Peter Ackroyd: A secret history – 2,000 years of gay life London | History books | The Guardian

Contents:

• SEXUAL OUTLAW ON THE GAY FRONTIER
• PETER ACKROYD: A SECRET HISTORY – 2,000 YEARS OF GAY LIFE LONDON
• SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON KDLE EDN
• THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN

SEXUAL OUTLAW ON THE GAY FRONTIER

One of the Classics stunts, Francis, is openly gay, and queer them n rampant the subtext, too. Mrice is gay, and the book lv to his two most proment relatnships wh men. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSexual Outlaw on the Gay FrontierJuly 25, 2010 When the thor Jt Sprg fally tracked down the executor of Samuel Steward’s tate, he had no ia what this sexual outlaw and ltle-known lerary figure had left behd after his ath 1993.

PETER ACKROYD: A SECRET HISTORY – 2,000 YEARS OF GAY LIFE LONDON

So he was taken unawar by the 80 box full of drawgs, letters, photographs, sexual paraphernalia, mancripts and other ems, cludg an tograph and reliquary wh pubic hair om Rudolph Valento, a thoand-page nfsnal journal Steward created at the requt of the sex rearcher Aled Ksey, and a green metal rd talog labeled “Stud File, ” which ntaed a meticuloly documented rerd on x rds of every sexual experience and partner — Rock Hudson, Thornton Wilr, “One-eyed Sadist” — that Steward said he had had over 50 attic full of ems ntaed a secret history of a ltle-documented strand of gay life the middle s of the 20th century.

Steward’s experience stands stark ntrast to the faiar story of furtive ncealment and persecutn the perd before gay liberatn.

SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON KDLE EDN

“It was an Aladd’s ve of gay paraphernalia and rerd keepg that was vered wh dt and smelled like dog, ” said Mr. ) This unual che is signifint bee source material om this perd is rare, said Mart Duberman, a profsor emer and founr of the Center for Lbian and Gay Studi at the Graduate Center of the Cy Universy of New York.

” Many of Steward’s ntemporari — and their heirs — stroyed or hid evince of their homosexualy. Fremson/The New York TimJason Bmann, curator of the lbian and gay llectn for the New York Public Library, said, “It’s exactly the kd of material that I nstantly have historians and the general public wantg to have.

At first he didn’t realize that some of the odd puzzle piec he happened upon even belonged to the same jigsaw bee Steward had so many inti an era when homosexualy uld land a person jail. But as the thor of gay pulp fictn, he went by Phil Andros and a half-dozen other psdonyms; Hells Angels Oakland, Calif., who ed him as their official tattoo artist, lled him Doc Sparrow; rears of his articl unrground newspapers and magaz knew him as Ward Stam.

THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN

The study, which prented homosexualy as natural and legimate, spired Steward to see himself as a sex rearcher and gave his life a new foc and meang. ) Steward’s tal of equent sexual enunters as a teenager and unrgraduate Woodsfield and Columb, Oh, the 1920s and ’30s are a unterpot to the aggrsive persecutn of homosexuals durg the 1950s McCarthy sre. Bmann and other historians have noted, there was no homosexual panic those earlier years bee of a reluctance to discs sex any tail and the rultg wispread ignorance.

Sprg, only those who performed oral sex were then nsired homosexual. ”A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn C, Page 1 of the New York edn wh the headle: Sexual Outlaw On the Gay Frontier. Perhaps is new book, a history of gay London entled Queer Cy, returns to faiar terrory, so much so that ’s surprisg Ackroyd hasn’t already wrten : fact, turns out that, after a manner of speakg, he has.

More famoly, a 1983 novel is wrten as a fictnal diary by Osr Wil, a photograph of whom rat his study, sandwiched between Thomas More and the Elizabethan mag John the new work go far eper, travellg om the barely visible remas of Celtic London and the arrival of Christiany the AD300s to the great sex sndals of the 19th century – Wil clud – and on to recent fights for gay rights. If the Celts strike as somewhat mp – Ackroyd suggts the word has s origs the mid-1800s and the gay slang Polari – then so might Chcer’s Pardoner The Canterbury Tal (the prototype of “a London queer”, Ackroyd suggts).