Russia may not have the apocalyptic smog clouds of its Chinese neighbors to the south, but they’re not exactly breathing easy in Moscow.

The air in Russia is some of the most polluted in the world, accounting for 17 percent of childhood and 10 percent of adult diseases, as well as 41 percent of respiratory and 16 percent of endocrine diseases in the country.

But according to one audacious propagandist, Russia’s air is also uniquely able to dissolve the sins of homosexuality.

And since this story already has all the makings of a farce, it’s natural that famed French actor and director Gerard Depardieu has everything to do with it.

Depardieu was granted Russian citizenship in 2013 and has cultivated a little bromance with Vladdy Putin. We can only assume they get together to wrestle bears on the weekends.

Well you can imagine that Russian officials weren’t thrilled when Depardieu released his autobiography recently, in which he revels he was a gay child prostitute. Doesn’t quite fit with Putin’s alpha male bullshit.

But no bother, here’s what Vitaly Milonov, the homophobic politician who sponsored Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ legislation, had to say about the Frenchman:

“It wasn’t easy for him in France. There, society is corrupted and doesn’t have any moral principles. I view Gérard’s book as sort of repentance, confession of old sins…Now that he breathed in the purifying air of Mordovia, all that filth left him.”

Gerard also claims he can drink 14 bottles of wine a day, so the smog may be the least of his problems.

via Pink News

Dax Shepard doesn’t want you thinking there is a werewolf trying to escape from his butt crack. All things considered, it’s not an unreasonable request.

Before filming a nude scene for the critically-underwhelming family dramcom This Is Where I Leave You, Dax was nervous that while his ass cheeks are silky and smooth, there’s “a forest in the valley.”

So rather than go to a professional, he employed the help of his wife Kristen Bell for some heavy deforestation with some battery-powered clippers. The theme song of the experience was naturally “Funky Town.”

Here’s Dax explaining the story to Conan:

Well if your mother is anything like Danny’s in Jimmy Fowlie’s hilarious Go-go Boy Interrupted web series, it doesn’t seem to make one bit of difference.

In this episode, Danny deals with an all-too-real consequence of a blackout — waking up to a complete stranger in your bed.

Luckily his mom (hey, isn’t that also Charlie’s mom on It’s Always Sunny?) stomps in and breaks the tension with even more awkwardness.

Here’s the episode. You can find more Go-go here.

This is the very important question posed by Seth Rogen’s wife, modern thinker Lauren Miller, as a response to HuffPo’s recent question: “why are you and James Franco naked so often?”

And it’s a good one to ask, considering the recent Instagram photos documenting their naked outdoor adventures and before that, their racy nude painting phase. “Me and Franco…have teamed up with the Discovery Channel to get Naked and Afraid,” says Rogen, confirming the pair will be on an upcoming episode of the show.

The actor and his wife were speaking with HuffPo about an upcoming event for their Hilarity for Charity organization, but it’s clear what topic was the most important. “20 percent of the questions for you were about Alzheimer’s,” the interviewer says, “and 80 were about James Franco’s penis.”

Check it out below:

It was 1968, a year before the Stonewall riots and the birth of the modern gay rights movement and Liberace was in the closet. But what a closet! It was undoubtedly jam-packed with magnificent bejeweled garments fit for a queen. Although the iconic pianist-entertainer never came out publicly and would die of AIDS-related illness in 1987, his sexual orientation must have been transparent to everyone but his devoted blue-haired fan base. In a vintage audio interview with KTRH Houston that’s been digitized by PBS Digital Studios, Liberace talks about the “peacocking” of men’s fashion, his impoverished youth, working hard for that yearly $3M income and what he spent on clothing, as well as what he’d do if he were president.

Watch the fun unfold below.

Late last weekend, an unidentified 28-year-old trans woman and her gay friend were walking in Bushwick, a neighborhood in Brooklyn adjacent to Williamsburg. The two were approached by several men, and what started as harassment turned into brutal violence when they discovered she was trans.

The woman, a client of New Alternatives for Homeless LGBT Youth, was repeatedly called “faggot” and beaten with a 2×4.

The victim’s friend was able to escape the scene unharmed, and the attack is now under investigation by NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force.

Kate Barnhart, New Alternatives’ executive director, told local press:

“She is listed in stable condition, but it is not clear if she will have permanent brain damage.

It is outrageous that transgender people are still not safe in what is supposed to be the safest LGBT city in the world.”

It is even more outrageous that this attack is the second violent crime committed against an LGBT person in Bushwick in just weeks.

