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Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What are LAT relationships, and what do they mean for the LGBTQ+ community?
Sarah Paulson has a four-word relationship hack: 'We don't live together.' When the American Horror Story star told the SmartLess podcast in May 2024 that she and longtime partner Holland Taylor 'spend plenty of time together, but we don't live in the same house,' queer Twitter hailed it as the ultimate blueprint for keeping the spark alive without sharing a bathroom. That setup has a name — living-apart-together (LAT) — and, far from being a celebrity quirk, it's a relationship style with deep roots in LGBTQ+ culture, where autonomy and safety have always been prized alongside intimacy. The arrangement has outgrown its origins in sociology seminars. A 2023 U.S. census micro-tabulation counted almost four million American couples who live apart by choice, and a 2024 U.K. study finds LAT is a common cohabitation among daters over 60. For LGBTQ+ folks, the draw is clear: autonomy without sacrificing intimacy, space that feels safe, and a flexible structure. PRIDE asked Ruth L. Schwartz., PhD, a queer relationship coach and Director of Conscious Girlfriend Academy, and Dr. Angela Downey, a lesbian family physician from The Codependent Doctor, to break down how LAT works, the perks and pitfalls they see in practice, and the concrete steps to try it. - Yuri A/Shutterstock 'The term 'LAT relationships' (and the idea of 'living apart, together') originated, to my knowledge, with a Dutch writer in the 1970s, but it's gotten popularized recently because honestly, for a great many people both straight and LGBTQ+, it has a lot of appeal,' Dr. Schwartz tells PRIDE. Dr. Downey puts it in plain sociological terms. 'LAT stands for 'Living Apart Together,' and refers to couples who are in a committed relationship but choose to live separately,' she says. 'It emerged in sociological research from Europe in the early 2000s as a way to describe changing partnership structures that defy traditional living arrangements.' In other words, you can be fully partnered — rings, group-chats, pet-insurance, the whole nine — but keep two sets of keys. Queer folks have never fit neatly inside Hallmark's domestic script. 'LGBTQ people have been forced to — and have also claimed the right to — define our relationships for ourselves,' Dr. Schwartz notes. For many of the lesbians she coaches, especially women 50-plus who've 'already created their own homes or lifestyles the way they like them,' merging closets again feels like giving up autonomy. Dr. Downey echoes that cultural remix impulse. 'LAT relationships are more common in LGBTQ+ communities, where traditional relationship models may feel too restrictive,' she says. Choosing not to cohabitate can protect hard-won independence, reduce gender-role baggage, and soften the crush of 'U-Haul on date two' expectations. These days, LAT relationships are no longer fringe. In the United States, roughly 3.89 million Americans — about 2.95% of married couples — live apart by choice. In all relationships and all ages in the U.K., the 2024 UCL analysis found about one in ten couples maintain separate addresses, with LAT the preferred structure when over-60s start dating. Over-60s specifically: The same study pegs LAT at around 4% of older adults, making it as common as cohabitation in that cohort. Global echoes: Sexologist Pepper Schwartz cites 'over 4 million married couples in America' opting for LAT or long-distance set-ups, a figure repeated in Allure's March 2025 trend dive. The takeaway: LAT moved from quirky outlier to measurable slice of relationship data in under a decade. LightField Studios/Shutterstock Dr. Schwartz let us know all about the upside to these types of relationships. 'When we're not having to navigate all the domestic and financial details of a household together, there are fewer points of conflict,' she says. 'Each time we see each other can be special, and more focused on us and on emotional or physical connection.' Although she notes it can be pleasurable to be invited to someone else's home or vice versa, she also says lesbian couples often 'struggle maintaining sufficient autonomy… getting to have our own home spaces… can give us more of the kind of autonomy which then also makes room for more intimacy. Often, one partner's living space offers some 'goodies' that the other partner's does not.' Dr. Downey adds a clinical spin, noting the uptick in independence but also protecting against enmeshment, which she says can decrease conflict that can come about from living together. 'LAT can be especially healing for people who are recovering from codependency, caretaking burnout, or past relationship trauma,' she says. While some people love the idea of freedom, others don't have the same feelings. 'Some people really crave the intimacy of sharing space… so not sharing those things could feel like a loss,' says Dr. Schwartz. 'Some people have adopted mainstream society notions that it's only a 'real' or committed relationship if you're living together.' At the same time, Dr. Downey flags the emotional logistics. 