Newly Published Portras Document a Century of Gay Men's Relatnships | Smart News | Smhsonian Magaze

Contents:

• 100 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN LOVE
• NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
• 'GAY AMERI': PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN FROM ALL 50 STAT
• ALL THE OPENLY GAY MALE CELEBS WHO ARE OUT, PROUD & SMOK’ HOT

100 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN LOVE

Bt Gay Scene: Murray Bartlett, Las Gage 'The Whe Lot'.

Bt Sp-Roastg a Gay Married Couple: Jake Weary 'Animal Kgdom'. As gay people, I thk we feel extremely sensive ourselv and we all have our stggl that are dividual to our personal experienc.

NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE

“Lovg” featur around 300 photos that offer an timate look at gay relatnships between the 1850s and 1950s. Gay Rights,. That’s so gay!

”The pos, facial exprsns, and body language of the men below will strike the morn viewer as very gay ed. But is ccial to unrstand that you nnot view the photographs through the prism of our morn culture and current nceptn of homosexualy. The term “homosexualy” was fact not ed until 1869, and before that time, the strict dichotomy between “gay” and “straight” did not yet exist.

'GAY AMERI': PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN FROM ALL 50 STAT

It was a behavr — accepted by some cultur and nsired sful by at the turn of the 20th century, the ia of homosexualy shifted om a practice to a liftyle and an inty. You did not have temptatns towards a certa s, you were a homosexual person.

Thkg of men as eher “homosexual” or “heterosexual” beme mon. As this new nceptn of homosexualy as a stigmatized and onero intifier took root Amerin culture, men began to be much more reful to not send msag to other men, and to women, that they were gay.

At the same time, also may expla why untri wh a more nservative, relig culture, such as Ai or the Middle East, where men do engage homosexual acts, but still nsir homosexualy the “crime that nnot be spoken, ” remas mon for men to be affectnate wh one another and fortable wh thgs like holdg hands as they walk. Whether the men below were gay the way our current culture unrstands that ia, or the way that they themselv unrstood , is unknowable.

ALL THE OPENLY GAY MALE CELEBS WHO ARE OUT, PROUD & SMOK’ HOT

The men’s very fortable and faiar pos and body language might make the men look like gay lovers to the morn eye — and they uld very well have been — but that was not the msage they were sendg at the time.

Bee homosexualy, even if thought of as a practice rather than an inty, was not somethg publicly exprsed, the men were not knowgly outg themselv the shots; their pos were mon, and simply reflected the timacy and tensy of male iendships at the time — none of the photos would have ed their ntemporari to bat an the thor of Picturg Men, John Ibson, nducted a survey of morn day portra studs to ask if they had ever had two men e to have their photo taken, he found that the event was so rare that many of the photographers he spoke to had never seen happen durg their reer. The snapshots ually were veloped by someone else who would have gotten a look at all of them, so aga, the pictur were not likely purposeful exprsns of gay love, but rather ptured the very mon level of fort men felt wh one another durg the early 20th of the reasons male iendships were so tense durg the 19th and early 20th centuri, is that socializatn was largely separated by sex; men spent most their time wh other men, women wh other women. In the 50s, some psychologists theorized that genr-segregated socializatn spurred homosexualy, and as cultural mor changed general, snapshots of only men together were supplanted by those of ed all male environments, such as mg mps or navy ships, was mon for men to hold danc, wh half the men wearg a patch or some other marker to signate them as the “women” for the eveng.