Gay Harold as Brian Kinney, Showtime via YouTube

Queer As Folk is television series that ran from 2000 to 2005 on Showtime. Based on a British series of the same name created by Russell T. Davies, Queer As Folk was the first hour-long drama on American television to portray the lives of gay men and women.

The series follows the lives of five gay men living in Pittsburgh: Brian (Gale Harold), Justin (Randy Harrison), Michael (Hal Sparks), Emmett (Peter Paige), and Ted (Scott Lowell); a lesbian couple, Lindsay (Thea Gill) and Melanie (Michelle Clunie); and Michael’s mother Debbie (Sharon Gless) and his uncle Vic (Jack Wetherall). Another main gay character, Ben (Robert Gant), was added in the second season.

Brian Kinney is a veritable sex machine. At 29-years-old, he lives life for the now. He believes in having sex for the sheer joy of it. He and Justin have an on-and-off-again relationship, but Justin is the only one of his sexual conquests that Brian finds himself falling in love with and the only one he continues to have sex with after the first time.

He makes his living as an advertising executive. While he refuses to identify as part of the LGBTQ community, he does what he can to protect his fellow gay men or women.

Photograph by Mathieu Young, via YouTube

Brian Kinney’s motto:

“There are two kinds of straight people in the world, those that hate you to your face and those who hate you behind your back.”