How Gay Culture Blossomed Durg the Roarg Twenti | HISTORY

Contents:

• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

Gay sex was illegal at that time, but they cid not to prosecute him for sodomy, bee would set motn a slew of prosecutg every other man who participated homosexual sex. While mt have been obv back when he was alive, very few people today know that he was gay and that he had a lot of male lovers throughout his life durg the 1500s.

His first two victims were young gay men their late 20’s to early 30’s, and his third and fourth were both olr married men who had soliced his sexual servic. One of the most ironic parts of the whole story was that Jeff Gannon often wrote for Republins, and had homophobic unrton his profsnal life, when he was actually sleepg wh men as “Bulldog”. Jackson’s lyrics about how only our iends and other gays uld ll faggots was enuragg, g as did om a straight man sgg a song jt before AIDS h.

Faggot, often-nsired a slur, has been reclaimed many tim over by gay men, cludg a new play by Declan Greene, The Homosexuals, or “Faggots”, currently showg at the Malthoe Melbourne. The play looks at gay male relatnships and their polics, and is apt as middle-class gay men and lbians stggle wh acceptance all over aga the face of their ll for marriage equaly. And merry-old-England there was abe: one night when leavg gay club Heaven, a bunch of lads lled and our female iends “pooh jabbers”.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

Let’s beg wh the most mon term, “gay”, which baby-boomer homosexuals appropriated for their liberatnist e the late 1960s and early 1970s. "Homosexual” (or “homosexualist”) has siar 19th-century origs and was origally ed 1869 by a Hungarian doctor, Karoly Maria Benkert. In 1920s New York, scribed an effemate homosexual who sought social/sexual relatns wh “normal men”, acrdg to Gee Chncey while a “flamg faggot” was an extremely obv, flamboyant gay man.

This tenncy for the words for prostute to be later ed for homosexual dat om 18th-century England when they often shared mon social spac, argu gay historian Rictor Norton.

Historilly-specific, nnot the style of gay men mid-1970 to mid-1980s (motache, short hair, fad, baggy Levis and pocket and/or neck handkerchief) as exemplified by the lead sger of the Bronski Beat at the time of their h sgle, Smalltown Boy. While the terms were ed to mark their difference, this did not prevent mal om that same pole society om g the good servic of prostut and homosexuals when sued them.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY

Twenty-one years ago, AIDS, which was then the domant ncern for gay men and culture, ceased to be a ath sentence and stead beme a manageable disease.

If this is so, would suggt a strengtheng of gay culture and muny bee people n only start explorg their past, warts and all, when they feel safe. Essentially limed to homosexual prostutn, was prent popular gatherg plac (Molly ho England, Galleri of Palais-Royal Paris), but also the brothels that emerged at the begng of the century. This distctn on the part of the doctor was refuted by experience, as illtrated the tobgraphil acunt of a male transvte prostute llected by a doctor Anjou durg the 1860s (Arthur X, Mémoir d’un travti, prostué, homosexuel, 1896).

Throughout Europe, the police and jtice system associated male prostutn wh homosexualy, which prompted a number of stat to legislate on the subject. Male prostutn was fact mostly seen as a nsequence of homosexualy, the reprsn of which attracted legislative efforts: persecutn Nazi Germany, reprsive laws the dictatorships of Southern Europe and Stal’s USSR, homophobic discrimatn regardg the age of sexual nsent the Netherlands (1911) and France (1942).