QX Magazine

Our guide to the best places to do “couply” things around London.   Valentine’s Day is approaching! Bet you wish you didn’t send that Grindr message now dontcha! One minute you’re sat on your sofa at home with your phone, hoping for MAYBE, some half decent sex followed by a joint and a couple of episodes of Archer on Netflix. The...

For as long as can be remembered, the humble teddy bear has been the go-to half-arsed, this’ll-probably-be-enough Valentine’s Day gift that straight men have bought for their girlfriends, wives, mistresses, side-chicks, whatever; purchased from WH Smiths preferably no more than a day before. Well, gays, now you’re in luck, because for one night only, XXL will be serving you...

Dark, sombre times call for dark, sombre music. Douglas Dare is a London-based singer/songwriter, whose most recent release, Aforger, is a beautifully moving response to two personal events; coming out to his father and breaking up with a long-term boyfriend. Some of the songs on it tackle these difficult processes with a frank and almost uncomfortable intimacy. Others are more...

Absolutely Fabulous star, Britain’s Got Talent finalist and Drag Idol winner La Voix is packing up her stilettos and hitting the road with a brand new show - Red Hot Globe Trot. How much of a diva is she though? Are all those rumours really true? Is Simon Cowell the most demanding dear she’s ever met? Jason Reid probes the glamorous...

What’s your idea of absolute pleasure? Dear God, don’t say some poxy, repressed, suburban tranny fantasy straight out of Rocky Horror, the small-town sex guide supreme! No darlings, pure pleasure – the consummate, Stradivarius straddling of the mind, senses and sexuality – involves exquisite discrimination, not mindless consumption. Put bluntly, that means effort, the gradual, personal discovery of increasingly...

February’s theme is always love! Yes, it’s the month of romance, but in these troubling times we should cast our nets wider to encompass a sense of unity and world peace. Perhaps it’s a bit of a cliché, but it’s a starting point.   Pub quizzes seem to be all the rage! Here’s one all the way from Berlin - Tama...

Jonny Woo on the evolution of drag, and the return of his acclaimed contest LIPSYNC1000 To say LIPSYNC1000 has been a success, would be a slight understatement. It’d be like saying Princess Beatrice is “a bit posh” or that Aleppo is “a bit untidy”. No, LIPSYNC1000 isn’t merely a success…it’s a GAMECHANGER. A lock stock roadblock, all-tits-blazing, lipstick-smeared, wig-tearingly, drink-spillingly, privilege-checkingly...

Pat Cash's latest play is stripped back theatre at its finest. by Jason Reid Being an HIV positive man who was treated for AIDS defining illnesses in 2005 my interest for Patrick Cash's new show, The HIV Monologues, was sparked as soon as I saw the initial advert in this magazine. Pre-show I found myself feeling very curious as to whether it'd...

The weather’s still chilly, but you want to keep that exercise streak from your New Year’s Resolutions going. So swimming is the perfect answer! It’s inside, it’s warm… we love a swimming pool. Preferably with some nice plants dotted around, and maybe a 1930s art deco diving board or two. And hot lifeguards never go amiss either *eyes emoji* Out To...

No matter what we pretend we like (yoga, Whole Foods, academia, Bjork) when it comes down to it, what most of us really like, is apps. Depressing as this factoid is, we each spend over 3000 hours a week on apps. That is unconfirmed, we pulled that figure out of thin air. But it’s probably true. And with Valentine’s Day...