Friday, August 7

Go Gay DC will host “First Friday LGBTQ+ Community Social” at 7 p.m. at Silver Diner Balston. This is a chance to relax, make new friends, and enjoy happy hour specials at this classic retro venue. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite. 

Saturday, August 8

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation.  Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center will host “RA Xtra: Manhood” at 1:30 p.m. “MANHOOD” follows Dallas entrepreneur Bill Moore as he attempts to make penis enlargement as commonplace as Botox. Along the way, an OnlyFans star and a father of five put their bodies—and their insecurities—on the line. Blending dark humor with unexpected empathy, MANHOOD examines shame, addiction, and the fragile myths of American masculinity. More details are available on the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center’s website. 

Sunday, August 9

“Nellie’s DC Drag Brunch” will be at 12 p.m. at Nellie’s Sports Bar. Come get served like a queen by a queen at this unforgettable Drag Brunch. Join Sapphire Blue, Deja Diamond and their team of amazing drag performers for the most fun you’ll have all weekend. Tickets are $58.51 and are available on Eventbrite. 

Monday, August 10

“Center Aging: Monday Coffee Klatch” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more information, contact Adam ([email protected]).

Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary, whether you’re bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just know that you’re not 100% cis. For more details, visit genderqueerdc.org or Facebook. 

Tuesday, August 11

Trans Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This event is intended to provide an emotionally and physically safe space for trans people and those who may be questioning their gender identity/expression to join together in community and learn from one another. For more details, email [email protected]. 

Wednesday, August 12

Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom upon request. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.

Thursday, August 13

The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245. 

Virtual Yoga Class will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This free weekly class is a combination of yoga, breathwork and meditation that allows LGBTQ+ community members to continue their healing journey with somatic and mindfulness practices. For more details, visit the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center’s website.  

Greg Araki may not have been solely responsible for the “New Queer Cinema” movement of the 1990s, but he certainly gave it an edge.

From early low-budget groundbreakers like “The Living End” (1992) through his “Teen Apocalypse Trilogy” (1993-97) and beyond, his films have subverted cinematic tropes with queer characters and themes and co-opted them into his own unique brand of filmic storytelling — extreme, campy, and transgressive – in which his queer characters were usually framed as sexual outlaws, flawed and anti-heroic outsiders who disregard not only sexual conventions, but often the law and the social order itself.

In subsequent decades, he’s continued to bring that same fiercely counter-cultural swagger to a surprisingly diverse array of projects, from the melancholy and critically acclaimed “Mysterious Skin” (2004) to the first-ever Cannes Queer Palm winner “Kaboom” (2010). And though it’s been 12 years since his last feature film release (“White Bird in a Blizzard”), he’s brought his twisted talents under the radar to helm episodes of popular TV shows like “13 Reasons Why,” “Riverdale,” and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”

Now, he’s back to the big screen with “I Want Your Sex,” a new erotic comedy-thriller that proves he hasn’t lost that edge. In fact, he may have honed it to a sharpness that cuts deeper than ever — and he’s aimed it not only at the moralistic posturing of mainstream attitudes around carnality, but at the thinly veiled high end consumerism that drives the world of avant-garde art.

Structured with a nod to “Sunset Boulevard” – it begins with a shocking “face down in a swimming pool” moment that is then explained in flashback – and flavored with the kind of sexual anarchy that rarely manages to penetrate the cultural mainstream, it’s the quintessentially “L.A.” story of Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), a perennially down on his luck 23-year-old would-be podcaster who manages to land a job as an assistant to multi-media artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), known as much for her domineering personality as for her highly sexualized (and deliberately provocative) work. At first, he is just one of a small army of fellow assistants tasked with helping prepare for an exhibition of new work at her gallery, which ranges from writing emails and scheduling interviews to chewing gum for a conceptual artwork depicting her vagina; but something about him catches her eye, and he soon finds himself taking on the additional duty of being her sexual plaything. 

It’s strictly a business arrangement, of course, and all under cover of an NDA he signed before ever being hired; she needs the sexual outlet to keep her focused on her work, and he – thanks to his unsatisfying relationship with disinterested girlfriend Minerva (Charlie XCX) and his desire to finally pay his share of rent for the apartment he shares with BFF Apple (Chase Sui Wonders) – is happy to be of service. At first, it all feels like a dream come true, as he crosses his own boundaries to become enmeshed in a Dom/sub dynamic with an older woman on whom he’s long had a crush; she’s the Dom, of course, and he soon discovers he has more than just a mild taste for being submissive. But as things progress, he begins to “catch” the feelings he was never allowed to have, while Erika’s manipulation and humiliation of him starts to cross lines that threaten to undermine his tenuous sexual liberation, simultaneously eroding the comfortable relationships that have kept him feeling grounded, if perennially dIsappointed, up until now. Needless to say, things get progressively twisted, and Elliott finds himself ever more haplessly  exploited as the story winds back to that “swimming pool moment” with all the inevitability of a train wreck experienced in irresistibly delicious slow motion.

Yes, it’s all deliberately “shocking” in the sense that it takes us places – both sexually and psychosexually – that a lot of audiences might never have thought they’d be expected to go. There’s plenty of nudity, the kinky sex is “explicit” in the sense that we have no doubt about the physical logistics of what’s happening even if we don’t see it, and the overall sense of “ethics” is pretty much “who cares?” In today’s world of “purity politics,” that might actually be the most transgressive thing of all about Araki’s film.

