Arts & Entertainment
‘Younger’ star Dan Amboyer comes out as gay and gets married
the actor explains why he waited so long to reveal his sexuality
“Younger” star Dan Amboyer has publicly come out as gay after tying the knot with his boyfriend of ten years.
Amboyer, 31, married financial planner Eric Berger, 37, in front of 115 family and friends in New York City on Saturday.
In an interview with People, the actor explained that he felt pressure from his career to keep his sexuality a secret.
“Being a young actor in the industry, I had a lot of people who strongly advised me to stay quiet,” Amboyer told PEOPLE. “That was hard to live with. But I’ve never played a gay role before and I didn’t want to be limited by some strange perception.”
He went on that he took inspiration from fellow gay actors on how to merge his private and professional life.
“It was a hard decision to figure out how to approach it in a public way,” Amboyer says. “There are some actors out there now who just keep it as an unspoken aspect of their life and never discuss it in public. But then there are men like Matt Bomer and Zachary Quinto. I look up to them and see how them being so open affected other people and the country’s perception of gay people. And Nico Tortorella, who is also on ‘Younger,’ has inspired me by the way he’s become such an advocate for sexual fluidity. I think the more open actors can be the less stigma there will be attached, which will be a positive thing moving forward.”
Even though Amboyer kept his sexuality and relationship with Berger a secret, Berger revealed he never wanted Amboyer to come out before he was ready.
“I’ve always thought of this component as a personal decision and a business decision for him,” Berger says. “It has been difficult at times not having his public persona integrated in all parts of our lives, but I’ve never pushed him to come out publicly. That was a decision he had to come to for himself.”
The couple also shared that the reason their relationship works is because opposites attract.
“Our crazies match,” Berger says. “I think Dan is very different from the roles he gets to play. He’s a sweet quirky guy who loves animals and is creative and brings a different color to everything in my life. I hold that very valuable.”
As for Amboyer, he appreciates that Berger’s career and personality are so different.
“He’s serious and organized. He’s a financial planner, which is the opposite of my actor self. But we compliment each other,” Amboyer says.
Books
New book reveals what we can learn from animal sex
‘Poking the Squid’ on homosexuality, gender swapping, and more
‘Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex’
By Perrin Roosevelt Ireland
c.2026, W.W. Norton
$29.99 241 pages
Birds do it.
According to Cole Porter, bees do, too, but it’s not exactly what he imagined. Wild and tame, avians, insects, and mammals all have sex – although not always as you’ve been told or for reasons you might think. Even educated fleas do it and, as in the new book, “Poking the Squid” by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, humans can learn from them all.
If you read through scientific papers on animal reproduction, you might notice something unusual: for scientists, the word “sex” means a lot of different things.
Says Ireland, “It’s used to describe behaviors, biology, life histories, and more.”
That might be because animals are not simply binary.
Take, for instance, hyenas. It’s easy for the casual observer to mistake a male hyena for a female and vice versa because of stereotypes of anatomy. Mating, for hyenas, requires subordination for the male and a nifty trick on the part of the female’s body to get things done.
Our feathered friends are no birdbrains, either: black-browed albatrosses were once thought to be monogamous but global warming seems to have changed their nesting habits sometimes. Male flamingos have sex with one another, as a territorial thing; other birds and animals form same-sex pairs for other reasons.
The Chinese mantis eats her mate after fertilization. Female snakes, alpacas, guinea pigs, and monkeys are anatomically able to enjoy sex. Genitalia between species varies quite a bit; in fact, the vaginas of ducks “are highly complex.” Lionesses will mate up to 100 times when in heat. Female damselflies will change into a “third sex” to avoid overly aggressive mating males. Bearded dragons can change their sex, if needed, as can yellow clown goby fish. And seahorse pregnancy and birth sparked a book banning in Tennessee.
So, asks Ireland, if animals, including us, vary so much in biology and life, “… why are we using the word sex like it means something, anything, consistent?!”
Pick up “Poking the Squid,” page through it a few seconds, and you’ll see that the information here is largely told through cartoon-like drawings mixed with captions. It seems to be something on the lighter side, but don’t let that artwork fool you.
Author Perrin Roosevelt Ireland offers readers solid information that cozies up to the scholarly, with hard science, philosophy, feminism, and quotations from researchers to support it, thus furthering the narrative and hitting the points squarely. If you see the art and expect something lighthearted, comic, and small-talk-worthy, you could be disappointed.
On the other hand, if you want solid, wryly serious facts, you’re in for a treat.
There’s lots of learning to be gleaned here, and some slight nudge-wink whimsy to emphasize the absurdity of wrong-headed thinking. This can make readers feel like they’re in-the-know on the jokes, and the playfulness balances the seriousness of the information well.
So, serious, scholarly, or slightly silly, none of these are negative but you’re going to know what you want from a book like this. For the right reader, someone in the mood, “Poking the Squid” is wild.
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The eighth annual Westminster Pride Festival was held at Westminster City Park in Westminster, Md. on Saturday, July 11.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The fifth annual Emerald City Pride was held in Greenbelt, Md. on Saturday, July 11.
(Washignton Blade photos by Michael Key)
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