They'll Never Know How Close We Were
For more images of vintage men and their relationships (some gay, some straight) visit: Two Men and Their Dog; Adam and Steve in the Garden of Eden: On Intimacy Between Men; A Man and His Dog; The Beasts of West Point; Vintage Men: Innocence Lost | The Photography of William Gedney; It's Only a Paper Moon;Vintage Gay America: Crawford Barton; These Men Are Not Gay | This Is Not A Farmer | Disfarmer; Desire and Difference: Hidden in Plain Sight, Come Make Eyes With Me Under the Anheuser Bush, Hugh Mangum: Itinerant Photographer, Two men, Two Poses; Photos are Not Always What They Seem,Vintage Sailors: An Awkward Realization, Three Men on a Horse, Welkom Bar: Vintage Same Sex Marriage, Pretty in Pink: Two Vintage Chinese Men, Memorial Day Surprise: Vintage Sailor Love, Memorial Day: Vintage Dancing Sailors, The Curious Case of Two Men Embracing, They'll Never Know How Close We Were, Vintage Love: Roger Miller Pegram,Manly Affections: Robert Gant, Homo Bride and Groom Restored to Dignity, The Men in the Trees, The Girl in the Outhouse, Tommy and Buzz: All My Love,Men in Photo Booths, and Invisible: Philadelphia Gay Wedding c. 1957. You can also follow me on Tumblr.
What's the history of male intimacy like? I know post WWII American context like McCarthyism and the Stonewall riots. But I've never poked my nose before WWII. How about the roaring 20's?
ReplyDeleteYour collection always reminds me Jason Lutes' "Berlin." It's a graphic novel set in Berlin on the verge of Nazi Germany. He depicts male and female intimacy as a part of Berlin everyday life along with workers, fascists, bourgeois, food, drug, Jazz, etc.
Funny you should ask -- I'll have to blog about it.
DeleteThe short answer is that as gay and lesbian people have formed a movement and become more visible, intimacy between men has become judged as "gay" and thus pushed out of the mainstream. The vast majority of the images pre-WWII of men together are friends who are unburdened by modern homonegativity.
The same has gone for countries in the Arab world. It wasn't so rare even 10 years ago to see men walking down the street holding hands. As the western world has become more available, and men have feared being labeled gay (horrors!), they've stopped holding hands.
It's sad, really, how constricted friendship between men has become.