'There may be more miscommunications and a difference in expectations about time together, future planning, or emotional needs,' she says. If kids, caregiving, or fur-babies are in the mix, the Google Calendar juggling intensifies fast. If you're curious about LAT, start with a brutally honest convo. 'Have an open conversation about why you're interested in LAT and what each of you hopes to gain,' Dr. Downey advises. 'Clarify your values, needs, and boundaries. It's not about avoiding intimacy, it's about redefining it intentionally.' Dr. Schwartz models the arc with her own story of how she and her partner moved from cohabitation to separate homes. 'We definitely had more emotional and physical intimacy when we lived separately,' she says. 'It's important to be really clear about what appeals to each person and/or frightens each person about the idea of living separately while in a committed partnership. Obviously, having these conversations from the beginning would be ideal, as there might be more sense of loss involved if people were living together and then one partner wanted to change that.' KinoMasterskaya/Shutterstock A LAT relationship isn't automatically 'long-distance.' You could live in adjacent apartments, across town, or on another continent. Either way, intentionality rules: 'There's a need to carve out time together, because you won't necessarily be waking up in the same bed… So, being conscious and intentional about when it works best for you to spend time together… will be key,' says Schwartz. She recommends rituals — from a nightly 30-minute FaceTime to alternating sleepovers — tailored to distance and bandwidth. Dr. Downey's prescription is just as explicit. 'Prioritize your partner through consistent communication,' she says. 'Schedule regular quality time, share rituals that create connection, and check in about how the arrangement is working for both of you.' Think of it as relationship cross-training: fewer defaults, more reps of active listening. LAT isn't a half-measure; it's a design choice. It lets queer couples keep the spark (and the spare room), sidestep heteronormative scripts, and prove, yet again, that intimacy has never required a white-picket mortgage. As Schwartz sums up, 'Whether a couple lives together or separately, keeping the lines of communication open, and staying out of 'story,' assumption and projection, is key to making the relationship work.' For LGBTQ+ folx weighing the move, the question may be less why live apart than why not, if it safeguards both your autonomy and your heart. This article originally appeared on Pride: What are LAT relationships, and what do they mean for the LGBTQ+ community?
The Guardian
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
My unexpected Pride icon: Jurassic Park's strutting, swaggering T rex is pure camp
'That's camp,' proclaimed my drag queen friend Vanity as we watched the T rex rip a tyre off a Jeep in the first Jurassic Park movie. It's 2012, 2am and we're in her bedroom playing our favourite Jurassic Park drinking game, where you swig every time you see a dinosaur. 'Is it, though?' I said, doubtfully, dipping a Walkers Sensation in some coleslaw. 'Course it is. All the gays love Jurassic Park. Don't be an idiot, Jones.' She pointedly slapped down the lid on the coleslaw as if that were the end of the matter. I thought about it a bit and ultimately agreed with her. I absolutely loved Jurassic Park. And so did just about every queer person I knew. Jurassic Park, in fact, made me feel proud. Prouder than seeing a load of 00s popstrels perform at Pride parades, prouder than drinking in the street in Soho, prouder even than M&S's Pride sandwich. Granted, my judgment was a little clouded from the drinking game. But still. I've since wondered if this was specific to my strange little bubble of pop-culture-obsessed London reprobates. But its surprisingly innuendo-ready quotes ('clever girl', 'hold on to your butts', 'dinosaur eats man, woman inherits the Earth') and unforgettable performances (human and raptor) are an enduring staple everywhere from drag brunches to bleary afterparties. London's historic queer venue the Royal Vauxhall Tavern held a Jurassic Park cabaret night in 2023 called 'Life Finds a Slay'. In San Francisco last year, the Brava theatre hosted 'Jurassic Drag', two Jurassic Park nights celebrating various drag legends ('they've survived a hostile world and trekked the Earth collectively for more than 170 years … which we all know in drag time is roughly 250 million'). Also last year, the Canadian podcaster and academic Hannah McGregor published a feminist-focused queer memoir, Clever Girl, billed as 'a smart and incisive exploration of everyone's favourite dinosaur movie and the female dinosaurs who embody what it means to be angry, monstrous and free'. (An honourable mention goes to the British gay couple and their dog who went viral in 2020 for recreating scenes from the films during lockdown.) It makes sense when you look at the first two movies. Their director, Steven Spielberg, has always had a propensity for the camper, more fun side of mild to moderate peril, flinging damsels into snake pits and children into shark-infested waters at the first chance