Gay New York 1890 - 1940
Oct. 22nd, 2010 08:42 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
redpike.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
indeedsir_backupEvidently, up to WWII, gays were much more visible and 'tolerated' than we now realize. For one thing, gays were considered an intermediate, or third sex, which made them more acceptable.
"The determinative criterion in the identification of men as fairies was not the extent of their same-sex desire or activity (their "sexuality"), but rather the gender persona and status they assumed... The fairies' sexual desire for men was not regarded as the singular characteristic that distinguished them from other men, as is generally the case for gay men today. That desire was seen as simply one aspect of a much more comprehensive gender role inversion (or reversal)... manifest through the adoption of effeminate dress and mannerisms; they were thus called inverts (who had "inverted" their gender)... gender identity rather than sexual identity."
This resulted in non-gay men (more working class) feeling it did not reflect upon their own sexuality if they had sex with a fairy as long as they were the "male" in the sex act. In fact, sailors favored fairies and looked for them when the "fleet was in". There are a few cartoons in the book of the competition between prostitutes and fairies for sailors.
"The determinative criterion in the identification of men as fairies was not the extent of their same-sex desire or activity (their "sexuality"), but rather the gender persona and status they assumed... The fairies' sexual desire for men was not regarded as the singular characteristic that distinguished them from other men, as is generally the case for gay men today. That desire was seen as simply one aspect of a much more comprehensive gender role inversion (or reversal)... manifest through the adoption of effeminate dress and mannerisms; they were thus called inverts (who had "inverted" their gender)... gender identity rather than sexual identity."
This resulted in non-gay men (more working class) feeling it did not reflect upon their own sexuality if they had sex with a fairy as long as they were the "male" in the sex act. In fact, sailors favored fairies and looked for them when the "fleet was in". There are a few cartoons in the book of the competition between prostitutes and fairies for sailors.
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Date: 2010-10-23 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 08:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 08:22 pm (UTC)It is very interesting - I can't find the quote, but the book says the term queer came from gay men who did not like being lumped into the role of fairy. There are also a couple of cartoons of men with sailors. One has the fairy strolling arm in arm with a sailor and sticking his tongue out at a prostitute on a park bench. The other has a fairy (who looks like Bertie when he returned from the west in the fur coat and cowboy hat) dropping a hankerchief and a sailor retrieving it for him. Unfortunately, all depictions of sailors in this book look drunk.
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Date: 2010-10-24 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 11:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 08:23 pm (UTC)