It might seem a little silly, but the kiss meant something to me: that superhero comics, a world where I spend so much of my time, could be a safe place. As it turns out, it was the first same-sex male kiss to ever appear in a mainstream Marvel comic. In the final-page twist of X-Factor #45, an “old friend” of Rictor, named Shatterstar, shows up out of nowhere and the two greet each other with a very passionate, very gay kiss. I kept reading the comic, of course, and about a year later something amazing happened. If Peter even got to the sappy bit he probably wasn’t predisposed to be so generous. For some reason (wine), I forgot I’d also included a whole paragraph about how much I hated a particular storyline. Re-reading the sent email in the sober light of the morning I realised a reply would be unlikely. The Feed tagged along to a Gayming night to find out why LGBT people see it as a safe place to interact. A Sydney group of LGBT Gaymers are trying to change the stereotypes of video gamers.
