Benjam Brten: The Love and Death of a Gay Geni | HuffPost Voic

Contents:

• 10 GREAT BRISH GAY FILMS
• GAY BRANNIA
• MANY BRONS HAVE CHANGED THEIR MDS ON GAY MARRIAGE
• THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED
• MATT COOK, WH ROBERT MILLS, RANDOLPH TMBACH, AND H. G. COCKS. A GAY HISTORY OF BRA: LOVE AND SEX BETWEEN MEN SCE THE MIDDLE AG. OXFORD: GREENWOOD WORLD PUBLISHG, 2007. PP. 256. $49.95 (CLOTH). - REBEC JENNGS. A LBIAN HISTORY OF BRA: LOVE AND SEX BETWEEN WOMEN SCE 1500. OXFORD: GREENWOOD WORLD PUBLISHG, 2007. PP. 227. $49.95 (CLOTH).
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• BENJAM BRTEN: THE LOVE AND DEATH OF A GAY GENI

10 GREAT BRISH GAY FILMS

A few d homosexuals n be found  Aled Hchck’s early work (check out the swishy drsmaker 1925’s The Pleasure Garn), while Ivor Novello’s films play up the flamboyant star’s androgyny, playg very odd, allegedly heterosexual men  The Lodger (1926) and The Man whout Dire (1923). It took another 10 years before partial crimalisatn took effect wh the Sexual Offenc act 1967, which allowed homosexual acts, private, between two men over the age of 21 – many feel Basil Dearn’s film helped liberalise attus and pave the way towards tolerance towards gay people. The Leather Boys (1964)The Brish ‘kchen sk’ dramas, foced around workg-class liv, that prevailed the late 50s and early 60s ocsnally ntaed sympathetic gay characters, such as Murray Melv’s stunt  A Taste of Honey (1961) and Cicely Courtneidge’s ageg actor  The L-shaped Room (1962).

This giv our archive the feel of a fay photo album, wh imag that evoke memori, nnect old lovers and te younger Black queers about the spac that have existed the are two Black gay men: Jason is 24 and Marc is 51, so there is a generatnal age gap between . In the wake of this first step towards equaly, we were treated to unpleasant stereotyp galore  The Killg of Sister Gee (1968) and Stairse (1969), but the 1970s saw progrs wh the sophistited bisexual love triangle of John Schlger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), Derek Jarman’s homoerotic Sebastiane (1976) and Ron Peck and Pl Hallam’s Nighthawks (1978), the first explicly gay Brish feature set the gay muny. Dream A40 (1965)Wh mastream cema still reluctant to tackle gay characters and plots the mid-60s, Jamain actor-director Lloyd Reckord took matters to his own hands wh this extraordary unrground short that terrogat the psychologil impact of persecutn.

For a long time, the mastream public didn't want to hear our Ca's The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle tells the story of a secretly gay postman searchg for a lost love om his youth (Cred: Headle Review)"I would venture to say that the public were disgted and outraged, " says thor Crystal Jeans. It's about a lonely, socially awkward and secretly gay postman livg a fictnal town the north of England who hs retirement, realisg he wants to turn his life around and fally be happy – but to do this, he needs to fd the love of his life, a man he hasn’t seen for nearly 50 years. That same year, the so-lled "Alan Turg law" offered pardons to 49, 000 Brish gay men who’d been nvicted of homosexual acts – followg a mpaign arguably bolstered by the greater awarens brought about by The Imatn Game, the h film that picted the nvictn and chemil stratn of the Enigma-breakg puter scientist.

GAY BRANNIA

Over the last five years, a tr of Irish wrers have livered stunng gay-themed novels set predomantly perds of history that didn't wele them – John Boyne (The Heart’s Invisible Furi), Graham Norton (Home Stretch), and Sebastian Barry (the Costa Award-wng Days Whout End).

MANY BRONS HAVE CHANGED THEIR MDS ON GAY MARRIAGE

The photographs for Dover’s book had to be livered to the prter by hand, bee the post might have been tercepted unr Sectn 11 of the Post Office Act (1953), which banned sendg “cent or obscene prts” by Homosexualy is not a prehensive acunt of same-sex relatnships the Greek world.

The ia of ‘homosexual’ and ‘heterosexual’ did not yet exist - what mattered was to be sexually domant we know om documents that the Londium of Hadrian’s time was a slave-owng society, sharg the same valu as cizens throughout the Roman empire, we n be sure that same-sex relatnships were normal. Key texts theorizg the bary clu Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Between Men: English Lerature and Male Homosexual Dire (New York, 1985)Google Scholar; Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley, 1990)Google Scholar; and Dollimore, Jonathan, Sexual Dissince: Augte to Wil, Frd to Fouult (Oxford, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED

15 Rowbotham, Sheila, Hidn om History: 300 Years of Women’s Opprsn and the Fight agast It (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Duberman, Mart, Vic, Martha B., and Chncey, Gee, eds., Hidn om History: Reclaimg the Gay and Lbian Past (New York, 1989)Google Scholar. 20 Weeks, Jefey and Porter, Kev, Between the Acts: Liv of Homosexual Men, 1885–1967 (London, 1998)Google Scholar; Hall Carpenter Archiv, Walkg after Midnight: Gay Men’s Life Stori (London, 1989)Google Scholar; Hall Carpenter Archiv, Inventg Ourselv: Lbian Life Stori (London, 1989)Google Scholar.