he gets. He and the screenwriter David Koepp wield this impish inclination with gusto in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: The Lost World, whether it's a dilophosaurus wobbling her wattles or Julianne Moore gasping on glass over a gulch. Laura Dern is constantly in peril in the first movie – and for a lot of gay men, women in peril is a favourite genre – there is a stampede of psychosexual and misogynistic issues to dive into with that one. (Other notable women-in-peril franchises beloved of gay men include Scream, Buffy, Tomb Raider and, depending on Tyra Banks's mood, America's Next Top Model.) Also, if you are a millennial gay man, Jeff Goldblum's tanned, heaving bosom inside a liberally unbuttoned shirt was definitely at least part of your sexual awakening. A special mention should go to Bob Peck as park warden Robert Muldoon, who sported short-shorts that would make even Lara Croft raise one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows. (The later Jurassic World films are notably sanitised, safe and sexless in comparison – like smooth, scaly iPhones.) Really, though, if I stand up in the Jeep, take off my sunglasses and really look at it, the main reason I find pride in Jurassic Park is right there, rumbling and stomping in front of me: the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are deeply camp – their fierce, confident assuredness followed by their fiery, dramatic downfall. Their strutting, swaggering gaits. It's very drag, with their relentless energy and fierce joie de vivre, not to mention their various ruffs and feathers and talons and shiny teeth. They just served. Some may say it's ridiculous to have an emotional affinity with 65m-year-old extinct reptiles, to which I say: why is it any more ridiculous than having an affinity with Strictly Come Dancing or Taylor Swift or raccoons? It's not. It's completely normal. Now, pass those night-vision goggles: we're going to Hampstead Heath.
New York Times
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
In Two New Books, the Chef Definitely Recommends Something Gay
WHAT IS QUEER FOOD? How We Served a Revolution, by John Birdsall DINING OUT: First Dates, Defiant Nights, and Last Call Disco Fries at America's Gay Restaurants, by Erik Piepenburg What's queer about food? Over the past decade, momentum has gathered around this conversation. By nature, the intersection resists fixed rules and embraces abstraction, but the benefits of asking seem clear: As two new books demonstrate, food can reveal a richness of queer culture, expression, possibility and survival. Building on a 2021 New York Times article, Erik Piepenburg's 'Dining Out' looks at 150 years of queer American food establishments, from cafeterias to diners to bathhouses. He argues that gay (his chosen modifier, meant to encompass all queer and L.G.B.T.Q. people) restaurants — defined simply as places where gay people eat — have been every bit as essential to connection, activism and queer history as have bars. Early gay restaurants were often those that attracted artists and other bohemians, who invariably numbered gays and lesbians among their ranks. The storied Pfaff's Saloon opened in Greenwich Village in 1856 and was a known gay meeting place, counting Walt Whitman as a regular. Other restaurants became gay more serendipitously — such as Automat cafeterias, whose rapid turnover, communal seating and atmosphere of anonymity created inconspicuous venues to meet and cruise. Like bars, gay restaurants were frequent sites of pre-Stonewall uprisings and sit-ins, as well as a backdrop to history. Annie's Paramount Steak House in Washington, D.C., opened in 1948 and served gays and lesbians through the Lavender Scare of the McCarthy era, the gains in sexual liberation of the 1960s and '70s, the devastation and aftermath of AIDS. It continues today. When restaurants became a target of hysteria at the height of the AIDS epidemic, thanks to the dining public's ignorance and panic about the virus's transmission, gay restaurants were one of the few spaces that provided respite for queer patrons. Florent, which opened in Manhattan's meatpacking district in 1985 and epitomized downtown cool for 23 years, helped to destigmatize AIDS, with its H.I.V.-positive proprietor, Florent Morellet, listing his latest T-cell count prominently on the day's menu board. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBC
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Edmonton's growing ballroom scene is less waltz, more walk
Everyone knows the cliched image of ballroom dancing, but have you heard about the underground queer subculture version? It is where people "walk," perform, model, dance and lip-sync in a diverse range of categories. First created by Black and Latina queer and trans people in the U.S., ballroom culture was built as a welcoming space that allowed participants to be themselves and celebrate each other. On the latest episode of the This is Edmonton podcast, producer Tahirih Foroozan visits YEG Ballroom, a part of the Fruit Loop Society of Alberta which is bringing these spaces to our city. This is Edmonton is posted online every Wednesday. Listen here or get in touch at thisisyeg@
