Fall 1982: The Gayellow Pages

Sometimes people who are around my age, especially those who grew up on the East or West coasts, wonder how I could have been unaware that gay/lesbian people existed until I was nearly 16 years old.  How I could have avoided seeing the word "gay" in print until the summer after my 19th birthday? After all, there were gay characters in movies in the 1960s, and on tv as early as 1971.  Dozens of gay books.  By 1980, Gay Pride Parades (then called Gay Rights Marches) were being held in a dozen cities around the country.

But the gay characters appeared in movies and tv programs that I wasn't allowed to watch, the gay books did not appear on the shelves in any library or bookstore that I had access to, and the nearest Gay Pride Parade was in Chicago.

I knew about "fairies" (feminine men) from my earliest childhood, but I didn't know about gay people until the fall of 1976, when Denny Miller played a gay man who mentored Tommy (Philip McKeon, left) on Alice. I didn't know that they wrote books until the spring of 1980, when I saw Fred's hidden bookshelf, and even then I figured there were only about a dozen in existence.  

I knew about gay bars, bath houses, and adult bookstores, but I had never been in one.  I knew about pornographic magazines.  And that's all.  I figured that since being gay was illegal (it wasn't, at least not in Illinois), there couldn't be any organizations or publications, no community, nothing except clandestine closet bars and porn magazines. 

In the fall of 1982, I began graduate school in Bloomington, Indiana.  On the night of September 25th, I went to an adult bookstore near the campus and asked "Do you have anything gay?", hoping for some porn.  I got got copies of Mandate, In Touch, and Christopher Street, and a directory called the Gayellow Pages.  

It was issue #12.  That means it was first published in 1970!  There were gay communities at least as far back as 1970, and not only bars and bath houses, but "Businesses, churches, organizations, accommodations, publications..."

And not only in big cities.

There were 16 listings for Madison, Wisconsin. 6 bars, 2 bookstores, a community center, two health services, a legal service, a liquor store, a religious group, a place called "the soap opera," and a women's center.

Kicking myself for not going to the University of Wisconsin, I looked up Bloomington.  A little more sparse: a bar called Bullwinkle's, a women's center,  and a gay student group.  When I called the student group, I got the message: "All conversations are recorded and delivered to the police," so I hung up quickly to avoid being arrested.  But still, it was obvious that there were many more gay people than I ever imagined, and they were much more organized than I ever thought possible.

"The Irregulars": Hetero-Horny Hunks Hired by a Heterosexual Sherlock Holmes

 

In the original Sherlock Holmes stories, there are a few scattered references to the "Baker Street Irregulars," street urchins that Holmes occasionally hires to gather information.  The hundreds of movie and tv adaptions of the stories have barely mentioned the Irregulars, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a Netflix tv series centering on them.

Scene 1:  Jesse, a teenage girl in a Victorian-style nightgown,  wanders through the woods encountering skeletons and monsters. Suddenly she wakes up -- just a dream!  She awakens Bea, the girl she is sleeping with, and asks "Am I losing it?"  The anacrhonistic slang is annoying, but two teenage girls sleeping together, one white, one Asian -- they must be girlfriends!

Whoops, no.  In the morning, Jesse, knowing that Bea is "desperate to find a boyfriend," gifts her with some French perfume.  "Just two sprays, and any man will want to make sweet love to you."  More anachronistis slang, and the heteronormative assumption that no gay men exist.  Ugh!

Noticing that Billy and Spike are missing, Bea rushes out into the horrible Dickensian slums that lie just beyond the glamorous world of St. Paul's Cathedral and Kensington Palace.  She pauses to sneer at 221B Baker Street, and r ushes into an underground fight club, where Billy (JoJo Macari) is making money by getting pummelled by bruisers.  Spike (McKell David) complains "I'm too pretty to be here.  My handsomeness makes me a target/"  For rape?  Is he worried about sexual assault because he's homophobic, or because he's gay?

Scene 2: A feminine young man (Harrison Osterfield) stands in a palatial bedroom.  Maybe he's gay, one of Oscar Wilde's green carnation crowd? He looks out onto the lawn, where a cricket game is going on,  and sees a man and a woman kissing and a lady adjusting her garter.  Hetero-horniness!  I'm getting tired of this!

Turns out that he's Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria's youngest son (born 1853), kept inside all the time because of his hemophilia (in the show it's because of a "turned ankle").    For his birthday present, all he wants is to be allowed to leave the palace for a day.  

Cut to Leopold and his valet, Daimier (Edward Hogg), in a carriage going through the city.  This isn't what he meant!  

Scene 3: Bea yelling at Billy about his street fighting, while staring lustfully at his bare chest.  He was just trying to make money: they're two months overdue with the rent, and Jesse needs a psychiatrist (nope, not invented yet).

Spike tells about a dream where he's in the bath with an eel, which finds its way into his...more anxiety over anal sex.  Maybe he's gay.

Meanwhile Jesse wanders out into the street.  The others follow, and save her from being trampled by Prince Leopold's carriage.  Daimier the Vallet rushes out to yell at her for almost inconveniencing the Prince and not respecting "her betters."  This causes a row-- these kids are from the future, and don't accept the class distinctions that everyone accepted without question 150 years ago.  The Prince is mesmerized.

Scene 4: Bea at her mother's grave, discussing Jesse's dreams and sleepwalking.  What if she's going crazy, like their mum?  Suddenly a well-dressed man approaches.  Bea runs away, but he follows her all the way home.  His name is Watson (Royce Pierreson), and he "wants something" from her, for which he will pay.

Scene 5:  He brings Bea to a rented room, and says "What happens here will remain between us."  If I didn't know the character already, I'd assume that he wants to pay her for sex. Why doesn't she think so?   

Actually, he and his "business associate" Sherlock Holmes want to hire her to investigate a case.

Business associate?  Ok, you want us to know that you and Holmes aren't romantic partners.  You're both heterosexual.  That leaves Spike, with his visions of anal intrusion.

 Four newborn babies have been stolen from locked rooms in the middle of the night.  The latest had a teenage sister sleeping in the same room.  The sister has since run away.  Since Watson and Holmes are not familiar with the haunts of teenage runaways, they need Bea to find her.  

Scene 6:  The gang starts working on the case.  Spike appears in a lavender suit -- ok, definitely gay -- and announces that he knows where the girl is.  He got the intel from his friend Pete, who owes him because he found his lost dog.

Billy: "Pete didn't lose his dog.  You stole it when you were trying to impress that girl who loves animals."

Spike is hetero, too?  I'm outta here.

Beefcake: Billy takes his shirt off.  Some of the bruisers at the fight club are hot.

Other sights:  Just an elaborate sound stage.

Anachronisms: The street kids act and talk like it's 2021.  I keep expecting them to whip out their cell phones.

Gay teases: Lots.

Gay characters: No!