29 The major exceptn was the Amerin historian Boswell, John, who strongly argued for the ntui of gay history: see his Christiany, Social Tolerance, and Homosexualy: Gay People Wtern Europe om the Begng of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chigo and London, 1980)Google Scholar; and Boswell, John, “Revolutns, Universals and Sexual Categori, ” Salmagundi, nos.

MATT COOK, WH ROBERT MILLS, RANDOLPH TMBACH, AND H. G. COCKS. A GAY HISTORY OF BRA: LOVE AND SEX BETWEEN MEN SCE THE MIDDLE AG. OXFORD: GREENWOOD WORLD PUBLISHG, 2007. PP. 256. $49.95 (CLOTH). - REBEC JENNGS. A LBIAN HISTORY OF BRA: LOVE AND SEX BETWEEN WOMEN SCE 1500. OXFORD: GREENWOOD WORLD PUBLISHG, 2007. PP. 227. $49.95 (CLOTH).

The relevant chapters are: Jefey Weeks and Kenh Plummer terview Mary McIntosh, “Postscript: ‘The Homosexual Role’ Revised, ” 44–49; Kenh Plummer, “Homosexual Categori: Some Rearch Problems the Labellg Perspective of Homosexualy, ” 53–75; Annabel Faraday, “Liberatg Lbian Rearch, ” 112–29; John Marshall, “Pansi, Perverts and Macho Men: Changg Conceptns of Male Homosexualy, ” 133–54; Dave Kg, “Genr Confns: Psychologil and Psychiatric Conceptns of Transvtism a Transsexualism, ” 155–83; and Gregg Blachford, “Male Domance and the Gay World, ” 184–210. In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons. In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women.

In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act. Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons.

This support, along wh mpaigns by gay activists urgg gay men and women to “e out of the closet” (ed, the late 1980s, Natnal Comg Out Day was tablished, and is now celebrated on October 11 most untri), enuraged gay men and women to enter the polil arena as ndidat. Other issu of primary importance for the gay rights movement sce the 1970s clud batg the HIV/AIDS epimic and promotg disease preventn and fundg for rearch; lobbyg ernment for nondiscrimatory polici employment, hog, and other aspects of civil society; endg the ban on ary service for gay and lbian dividuals; expandg hate crim legislatn to clu protectns for gays, cludg transgenr dividuals; and securg marriage rights for same-sex upl (see same-sex marriage). Ary’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (1993–2011), which had permted gay and lbian dividuals to serve the ary if they did not disclose their sexual orientatn or engage homosexual activy; the repeal effectively end the ban on homosexuals the ary.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Brten's homosexualy was, for virtually all his life, crimal; rather than warn him off, this seems to have permted him to anatomize aspects of his persona like alienatn, celty, and sexual longg and fatuatn, properti that then remaed latent and unfulfilled, operas all the more psychologilly pellg for and mic all the more brilliant. When Brten died, the queen sent a personal letter of ndolence to Pears, treatg him exactly the same way she would have treated any other proment the answer to Brten's crics is simple: He was no sat, but he was no sner eher; he was an artist, a very great artist, a gay artist. As 2017 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the issug of the Report of the Commtee on Homosexual Offens and Prostutn (more faiar to many LGBT people worldwi unr the popular name The Wolfenn Report after s chair), is appropriate to survey the lerature produced on the history of the LGBT muny of Great Bra the s sce the text of the Report was received by Parliament 1957.

It should be noted that the discsn of homosexualy had been ongog sce the late neteenth century the wrgs of such figur as Edward Carpenter, but the first postwar work to brg homosexualy before the Brish public was the 1952 work Society and the Homosexual by Michael Schofield, who wrote unr the pen name Gordon Wtwood, as was then too dangero to wre about a practice regard as a crimal offense unr his own name. Factors examed were their childhood and home life experienc, sourc ed the procs of workg to bat their orientatn (rangg om relign and self-ntrol through treatment and acceptance) the extent and lotn of homosexual activy, sexual adjtment, the then-current legal suatn for homosexuals Bra, occupatns, and the gree to which they tegrated wh their lol muni. But prr to the arrival of the gay liberatn movement the early 1970s, the one book that most rears would have been aware of scribg the life ndns of an openly gay man the Bra of the 1960s was Quent Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant, published 1968.

Subtled “An Act to amend the law of England and Wal relatg to homosexual acts “, s sectns open wh makg such acts legal if done private and by mutual nsent, then move to addrs homosexualy on merchant ships, revised punishments for homosexual acts certa circumstanc, issu relatg to male prostutn, and qutns of prosecutn and mo of trial.

BENJAM BRTEN: THE LOVE AND DEATH OF A GAY GENI

The activist succsors to the gay liberatn groups the later 1970s formed the Campaign for Homosexual Equaly, which produced the newspaper Out om the tumn of 1976 through the summer of next saw the foundg of the monthly Capal Gay 1981, begng fourteen years of verg the Brish gay muny. A samplg of books this genre done by the thor the WORLDCAT database December 2016 revealed a wi range of profsns reprented, rangg om the expected lerary world ( poets, playwrights, translators and journalists), art and art history, and polil life through stage and televisn performers, micians, and gay activists to sexologists and enomists.