Op-ed: The Gay Clon Everyone Knows

GAY HISTORY: AFTER STONEWALL CLON, CLOSETS AND COS

Late June’s (2019) 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rts is makg this Pri month a particularly reflective one. But like a newly mted AARP member flippg through their high school yearbook, the morn gay rights movement’s “Big five-oh” moment brgs, wh s flood of memori, certa hard qutns—not the least of which is: What posssed… * clones gay *

But when one particular look cropped up the post-Stonewall gay scene of the 1970s, was so popular—and so distct—that the guys who sported were dismissed as “clon. )And while the nickname was ially pejorative, the clone perd marked perhaps the first time that gay men prented themselv wh a queer-signalg uniform that was a direct rponse to societal stereotyp.

“The clone was a reactn to thgs you would see movi of gay men beg flty and nelly, ” says John Calendo, a wrer who lived LA and New York Cy throughout the 70s and 80s, and worked as an edor at the clone-cubatg sk mags Blueboy and In Touch for Men. He pots to the gay mstrel stereotyp the 1967 film The Producers, along wh the timid-lookg guys on the illtrated vers of gay pulp books wh nam like All the Sad Young Men.

CLONG FASHN: UNIFORM GAY IMAG MALE APPAREL

The clon on Orphan Black exhib a range on the sexualy spectm om straight to gay. Though geilly the same there are many reasons for this. * clones gay *

(Not to mentn the 1964 article Life magaze lled “Homosexualy Ameri, ” which scribed a “sad and often sordid world. ”) “That’s the kd of imagery”—backwards stereotyp that basilly villaized queer people—“that a lot of my generatn who beme the clone people grew up wh the ccible of the 60s, ” Calendo ntu, when the civil rights and gay liberatn movements were expandg ias of equaly and eedom. Drsg like a clone, he says, was a rejectn of those olr gay ’s not so easy to ppot precisely who origated the clone ial, guys who were alive at the time ually brg up Al Parker, an adult film star turned producer and director who worked om the 70s to the early 90s.

(Parker would eventually bee an advote for gay rights and safe sex, producg only safe-sex films before he passed away om plitns due to AIDS 1992. It was like, Oh that’s somethg wh a ltle work I uld atta, and I thk that’s why beme so quickly absorbed to the gay muny. “When I thk back on havg lived through the time, was like gay guys were pg om this stereotype that was jt culted to the culture of sissi and faggots, ” says Woodff.

“The clone look was certaly about a whe gay man’s rponse and engagement wh those archetyp, ” says Ben Barry, the an of the school of fashn at the New School’s Parsons School of Dign, whose rearch foc on fashn’s relatnship to masculy, sexualy, and the body.

POLIL-ENOMIC NSTCTN OF GAY MALE CLONE INTY

Social Constctn is an ill-fed approach, lackg specificy and poorly sued for solvg problems of the real world. A ncrete analysis of negative aspects of the Gay Clone Liftyle, wh a particular foc upon the premier gay clone dg, "poppers" (or nre halants), is ntraste … * clones gay *

”)Prentg as mascule public was physilly safer for gay guys, but the clone stume pulled double duty, Barry says, tweakg tradnal masculy while also signalg to other queer folks.