Gay History: After Stonewall Clon, Closets and Cos

Late June’s (2019) 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rts is makg this Pri month a particularly reflective one. But like a newly mted AARP member flippg through their high school yearbook, the morn gay rights movement’s “Big five-oh” moment brgs, wh s flood of memori, certa hard qutns—not the least of which is: What posssed… * gay clones meaning *

But when one particular look cropped up the post-Stonewall gay scene of the 1970s, was so popular—and so distct—that the guys who sported were dismissed as “clon. )And while the nickname was ially pejorative, the clone perd marked perhaps the first time that gay men prented themselv wh a queer-signalg uniform that was a direct rponse to societal stereotyp.

“The clone was a reactn to thgs you would see movi of gay men beg flty and nelly, ” says John Calendo, a wrer who lived LA and New York Cy throughout the 70s and 80s, and worked as an edor at the clone-cubatg sk mags Blueboy and In Touch for Men.

OP-ED: THE GAY CLON EVERYONE KNOWS

Gay men of the '70s are remembered for hirsute fac and sktight jeans; their brothers of the '90s were partial to bangs and stubble. How will the gay "look" of the 2010s be remembered? * gay clones meaning *

He pots to the gay mstrel stereotyp the 1967 film The Producers, along wh the timid-lookg guys on the illtrated vers of gay pulp books wh nam like All the Sad Young Men. (Not to mentn the 1964 article Life magaze lled “Homosexualy Ameri, ” which scribed a “sad and often sordid world. ”) “That’s the kd of imagery”—backwards stereotyp that basilly villaized queer people—“that a lot of my generatn who beme the clone people grew up wh the ccible of the 60s, ” Calendo ntu, when the civil rights and gay liberatn movements were expandg ias of equaly and eedom.

Drsg like a clone, he says, was a rejectn of those olr gay ’s not so easy to ppot precisely who origated the clone ial, guys who were alive at the time ually brg up Al Parker, an adult film star turned producer and director who worked om the 70s to the early 90s.

(Parker would eventually bee an advote for gay rights and safe sex, producg only safe-sex films before he passed away om plitns due to AIDS 1992. It was like, Oh that’s somethg wh a ltle work I uld atta, and I thk that’s why beme so quickly absorbed to the gay muny.

POLIL-ENOMIC NSTCTN OF GAY MALE CLONE INTY

“When I thk back on havg lived through the time, was like gay guys were pg om this stereotype that was jt culted to the culture of sissi and faggots, ” says Woodff. “The clone look was certaly about a whe gay man’s rponse and engagement wh those archetyp, ” says Ben Barry, the an of the school of fashn at the New School’s Parsons School of Dign, whose rearch foc on fashn’s relatnship to masculy, sexualy, and the body. ”)Prentg as mascule public was physilly safer for gay guys, but the clone stume pulled double duty, Barry says, tweakg tradnal masculy while also signalg to other queer folks.

“There’s this munal thg happeng right now where people are more open that they’re trans and non-bary or bisexual and not jt on the spectm of beg straight, gay, male, female.

(Photo urty of the Llie-Lohman Mm of Gay and Lbian Art). But like a newly mted AARP member flippg through their high school yearbook, the morn gay rights movement’s “Big five-oh” moment brgs, wh s flood of memori, certa hard qutns—not the least of which is: What posssed you to wear that? “I have, fortunately, no photos publicly available of me durg my ’70s platform sho and glter rock perd, ” says Joseph Hawks, director of the ONE Natnal Gay and Lbian Library and Archiv at the USC Librari, who spoke wh the Bla about how the thgs we put our leral closet n liberate om the figurative one (or keep there).

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