Tucked the Missouri Ozarks is a place where gay men are unabashedly celebratory: Cact Canyon Campground, a 700-acre, clothg optnal, all-male retreat.
Contents:
FEATURED SHORT STORI FICTN
Stori by, for, and/or about Gay and Bi Young People. * gay stories map *
Gay Erotic Stori. who to fd through takg swimmg lsons that beg a homosexual. story of his first gay sexual enunter at fourteen, wh his fifteen.
Remendatns of onle fictn, e-books, and prt books, primarily gay fictn or iendship fictn. * gay stories map *
A Gay Man Speaks Out.
However, seemed like I was fdg some of the boys sexy and appealg and wh time I knew that I was gay. Also, he was the first to unrstand that I was gay, whout me ever tellg him and I rpected the fact that he never forced me to discs the matter.
Mappg the Gay Guis’ ma functn is prervg and publicizg an overlooked, unr-studied chapter LGBTQ history.
Mappg the Gay Guis visualiz lol queer spac' evolutn between 1965 and 1980 * gay stories map *
Screenshot via Mappg the Gay Guis / Photo illtratn by Meilan Solly. As Eric Gonzaba, a historian at California State Universy, Fullerton, explas, Damron, a whe, gay man om San Francis, “started jt wrg down lists of lotns that he would vis, … plac [where] he eher found other gay men or he felt accepted. What began as a personal reference for the Californian and his iends soon morphed to a thrivg enterprise ak to The Negro Motorist Green Book, which safely shepherd Ain Amerin travelers across the untry durg the Jim Crow era, but for gay men and, to a lser extent, lbian women.
This is the story of my first time and, as many first tim on anythg, didn't´t go well bee of my experience. Many say they knew they were gay their whole liv, not my se. I had no ia. If somebody would tell me I was gay before that day, I would have given them a middle fger. But I * gay stories map *
Ccially, Damron’s Addrs Book never explicly intified s target dience (at least until 1999, when the word “gay” was first prted on s ver), stead relyg on phemisms, nuendo and d abbreviatns to circulate rmatn wh the queer muny. Tled Mappg the Gay Guis, the project aims to “rrect the cultural erasure of historil geography” by spotlightg lol muni’ oft-unherald queer history and, adds Gonzaba, explorg “how that muny relat to other parts of the untry. The first phase of Mappg the Gay Guis lnched mid-Febary wh a foc on the southern Uned Stat.
* gay stories map *
Screenshot via Mappg the Gay Guis. Mappg the Gay Guis isn’t the first digal history project dited to Damron’s Addrs Books or the numero sp-off guis the publitns spawned. As Gonzaba explas, “This is one publisher and one guy’s view of what the gay world looked like.
A digal exploratn of how the regn’s lbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer muni have changed over time." class="jsx-2067809186 * gay stories map *
In 1964, the year Damron first published his Addrs Book, gay sex was nsired a crime every state except Illois, and the Stonewall Uprisg, wily creded wh sparkg the ntemporary gay rights movement, was still five years away. To ensure his work reached s tend dience, Damron plugged to existg works wh the unrground gay muny, addg his handbook to the array of eroti, pulp novels, physique magaz and other prted materials available to those the know. “The mute you enter the gay world via one of the s, ” says Gonzaba, “ … you n possibly buy accs to even more of the gay culture, [intifyg] more spac by buyg this gui and beg able to see other plac that might be of tert to you other ci.
Damron’s Addrs Books weren’t the only gay travel guis available durg the latter half of the 20th century, but as Mappg the Gay Guis pots out, “They were the origal and remaed the gold standard, pecially for men, through the 1990s. But by intifyg patterns the body of work Damron left behd, the rearchers hope to learn more about his dividual character, cludg the implic bias he had as a gay, whe man om the progrsive astal cy of San Francis. Acrdg to Gonzaba, Damron often classified s popular among gay Ain Amerin men the Amerin South as not only “B” (“Blacks Frequent”), but “RT, ” or “Rnchy Typ”—shorthand for tablishments emed “ls than reputable.