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3 weeks without a cig. Someone tell me it gets easier than this?

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So I may have mentioned to everyone a few people that I missed the bike I got to borrow for Rock N Ride. I thought I wasn't a Harley guy, I have a Suzuki SV650 that suits me just fine, but...

( I kind of ummed and ahhhd, and... )

So yeah, that happened.

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So say you're with someone creative - writer, musician, whoever. You've just had a shag, it was brilliant, you roll over to go to sleep... and they grab a notebook and start writing.

What would your reaction be? Offended? Entertained? Alarmed?

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You know, we get given a lot of advice when we start out - and a lot of advice later on. Most of it's good or at least useful, but some of it... it's bullshit, really.

For one - There really is such a thing as too much lube.

So. Best kinky advice you've ever had, and worst kinky advice?

(This conversation brought to you after several bottles of wine and dinner with friends of a certain age, where we all turned into our dads and talked about how things used to be twenty years ago.)

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We've had a few posts now about clothes - what clothes people like to wear/look for, what signals they're sending, who approaches them because of it.

But what about you? Without the clothes - not naked, but the things about you that clothes don't change - how much do you think that affects how you get seen at the club/kinky spaces or who approaches you?

Me, I'm 46, I'm 6'2, I like my pies, and I can get a five o'clock shadow by dinnertime. I don't attract guys who are unsure about "The gay thing". I get some new guys, sure, but the ones who are still working things out usually go for the pretty boys, the ones that give them a bit of plausible deniability while they sort themselves out.

I do get invites from guys who are looking for something physical - ones who want to get shoved around, pinned down, that sort of thing. Sometimes that's mostly-dom switches who want a bit of something else, sometimes it's everyday subs who just like that kind of thing.

It suits me pretty well - you could argue about how you learn your kinks, but I'm happy with it. But I've heard friends who don't have the same match up - pretty little women who could make a lot of guys cry not being read as dommes because they're tiny, or the rugby lads who'd really like someone to make them beg but intimidate a lot of dom/mes.

How does it go for you?

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So a lot of gay porn seems to put straight men as the "ultimate prize" - everyone wants to break in a straight guy. I think eh, virgins can be fun, but I'm not going to chase someone who says they're straight.

And on the other end of the scale - yeah, I've made jokes myself but I've seen guys get downright vicious about straight-IDd guys who come down the clubs, whether they're just starting out or it's a regular thing.

Those of you who play for the other team (or both) - does it bother you if someone is just trying things out? I don't so much mean that they're new and just dipping their toes in, I mean the people who are having their wild weekend, or where it does seem to be just an experiment.

What about for kink?

Me, I'm not fussed as long as they're not arseholes. If it's the type of guy who thinks he's better because he doesn't date men, just gets his dick sucked, then he can fuck off home to his left hand. If it's someone who just wants to get fucked and he's not getting philosophical about it then yeah, why not?

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Sometimes people ask if I wish I had stuck with classical music, maybe even gone into teaching. I have a lot of reasons for saying no, but last night I picked up a new one. I'm pretty sure that classical musicians don't get paid to watch a guy being fucked with an ice dildo.

That's actually a new one for me - you see a lot DJing at sex clubs/parties, but I've never seen that before. You have to admire the preparation, really - no idea how they brought it to the club. Maybe in a Thermos.

Anyway, it definitely got people talking so I thought I'd bring the question back to Est: What's the most unusual/interesting thing you've been fucked/fucked someone with? What about just seen at the club?

For me: I don't tend to go for unusual toys that much, so my answer's pretty boring. The odd bottle is about the extent of it. Seen, well, the ice was pretty high up there - not the most "extreme" but extreme doesn't always mean interesting.

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So I tweeted last night I'd run out of space on my iPod and I was debating - delete and make some space, or just start a new iPod? And people told me "You're not supposed to run out of iPod, you have too much music."

The fuck? No such thing as too much! So I told them - I collect music. Some people collect stamps, I collect music.

So what do you collect? And how much room does it take up?

