How gay artists exprsed forbidn sire | CNN

Contents:

• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• HIDN PLA SIGHT: HOW GAY ARTISTS EXPRSED FORBIDN SIRE
• GAY SLANG 1920'S ENGLAND
• GAY SLANG OM THE 1970S
• SYNONYMS OF GAY

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

Part of the fun of rearchg 1920’s and 1930’s Queer subculture New York Cy was g across a wi variety of specialized slang and d terms that flourished among homosexual men and women of the time. Jocker – man who will only assume active, sertive rol sex wh other men, ually to reta their “stat as men”, generally don’t thk of himself as homosexual. Vasele Alley – also known as Bch Walk; unbroken le of bench om the southeast rner of Central Park to the Mall; another popular meetg place for gay men.

By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibn era, they were attractg as many as 7, 000 people of var rac and social class—gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr and straight alike. The Begngs of a New Gay World“In the late 19th century, there was an creasgly visible prence of genr-non-nformg men who were engaged sexual relatnships wh other men major Amerin ci, ” says Chad Heap, a profsor of Amerin Studi at Gee Washgton Universy and the thor of Slummg: Sexual and Racial Enunters Amerin Nightlife, 1885-1940.

By the 1920s, gay men had tablished a prence Harlem and the bohemian mec of Greenwich Village (as well as the seedier environs of Tim Square), and the cy’s first lbian enclav had appeared Harlem and the Village. Each gay enclave, wrote Gee Chncey his book Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, had a different class and ethnic character, cultural style and public reputatn. Gay Life the Jazz AgeAs the Uned Stat entered an era of unprecented enomic growth and prospery the years after World War I, cultural mor loosened and a new spir of sexual eedom reigned.

HIDN PLA SIGHT: HOW GAY ARTISTS EXPRSED FORBIDN SIRE

Though New York Cy may have been the epicenter of the so-lled "Pansy Craze, " gay, lbian and transgenr performers graced the stag of nightspots ci all over the untry.

”At the same time, lbian and gay characters were beg featured a slew of popular “pulp” novels, songs and on Broadway stag (cludg the ntroversial 1926 play The Captive) and Hollywood—at least prr to 1934, when the motn picture dtry began enforcg censorship guil, known as the Hays Co.

” The sale of liquor was legal aga, but newly enforced laws and regulatns prohibed rtrants and bars om hirg gay employe or even servg gay patrons.

GAY SLANG 1920'S ENGLAND

In the mid- to late ‘30s, Heap pots out, a wave of sensatnalized sex crim “provoked hysteria about sex crimals, who were often— the md of the public and the md of thori—equated wh gay men.

” This not only disuraged gay men om participatg public life, but also “ma homosexualy seem more dangero to the average Amerin. ” By the post-World War II era, a larger cultural shift toward earlier marriage and suburban livg, the advent of TV and the anti-homosexualy csas champned by Joseph McCarthy would help ph the flowerg of gay culture reprented by the Pansy Craze firmly to the natn’s rear-view mirror. Jackson’s lyrics about how only our iends and other gays uld ll faggots was enuragg, g as did om a straight man sgg a song jt before AIDS h.

GAY SLANG OM THE 1970S

Faggot, often-nsired a slur, has been reclaimed many tim over by gay men, cludg a new play by Declan Greene, The Homosexuals, or “Faggots”, currently showg at the Malthoe Melbourne. The play looks at gay male relatnships and their polics, and is apt as middle-class gay men and lbians stggle wh acceptance all over aga the face of their ll for marriage equaly. And merry-old-England there was abe: one night when leavg gay club Heaven, a bunch of lads lled and our female iends “pooh jabbers”.

Let’s beg wh the most mon term, “gay”, which baby-boomer homosexuals appropriated for their liberatnist e the late 1960s and early 1970s. "Homosexual” (or “homosexualist”) has siar 19th-century origs and was origally ed 1869 by a Hungarian doctor, Karoly Maria Benkert. In 1920s New York, scribed an effemate homosexual who sought social/sexual relatns wh “normal men”, acrdg to Gee Chncey while a “flamg faggot” was an extremely obv, flamboyant gay man.

This tenncy for the words for prostute to be later ed for homosexual dat om 18th-century England when they often shared mon social spac, argu gay historian Rictor Norton. Historilly-specific, nnot the style of gay men mid-1970 to mid-1980s (motache, short hair, fad, baggy Levis and pocket and/or neck handkerchief) as exemplified by the lead sger of the Bronski Beat at the time of their h sgle, Smalltown Boy.

SYNONYMS OF GAY

“Nance” and “nancy boy” as well as “Nelly” and “nelli” were terms ed by both gays and straights also nnotg effemacy or youthfulns. While the terms were ed to mark their difference, this did not prevent mal om that same pole society om g the good servic of prostut and homosexuals when sued them.

Twenty-one years ago, AIDS, which was then the domant ncern for gay men and culture, ceased to be a ath sentence and stead beme a manageable disease. If this is so, would suggt a strengtheng of gay culture and muny bee people n only start explorg their past, warts and all, when they feel safe. Known gay men like Osr Wil (who was later imprisoned bee of his sexualy) married women for social pretense, and psychiatrists offered dangero nversn therapi to those sperate to alter their orientatn.

1869) for example, hted at the sexual relatns between olr mentors and young men Ancient Greece, wh the sexual subtext of an terracial gay uple. Props like peack feathers and dyed green rnatns were worn on jacket lapels, athetic signifiers that allowed gay men to intify themselv – and each other – whout beg ught. His work manipulat spac tradnally associated wh heterosexualy, like locker rooms, wh a queer athetic, ntug Warhol’s tradn of transformg the everyday to artistic s of gay male sire.