Character is so largely affected by associations that we cannot afford to be indifferent as to who and what our friends are. They write their names in our albums, but they do more, they help make us what we are. Be therefore careful in selecting them; and when wisely selected, never sacrifice them. Text: M. [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: character, choices, friendship, sacrifice, vintage gay photo
I invited him to choose between women and me. I thought he was going to choose me and that he’d strive to renounce them. I was in error. “I risk making a promise,” he replied, “and not keeping it. That would pain you. I don’t want you to be in pain. Breaking off would hurt [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: Jean Cocteau, Le Livre Blanc, The White Paper, vintage, vintage gay photo, vintage male affection
I’d know you anywhere, I’d know that grin, I’d know you anywhere when you walked in, I would tingle with a single glance in your eye, Watching the starlight dance in your eye. You saw my vacant stare, you understood, I’d love you anywhere, honest I would, I was certain this would happen, strange as [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: Johnny Mercer, vintage male affection, vintage photography
I want to cry my pain and I am telling you so you will love me and cry for me in a nightfall of nightingales with a dagger, with kisses and with you. I want to kill the only witness to the assassination of my flowers and change my weeping and my sweating into an [...]
Categories: Uncategorized,gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: Frederico Garcia Lorca, poem, sailors, The Poet Speaks the Truth, vintage, vintage gay photo, vintage male affection
All houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, With feet that make no sound upon the floors. We meet them at the door-way, on the stair, Along the passages they come and go, Impalpable impressions on the air, A sense of [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,poem,word
Tagged: gay halloween, ghosts, Halloween, spirits, vintage, vintage gay photo
If he asks about me, trace on the ground a cross of silence and ashes over the impure name that afflicts me. If he asks about me, say that I have died and that I am decaying beneath the ants. Tell him that I am a branch of an orange tree, the simple weather vane [...]
Categories: Uncategorized,gay,imagined histories,photography,poem,word
Tagged: bathtub, Emilio Ballagas, gay, man, vintage photo
His face slipped sideways across Nick’s as he breathed the word, the unguessed softness of his lips touched his cheeks and neck, while Nick sighed violently and ran his hand up and down on Leo’s back. He pushed his mouth towards Leo’s, and they met, and hurried into a kiss. To Nick it felt [...]
Categories: book,gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: Alan Hollinghurst, New York, The Line of Beauty, vintag, vintage gay photo, vintage male, vintage male affection
I recently posted an excerpt of the “subtle secrets of sex appeal” from Queen’s Quarterly Magazine published in December 1971. You learned all about the corpus delicious. May I assume your weight stayed “5 pounds under life insurance standards”? Just asking. Today we’re learning about the “sexual power of understatement.” Writer Walter Norris is inspired [...]
Categories: gay,photography,word
Tagged: 70s, Ciao, Colt Studios, Queen's Quarterly, vintage gay magazine, vintage gay photo
hey mister wrong, you’re the tingle in my jeans, you’re everything I don’t want but everything I need. I see other guys but their kisses don’t mean nothin’ cause you’re what I have in mind. Text: Bird York & Flannery, Wicked Little High, excerpt Image: Unknown, late 19th century, via Varones/Flickr
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: Bird York & Flannery, vintage gay photo, vintage male affection, Wicked Little High
Queen’s Quarterly was a New York-based gay magazine that launched in 1969 and ran for about 13 years. Its tag line read “For Gay Guys Who Have No Hangups.” Queen’s Quarterly was out and proud and wanted its readers to be too. The format was an unapologetic mix of gay lifestyles features, travel, fiction and [...]
Categories: gay,magazine,photography,word
Tagged: 70s, advice, Jim Stryker, Queen's Quarterly, sex appeal, vintage gay magazine, vintage gay photo