On September 27, a 22-year-old self identifying gay man dressed in feminine clothing was shot in the buttocks and called “faggot” and “tranny” while walking with friends.

In that case, police charged 21-year-old Matthew Smith with attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon, and menacing, all as hate crimes. Cody Sigue, 22, and Tavon Johnson, 17, were charged with menacing and aggravated harassment, both as hate crimes.

via Gay City News

On Sunday night New York City’s Slake nightclub hosted one of the naughtiest events of the year. Hustlaball New York is one of 27 parties thrown around the world celebrating the best in hustlers, go-go boys, rent boys and porn stars. This year marked its 16th anniversary and no punches were pulled. Porn stars like Austin Wolf, Duncan Black, Tommy Defendi, Boomer Banks, Brent Corrigan and others performed live for their crowd of horned up fanatics and fans.

This year’s “Sin is In” theme brought the hoofed Satyr out of mythology and onto the dancefloor. Once again, the members of club art collective Dreamhouse brought their aesthetic to Slake for Hustlaball’s annual fête.  “Sin is In” conjured the ghosts of New York’s past and revelers got to relive a more raunchy Gotham city.

Photos: Jeff Eason/Wilson Models

Thousands turned out for a star-studded AIDS Walk benefitting AIDS Project Los Angeles this past Sunday. Before the walk began, volunteers gathered at local favorite bar The Abbey for a refreshing breakfast and mingling with local politicians and stars like Paula Abdul, Jai Rodriguez and Lea Thomposon.

Click through the GayCities gallery here to see who came out to support the cause…

We’ve done our best to keep you informed on all the wacky news stories happening around the world this year. Now it’s your turn to choose which one was the wackiest of them all in the 2014 Queerties.

Whether it’s pastor Bert Farias proclaiming that gay people are possessed by “fart demons” so stinky they have the power to drive pigs to suicide, or Mischa Badasyan, the gay performance artist who vowed to have sex with a different man every day for an entire year, crazies have definitely dominated the news cycle.

Penises, too, have been quite a hot topic. A Malaysian fellow became enraged when he ordered a penis enlarger online and instead received a magnifying glass in the mail. A man in Croatia was arrested after police found jars and jars of human wieners soaking in formaldehyde in his apartment. And a guy in Alabama who alleged he went into a hospital for a circumcision and woke up castrated. Yes, castrated.

But it was a groundbreaking study out of Turkey that found men with bellies last an average of five minutes longer in the sack than guys with six packs that got you readers the most excited.

So which was the Wackiest News Story of them all? You tell us.

VOTING IN THE QUEERTIES IS EASY: Just head over to the ballot page and click on your favorite nominees. We promise it’s a lot easier than voting in the November elections — and we’ve got sexier candidates, too.

You can come back and vote once every day until the contest closes on November 02, 2014, at midnight Eastern.

A U.S. Marine has been charged with murder in the death of a transgender Filipina woman in Manila over the weekend.

Police say 19-year-old Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton met 26-year-old Jennifer Laude, a transgender woman, at a Manila nightclub late Saturday night and later took her to a hotel in nearby Olongapo City.

Laude was found strangled to death in the hotel room shortly after the two arrived, and witnesses from the nightclub believe it’s because Pemberton didn’t know Laude was transgender. Police believe this fact could have angered him to the point of murder.

Pemberton was only identified thanks to cooperation from the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigation Service with the local Olongapo police investigation. He was identified as a suspect to the public after being picked out of a photo lineup by several witnesses who were in the nightclub earlier that night, as well as being seen on surveillance footage at the hotel.

He’s currently in U.S. custody aboard the USS Peleliu north of Manila, though the Philippine government has requested transfer of his custody. Reuters reports the U.S. doesn’t have to transfer custody of a member of the armed forces until judicial proceedings are complete.

Pemberton is based out of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where according to local NBC affiliate WITN, Filipino-Americans say Marines “should have been educated about the transgender population” and should be “briefed on the type of culture they were going to be in.”

ABC announced this week it will move forward with production on “Men In Shorts”, a new sports comedy inspired by the life of openly gay LA Galaxy star Robbie Rogers.

The 27-year-old Olympian, who became the first openly gay man to play in a major North American professional league sport in May 2013, tweeted he’s “really excited to be a part of this” last night.

Though the project is still obviously in early pre-production, writer Claudia Lonow and producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron have already revealed a loose storyline. According to their release, “Men In Shorts” will center on “a young pro soccer player who takes one small step out of the closet and one giant leap into the spotlight.”

