From Megan Rapoe to the “gay rights” meme, queer women's culture was all over the ter this year.
Contents:
- A SECRET GAY HISTORY OF UK PNAGE: ‘THE SKILL-SET OF HOMOSEXUALS AND SPI OVERLAPPED’
- WHAM!’S ANDREW RIDGELEY: ‘GEE MICHAEL THOUGHT MIGHT HURT IF HE ME OUT AS GAY AND I ENURAGED HIM NOT TO SAY ANYTHG’
- A GAY NBA FAN FOUND 78 HOMOPHOBIC TWEETS BY 40 PLAYERS ON 23 TEAMS
- WHAT IS GAY CULTURE? THE TWEETS HAVE NAILED
- AS A GAY TEENAGER, THIS TWTER MEME IS PARTNERG WH QUEER-PANRG RPORATNS
- 30 TWEETS ABOUT GAYS AND ICED FFEE THAT ARE ABSOLUTELY 100% ACCURATE
- GAY TWEETS
A SECRET GAY HISTORY OF UK PNAGE: ‘THE SKILL-SET OF HOMOSEXUALS AND SPI OVERLAPPED’
Huw Lemmey, a novelist and host of the Bad Gays podst, has ma the trigug spy film Ungentle * gay culture tweets *
Sce 2019 the wrer, artist and historian Huw Lemmey has curated and prented a cheeky alt-LGBTQ history wh the podst Bad Gays. The seri, which last year was distilled to the thrillg book Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, apprais a sometim roguish gallery that clus the Roman emperor Hadrian, Lawrence of Arabia, Lord Castlereagh, Morrissey, Roger Casement, Freddie Mercury and Francis date, Lemmey and his -prenter Ben Miller are the only historians to properly evaluate the “evil twk energy” of Bosie, aka Lord Aled Douglas, the thor of Osr Wil’s downfall. “The fil started to e out my teens, and to see that English relatnship wh sexualy om 20 years ago, and this sire to look for a figure who rencil the story of homosexual inty England to the Brish state such a way that acknowledg what the Brish state did to a certa extent – but then also valoris the Brish state by sayg he was a hero for Bra and this is how we treated him and, actually, now he’s on the £50 note.
Ungentle, which he has directed wh Onyeka Igwe, explor the plited relatnship between Brish pnage and male homosexualy. As Lemmey has noted Utopian Drivel, “the skill-set of homosexuals and spi mid-20th-century Bra had a signifint gree of overlap” Whishaw.
Of the known members – Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgs, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross – Burgs and Blunt were gay, while Maclean was bisexual. “So was an tertg realisatn for me that my grandparents, who I thought of as an olr, nservative generatn, had a lot of gay male iends the 1940s.
WHAM!’S ANDREW RIDGELEY: ‘GEE MICHAEL THOUGHT MIGHT HURT IF HE ME OUT AS GAY AND I ENURAGED HIM NOT TO SAY ANYTHG’
The crease the number of visible gay and trans people is sometim treated as a cursy or a e for ncern by crics, but ’s not a surprise. It’s normal. * gay culture tweets *
”FBI director J Edgar Hoover, who was himself moured to be gay, directed the agency to vtigate and monor numero gays workg wh the ernmentThat tolerance is amplified by transatlantic parisons. In 1953 US print Dwight D Eisenhower signed executive orr 10450, iatg the vtigatn, terrogatn and systematic removal of gay men and lbians om the US feral ernment.
The policy, which beme known as the Lavenr Sre, was predited on the fear that gay men and lbians “posed a threat to natnal secury bee they were vulnerable to blackmail. FBI director J Edgar Hoover, who was himself moured to be gay, directed the agency to vtigate and monor numero gays workg wh the ernment.
“The relatnship between secury servic and homosexualy the UK is unique, ” Lemmey says, “bee the US was que clear: the people are perverts; get them out.
