THE SSO A-Z GUIDE TO QUEER SYDNEY

Q IS FOR

Quadriceps Ah, thighs. After the chest bumps colloquially referred to as tits, is there a more sought-after mass of muscle among gay men? Big, thick thighs have been credited with making rugby league the more attractive code to gay fans, and can definitely distract the eye away from thinning hair or a less than pretty face.

But they’re pretty hard to come by, and quads feature in the benefit lists of two of the crappiest exercise groups: squats of death and fierce lunges. They’re also quite popular among actual (non-gym-going) athletes and those blokes on building sites who bend over a lot.

Which is why the Star‘s Stephen Easy thinks they separate the men from the boys. They aren’t one of your pretty, decorative muscle groups, like the biceps or the abdominals. They are the real deal: functional and solid. And in this mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, they speak of old-school manliness. That’s why I’m proud to call myself a Thighs Queen.

Quarantine As the late Steve Irwin was so fond of reminding us, quarantine matters. Certainly, border protection should have been extended to cover against virulent outbreaks of boy bands and 80s fashion. But what would the great Australian icon have thought of the calls for quarantining against HIV?

Even at the height of the AIDS crisis in the mid-80s, a doctor could be pilloried for suggesting that health bodies needed the power to quarantine those who refused to practise safe sex. Nowadays, health chiefs can be sacked for not detaining risk cases, public health orders are in the headlines, and the prime minister wants to close our borders. Op-eds in interstate newspapers this week are filled with calls for our generation to take appropriate precautions as in the past and quarantine them like dogs. Involuntary quarantine has sparked a new ethics debate in the public health community with a 27-year-old Arizona tuberculosis patient recently jailed indefinitely for failing to wear a mask in public.

But despite HIV being easily preventable, if the sensational headlines continue we could end up watching people being taken aside for rapid oral testing on the next series of Border Patrol.