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Right now I'm working Sydney Mardi Gras - if you're not familiar, it's our version of Pride rather than your American-style Mardi Gras. Parties, parade, music, everyone loves everyone, it's a good place to be.

Some of us try to make sure it keeps on being a good place to be by passing out condoms/setting up points for people to take some if they want one. In 20-fucking-12 I shouldn't be hearing "Nah, I don't do those." Not "I don't need them" - which could mean they have their own, could mean they're not hooking up - but "I don't do them."

What are we teaching our kids that that's the way they think? And by "our kids" I mean people's sons and daughters, but I also mean the kids we should be helping out because even if we don't share DNA, they're our next generation and we have a fucking responsibility to them. I'm 46 and they're making me feel fucking old - not because they're 18/19 and they can get away with things guys my age would never have dreamed of back then, but because they don't have some of the things I took for granted.

I was lucky - I went away to school and there were older guys around who took me under their wing. There weren't as many of us as there are now but I had someone I could ask for advice, had people looking out for me. Now there's a hell of a lot more people out and on the scene, but I don't see that sense of community, not in the same way. Too many people doing the "I got mine" or "Kids these days have it easy". We got ours because of the people who came before us - so what are we doing for the kids who come after?

I see a lot of people saying "Kids today", a lot of people acting like 18 year olds are supposed to pull common sense out of thin air. Come on, we all know it doesn't work that way. They learn because someone teaches them. We all know where the alternative ends up.

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I just found out there's another major obscenity trial going on - and surprise surprise, just like the Spanner case it's gay men. This guy has the details. Looks like the DVDs contain fisting, watersports, and a bit of the usual S&M.

He quotes the Obscene Publications act which basically boils down to whether or not a jury thinks something (in this case DVDs) is going to "deprave and corrupt a viewer".

Now I take some fucking issue with that. Because in five minutes I could round you up a jury full of people who think two fully-clothed men holding hands in public will deprave and corrupt people. Fuck, I could find you some who think two fully-clothed women standing three feet apart wearing wedding rings are going to corrupt an entire country.

And who is the viewer? Because bear in mind this is a private DVD - it's not being beamed onto the side of Big Ben here. And I don't know about you but most of the porn titles I've seen aren't exactly subtle - if you buy "Grunts Fisting: Arm of One" or "Fist and Shout" from FistingCentral.com then I'm pretty sure you know what you're paying to watch. So I'm fairly certain here that anyone watching the DVDs already knows plenty about what goes on in them - this is not an educational film.

Is there a good reason why we're letting reasoned and consensual sexual activity be judged by a bunch of people who were never invited to participate in it?

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Brilliant legalisation ad for gay marriage.

If you know me, you'll know I'm not the marrying kind. And you know what? That's not the fucking point. Things don't have to affect me for me to say they're important.

But in a way this does anyway. Because yeah, I'm 46 and still single, still DJing all-night parties and that kind of shit. But you know what? That's not because I'm gay. I know straight guys in the business who were doing this back when I was still learning to play piano, and they're still up there every night. And yet you'd be amazed how many people think it is a gay thing, that only gay people party and sleep around and take drugs.

And how many people think that's all gay people do. I've seen people say "But they don't want to get married, do they? I didn't think they did that sort of thing." Because the media image is the guy out clubbing every night, it's the sexless gay best friend in a chick flick, it's never the boy next door and his partner. Or the women who hooked up in the 70s and have been together ever since.

We're never going to win over the people who go "If we let gays marry, next thing people will be marrying dogs and children!". But the ones who are stuck in the past because of ignorance in the real sense, lack of knowledge, them? Yeah, I like to think we can.

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So today/yesterdy was National Coming Out Day.

First thing I want to say is I think the pressure on people to come out is fucked up. Especially the forced outing of people - it's bullshit, it should be a person's choice. Not everyone has the same options there and even if they did it's no-one's fucking business.

