Followers

Friday, January 30, 2015

Be My Valentine













































 


 These vintage photos represent just a small fragment of our LGBT history; unfortunately so much of it has purposely been destroyed. Since the men and women in these photos are unknown, it's pretty much impossible to tell it they were a gay couple or just "good friends." Most photographs of gay couples were eventually destroyed by horrified family members. For every photo that I may have mistakenly identified as gay, thousands more were burned or torn into pieces to keep a family secret.

Please subscribe to Homo History; just look for the button at the very top or bottom of each page. It's free and you'll never miss another great post! 


Thanks,

Jeffrey Gent





Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Unintentionally Gay



















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Daguerreotype of Boyfriends?



Check out this great Daguerreotype of two handsome young men from Hot Vintage Men. Daruerreotypes were first invented in 1835 and became extremely popular by the 1840's. 

Who knows, this might be one of the first photographs of a gay male couple? To see more wonderful vintage photographs of handsome men, go to my other website: hotvintagemen.com

Jeffrey Gent

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Men That Love Men




















These vintage photos represent just a small fragment of our LGBT history; unfortunately so much of it has purposely been destroyed. Since most of the men and women in these photos are unknown, it's pretty much impossible to tell it they were a gay couple or just "good friends." Most photographs of gay couples were eventually destroyed by horrified family members. For every photo that I may have mistakenly identified as gay, thousands more were burned or torn into pieces to keep a family secret.

Please subscribe to Homo History; just look for the button at the very top or bottom of each page. It's free and you'll never miss another great post!  I don't make a penny off of this blog, so if you would like to help support my work, please use the donate button on the right hand side.

Thanks,
Jeffrey Gent

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Even More Vintage Gay Pulp! Gay Erotica from the 50's, 60's and 70's.

Image a world before internet porn; terrifying isn’t it? Well back in the 1950’s, when it was still illegal to be gay, cheap paperback erotica was the only game in town. Gay pulp was sold alongside other pulp fiction paperbacks that dealt with equally taboo subjects such prostitution, interracial romances, lesbianism and rape. The lurid titles and titillating illustrations were designed to catch the attention of closet cases and openly gay men alike.
 
The first pulp paperback to deal openly with homosexuality was 1952’s Men into Beast by George Viereck.  This nonfiction account of Viereck’s imprisonment deals the indignities that men suffer while in prison and of course details man to man prison sex and male rape. Just imagine how erotic this books cover must have seemed to a gay man in the early 1950’s! 


 
By 1964 literary novels with erotic content such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Portnoy’s Complaint had battled it out with the U.S censorship laws and won. The number of American gay erotic paperbacks soared from 30 in 1965 to over a 100 in 1966! The new paperbacks were explicitly pornographic and sold like crazy so small publishing companies sprang up to deal with the demand. 














 In the late 1970’s and into the 80’s, the gay pulp market was gradually disappeared, giving way to gay porn magazines and eventually gay porn videos. 

We can laugh at how campy these covers look today, but imagine the nerve it took to ask the guy at the news stand for one of these obviously gay paperbacks. In the 50's and 60's you could lose your job and even end up in jail just for being gay; buying these cheesy erotic novels took a lot of nerve! Next time you're on Xtube, take a second to thank the generation of gay men that fought so hard for your right to gay erotica! 

Gay pulp fiction is highly collectable these days with some titles selling for more than $40 or $50 on Ebay. Thrift stores such as Out of the Closet are a great place to find these old gems for a fraction of that price.

Check this great online archive Gay Pulp Erotic: http://www.gayontherange.com

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