When I burst through the closet doors, my first expensive purchase was a leather harns. I wanted to f , and knew the harns was a staple garment for gay men. But how did we get here? How has the leather harns bee such a veted and symbolic garment among gay men? Unfortunately, the harns, like much of leather history, is one of myth and legend, and very ltle is ncretely rerd.
Contents:
A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN
Throughout the twentieth century, clothg has been ed by lbians and gay men as a means of exprsg self-inty and of signalg to one another. * gay culture wear *
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.
HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
Gay culture is not jt an affectatn. It is an exprsn of difference through style — a way of rvg out space for an alternate way of life. * gay culture wear *
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.
The gay world is often reprented as some sort of monolhic whole that has the same culture. That is a lie. It is actually broken down to a handful of substrata to which each gay belongs. Here they are. * gay culture wear *
”) “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.
Durg Prohibn, gay nightlife and culture reached new heights—at least temporarily. * gay culture wear *
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.