What's Up

       What's Up Magazine is NOT a money making venture. It exists based purely on the advertising revenues it collects. All of the money that we get from advertising goes to the cost of printing it. We have even had to subsidize several issues in the past with our own money. We do not pay ourselves for putting the magazine together, nor do we reimburse ourselves for the cost of the paper, ink and time it takes to prepare the original, camera ready art that we deliver to the print shop. It takes several days of working all day to put each issue together for mass quantity printing in paper form and a couple of days to prepare all of the html code that makes it available for viewing on the World Wide Web at { http://www.rainbow-akron.com/whatsup/ }. When we get an issue back from the print shop, we spend a few days delivering it to the many locations in Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Kent and Medina where it is available to you for free. This entire cycle repeats itself every two weeks. None of the good people who regularly contribute content to the magazine get paid for their efforts either.

       We NEVER charge for non-profit groups to place announcements in the magazine because we feel that these announcements add to the value of the content. Therefore all of the elements that appear to be ads for Stonewall Akron (Out In Akron), Love Makes A Family Photo Exhibit, The Community AIDS Network (Positive Connection, Men In Touch, Art From The Heart, The Reverse Raffle), Tri-County AIDS Coalition (AIDS Walk '97), The Lesbian / Gay Community Service Center of Greater Cleveland, AIDS Holistic Services Program (Violet's Cupboard), NEO Visions, St. HOPE AIDS Housing Inc., The Canton / Akron Community Club (Gay Skate), the group (of which we are now members) trying to form the as yet unnamed local lesbian / gay / bisexual community service center and any individuals (Lynn Lavner, Romanovsky & Phillips, Melissa) who provide entertainment for a fund raising event for any of the previously mentioned organization are added to the content of What's Up FREE of charge. We also provide free individual Web sites and Internet services for some of the above mentioned groups. If a bar does a fund raiser for any of the previously mentioned groups, we and the bar owners both realize that this will bring customers into these places of business and we DO charge regular advertising rates for such event notices.

       What's Up Magazine is intended to be a community outreach tool. about half of the copies of each issue are distributed to places that are NOT exclusively gay and have NO age restrictions placed on who might go there to pick up a copy. It is also made available to everyone in the world via the Internet. We sincerely hope that people under 21 do get it and read it. Therefore, we MUST be selective about what we print. We will NOT print advertisements of a sexually explicit nature for a few reasons. 1: We would be thrown out of many of the places that now welcome us for free distribution. 2: We don't want to be the cause of a teen or young adult getting into trouble by a parent or guardian for having a copy of What's Up. 3: We are simply sick and tired of the gay community image being saturated with SEX.

       We think that it's about time that the local gay community collectively pull their heads out of the toilet. If you like the idea of gay men being represented by guys with their pants down, exposing their bare asses, then you know where to find that. We personally think that self- sterotyping the gay community in this way is a real disservice and is detrimental and destructive in our struggle to improve gay acceptance in our society at large. How can we blame our opponents for casting us as a bunch of sex crazed maniacs if that's exactly how we present ourselves in our own local media? It's one thing to know that this sort of stuff goes on in adult only clubs; in the presence of mostly gay people who understand it and enjoy it. --It's something else to affix pictures of it in a magazine that might be seen by anyone. The printed word and image is far too permanent and powerful to be used so carelessly --most especially if it gets into the wrong hands. The idea of having a squeaky clean gay culture magazine is not a new one; only to this area. Other, larger metropolitan areas have been doing it for many years. If you don't agree with this concept, then put down this magazine and pick up the other one.