Project MUSE - <i>Mat & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand</i> (review)

Contents:

• MAT AND LOVERS : A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND
• MAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND
• MAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND
• MAT & LOVERS : A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND / CHRIS BRICKELL
• MAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND

MAT AND LOVERS : A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND

In this book I explore how what we now thk of as gay male inti veloped New Zealand sce the mid-neteenth century, and exame the procs through which sex and timate relatnships between men me to reflect prevailg social circumstanc.

MAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND

How did the gay sexual inty wh which we are now faiar evolve over time? Awards for Mat & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand. It is a ltle disappotg then that none of Hardg’s many photographs of pairs of men are prent the exhibn, such as the photograph wh the dog on the ont of the book Mat and Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand by Chris Brickell (2009), which is a Hardg image (see photograph below).

Book ver of Mat and Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand by Chris Brickell which is a Hardg image.

Mat And Lovers: A History Of Gay New Zealand|Chris Brickell. Chris Brickell’s pneerg work b his sophistited knowledge of the ternatnal lerature wh enterprisg natnal archival work to produce what mt be one of the most signifint natnal histori of male homosexualy ever wrten.

MAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALANDMAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND

Rather than assumg a sgle history of homosexualy, historians now nsir a variety of tegori of male same-sex sire—iendship, sodomy, effemacy, versn— the perd leadg up to the neteenth and twentieth centuri, when homosexualy self beme a type. But even that fal tegory, whether “homosexual” or “gay, ” should not preclu morn multiple forms of same-sex sexual exprsn. The book’s subtle, A History of Gay New Zealand, impli a sexual certaty that s thor is immediately keen to ny.

The word gay, he pots out his preface, is not meangful s morn sense until the 1970s, and so he do not e for his histori of earlier s (“ is important to nsir the vobulary of sex and timacy s own specific ntext”), though the obv risk is that mdsets will have already been rerced by that very namg the tle (9). Th he [End Page 328] has men who “laid the foundatns for the emergence of a morn gay inty” and an “emergg ‘queer’ world” (what uld be more teleologil?

MAT & LOVERS : A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND / CHRIS BRICKELL

Yet his emergent “morn gay inty” dissolv almost at the moment of s makg (20). Perhaps Brickell will have his proverbial ke, but even those who look for the sexual teleology will appreciate his reful, ed lovg, nstctn of the richns of male homoeroticism New Zealand’s past. Bee leav trac of the exprsn of same-sex love and passn, iendship illtrat perfectly the cipherabily of the history of homosexualy.

MAT AND LOVERS: A HISTORY OF GAY NEW ZEALAND

The book rang om early Brish settler society the 1840s to the visible gay culture of the 1990s.

The them and imagery—drag, homosexual effemacy, physique culture, the impact...