In her new memoir, You Can't Buy Love, Carol Anrson wr of growg up gay -- and fundamentalist -- the 1960s and tryg to tablish a queer fay a later. Read an exclive excerpt below.
Contents:
- PNEERG PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY LIFE THE 1960S
- 'THERE WERE NO MOLS': GROWG UP THE 70S WH AN OUT GAY DAD
- GAY MEN AND AGG
- GROWG UP GAY
- GUT OPN: I GREW UP GAY ALABAMA THE 70′S, TODAY’S KIDS MAY HAVE HARR
PNEERG PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY LIFE THE 1960S
Anthony Friedk photographed gay culture California the 1960s * growing up gay in the 70s *
It was tough growg up gay the 70s. Image livg a town wh no Gaydar, no Grdr, no Scff, no gay bars, no gay clubs, no gay snas, no gay magaz, no gay bookshops, no gay film and no gay lerature. We joke now about beg the ‘only gay the village’ but that was the realy.
'THERE WERE NO MOLS': GROWG UP THE 70S WH AN OUT GAY DAD
* growing up gay in the 70s *
The only gay people I ever saw were on TV; Kenh Williams, John Inman, Larry Grayson and Quent Crisp, figur that, back then, I reiled om.
I was a ‘homosexual’.
GAY MEN AND AGG
When you’re a gay man, agg is plited. * growing up gay in the 70s *
The Brannia, was the only gay bar town and was only gay on the first Sunday of every month, and only on one si of the bar. He was the first gay man I’d ever seen the flh. Then, wh fac ked makp, we’d make our way to The Brannia, like teenage Avon Ladi off to a gay prom night.
About the same time that a new vis was beg intified the US, I was already disverg that the lure of gay sex uld be a adly pursu. An elephant’s gay graveyard.
In fact, the clientele were so old that felt like we were a new breed of gay man, disverg ourselv early life, rather than upon retirement. We’d had ltle straight sex tn at school, so obvly knew nothg about what gay men were supposed to do.
GROWG UP GAY
It had a gay bar that was open every night. I’d never seen a gay man wear mouflage troers before. It was such a revelatn that gay men uld drs anythg but effemate clothg that om then on I knew I had to leave that town.
“I was 19, vulnerable, young and puttg my own inty together, ” says photographer Anthony Friedk when reflectg on his first project, The Gay Essay, which documents gay culture Los Angel and San Francis between 1969-1972.
What started, as a self-assigned project for a young photographer growg up Hollywood has now bee one of the most thentic portras of gay life Ameri om this perd. In 1969, the same year as the Stonewall rts New York Cy, a gay cultural revolutn was growg Ameri.
GUT OPN: I GREW UP GAY ALABAMA THE 70′S, TODAY’S KIDS MAY HAVE HARR
At the time, most pictns of gay men and women mastream media were found salac newspaper and tabloid articl, all of them reported om a murky distance. LIFE’s two-part seri Homosexualy Ameri om 1964, featured dark and shadowy photographs by Bill Eppridge.
While growg up Hollywood, Freidk’s parents worked the film dtry and had close iends that led full openly gay liv.
He saw that world as a “refuge” and a place where gays were “allowed to be themselv” more than any other place. But The Gay Essay really began while he explored the Los Angel Gay Communy Servic Center where he met Morris Kight and Don Kilhefner, two men who ran the programs there and found the Gay Liberatn Front Los Angel 1969 where they mobilized the muny agast the LAPD’s harassment of homosexuals.