Deadline has much more:

Men In Shorts will combine elements of a family and workplace comedy. “To me, a sports team locker room is a workplace we haven’t seen before,” [Lonow] said. Like in real-life, the protagonist comes from a conservative family. The project naturally takes liberties — on the show, the guy’s parents are still together, and, while Rogers’ father had been completely supportive and accepting, the soccer dad on the series “has more of a journey to go,” Lonow said. The comedy will chronicle how the soccer player’s teammates and friends interact with him after his coming out and how they start evaluating their own secrets that are keeping them from “being happier and more authentic.”

Now that it’s official, we should probably discuss possible lead actor options.

A student performance of Almost, Maine/YouTube

Students of North Carolina’s Maiden High School are protesting their principal’s recent decision to cancel their school play due to its “inappropriate” content, an excuse they believe refers to the play’s two gay characters.

WSOC TV reports rehearsals for the John Cariani play “Almost, Maine” had already begun when principal Rob Bliss cancelled all upcoming rehearsals and performances, caving to pressure in the form of alleged complaints from parents and local churches in the community.

The play is a romantic comedy that features multiple loves stories in several unrelated storylines. According to students, complaints about the upcoming production were mostly about a gay couple that appears in one scene.

Though it’s been performed at high schools and colleges around the country for decades, principal Rob Bliss said in a statement to WSOC TV that the play was unsuitable for the community because it contained “sexually explicit overtones and multiple sexual innuendos.”

“As principal of Maiden High School, I have an obligation to ensure that all material, including drama performances is appropriate and educationally sound for students of all ages,” he said.

A disgruntled member of the would-be production took their frustrations to Reddit last night, where they claimed the school’s production budget has been drained as a result of the fiasco, and that the future of the school’s drama program this year is in jeopardy:

The theatre department is protesting the cancelation on several grounds. First of all, they already paid for the scripts and everything and now only have like 2 dollars left in their budget. They use the profits from this play to pay for the next production and now that won’t be able to happen.

Second of all, this is the 21st century, things like this shouldn’t be happening. There are gay people in the theatre department, ones I’m glad to call my friend, and their voices are being suppressed and that is not okay.

At time of press, a student-organized petition to attempt to reverse Principal Bliss’s decision had collected over 200 signatures online.

The scene that includes two gay men can be seen in a 2010 William Woods University performance below:

Scene from “Bathhouse: The Musical”

Bathhouses became a popular hangout for gay men in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when homosexual acts were still illegal. They saw their heyday in the late 1970s, with nearly 200 located in cities across the country. But by 1990, that number had been cut in half — the AIDS epidemic caused major cities to force the baths closed over health concerns. Today, less than 70 bathhouses remain nationwide, and the patrons tend to skew older. Now apps like Grindr and Scruff are only making them less popular among younger guys.

But that isn’t stopping the North American Bathhouse Association’s (NABA, yep that’s a thing) 75-year-old president Dennis Holding from giving up hope.

In a recent interview with Vice, Dennis discussed bathhouses of past, present and future. Here’s some of what he said:

On the atmosphere of clubs back in the ’70s:

It was a social place then. That’s what I believe our function is even today. Yeah, there was sex, of course, but the clubs we were building had swimming pools, gyms—they had a lot to offer. We have people who have been going to one of our clubs for 20 years, 30 years. It’s part of their social thing. There are plenty of people I know just by there being there so much. It’s part of their routine.

Why a bathhouse makes more sense than Grindr:

Let’s say you’ve met Sam Stranger online. That’s cool. You want to bring a stranger into your apartment? Maybe not. You want to go to his place, which is far out in Queens or wherever? Maybe not. But if you had a place to go on the East Side or West Side that you thought was clean and pleasant and welcoming, why not meet there?

What’s keeping the bath’s from reaching their full potential?

You can’t have sex on the premises where food and beverage are served.

Hmm. We can’t say we’re entirely convinced by Dennis’ arguments. To say nothing of the fact that most bathhouses are dingy, mildewy and smell like cheap lube.

You can read Dennis’ full interview, including the time he felt around in the dark and recognized an old friend via an unconventional handshake, on Vice.

Related stories:

Are Gay Bathhouses Going Extinct?

Bathhouses And Beyond: A Brief History Of Gay Cruising

PHOTOS: A Rare Glimpse Into San Francisco’s Infamous Fairoaks Bathhouse

A band of thieves jumped a 16-year-old boy in Seattle, stole his cell phone, then used it to text “I’m gay” to his mother.