That aside, I am curious about people's reasons. Are you out, semi out, sort of out, what? (I'm not going to put "Totally in the closet" as an options because if you're answering, you're not.) And why? I guess around here a lot of people will have the same reason, media, but there's things like family, personal opinion that it's no-one else's damn business, all kind of reasons.

Me, I'm completely out, as out as you can get (Though I did hear a rumour I was bisexual. No-one told me about it.) I was lucky enough to have very supportive parents and I came out because I couldn't live with lying to my mum. It opened up some options for me professionaly - some of my work now is gay clubs and bars, Pride events, that sort of thing. I've been fairly lucky not to get too much shit for it - I get the odd drunk young guy look like he wants to say something then realise I'm bigger than him and think better of it. It was definitely the right choice for me, and I was lucky that it was a free choice.

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Kinsey Scale. Most people are pretty familiar with it. 0 for 100% hetero, 6 for the full-on homo, and everywhere else somewhere in between.

But... it really only works for sex. Which is fair enough, that's what it was designed for. But it had me wondering - does your Kinsey number for fucking match up with the one you'd get if it was asked about sceneing and kink?

When it comes to sex I'm a solid 6. Never even dabbled. Homo as fuck. But scenes? Nothing wrong with sceneing with girls - not something I do all that often but it's good when it happens. So that's maybe a 4, 4.5 - leans to same-sex but far from exclusive.

Where do you fall on the scale?

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I'm considering changing my name to "Paul Mac - no, not that one." (Oz-Paul for short).

See, This is Paul Mac - DJ, producer, etc etc, Australian.

This is Paul Mac - DJ, producer, etc etc, Englishman.

The funny thing is, neither of us is really "Paul Mac". I'm Paul McDermott and he's Paul Souter. But we both work under that name, and I keep getting contacted by some very fucking confusing people expecting a bald Englishman. And he's had contacts meant for me. (Paul, if you got the sauna stuff... I'm very sorry.)

I can't be the only one whose name's given them trouble working - how about the rest of you? I know a few people with names the American press can't spell for shit, I suspect that's a pretty common problem, and I can't be the only one getting mix ups.

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But only the gay ones, obviously. Doesn't she have anything better to do with her time?

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Today's playable Google Doodle of the day, in honour of Les Paul's 96th birthday. Apparently in America you can record.

(If you're reading this post tomorrow - it was a partial guitar spelling out Google, with playable strings.)

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As everyone's probably heard by now, the world is meant to start ending on Saturday. So the only question is - what will all you lovely folks be doing come the Apocalypse?

Me, I'm going to be in the basement of my second-favourite sex club with my very best records. If the world does end, I'd like to go out with a bang.

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Sydney people! Still got a couple of Mardi Gras tickets, let me know if you want.

Everyone else! Those of you who are gay/bi/queer/trans/alphabet soup, how much do you get involved in "community" stuff? I'm talking anything from clubbing to organising marches to online stuff, whatever you count as being involved.

Fair to assume a lot is going to be restricted by the need to stay in the closet, but I'm curious enough to ask, see what kind of patterns there are here.

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Or so my bandmate is telling everyone on Twitter right now. For everyone's sake I hope he's right - that's kind of a mouthful!

I go with Red because it's simple and pretty standard - even if they don't use it, most people are familiar with the traffic light system. It doesn't mean anything to me, it's just what I learned to use. But I've heard a lot that seem to be personal.

What about yours? Do you go traffic lights/simple? Is it something deliberately silly so it'll be obvious? Or something personal, for some other reason? (If it's personal and you don't want to say what, that's fine.)

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I like to keep an eye out for what people are saying about me. A little bit of background here - a lot of Silverchair fans think I'm a bad influence on Daniel, so there are some issues there. Apparently I've lead him astray. Anyway, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but I was on the main board earlier and I stumbled across this:

"Permastoned? Good word. Yeah, Paul Mac apparently puts weed on everything, even spaghetti."

I love it. I think that's hands down the best thing I've ever heard about myself. No I'm not going to try it.

What's the best rumour you've heard about yourself?