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Looking for a Hula Girl: Erasing Gay People from Ebay
If you want to see just how thoroughly gay people are erased from the world, do some online shopping:Allposters.com suggests that "men" will like posters of female breasts (labeled “Goals”), and women...
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The Iceland Fisherman: Gay Romance in Collier's Encyclopedia
When I was little, there weren't many books in the house except for the Bible and the thick, black, ponderous volumes of the 1955 edition of Collier's Encyclopedia. I used to leaf through it, looking...
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American Werewolf in Paris
We didn't really need a sequel to American Werewolf in London, but in 1997 we got one, American Werewolf in Paris.This time we got three buddies on vacation in Paris: Andy (Tom Everett Scott), Brad...
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The Chippendale Dancers
Speaking of gay erasure, the art of exotic dance, where performer begins fully clothed, removes article after article, and ends up nude, was once assumed to be solely the domain of women performing for...
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The Nanny and the Naked Man
After I left my doctoral program at USC in 1989 (due to doctoral committees insisting that "you can't say gay"), I bounced around West Hollywood for a few years, trying out new careers: minister, human...
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Ray Sharkey: Everybody's Boyfriend
I chanced upon the name "Ray Sharkey" by accident, and did a cursory search on ebay. Surprise -- he was in about a dozen movies in the 1980s that show him with his hands all over a guy. I've never...
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Andy Warhol: Gay without Pride
I've been reading the Diaries of Andy Warhol, where the famous pop artist spends about a thousand pages recording how much he spent on cabs during the last ten years of his life (1977-87). It's tough...
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Barret Oliver's Neverending Story
Born in 1973, Barret Oliver became one of the most beloved child stars of the 1980s. After some guest roles in Knight Rider, The Incredible Hulk, and the gay-themed Love, Sidney, he landed the role of...
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Space: 1999
When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I was a sci-fi nut, but Space: 1999 was a little far out, even for me.It appeared sporadically from 1975 to 1979, a few episodes on Monday nights, then off for two...
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Bucket and Skinner's Epic Adventures: Two Gay Surfer Couples
Nickelodeon is not as good at gay subtexts as the Disney Channel, but every now and then it will air a teencom involving a hot-and-heavy bromance that shines through in spite of the requisite "girl!...
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A Hippie to the Rescue: My First Date
My first date was in October 1968, when I was in third grade. One day a boy named Gary pushed through the recess crowds to the blacktop where we were playing army men, and asked “Wanna go to a movie...
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Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
When I moved to West Hollywood in 1985, everyone was watching Movie Macabre (1981-86), starring Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (Cassandra Peterson). A throwback to the horror movie hosts of the 1950s...
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The Naked Ape: Johnny Crawford's First Nude Scene
This is probably the most famous nude photo ever: a frontal of Johnny Crawford, a Boomer icon for his teen idol songs and his role as the squeaky-clean, innocent kid on The Rifleman, no longer...
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Fire in the Sky: Heterosexism and Alien Abductions
On the evening of November 5, 1975, a 22-year old logger named Travis Walton, his foreman and close friend Mike Rogers, and five other crewmen were heading home from a wood-clearing project at the...
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Pasolini's Arabian Nights: Homophobia and Nudity
Between 1971 and 1974, Italian filmmaker Piers Paolo Pasolini produced and directed three adaptions of famous Medieval stories. The Arabian Nights (Il fiore delle Mille et una Notte) was the last, and...
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Duke Kahanamoku: A Life Devoted to Surfing and Men
Born in 1890, Duke Kahanamoku was "the fastest swimmer alive," who popularized the sport of surfing, and to a great extent popularized Hawaii. He won gold medals for swimming at the Olympics in 1912...
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John Wesley Shipp: From Soap Hunk to Dawson's Dad
John Wesley Shipp got his start as the suave soap doctor on Guiding Light (1981) and never looked back. His career is all about soaps, starring in them, writing them, directing them: Guiding Light, As...
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Pasolini's Canterbury Tales: Gay Characters and Nudity
The Canterbury Tales (I Racconti di Canterbury, 1972) is my favorite of Piers Paulo Pasolini's Trilogy of Life (others include The Decameron and The Arabian Nights), maybe because the set-up and many...
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Max Thieriot: The Gay Villains of Yesteryear
You probably remember Max Thieriot from Catch that Kid (2004), a teen heist movie in which a girl and two boys (Max, Corbin Bleu of the High School Moviefranchise) break into a bank vault). It was...
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Steve Cochran: All Man
The Internet Movie Database tells us that Steve Cochran (1917-1965) was "all man," by which they mean "not gay." As evidence:1. He grew up in Wyoming2. He was kicked off his college basketball team for...
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