Rare Photos Show What Gay Pri Looked Like the 1970s | Time

70s gay fashion

Joseph Lovett's documentary Gay Sex In The 70s has an tentnally provotive tle, but anyone wh any knowledge of gay history will know what signifi. In 1969, the Stonewall Rts New York effectively beat back the crimalizatn of homosexual acts the cy, and 1981, the first s of AIDS began…

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REVIEW: 1970S GAY STREET FASHNS AND OTHER VTAGE DISVERI ‘PHOTOGRAPHY AND LANGUAGE’

Gallery review: Strikg work by Hal Fischer, examg vtage gay male street fashn, leads the group show “Photography and Language” at Cherry & Mart. * 70s gay fashion *

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.

POIGNANT, EXUBERANT PHOTOS OF GAY LIFE THE ’70S — JT TIME FOR PRI

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. (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.

GAY SEX IN THE 70S

“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.

”)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. “There’s this munal thg happeng right now where people are more open that they’re trans and non-bary or bisexual and not jt on the spectm of beg straight, gay, male, female. Amid the flurry of rabow-lan rporate logos, sponsored events and news ems about gay pengus, is difficult to turn on a televisn or set foot public durg June whout the remr that is Pri Month for LGBT and queer people.

Gee Dudley, a photographer and artist who also served as the first director of New York Cy’s Llie-Lohman Mm of Gay and Lbian Art, documented scen om pri paras New York Cy om the late 1970s through the early ‘90s. The years saw Ana Bryant’s homophobic csa through the “Save Our Children” mpaign 1977, the electn and assassatn of Harvey Milk 1978, and the Whe Night rts the followg summer after the lenient sentencg of Milk’s murrer, Dan Whe. And October 1979, the Natnal March on Washgton for Gay and Lbian Rights took place wh roughly 100, 000 participants.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* 70S GAY FASHION

Rare Photos Show What Gay Pri Looked Like the 1970s | Time .

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