Historic gay sex
A History of Queer Sex
What sorts of things did male lover men get up to in the past, and how much did these differ from what we get up to today? Does gay sex hold a history, or do the forms of pleasure endure the same across centuries? Have some tastes declined, and new tastes arisen?
Some things, like cruising and cottaging, have been popular for centuries. Public latrines and baths or "stews" were good pick-up spots in the late Middle Ages. Dutch gay men in the first 18th century coined the word "kruisen", and their favourite cruising grounds were the quays along the waterfront. In Amsterdam in the 1760s many sodomites were arrested in the public toilets built next to the city�s numerous bridges; favourite toilets were given nicknames, such as The Old Lady and The Long Lady. In 18th-century London, gay men were regularly arrested in the Lincoln�s Inn bog house, on the east side of New Square, Lincoln�s Inn Fields. The Savoy bog house was used so regularly by gay men that members of the Soci
Government Persecution of the LGBTQ Group is Widespread
The 1950s were perilous times for individuals who fell outside of society’s legally allowed norms relating to gender or sexuality. There were many names for these individuals, including the clinical “homosexual,” a term popularized by pioneering German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. In the U.S., professionals often used the legal title “invert.” In the mid-19th Century, many cities formed “vice squads” and police often labeled the people they arrested “sexual perverts.” The government’s preferred term was “deviant,” which came with legal consequences for anyone seeking a career in public service or the military. “Homophile” was the term preferred by some adv activists, small networks of women and men who yearned for community and found creative ways to resist legal and societal persecution.
With draft eligibility officially lowered from 21 to 18 in 1942, World War II brought together millions of people from around the country–many of whom were leaving their home states for the first time–to load the ranks of the military and the federal workforce. Among them were gays and lesbians, who quietly formed kinships on m
Brian Gerald Murphy
These days lots of gay guys are using Grindr for hooking up. But we didn’t always have sex free at our fingertips. For centuries (or longer!) gay and bi guys contain found ways to connect with each other, even when doing so was illegal. Most of us don’t enter from queer families and so we don’t learn our LGBTQ history at home. So, I set out to uncover the ways that gay and bisexual guys own met each other for friendship and sex. Here’s a brief history of gay cruising
These days lots of gay guys are using Grindr for hooking up. But we didn’t always have sex accessible at our fingertips. From bathhouses to bars, sex parties to saunas, even to parks and bathrooms. Gay guys have found a way to uncover each other, even before Grindr.
For the past 11 years, up until this past January, I lived in New York Urban area. It’s one of the centers of gay life in the United States. It’s a port city and after the sailors returned home from Planet War II, many of the guys who had set up connec
INTRODUCTION
How can we tell whether someone was gay? There are many answers to that question, but ultimately we cannot know whether a person who lived in the past would be considered lesbian, same-sex attracted, bisexual, or transgender today.
That does not mean that we cannot study queer history. Individuals took part in same-sex relationships, wrote poems and novels celebrating such relationships, deviated from gender norms, and suffered for transgressive behavior in ways that are well-documented in the historical record.
Beneath the covers of our books there are many stories. To paraphrase the late gay activist Harry Hay (1912-2002), history knows more about gay people than it knows it knows.
Frances E. Willard
Frances E. Willard. Glimpses of Fifty Years. Chicago: Woman's Temperance Publication Association, 1889.
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, 1855.
According to Cornelia King, who curated the 2014 exhibition:
"The title I chose was deliberately provocative. But I was very careful not to state that the people who lived in the late-18th and the 19th centuries were gay. After all,