Meet Marcus and Luke. I don't know anything about them, besides that Marcus in an owner and creative director for Gypsy Junkies and Luke is a photographer from Australia. They seem to be setting the world on fire with their romance via Instagram, which is how I have come to find out about them.
I'm not sure the story here. Were they friends who became lovers? Were they dating before Luke spent part of the summer in Los Angeles with Marcus? Will Luke move to Los Angeles to be with his man? All I know is that they are in love.
I've recently started reading The Sixties: the Diaries of Christopher Isherwood. Isherwood is a famous author who wrote A Single Man and lived as a gay man in an America when gay wasn't really allowed. One of the ideas from The Sixties that caught my attention was this idea that there is no template for gay individuals in life and love. We usually develop our tastes and sexual history out of shame and secret, fearful that someone will find out our secret. We are groomed to identify ourselves as "different". The stereotype of a hypersexual being often gives us an excuse to actually be hypersexual, and any judgment cast upon us from our friends is usually in the form of a joke and laughed about.
I was talking to a friend of mine about California allowing same sex marriage and rights, and said that it's kind of a big responsibility for us. Now that we have the ability to do things right, we have a responsibility to establish a template of what it means to meet someone, date, fall in love, marry, and start a family. Without the issues, without the promiscuity, without judgment. To simply be an example of love for future generations who will hopefully have it easier than we did, or those before us.
I'm sure Marcus and Luke do not want the burden of being considered role models for the gay community. But, there is an abundance of comments on their Instagram photos of how the relationship that they share with the world through photographs gives people hope for true love. It's actually very inspiring and a welcome perspective. They are helping to establish this template. Will you?
I thought this would make a great feature for my month of Romance. I hope that you follow @mpaglialonga and @lukeaustinphotosthe3rd on Instagram and are inspired as well. My image (above) is a rendering by Hairless Wookie, another Instagram discovery. Check out his Tumblr here.
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