Erosion Media - AfterElton.com Launch

Erosion Media, LLC, owner of the leading entertainment site for gay women, today announced the launch of AfterElton.com (www.afterelton.com), the first entertainment site for gay and bisexual men. AfterElton.com seeks to inform, entertain and serve readers interested in the portrayal of gay and bisexual men in fiction, movies, television, music, theater, and the media.

The idea for the site was borne out of the popularity of AfterEllen.com (www.afterellen.com)--which has grown to over 400,000 unique users/month and is frequently used by academics and journalists to research topics related to lesbian and bisexual women in entertainment—and the lack of anything similar for gay and bisexual men.

"In the last two and a half years, we've received numerous emails asking whether there was a site like AfterEllen.com for gay men," said Erosion Media President & CEO Sarah Warn. "After saying no a dozen times, we finally decided to create one."

AfterElton.com features news, reviews and analysis of films, TV shows, books, music, and theater related to gay and bisexual men, as well as interviews with gay men in entertainment, like writer Paul Rudnick (The Stepford Wives), director Rodney Evans (Brother to Brother), and gay fiction writers Brent Hartinger and Michael Jensen (Geography Club and Frontiers, respectively).

The site launched with articles on the rise and fall of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the recent increase in censorship of gay materials like the musical Naked Boys Singing!, a review of the indie film Straight-Jacket, and an interview with Jeremy Irons about his queer roles in Merchant of Venice and Callas Forever.

“Unlike the majority of magazines and sites for gay men,” explains Warn, “we’re all gay entertainment, all the time. That means no reviews of Madonna CDs. No analysis of Martha Stewart’s latest book or TV show. No interviews with Johnny Depp, unless he’s playing a gay role. Our focus is on giving readers more information about gay men in entertainment--at least until we run out of gay men to write about.”

A site dedicated to improving the visibility of gay men in entertainment is especially important in such a conservative climate, when there are less and less gay characters on network TV, movies continue to de-gay historical gay and bisexual figures, and many actors and musicians still remain guarded or closeted about their sexuality for fear of reprisals.

Besides offering gay men an entertainment outlet, AfterElton.com is also one of the few sites to specifically recognize and write about bisexual men in entertainment.

“We plan to offer queer men the same quality of entertainment commentary and information we have provided queer women for the past three years,” says Warn.