A GAY NBA FAN FOUND 78 HOMOPHOBIC TWEETS BY 40 PLAYERS ON 23 TEAMS
Many tweets me years ago. It don’t lsen the stg for the gay fan who disvered them, or other gay men basketball. * gay culture tweets *
One of the early gay-rights groups wrote to every ernment partment askg if they would sack someone for beg gay. So the first rponse was: of urse if we found a homosexual the foreign-office they would be expelled. It’s no accint that the film is narrated by Whishaw, the 007 veteran and London Spy gay subtexts of John le Carré’s ld-war-era spy fictns The Spy Who Came om the Cold and Tker Tailor Soldier Spy have been ma more explic recent adaptatns.
Photograph: Jack English/StudCanal “The creatn of the gay inty, the creatn of homosexualy as a polil subject, is based on his history and historgraphy. Every year, Gallup releas a survey of how many Amerins intify as lbian, gay, bisexual or transgenr. Everyone will be eher gay or trans or nonnformg or whatever the list of 50 or 60 different optns there are.
” The edian Bill Maher said on his show that by 2054, if we follow what he se as the current trajectory, “we will all be gay, ” addg that the rise the number of younger people intifyg as transgenr seemed spic. Bee of the fluence of Schorr put siarly Natnal Review: “To suggt that social suggtibily uld be playg a role the skyrocketg numbers of young girls’ exprsg their sire to bee mal, for example, is not of urse to say that gay and transgenr people would not exist whout the topics’ beg discsed the public square. ”This fear is based on an unrstandg of genr and sexualy as alarmgly agile, easily undone by a gay teacher or a trans TikTok fluencer.
WHAT IS GAY CULTURE? THE TWEETS HAVE NAILED
If gay culture of a bygone generatn was all about Broadway mils, terr sign, and diva worship—as How to Be Gay thor David M. Halper noted a 2012 New York Tim op-ed — the days... * gay culture tweets *
And so are homosexualy, bisexualy and beg ’s been an objective crease the number of visible L.
AS A GAY TEENAGER, THIS TWTER MEME IS PARTNERG WH QUEER-PANRG RPORATNS
* gay culture tweets *
This is the first time Amerin history that gay and trans people have been able to live as themselv any real way, wh jobs and marriag and dogs and ts and visibily. Boy Gee was already out there, and even though his image was kd of asexual, everyone knew he was gay.
30 TWEETS ABOUT GAYS AND ICED FFEE THAT ARE ABSOLUTELY 100% ACCURATE
And Freddie [Mercury], well, he never explicly announced , but everyone knew he was gay. The alter muny is proment among Filipo gay men who satisfy their need for sexual aroal, llective inty, and validatn of their sexualy the alter muny. This say analyz data om onle observatns, ntent analysis of tweets and profil, and terviews and is rmed by theori on serialy, gay sexualy, and Inter studi.
In suatg serialy wh the ntext of gay amatr porn enomy, this article argu that serial pornography is stmental satisfyg both prent and long-standg affective, sexual, and social needs of gay men.
GAY TWEETS
As Twter renrs olr tweets ephemeral and quantifi social engagement, serialy enabl gay men to satisfy the aforementned needs longer. In late 2020, a Filipo gay pornographer named Anton (not his actual name) tweeted, “You want to see me gettg fucked by this hot and mcular athlete? This paper follows this notn and vtigat the serializatn of porn on the Twter alter muny, a llective of Filipo gay pornographers volved the productn, distributn, and nsumptn of amatr porn on the platform.
In this article, I view serializatn both as a strategy that maximiz social pal and affective experienc of makg pornography and as an evable oute of Twter’s sign that exacerbat gay men’s need for validatn, a sense of belongg, and llective inty. Instead of nsirg serializatn as a way to circumvent Twter’s technil limatns wh a vio’s duratn, this say argu that serializatn feeds to gay men’s needs for validatn and a sense of belongg to a muny.
Such settgs, this article suggts, matas an illn of sexual liberatn while turng gay men to enterprisg agents rponsible for their own social works and emotnal fulfillment. This say suggts that stead of supportg a pretermed endg, serial pornography addrs prent and endurg social issu gay men face.