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MEET STEVEN

Steven Petrow likes to be quite clear about himself: He is far from perfect when it comes to manners (gay or otherwise). And he’s neither obsessed nor obsessive about place settings, monograms (whether on shirts or stationery), or what to call Prince Andrew to his face (although, for the record, his majesty did happen to phone Steven recently).

What Steven does care about is that LGBT people are “out in the world today as they have never been before.” As his 1995 The Essential Book of Gay Manners and Etiquette said of gay men, "They are faced with many new situations–difficult, uncomfortable, and frequently painful—that require guidance.”

It’s been a decade and a half since that first book “came out,” but it feels more like a century in the minds of many in our community. It was before online dating, chat rooms, instant messaging, Ellen, Will & Grace, and Queer Eye. Newspapers weren’t publishing gay and lesbian wedding announcements (more than 200 major dailies, including the New York Times now include these). Not a single state had voted thumbs-up on same-sex marriage, and it would be years before we’d experience the firestorm about transgender folks that was ignited by the "pregnant man" cover of People magazine.

"LGBT people are faced with many new situations—difficult, uncomfortable, and frequently painful—that require guidance.”

Steven Petrow is especially well-suited as a guide to this new century. In addition to writing Gay Manners, he was Genre magazine’s longtime “Manners” columnist and now pens columns for the Huffington Post, Out.com, and The Advocate on such matters. More to the point, he’s currently buried in the process of writing an entirely new book of LGBT manners (tentatively titled: Steven Petrow's Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners: LGBT Advice for Dating, Sex, Coming Out, Marriage and All the Rest) combining Emily Post’s practical and encyclopedic approach with the voice—and wit—of Miss Manners. The new book (and the companion site you’re visiting now) speak to the entire LGBT community, plus our straight friends and allies, too.

Welcome to Steven’s site. Make yourself comfortable, don’t give it a second thought if you’re worried about which fork to use, and if you have a question—Steven likes to call them “queeries"—send it his way.

MORE ABOUT STEVEN PETROW:
The former president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, Steven Petrow has held senior editorial positions with Wired, Life, Fitness, Time Inc., and Waterfront Media—and has written for the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Daily Beast, Huffington Post, the Washington Post Writers’ Syndicate, and The Advocate. His previous books include Dancing Against the Darkness (Macmillan, 1990); When Someone You Know has AIDS (Crown, 1993); The HIV Drug Book (Pocket, 1995); The Essential Book of Gay Manners and Etiquette (HarperCollins, 1995) and The Lost Hamptons (Arcadia, 2004).

Petrow is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including those from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian Institution, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Weymouth Center for the Humanities and the Arts. Petrow appeared for more than a decade as a “talking head” on San Francisco’s popular PBS-TV station, KQED, and has gone on several multi-city tours, appearing on NBC’s “Today” Show, CNN, Fox News, and National Public Radio.

 

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