it were that simple. The Polynesian Princes of south Auckland are as closeted as the gays in the NRL. They have refined their visibility to a passing fragrance of I WANNA FUCK YOU BUT I”M WITH HER. The problem with this metaphor is that it reeks of homos in south Auckland but these men have succeeded in making themselves invisible.

So therein lays the problem of trying to engage and understand a type of man that exists only in theory. I imagine this type of man as wanting to express his sexual fluidity and attraction to the same sex however being stunted by his contradicting physicality, one of which is typically hetronormative and in gender specific terms what is appropriate for him to conform to i.e. “I am built in the manner of a man that is only biologically compatible with a significant other of the opposite sex”. This belief system is made a mantra that affirms a masculine stereotype and a gender ideal that is perpetuated, driven and motivated both sociologically and politically by a western heterosexual statuesque and moral majority.

The art works posted on this blog are inspired by this idea. This is JERRY THE FA’AFAFINE he is pleased to have finally found you and met you...


SOUTHSIDES ORIGINAL GAY BAR

























Shot on a Cannon mark 5D, I took this fancy camera to a Samoan night club in South Auckland called "APIAWAY". With a Notorious reputation for drunken disorderly, and extreme violence in some cases, the clubs familiar exterior has welcomed in a new era of drunken and disorderly. This Younger generation take their own unique brand of PolySwagg to this infamous spot every thursday night in the spirit of --PARTY & BULLSHIT-- keeping alive the traditions of the two generations before them.

Dripping with hormones and beautiful Pacific people the territorial boundaries of this clubs past have now been replaced with mating rituals that look like post tweens doing the 'Dougie'. I met this gorgeous young man outside with my camera ASSistant (LIFE OF A FAF) and snapped some shots up against the red steel cage. I never caught his name but then thats always the way.

I used to wonder when anyone in SOUTHSIDE would ever open a gay bar, then I remembered the army of FAFZ that turn out to AY-WAY on a thursday night and then I realized that of course... APIAWAY is South Auckland's oldest standing gay bar to date. hahaha


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