History
Riots, not Parades
Mar 14th
40 Years of Stonewall
The Stonewall Inn was a small bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, New York City. It was rumored to be owned by the Mafia, but to most people it was a quiet place where gay people in 1960s New York City could go to socialize and be out of the closet for a few brief hours. In 1960s New York City, it was illegal for bars to serve liquor to homosexuals or suspected homosexuals. The lawmakers in the state felt that homosexuals were a menace and by giving them liquor, trouble was just around the corner. Like the few other gay bars in the area at the time, the Stonewall Inn operated without a liquor license. Raids for serving liquor illegally were quite common, almost a nightly occurence. The police would enter a bar, force the patrons outside, arrest most or all of them, and fine the bar owners. Many times, the arrested men and women had their names published in the papers the next day, which meant they were in constant danger of losing jobs and homes.
But that June night in 1969 was different.
Around 3 AM, several policemen entered the bar and ordered the patrons outside. Many of the patrons, mostly white men, were docile and followed orders. Some of the other patrons, Hispanic and African Americans and drag queens, were roughed up by police as they were forced outside. When the growing crowd saw the police acting this way, they started tossing pennies and shouting at them. Soon, the crowd grew angrier and started throwing beer bottles and garbage cans. The police barricaded themselves inside the Stonewall Inn and called for backup. While inside, they began smashing the place to bits: mirrors, tables, cigarette machines, all destroyed (the police were never charged with vandalism). Backup police soon arrived in full riot gear. The confrontation with the crowd lasted into the morning hours, and flare-ups and small riots continued for the next few days.
Everyone was shocked that the homosexuals fought back. Most gay people at the time were so afraid of losing everything when outed that they stayed in the closet and out of the way of the police. But these riots proved to the police and to the world that the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered men and women of New York City, and the world, would not give up without a fight. The Stonewall Riots are regarded as the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Marches are held in many cities each year at the end of June to commemerate this historic event. The Stonewall Riots stand for oppressed people demanding to be treated as human beings, as the Constitution of the United States promises.
Milk
Feb 23rd
In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay… In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights; he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk changed the very nature of what it means to be a fighter for human rights and became, before his untimely death in 1978, a hero for all Americans.
Sean Penn stars as Harvey Milk under the direction of Gus Van Sant (director of Elephant and Paranoid Park) in Milk. Milk charts the last eight years of Harvey Milk’s life. While living in New York City, he turns 40. Looking for more purpose, Milk and his lover Scott Smith relocate to San Francisco, where they found a small business, Castro Camera, in the heart of a working-class neighbourhood. With his beloved Castro neighbourhood and beautiful city empowering him, Milk surprises Scott and himself by becoming an outspoken agent for change. With vitalizing support from Scott and from new friends like young activist Cleve Jones, Milk plunges headfirst into the choppy waters of politics. Bolstering his public profile with humour, Milk’s actions speak even louder than his gift-of-gab words. When Milk is elected supervisor for the newly zoned District 5, he tries to coordinate his efforts with those of another newly elected supervisor, Dan White. But as White and Milk’s political agendas increasingly diverge, their personal destinies tragically converge. Milk’s platform was and is one of hope – a hero’s legacy that resonates in the here and now
Stars on their way to the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles had to pass a group of Christian demonstrators outside who protested against gay marriage and attacked the memory of the late Heath Ledger, a favourite target of militant anti-gay protesters since his role in Brokeback Mountain.
Penn won the best actor award for Milk, in which he played politician and gay rights activist Harvey Milk. The actor opened his acceptance speech with the words: "You commie, homo-loving sons of guns," to laughter from the audience. Referring to the protest, he said: "For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone."
You commie, homo-loving sons of guns
Dustin Lance Black, who won best original screenplay for Milk, continued the theme in an emotional speech. Raised in a strict Mormon household, he spoke movingly of the day he read Harvey Milk’s life story. Milk, who was shot dead in 1978, was the first openly gay man elected to public office in California. "It gave me the hope one day I could live my life openly as who I am and then maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married," Black said.
"If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he would want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are ‘less than’ by their churches, by the government or by their families: that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value. And that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you. And that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours. Thank you, God, for giving us Harvey Milk."
Gay kids -- you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value
Sean Penn and gay director Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) have created a warm-hearted testament to Harvey Milk, the first openly gay individual who was elected to major political office, and was then murdered/martyred. — Fayetteville Free Weekly
Tony Duvert Day
Sep 6th
Tony Duvert, the most infamous French gay writer since Jean Genet, died in July this year.