According to the police report, the teenager was sitting at a bus stop last week minding his own business. He reached into his backpack to pull out his phone. All of a sudden, four young men approached. After they punched the kid in the nose they proceeded to continue roughing him up. While fighting them off, the boy dropped his backpack and phone.

“Hey!” a bystander yelled. “Break it up!”

That’s when the suspects reportedly fled, but not before snatching the victim’s phone and backpack.

“Give that back!” the kid yelled after them. But the suspects were already gone.

When the 16-year-old returned home, his mother was waiting for him, her eyes filled with concern. When the teen asked what was wrong, she held up her cellphone to display the text message she had just received from him. It read:

As far as we know, the kid is not actually gay. He explained to his mother what happened and she contacted police.

The teen told authorities he believes one of the suspects might be a former schoolmate, who he identified by his lip ring. The other three suspects, he said, he didn’t recognize. Police have yet to announce any arrests in the case.

Related stories:

Idiot Teacher Suspended For Posting “I’m Gay” Sign To Teen’s Back

Cute Cop Admits To Signing Up Tea Party Leader On Gay Dating and Porn Websites

Gay Biker Gang’s Sex Rampage Ends In Tickle Attack

Hollywood‘s swanky, naughty side came out at Prohibition, a Lyst party at the Emerson Theater last week. Decadent burlesque-inspired dancers gyrated above a crowd of revelers, and models rubbed elbows with drag queens and jocks alike.

Take a look at the full GayCities gallery to see what a modern-day prohibition party entails…

Broadway veteran Alan Cumming has been named the sexiest man alive by Shia LaBeouf, who says he was arrested outside a Broadway theater in June for basically trying to seduce Cumming during a live performance.

LaBeouf’s erratic behavior was documented that day by paparazzi in New York, who claimed he had been visibly intoxicated while sparring with a homeless man in Times Square hours before.

LaBeouf says he had been drinking whiskey continuously for almost 24 hours before he was invited by a male dancer to a performance of Cabaret on Broadway, in which Cumming plays Emcee:

“Alan Cumming walks past me, and all I can think about is his leather pants and him winking at me. So he walks past me and I give him a slap on the ass because I think he deserves it. He’s seducing me — he’s the sexiest man I’ve ever seen, and I didn’t just slap it, I slapped and grabbed him. Like I grabbed a whole cheek because I wanted the party right here in my pants.”

Hear the thrilling eight minute tale below:

Buzzfeed has thoroughly cornered the market on “If ___ were like ___” videos, and the meme (like every other one) certainly has an expiration date. But before they go from mildly annoying to all-out unbearable, there have been some clever installments.

The videos that flip gender/sexuality roles are our favorites, like this one that poses the question What if straight people had to come out?

Watch here:

Here’s another great shot-for-shot remake video that recasts men in famous Horror films, highlighting Hollywood’s sexualization of women by sexualizing the guys instead:

Police have released footage of two of the four assailants suspected of beating a trans woman unconscious on the streets of Brooklyn last Sunday night.

We previously reported that the unnamed victim was harassed before the attack, and new details from the NY Daily News paint an even more distressing picture of what happened.

Witnesses told cops the four goons followed the victim down Bushwick Ave. spouting anti-gay epithets before the attack.

“What are you doing on this block?” one punk barked.

The victim yelled back and then tried to get away, but the suspects chased her down and attacked, police said.

One of the brutes beat the woman in the head with a Plexiglas board, knocking her out, as the other three punks kicked and punched her, officials said.

Emergency responders rushed the victim to Elmhurst Hospital, where she remained in critical condition early Wednesday, authorities said.

Police describe one suspect as “a black man who was last seen wearing a dark, long-sleeve shirt, gray sweatpants, white sneakers, a ski cap and a gray sleeveless sweatshirt with the word “Freedom” on it,” and the other as “a black man with a short haircut, who was last seen wearing a blue Nike hooded sweatshirt with blue sweatpants.”

At this time, no arrests have been made.

Here is the surveillance footage of two of the suspects:

– Actor Chris Noth, who played Mr. Big on Sex and the City, telling an Australian reporter what he really thinks of Carrie Bradshaw and indicating he missed the point of the long-running series

Someone laminate Betty Who’s gay card, because she earned impressively high marks when she sat down for our very first Queerty Query interview.

Werq, throwing shade, and Wentworth Miller were just some of the subjects she aced. We’ll forgive her for not knowing what Scruff is.

Betty recently hosted the GayCities Stoli Guy Finale in New York, and before the big show we got a chance to sit down with the budding pop star to see just how well she understands the lives of her gay fans.

Take a look: