The first gay pub I dared set foot now has a rabow plaque. Here’s why that matters | Gary Nunn | The Guardian

Contents:

• A GAY TEEN DISVERS HIMSELF AT SUMMER MP THIS FLAMER FIRST LOOK
• THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
• SCED BY MY SISTER'S BOYIEND PART 1: A GAY TABOO EROTI STORY

A GAY TEEN DISVERS HIMSELF AT SUMMER MP THIS FLAMER FIRST LOOK

As the only out young gay kid at my school, I took the advancement of my sexual experienc to my own hands and I did what we all do: I bought a fake ID and h the gay clubs.

THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS

While I knew wouldn’t be like a gay llege eroti I’d read on (gay non, really), I rather naively wasn’t expectg the fall out. I realize I fell to that old gay adage of placg my feelgs on a person who, for whatever reason, was never gog to vt them back me. Worst of all, though, the shame attached to the memori of those first tim marred how I would approach sex for was listeng to Years & Years’ new song “Sanctify, ” and seeg the band’s out gay sger Olly Alexanr talk about how the song was spired his sexual trysts wh straight men, that I realized that the feelgs are way more mon than people let on.

Sure, I know all about gay guys havg sex wh straight guys, but felt reassurg to see him scribe the “sat and sner role” he embodied durg those experienc, and to hear the uncertaty and melancholy weaved to the than anythg though, was the repeated lyril mantra of “I won’t be ashamed.

All imag: Godw BooksAdolcence n be a ighteng perd for young gay men, who are sudnly faced wh new sexual feelgs that n often nflict wh social prsur placed on them by fay, iends, and the media. We are both gay men and have traveled many tim together over the years wh few problems and a hell of a lot of fun.

SCED BY MY SISTER'S BOYIEND PART 1: A GAY TABOO EROTI STORY

Like many gay men, our platonic iendship began wh a roll the hay.

Frankly, I’d have served a prison jt for him to hold my hand, like he did his off-whe Vxhall Nova on the drive there, breakg only to change, he took me for strawberry cir the Gloucter, a pub at the park’s edge, takg my tremblg hand his and reassurg me: “It’s actually a gay bar. Gay pubs are far more than bars; they’re refug. On Sunday, the first a new seri of rabow plaqu will be stalled at the Gloucter – now the Greenwich Tavern – cementg s place gay home the workg-class Medway area of Kent, where we met when he sold me a phone cred rd at the lol petrol statn, “queers” like were wily perceived as predatory, perverted, spic or simply scum.

”After the strawberry cir, served by a man a tight whe vt – the only other gay man I’d seen real life – the squiggly summer sunlight ma a strobe effect through the park’s tre.

The first time I saw wh him, when I was 18, I realised he had echoed the love story of the two protagonists, who also had their first kiss the twilight of Greenwich Park’s tre, and their first experience of a gay pub at the Gloucter.

The explanatn for his obssn is now clear: there was such a pcy of same-sex love stori that this was the first time many young people had seen a same-sex kiss, or peeked si an actual gay bar after dark. The project remds people “that we have always been here, good tim and bad, ” David Robson of the London LGBT+ Foms’ Network said when the plaqu were film and my own story were workg-class gay love: not dandyish and sheltered by the polse of privilege, but the btal realy of beg perceived a non-mascule boy.