A writer criminally undertranslated and consequently barely known in the primarily English-speaking areas of the world… Duvert is one of the more significant and idiosyncratic contemporary French fiction writers. He’s also one of the most mysterious. – Dennis Cooper
An advocate of adolescents’ and even children’s rights to sex, Tony Duvert can be seen as a symbol for the sexually liberal seventies. – Destroyer Blog
Dennis Cooper made an extensive blog post about Duvert with “two exclusive excerpts and a jumble of almost everything I could find online either by or about him in English” so don’t miss that one!
Arthur Rimbaud
Aug 30th
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listen & read first, watch the videos then
Because his writing stresses liberation, the French "boy-poet" Arthur Rimbaud, whose art is based solely on his individual creativity, is a progenitor of modern gay poetics. Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud was born on October 20, 1854, in Charleville in northern France. Born of rural parents, Rimbaud enrolled in Charleville’s Institution Rossat and then, in the spring of 1865, attended the Collège de Charleville where he earned his degree. He was an exceptional child, who excelled in academic work by mastering two levels in one year.
Rimbaud began writing very early, first in Latin, then in French. His first French poem was "The Orphans’ Gifts" ("Les Étrennes des orphelins") of 1869. With the encouragement of his young professor-mentor Georges Izambard, he had written twenty-two poems by 1870. By the age of sixteen, he had published several poems in the journal Le Parnasse Contemporain.
In 1870, Rimbaud first traveled to Paris. His first sexual experience may have occurred there in 1871 in a barracks with a group of soldiers; his poem "The Stolen Heart" ("Le Coeur volé") may describe such an experience and may be interpreted in terms of sexual seduction or initiation. Rimbaud met Paul Verlaine on his trip to Paris in 1870 and received an invitation to come to Paris in September 1871. Although Verlaine was married and ten years Rimbaud’s senior, a homosexual relationship between the two men ensued. For the next year and a half, they were together in Paris in the Latin Quarter, in the cafés, and in the literary salons. They traveled together to Brussels and London and acknowledged each other in their writing. Rimbaud, for example, playfully refers to Verlaine’s eyes in his famous poem "Vowels" (1871). The couple may appear masked in the section of A Season in Hell (1873) entitled "Délire I": "Foolish Virgin, The Infernal Bridegroom." Nearly all of Rimbaud’s mature poetry was written during his love affair with Verlaine. The latter encouraged him in the creation of The Illuminations in London in 1872 and A Season in Hell in 1873. After the affair ended in July of 1873, when Verlaine shot him in the wrist during a violent quarrel, Rimbaud essentially abandoned his career as a poet.
Leonardo DiCaprio as Rimbaud in the film Total Eclipse
Here with Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis who played Lupin ;)
After a Brussels printer published A Season in Hell in October 1873, providing a way for Rimbaud to send a few copies to his friends in Paris, Rimbaud’s interest in his own work declined. During 1874 and 1875, he traveled widely in Europe. In the spring of 1876, he enlisted in the Dutch army, but soon abandoned that, preferring to travel to Sweden, Denmark, Greece, and Egypt, where in 1880 he was a coffee buyer and in 1887 sold guns.
Rimbaud died on November 10, 1891, at the age of thirty-seven. He is often regarded as the exemplar of the genius who abandoned poetry for a life of action. Rimbaud’s best known poem The Drunken Boat (Le Bateau ivre) was created in 1871 before his seventeenth birthday; it celebrates liberation, especially Rimbaud’s liberation of the senses, and apparently evolved from the beginning of his relationship with Verlaine. Rimbaud’s artistic world is a world of symbols, hallucinations, dreams, and visions, exemplified especially in A Season in Hell and The Illuminations. One of his professed techniques was a "derangement of all the senses." Rimbaud’s two letters (Lettres du Voyant) of May 1871 constitute a literary manifesto in which the poet is assigned the role of "clairvoyant," "magician," and "artist."
Little Ceasar ~ the Rimbaud Issue
In his art, Rimbaud assumes the mask of diverse personalities, both male and female. In his letter to Izambard of May 13, 1871, appears a novel concept, "I is someone else" ("Je est un autre"). Is the "someone else" creative artist, persona, or another? Is it a mask for his sexual identity? Rimbaud enhances his writing with motifs of love, music, fantasy, memory, myth, and adolescent visions. The section "Alchemy of the Word" ("L’alchimie du verbe," 1873) in A Season in Hell embodies Rimbaud’s doctrine of "alchemy," "witchcraft," or "magic" since the section shows a preponderance of "poetic" words and creates an incantatory effect. The Illuminations--a psychological autobiography in free verse and prose poems--depicts a myriad of settings, a fairy world of time, place, history, fiction, and beauty. Rimbaud concludes The Illuminations with the "genie": a being both human and supernatural, embodying affection, love, reason, and optimism. Written in the nineteenth-century French symbolist style, rich in poetic diction, the work employs symbols to represent ideas, objects, and states.
