Homosexuality in America (Warning: Image heavy)

[+ FreshFluff]

I found this article in a 1964 issue of Life Magazine. It's not as widely known as Mike Wallace's show about the topic, but a couple of gay blogs have discussed it.

 

The first article is about the "gay world." To make sure the reader understands that the gay world is a "sad and sordid” world, "gay" appears in scare quotes throughout the first article. The author talks to gays in various areas. But he spends the most time in a San Francisco leather bar, where he is stunned to find masculine-looking men not wearing fluffy sweaters and tennis shoes with pom-poms. Confused, the author decides that all this masculinity is a show. To underscore the “dark and seedy” point, the photographer contrasts the light background and “we are everyman” optimism of the mural with the darkness and (to him) seediness of the bar.

 

Life does slip in some criticism of the status quo. The article contains a transcript of a conversation between an undercover LAPD officer posing as a gay man on Hollywood Blvd. The undercover officers aren't supposed to make overt solicitations, but they do it anyway. The man the cop is trying to entrap, "Jerry," figures out the situation very quickly. Nevertheless, Jerry, who has some serious balls, sticks around and slyly mocks the cop.

 

The second article is marginally more progressive, but it's also long and dry. It cites pretty much every theory, reasonable or absurd, that you can think of. The author does not appear convinced that homosexuality can be cured. In fact, he cites Freud, who wrote to the mother of a homosexual man, Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness.

 

You've got to love the tagline under the title. It gives apprehensive readers permission to indulge their curiosity and take a look.

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The “Why” article is here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=qEEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA76&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=snippet&q=numerous%20studies&f=false

[+ FreshFluff]

Since it's difficult to read, here's the transcript of the conversation between the decoy cop and "Jerry."

 

 

In a typical arrest effort in Hollywood this spring, a plainclothes officer loitered under the streetlight at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Stanley Avenue. Soon a car slowly turned the corner only Stanley and the officer drifted into the darkness down the block. When the car pulled over to the curb, the officer (“Jim”) approached it. After a few minutes of idle talk the driver established that his name was Jerry. He lived many blocks away, but Jim indicated that he himself had a “place on Wilcox” (actually the police station). Part of the conversation, which the officer hoped would enable him to make an arrest, went like this:

 

Officer: What’s on your mind after we get home? That’s what I want to know.

Jerry: Well, what’s on your mind?

Officer: Well… I don’t know.

Jerry: You don’t?

Officer: Well, that is to say [laughs]… there isn’t anything to drink at my place, you know.

Jerry: Well, I can always drink coffee. I don’t drink anything stronger.

Officer: Uh huh… Well, anything else…?

Jerry: Anything else?

Officer: I said, is there anything else?

Jerry: To drink?

Officer: No.

Jerry: No?

Officer: I was just wondering… maybe… what else you had in mind, if anything.

Jerry: (sighs deeply) At this point I don’t care.

Officer: Well, I don’t exactly know how to take that.

Jerry: Well… how do you want it to go?

Officer: Like I say, it’s up to you, Jerry.

Jerry: Well, you call it and… we’ll go from there. I’m your guest… self-invited.

Officer: Well… I know, but… I wouldn’t want to be a presumptive host, you might say. In other words, a good host always looks out for the welfare of his guests. You understand? So… I’ll leave it up to you.

Jerry: Well… we can just let the chips fall where they may or forget it.

Officer: I always say, if you know what you want and aren’t man enough to ask for it, why then to heck with it. You know? (laughs)

Jerry: Yeah, I know.

Officer: Well, there’s no use wasting any more of your time… or mine, I guess. Jerry?

Jerry: Well? I don’t know. It’s up to you.

Officer: You don’t know? What’s the matter, are you afraid?

Jerry: Well, isn’t everybody?

Officer: I’m not afraid of you.

Jerry: I don’t know you and you don’t know me.

Officer: Well, that’s true, but… still and all, like I say, I’m not… although maybe I should be. I don’t know. You’re not a policeman, are you?

Jerry: No.

Officer: Well, you could be.

Jerry: So could you.

Officer: Well, that’s true. I understand they got a whole lot of plainclothesmen then use, so I don’t know what to think sometimes. But that’s why you got to be kind of careful.

Jerry: Uh huh… it pays.

Officer: You understand of course.

Jerry: So, maybe we just better drop it at that.

Officer: Oh? Well…

Jerry: I mean (laughs), we’re both getting a little on the leery side.

Officer: Yeah… Well, so long.

Jerry: I won’t take any more of your time.

The police officer had decided that the encounter was not going to reward him with an arrest. Jerry drove away and the officer went back to work on the corner.

[marylander1940]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17u01_sWjRE

[+ poolboy48220]

Glad we're somewhat past that. The front page of the opinions section of the Detroit Free Press today was about the upcoming decision in the gay marriage case in the US Supreme Court. The two-page article basically mused at how the arguments against are weak and contradictory arguments.

http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/06/06/sex-marriage/28575565/

[curiousnomore]

Gay men not "wearing fluffy sweaters and tennis shoes with pom-poms"? He was in the wrong bar, lol!!!

[+ FreshFluff]

I really need a gif starring that guy on the right. He would be useful for various things I disapprove of. (Notice that this is Washington Square park. His lips must be worn out if he does that each time a gay person passes by. )

 

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y204/ThorNYC2/lj2009/Picture5.png

[+ poolboy48220]

Maybe one of Miranda Priestly pursing her lips would be easier to find.