Aussie short film Disarm won the My Queer Award at the Sydney Mardis Gras Festival in 2010, and you can see why. David Kinsman and Taris Tyler play a young guy and a slightly older man who hook up for casual sex. Things take an aggressive turn, but as one of them is about to leave, he’s drawn back in to what becomes an unexpected moment of understanding.
It’s a surprisingly perceptive look at hookup culture, taking into account its oneupmanship (everyone’s doing it so I need more shags – whether everyone is or not) as well as the emptiness and superficiality, all of which can hide a yearning for something – not that’s it’s necessarily that for everyone, but it certainly is for many. It’s also interesting in its discussion of how endless hookups being a possible sign of internalised homophobia and also how a sex partner is a full, complex person – something some men try to ignore.
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