It’s not all just thumb to the nose at 21^st century morality, however; nor is it merely a chance to undermine our faith in concepts like “consent” or suggest that inappropriate sexual dynamics in the workplace are anything other than toxic. Erika is most definitely a kind of beautiful monster – all the more because her angle, from the beginning, is all about increasing the value of her “brand” – but to frame her as a villain is missing a crucial point in what is essentially, despite its coy pretense at being a thriller, a coming-of-age story wrapped in a dark and de-romanticized rom-com.

Central to Araki’s story is the oft-cited observation that Gen Z people, having come of age in a time of social isolation in which private indiscretion can frequently lead to public shame, are afraid of sex. Elliot himself discusses this generational trope, yet he exposes himself to betrayal and humiliation anyway – and while that choice may take him down a rocky road, it also takes him on the journey of sexual self-discovery that he’s always wanted to have. Erika facilitates this, however unethically she may go about it, and even makes some discoveries about herself along the way; and despite the fact the journey ends up with police interrogations, tabloid scandal, and reversals of fortune not even she can see coming, the sex itself is never really to blame. After all, it’s only sex.

Maybe that’s the main point of “I Want Your Sex,” if there is one: all the stigma, all the prudish judgments and standards of moral “decency” become absurd in the face of the act itself, which – for most humans, at least – only comes naturally and, when stripped of unnecessary shame, can be a joyful experience, no matter how “kinky” it gets.

In fact, it’s not so much the sexual “deviance” or betrayals that Araki positions as the driving force in his movie, but the pretensions of a commercialized art world in which notoriety, controversy, and even tragedy can boost fame and fortune overnight – something that savvy artists, like Erika (and perhaps Araki himself) understand and exploit without qualm. One can make judgments about that, too, but in the end, isn’t that just part of how capitalism works?

In any case, “I Want Your Sex” doesn’t make judgments about any of it, just observations – with wit, slyness, and a refreshingly sex-positive attitude. Wilde and Hoffman deliver superb performances, as does the entire cast – which, apart from others previously mentioned, includes Mason Gooding as Elliot’s super-gay co-worker, Daveed Diggs as Erika’s haughty business manager, and Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville in admirably deadpan roles as a pair of police detectives. Shrewd, sexy, and all in good fun, it might well be the most fun you’ll have at the movies this summer.

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in the Netherlands through Aug. 10. They will be covering World Pride in Amsterdam.

AMSTERDAM — Madonna and 6,000 of her closest friends celebrated World Pride at Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall early Sunday morning. I was fortunate enough to be one of them.

Madonna last Wednesday nearly broke the internet when she said on social media in Dutch that “I got somethin’ I wanna talk about,” referring to an opening line in “Danceteria,” one of the tracks on her “Confessions II” album that has received rave reviews since its July 2 release. The track has been on near constant replay on my playlist since I first heard it.

👀 pic.twitter.com/TeuHcUzNt9

— Madonna (@Madonna) July 28, 2026

MISTR — a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term care that has organized Madonna’s Club Confessions shows in the U.S. and the U.K. — later confirmed the rampant speculation. I woke up on July 30 to an email in my inbox from MISTR and the World Pride Music Festival PR team that said I was on the press list.

Madonna was indeed going to headline the World Pride Music Festival that Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced, and I was going to be there. OMFG!!!!

The gay icon had one more surprise in store.

The Dutch internet on Saturday once again broke over speculation that Kylie Minogue was going to appear alongside Madonna. I was getting ready to leave our hotel in Amsterdam on Saturday night when I saw a video of the two of them together.

“Madonna is now teasing Kylie Minogue on her social media … she may be one of her ‘special guests’ tonight,” I wrote in a text to Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff at 8:46 p.m.

“Have fun! This is turning into the gayest concert ever,” he responded.

I arrived at AFAS Live shortly before 11 p.m. My press contact walked me and two other Dutch journalists into the venue’s cavernous main room known as the Black Box. We made small talk for a few minutes before I started to walk around and listen to Josh Harrison who was on the decks.

Madonna was scheduled to take the stage at 1:30 a.m., but she is known for being late — she is Madonna and she does what she wants. Hayla, a British singer, and Bebe Rexha are among those who performed ahead of Madonna. Thousands of sweaty men — including a group of Australians next to me who were eagerly awaiting Kylie’s anticipated appearance — packed the Black Box and were dancing, anticipating what was to come.

MISTR CEO Tristan Schukraft at one point came on stage and declared Madonna was indeed in the building. The moment for which we were all eagerly waiting finally came shortly before 2:30 a.m.

“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage.

Stuart Price, who produced her “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album in 2005, manned the decks during Madonna’s set.

She opened it with “I Feel So Free” from “Confessions II.” Madonna then sang “Bring Your Love” and “Danceteria” to which this reporter — and everyone else — sang along.

Madonna then teased a surprise before she began to perform “Love Sensation.” Kylie soon appeared on stage. It was nearly too much for my fellow partygoers from Australia. It was indeed the gayest concert ever!

Madonna and Kylie performed “Love Sensation” together. They then sang “Hung Up” and “Sorry” from “Confessions on a Dance Floor” to round out the set that ended shortly after 3 a.m.

Madonna and I share the same birthday — Aug. 16 — and I would like to think she and Kylie gave me an early birthday present. In all seriousness though, it was an amazing night for me and for everyone else who was fortunate enough to be there.

“On the dance floor I feel so free,” says Madonna in the opening of “I Feel So Free.”

For those few precious hours at AFAS Live I did not think about the Trump-Vance administration and the myriad ways it is destroying the U.S. I did not think about the National Guard troops deployed to D.C. I did not think about the pointless wars that continue to ravage Ukraine and other countries around the world. I simply lost myself on the dance floor and celebrated an icon who has always stood with my community.

Thank you, Madonna.