Although Rimbaud gave up poetry before he was nineteen, he can be described as a boy-poet-emperor, whose palace is his imagination, where he takes his friends on a fantastic voyage to an imaginary realm of magicians, faeries, gods, angels, and genies. In some respects, Rimbaud redefines art and reinvents love by means of a liberation of art and self. Because Rimbaud’s writing stresses liberation, he is a progenitor of modern gay poetics, influencing such poets and prose writers as André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Federico García Lorca, Hart Crane, and Jean Genet. Several artists have sketched Rimbaud, but Verlaine’s Rimbaud (1872) most memorably portrays the young poet as a genius, an example of the modern creative spirit, the boy-poet whose art is based solely on his individual creativity.
[text from glbtq.com]
Article about Arthur Rimbaud at Wikipedia 
Article sur Arthur Rimbau à Wikipedia 
Artikel über Arthur Rimbaud bei Wikipedia Arthur Rimbaud’s Life and Poetry Website for the 150th anniversary (awesome!)
Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen
Jul 4th
Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen (1880 – 1923)
Baron Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen was a French aristocrat, a novelist and poet. In 1903, after a scandal involving Parisian schoolboys had made him a persona non grata in the salons and dashed his marriage plans, he took up residence in Capri, where he lived with his longtime boyfriend and ’secretary’, Nino Cesarini until his death in 1923.
D’Adelswärd-Fersen’s grandfather had founded a steel empire, which was profitable enough that it made d’Adelswärd-Fersen exceedingly wealthy when he inherited at age 22. Consequently, he was much sought-after in the higher circles, as families hoped to marry him to one of their daughters. Apart from joining the military, d’Adelswärd-Fersen had already travelled extensively and published some poems. At around this time, his homosexual leanings became apparent to him, which are also relatively clearly addressed in his poetry. Unfortunately for him, he was not sexually interested in adult men (which at the time in France would not have brought him into legal trouble) but in teenage boys between about 15 and 17 years old. This inclination eventually caused his undoing in French society. In 1903, accusations surfaced that the Baron had held Black Masses in his house at 18 Avenue de Friedland. Supposedly these orgiastic feasts were attended by local Parisian schoolboys and involved sexual misconduct between the Baron and the boys. He was charged with indecent behavior with minors and served a six-month prison sentence, was fined 50 francs and lost his civil rights for five years.
The scandal bears some similarities with the trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895, who also experienced great social degradation after a public trial finding him guilty of ‘gross indecency with other male persons’. Perhaps d’Adelswärd-Fersen was lucky in that his feasts were also attended by other notable figures of Parisian high society, which more or less forced the court to drop some charges to minimise the impact of the scandal. After his marriage plans were foiled, d’Adelswärd-Fersen remembered the island of Capri from his youth and decided to build a house there.
Lord Lyllian, published in 1905, one of d’Adelswärd-Fersen’s novels and perhaps his most important work, satirising the scandal around himself in Paris, with touches of the Oscar Wilde affair thrown in for good measure. The hero, Lord Lyllian, departs on a wild odyssey of sexual debauchery, is seduced by a character that seems to resemble Oscar Wilde, falls in love with girls and boys, and is finally killed by a boy. The public outcry about the supposed Black Masses is also charicatured. The work is an audacious mix of fact and fiction, including four characters that are alter egos of d’Adelswärd-Fersen himself.
Akademos. Revue Mensuelle d’Art Libre et de Critique was d’Adelswärd-Fersen’s short-lived attempt at publishing a monthly journal promoting pederastic love. When the premiere issue of Akademos came out in 1909, it was the first publication of its kind in the French language. Thematically, it trod somewhat similar ground as the German journal Der Eigene, published between 1896 and 1931 by Adolf Brand. This is not a coincidence, as d’Adelswärd-Fersen studied the German publications that tried to push for the social acceptance of homosexuality before launching Akademos. Also, he corresponded with both Brand and Magnus Hirschfeld.
D’Adelswärd-Fersen frequently organised parties in his splendid villa, to which all the intellectuals and ‘eccentric’ travellers staying on the island of Capri were invited. The Baron lived for twenty years on the island; his death here, possibly suicidal, is thought to have been caused by an overdose of cocaine. His ashes are kept in Capri’s non-catholic cemetery.
An article about the life of Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen can be found here.
Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen (1880 – 1923)
Baron Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen war ein französischer Aristokrat, Autor und Dichter. Nachdem ihn 1903 ein Skandal in den Pariser Schuljungen involviert waren zur Persona non Grata in den Salons machte und seine Heiratspläne zu Nichte machte ließ er sich auf Capri nieder wo er mit seinem langjährigen Liebhaber und “Sekretär” Nino Cesarini bis zu seinem Tod im Jahre 1923 lebte.
D’Adelswärd-Fersens Großvater hatte ein Stahl-Imperium aufgebaut, das profitable genug war um D’Adelswärd-Fersen außerordentlich reich zu machen als er das Erbe mit 22 antrat. Folglich war er in den höheren Kreisen eine sehr begehrte Partie, da viele Familien hofften ihn mit einer ihrer Töchter verheiraten zu können. Neben seinem Eintritt ins Militär hatte D’Adelswärd-Fersens schon ausgedehnte Reisen gemacht und einige Gedichte veröffentlicht. Etwa in diesem Zeitraum wurd er er sich seiner homosexuellen Neigungen bewusst, die auch relativ deutlich in seiner Lyrik zur Sprache kommen. Er war, aus seiner Lage betrachtet unglücklicherweise, nicht an erwachsenen Männern interessiert (was ihm im Frankreich dieser Zeit nicht in rechtliche Schwierigkeiten gebracht hätte) sondern an Jungen im Alter zwischen 15 und 17. Diese Neigung sollte ihm schließlich gesellschaftlich das Genick brechen. 1903 wurden Anschuldigungen laut, er würde in seinem Haus in der 18 Avenue de Friedland Schwarze Messen abhalten. Angeblich wurden diese Feste auch von einigen Pariser Schuljungen besucht, wobei es auch zu sexuellen Handlungen zwischen dem Baron und den Jungen gekommen sein soll. Er wurde wegen unzüchtigen Handlungen mit Minderjährigen verurteilt, saß eine sechsmonatige Gefängnisstrafe ab, musste 50 Franc Strafe zahlen und verlor für fünf Jahre seine Bürgerechte.
Dieser Skandal weist einige Ähnlichkeiten zum Fall von Oscar Wilde im Jahr 1895 auf, welcher ebenfalls große soziale Ächtung erfuhr nachdem er in einem öffentlichen Prozess der “groben Unzucht mit anderen männlichen Personen” schuldig gesprochen wurde. Vielleicht hatte D’Adelswärd-Fersen Glück, dass zu seinen Festen auch andere angesehene Persönlichkeiten der Pariser High Society kamen, was das Gericht mehr oder weniger zwang einige Anschuldigungen fallen zu lassen um die Auswirkungen des Skandals zu minimieren. Nachdem seine Heiratspläne durchkreuzt waren entschloss sich D’Adelswärd-Fersen ein Haus auf der Insel Capri zu bauen, an die er sich aus seiner Jugend erinnerte.
Lord Lyllian, 1905 veröffentlicht, einer von D’Adelswärd-Fersens Romanen und sein vielleicht wichtigstes Werk, persifliert den Skandal um seine Person in Paris, mit einigen Elementen der Affäre um Oscar Wilde als Zugabe. Der Held, Lord Lyllian, erlebt eine wilde Odyssee sexueller Ausschweifungen, wird von einem Charakter verfuhrt der Oscar Wilde zu ähneln scheint, verliebt sich Mädchen und Jungen und wird letztlich von einem Jungen getötet. Das öffentliche Entsetzen über die angeblichen Schwarzen Messen wird ebenfalls karikiert. Das Werk ist eine tollkühne Mischung aus Wahrheit und Fiktion mit vier Charakteren die Alter Egos D’Adelswärd-Fersens sind.
Akademos. Revue Mensuelle d’Art Libre et de Critique war D’Adelswärd-Fersens kurzlebiger Versuch, ein monatlich erscheinendes Magazin zu versoffenlichten, dass die päderastische Liebe propagierte. Als die erste Ausgabe von Akademos 1909 erschien, war sie die erste Publikation ihrer Art in französischer Sprache. Thematisch ähnelte sie dem Magazin Der Eigene, das 1896 und 1931 von Adolf Brand herausgegeben wurde. Dies war kein Zufall, da D’Adelswärd-Fersen die deutschen Veröffentlichungen studierte, die sich für die Akzeptanz der Homosexualität einsetzten, bevor er Akademos gründete. Er korrespondierte außerdem mit Brand wie auch mit Magnus Hirschfeld.
