Being Gay in the Thirties (Gay Life)

The whole idea of Homosexuality as a separate category is quite modern. This documentary from the 1980s explains what it was like in the 1930s before anyone even heard the term Homosexual. The distinction of straight and gay are a manufactured concept. It’s always been more fluid – as are we. Let’s get back to those days. BoB

A great video. The industrial revolution saw country families flooding the city in the late 19th Century. Whereas once the family itself was a secure economic unit, now it relied on a single bread winner. Sexual “fidelity” became crucial to holding together the family unit, and a new breed of academic, psychologists, joined the church in making the family secure from the temptations of city life. Extra-marital affairs became hugely scandalous and dishonorable, and dalliances with men, once accepted as a legitimate sexual enjoyment, were branded as sick and beyond forgiveness. This carried well into the 20th Century and continues as part of the cultural story and a defining characteristic of the middle class, especially. As the documentary points out, categories were overlaid on the richness of sexual experience and behavior. The “homosexual” was born, and laws could be written about those creatures and we could argue about their sexuality. We’re entering a period, thanks to social media, where the rigid definitions of sexuality are dissolving and men are expressing, and living, their truths. – Jack M