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Monday, June 27, 2011

Homosexuality in America - 1964

Decoy officer and partner lead handcuffed homosexual away in Hollywood.  When arrested for soliciting, he burst into tears. 
--Life magazine, June 26, 1964

Found this over on Box Turtle Bulletin, a link to the 1964 Life magazine article "Homosexuality in America."  While we are celebrating Pride and enjoying the afterglow of victory for equal marriage in New York, it's important to remember just how far we've come. 
Do the homosexuals, like the Communists, intend to bury us?  Yes indeed, suggested a startling front-page story in the New York Times and other newspapers last month.  A committee of the highly respected New York Academy of Medicine had come to the conclusion that American homosexuals want far more than to be merely tolerated and even more than to be grudgingly accepted.  Their true goal, said an Academy report, is to convince the world that homosexuality is a "desirable, noble, preferable way of life" - the secret of the greatness of Ancient Greece and "a perfect answer to the problem of the population explosion."
To its credit, Life did try to dispel the outright hysteria:
The Academy committee was dead wrong.  Only a tiny minority of U.S. homosexuals would ever beat the drums so sensationally for their way of life.
But then, as was usual in that pre-Stonewall period, the article went on to dwell relentlessly on the hopelessness of those sick, pathetic, messed-up homos:
Far more of them regard their homosexuality as an affliction.  The lot of the homosexual, as the photographs and article on the preceding pages have shown, is often furtive, hazardous and lonely.  Many homosexuals have gone to psychiatrists begging desperately for help in escaping a life that they had decided was utterly intolerable.
Notice the effect of the subordinate clause here:  they had decided.  Like some confused, childish soul who tries this and tries that, and dislikes all the choices, for no good reason.

But hell, who wouldn't feel that life was intolerable, being labeled night and day not only insane, but also a criminal, and a literally god-damned, hellbound sinner?  Because that is exactly the way it was, living back then in the good old Mayberry days.  I know.  I was there.

So it's somewhat startling to be reminded by this article that notwithstanding all the hatred and hysteria, some big cities had very lively gay communities - with all the very same types of people we still have:  drag queens, leathermen, preppies, long-term couples, hustlers, activists, and so on.  Plus ca change . . . .

But sometimes things do change, for real.  In the context of the above committee report, it's ironic that 47 years later, the American Medical Association has come out for marriage equality.

Then again, some Barneys are stuck back in the kitchen with Aunt Bea:




Bonus: Joe.My.God. has posted the original 1969 report by the New York Daily News on the Stonewall riots. This long, thoroughly homophobic article, titled "HOMO NEST RAIDED - QUEEN BEES ARE STINGING MAD," drips with mockery and sneering condescension at the girly guys who made trouble for the police one hot night in the Village. The unwittingly ironic kicker comes at the very end, though:
The men of the First Division were unable to find any humor in the situation, despite the comical overtones of the raid.

"They were throwing more than lace hankies," one inspector said. "I was almost decapitated by a slab of thick glass. It was thrown like a discus and just missed my throat by inches. The beer can didn't miss, though, it hit me right above the temple." . . .

The police are sure of one thing. They haven't heard the last from the Girls of Christopher Street.

As Joe says, they sure fucking haven't.

4 comments:

Frank said...

The Life Magazine article played a significant, negative, destructive role in my life as I talked about back in my blog in November "09. It was, on the one hand, breaking the taboo of "dare not speak it's name" but on the other hand, was far from enlightened, in fact was full of misinformation, prejudice and moral superiority. Youth gays today may be bullied, but the emotional abuse many of us old guys put up with was a different poison.

Russ Manley said...

Yes I thought of you Frank when I came across this. (BTW the entire Life magazine archives are all on Google now, every issue, a fascinating way to dip back in time, if you have the time.)

And yes, a different poison, or a stronger dose; however you put it, corrosive and deadly to the soul. Nowadays, even a bullied kid knows for certain there are plenty of others like him in the world. But we didn't, did we? Maybe you did, up there close to all them big cities . . . but way down here in the Deep South, it was very damn lonely when the realization hit.

I can't imagine how you had the guts to tell your family - in 1964! It was hard enough for me ten years after Stonewall, and scary.

DeepBlue said...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I don't need to add the rest, you boys all know it! Add to this the french "Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen" of 1789 (modified and approved by the UN in 1948). Those two are now more than 200 y.o.
Are things really gettin better?
Some days i feel "yes" and some I feel "no"!
In big cities it's always been easier, I guess.
When it comes to the law, it is a little better but a law adopted by a generation can be overthroned by the next one!
Think that women have also been through a lot of shit being considered as inferior to males and therefore denied of any rights. It is still so in many countries. Remember how the sufragettes and femenist were considered as insane, hysterical, sexually unsatisfied...
Some days I really don't know which way to go!
I see the generation of my nephew and niece who are much more open and that keeps my faith up. Seeing my niece dating one year a girl, the next year a guy and than a girl again and seeing my sister hopping she's gonna settle down no matter which side! LOL! In a few years, they will take the position of power. We'll see then!
Thank for this thought provoking post.
Hugs
Jon

Frank said...

Well, I didn't grow up in a big city and being Catholic-of Italian descent-it was all about man/woman/babies; yeah, the struggle was a lonely one. Way too many years of emotional abuse by media, church, school, society. But here we are, "not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you". And there are times when I just don't have the patience for straight bullshit and that t-shirt says just that.

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