D’Adelswärd-Fersen organisierte regelmäßig Partys in seiner prächtigen Villa, zu denen die Intellektuellen und “exzentrischen” Reisenden die sich auf der Insel aufhielten eingeladen wurden. Der Baron lebte zwanzig Jahre lang auf der Insel. Sein Tod, möglicherweise selbst herbeigeführt, wird einer Überdosis Kokain zugeschrieben. Seine Asche wir auf Capris nicht-katholischem Friedhof aufbewahrt.
Eine Biographie über Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen ist in der Bibliothek Rosa Winkel erschienen und kann hier bestellt werden.
Fersens Villa Lysis on Capri. More photos available here.
[Text by Wikipedia & GLBTQ Encyclopedia. German translation by milkboys]
Ein Kuss für die Ewigkeit
May 28th
Germany has inaugurated a 600,000 euro concrete memorial to honour the thousands of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. The four-metre high monument, which has a window showing a film of two men kissing, was unveiled in Berlin. The Nazis branded homosexuality an aberration threatening their perception of Germans as the master race, and 55,000 gay men were deemed criminals.
I was a bit uneasy with it when I first saw it cause it’s so… ugly.
But maybe it has to cause it reminds us on ugly things.
In Berlin ist das Mahnmal für im Nationalsozialismus verfolgte Homosexuelle eingeweiht worden. Es zeigt zwei sich küssende Männer und ist Anlass für Streit. Viele Jahre des Streits liegen zwischen der ersten Forderung nach einem eigenen Denkmal für die von den Nazis verfolgten und umgebrachten Homosexuellen und der Einweihung einer zentralen Erinnerungsstätte für sie. Abgesehen vom Holocaust-Mahnmal selbst ist nie so ausgiebig und hitzig über einen Ort des Gedenkens für NS-Opfer debattiert worden, wie über jenes Mahnmal, das nun im Berliner Tiergarten eingeweiht wird.
Sandy Hill
Feb 23rd
[This is a guest article by Sidney and was first published at Inkplum]
In the mid to late 1960’s there was a brief flowering of boy centered naturist books, magazines, and art films in the U.S.A. “The Boy” a photographic essay, “Boys will be Boys”, and “Twelve” were published by Book Horizons in 1964, ‘65, and 1966. These were professionally printed coffee table photo books that celebrated the beauty, and dignity of boyhood. Those of us that were around then will recall the journals, and other publications that also briefly appeared.
It’s during that era that Lyric Films produced such titles as “Peter, and the Desert Pirates”, “The Swimming Party”, “Genesis Children”, and “Sandy Hill”. The latter may have been the first of this historic quartet. Having been made perhaps as early as 1966. If you watch them sequentially one can see certain of the boys grow to manhood in them.
I was in my mid-teens back then, and very sexually “interested” if not active. Like many Queer kids of that time I secretly placed myself on some interesting mailing lists. …ahem. Anyway I seem to recall getting color flyers about the film “Sandy Hill” among other things. Of course eventually my folks found my stash of Queer books’n photos. ‘But that’s another story.
Anyway below are a few photos from the “Sandy Hill” set, a work by Harlan Pfeiffer. You might recognize some of the youngsters since several appeared in ‘all’ of the Harlan/Lyric films. As I said you can watch them grow from boys to young men. In fact Peter Glawson gives a commentary about his time as a model, and actor in these films on the “Azov Films” DVD of “Peter, and the Desert Pirates”. Peter Glawson was the “Peter”, and pirate leader in that long ago effort. He was also a central character in “Genesis Children”. By the way he says doesn’t see himself as any sort of victim. Rather the friendships, and adventures he enjoyed while working on those titles over 40 years ago remain as happy memories for him.
Harlan Slim Pfeiffer
Jan 29th
[This is a guest article by Sidney and was first published at Inkplum]
Harlan Pfeiffer did a series of naturist films, and books in the 1960’s. The above still is from “Peter, and the Desert Pirates”. This lost film is considered as the prequel to “Genesis Children”. No surprize since many of the same boy actors, and crew worked on both.
Sadly the film is nolonger available. It was never publicly shown, and only a few copies were made. By the 1970’s it had vanished. I’ve read that a VHS edition of stills from the production was availble for a short time in the late 1980’s, but the trail is cold after that.
As I mention at various times on these pages Queer history matters. All Queer history including, and perhaps especially Queer Man/Boy love history matters. That is to say the artifacts of Boys, and Boylovers matter, and are important.
If possible they should be found, and properly preserved. As opposed to being closely examined for leads to possible arrests,…then destroyed. In this case I fear all that is left of “Peter, and the Desert Pirates” are random stills. One hopes an intact 16mm copy will one day surface, and be protected as a legitimate historical doucument.
