The Queer Issue: Gay Motorcycle Clubs New York - The Village Voice

Contents:

• LONGG AND BELONGG: TOWARD A CULTURAL HISTORY OF GAY MOTORCYCLE CLUBS THE US
• RIDG WH THE OLST ALL-GAY, ALL-MALE, ALL-RIDG MOTORCYCLE CLUB
• GAY HISTORY – MEET THE SATYRS MOTORCYCLE CLUB. AMERI’S OLST GAY ORGANIZATN
• THE QUEER ISSUE: GAY MOTORCYCLE CLUBS NEW YORK
• STORI OM L.A.’S PNEERG GAY MOTORCYCLE CLUBS ARE TOLD THROUGH USC’S ONE ARCHIV

LONGG AND BELONGG: TOWARD A CULTURAL HISTORY OF GAY MOTORCYCLE CLUBS THE US

The Satyrs Motorcycle Club is the olst gay ntuo motorcycle club the Uned Stat.

RIDG WH THE OLST ALL-GAY, ALL-MALE, ALL-RIDG MOTORCYCLE CLUB

Established 1954 Los Angel and still gog strong, they have bee one of the bt known gay MCs the untry. We are lookg at how the nex of two inti – gay and motorcyclist – self-imposed as well as imposed by society at large, plays out public and private. While there have been gay and lbian motorcyclists almost as long as there have been motorcycl, thgs don’t get tertg until World War Two ends.

The first imag popular culture of the gay motorcyclist seem to be tertwed wh postwar and Cold War polics, often reflectg and optg the imag of mastream motorcyclists the procs. The vtigatn supposedly was to addrs munist fluence and filtratn, but quickly veloped a homophobic and anti-Semic edge.

GAY HISTORY – MEET THE SATYRS MOTORCYCLE CLUB. AMERI’S OLST GAY ORGANIZATN

Homosexuals were seen as eher munists or secury risks, if not both, which lead to mass firgs of homosexuals om ernment agenci. By lkg munism wh homosexualy, the heargs created a sense of guilt through associatn, pecially when any real evince was lackg, as was so often the se.

By the time the first half of the 20th Century was drawg to a close, both gays and motorcyclists had inti as outlaws, threats to the Amerin Way of Life, imposed by the mastream. And ntug the ncept of guilt by associatn, many saw the aggrsively mascule behavr of the motorcycle clubs and gangs as exampl of overpensatn by men who really weren’t mascule, that is, were gay, or latent homosexuals. David Thomson his obuary of Brando for The Guardian claims “the biker…[is] a very mp figure, a gay in”.

THE QUEER ISSUE: GAY MOTORCYCLE CLUBS NEW YORK

Others mented that the bikers the film were jt latently homosexual. Bee of the Lavenr Sre wch hunt, most homosexual anizatns followed the cell stcture format tablished by Harry Hay for the Mattache Society, an early lbian and gay rights group. The bylaws bee the template for most gay motorcycl clubs of the perd.

If Larry Townsend is unrstood rrectly a passage about gay motorcycle clubs The Leatherman’s Handbook, due to perd attus toward homosexualy, many of the gay motorcycl clubs beme disenchanted wh the AMA and broke formal ti while followg the anizatn’s lead qutns of safety and the like.

STORI OM L.A.’S PNEERG GAY MOTORCYCLE CLUBS ARE TOLD THROUGH USC’S ONE ARCHIV

While the two outlaw inti were beg creasgly tertwed, a third velopment grew importance: what Jack Frscher would later dub “homomasculy”, which the web-based Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia f as a “subculture of gay men who prefer mascule-intified men”, or men who prefer men who look and act like men, sometim exaggerated, vaguely workg class, who were often seen as more thentilly male than men form other soc-enomic class. Homomasculy was the real foc of the 1950s physil culture magaze, providg jt most imag of well-mcled men wh such mascule props as wboy hats, Roman swords, engeer boots, and the like. His homoerotic imag of hyperstylized homomasculy were as facile as they were mercial: he was very much the right artist at the right time.

The trial emphasized yet aga that dividuals were rponsible for war crim; while the novel troduced gay motorcyclists to the world at large. (That the Rockers clud gay and lbian rirs would not have been news to eher group.