Who was a gay in of the 1970s? - out | Ask MetaFilter

Contents:

• REVIEW: 1970S GAY STREET FASHNS AND OTHER VTAGE DISVERI ‘PHOTOGRAPHY AND LANGUAGE’
• DISVERG THE “GAY LIFTYLE” THROUGH 1970S MAGAZ
• POIGNANT, EXUBERANT PHOTOS OF GAY LIFE THE ’70S — JT TIME FOR PRI
• WHY BEG “GAY THE ’70S NEW YORK AND L.A. WAS MAGIC” — AND HOW HOLLYWOOD HAS CHANGED (GUT COLUMN)
• LOOKBACK: WHAT GAY LIFE WAS LIKE SAN FRANCIS 1976
• DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG
• MEET GAY BOB, THE 1977 DOLL THAT URGED PEOPLE TO COME OUT OF THE CLOSET
• MARV GAYE

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

“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.

”) “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. “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.

DISVERG THE “GAY LIFTYLE” THROUGH 1970S MAGAZ

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. “The turn toward liftyle, straight and gay, volved a turn toward nsumptn as a form of self-ventn, yet the gay liftyle media stcted s rearshp not only how to bee ‘themselv, ’ as the straight publitns, but also how to bee gay, ” Hilrbrand wr.

Sli 1 of 13, A ftg acpaniment to the NYC Pri celebratns around the cy this weekend, the Llie-Lohman Mm of Gay and Lbian Art on Wooster Street has an exhibn up this season centerg on a sgular era gay history: the post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS 1970s.

There had always been gay men who drsed a nventnally mascule style, but the early 1970s, gay men New York and San Francis looked to the epom of Amerin masculy-the wboy, the lumberjack, the nstctn worker-for spiratn for a new drs style.

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

Gay men have terpreted and monstrated their mascule looks through the celebratn of mcular "gym" bodi and clothg that shows off those bodi, as well as the emergence of other mascule subcultural styl such as the shaven-head, boots and brac wearg, but not necsarily racist skhead.

The large proportn of gay men who have worked creative fields of fashn and the theater and service dtri, such as terg, has been well documented by historians such as Ross Higgs, whose study highlighted the volvement of gay men at all levels of the fashn dtry Montreal.

Ined, many of the greatt nam twentieth-century fashn were gay or bisexual, cludg such figur as Christian Dr, Cristobal Balenciaga, Yv Sat Lrent, Norman Hartnell, Halston, Rudi Gernreich (who was one of the foundg members of the first Amerin homophile anizatn, the Mattache society), Calv Kle, and Gianni Versace. There’s an impish exuberance to the cloth and headpiec, many of which wouldn't look out of place at Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World petn (which, cintally, Jarman won 1975, unr the moniker Miss Crepe Suzette) BlamePl Hartt/Pym/REX/ShutterstockPugh’s llectn, meanwhile, paid homage to Blame, another gay man who rebelled turng the mundane upsi down.

WHY BEG “GAY THE ’70S NEW YORK AND L.A. WAS MAGIC” — AND HOW HOLLYWOOD HAS CHANGED (GUT COLUMN)

Elsewhere, Ashish’s glz and neon affair uld have been lifted om a 1990s rave (and me wh a seri of msag about clivy – on ma pecially ronant the wake of the signer’s powerful words the week before on the crimalisatn of homosexualy India).

There was a powerful work of olr succsful gay men like theatril agent Milton Goldman and entertament attorney Arnold Weissberger who troduced younger gay men to succsful showbiz typ at their betiful apartment on Sutton Place overlookg the East River.

Tommy Nutter, who was known for the betiful pipg on the cloth he signed for Mick and Bian Jagger, picked me up at a dis New York one night and I end up at Stigwood’s offic at 135 Central Park Wt, n by Peter Brown, who ed to be Tommy’s boyiend and who had worked for the very gay Beatl manager Brian Epste.

LOOKBACK: WHAT GAY LIFE WAS LIKE SAN FRANCIS 1976

Unlike the precsor Homophile Movement (which sought out social acceptance through formal anizg), The Gay Liberatn Movement took on ant tactics to bat LGBTQ+ discrimatn and mataed momentum throughout the new Gay Liberatn Movement’s ntributns stilled power wh queer voic that would later spire mastream fashn’s rejectn of genr Cockett (an experimental theatre group nsistg of drag queens om San Francis) migrated to New York durg the 70s where they stumbled upon fashn photographer Peter Hujar.

DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG

Staple dis fashn enpassed sk-tight bell-bottoms and low-neck jumpsus for men and Bs InsirOverall, the stagnant fluence of the Gay Liberatn Movement and queer culture provid androgyny wh a solidified prence spanng most of the 1980sA newfound sense of Amerin psimism characterized the 1980s; the radilism and foc on self-exprsn that fed the 60s and 70s were begng to though figur like Mercury and Prce ntued to blur genr l the 80s, a clg enomy batn wh the rise of nservatism and neonservatism obstcted the existence of another wave of androgyny men’s January 1980, the U.

“For many Amerins, this vio—which was choreographered by Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza and was st wh members of New York’s unrground New York ballroom scene—was the first time they had seen gay culture displayed so artistilly, so lovgly, ” not In Vogue’s host Hamish Bowl this week’s fact, queer culture had been fluencg mastream culture for s. Jt this month, GQ magaze has enuraged a whole bevvy of bloke-ish celebri - among them stalwart gay favour Dermot O'Leary, Ross Kemp and Nick Moran - to sport fulsome, bhy and even handlebar motach aid of tticular ncer awarens.

MEET GAY BOB, THE 1977 DOLL THAT URGED PEOPLE TO COME OUT OF THE CLOSET

And, further, a summer which even the Daily Mail is clgg to s hope that homosexual upl should not be given the right to sign the ath certifite of their life-long partners by the narrowt of are now a very gay untry, ed. This was a tsle back on the behalf of malens for gay folks may now seem like a m look, but no more so than the gay northerners that stole low-end sportswear labels like Umbro and Reebok om their tate buddi an attempt to "straighten" up the gay look the 90s and subsequently turned wearg a baseball p your 30s to jt another gay cliche. Ined, they themselv have bee known by some as the new Lang's appropriatn of the origal clon' favoure troer is a sweet homage to the men who stggled through a perd that would eventually enable gay men to drs exactly as they pleased.

MARV GAYE

Fashn spac have always had a fair amount of cis gay male signers, but seeg female, trans, and genr nonnformg signers shakg up the sug dtry (Kirr Fch and SharpeHs) and the swimsu game (Beefke, OUTPLAY, and HUMANKIND) really ma known to that this was a space for all of . Openg s Goln Gate to a world of diverse culture, viewpots, and sexual 'I'm so glad I did this': Comg out, growg up at San Francis PriWe've been diggg through our archiv and found an amazg seri to give you a glimpse of gay life here late 1976.