Manly Affections: Robert Gant

Men embracing and kissing. Gant, Robert, 1854?-1936

So here we have another vintage view of two men. Many--though not all--of the images of men that I've become fascinated with are ambiguous (see here, here, here, here, here, and here). While the images might show two men touching in ways that are currently only reserved for men who identify as gay (or have same-sex attraction), in days of yore, men had more latitude to express friendship through touch and physical closeness.

This image isn't ambiguous at all. These men are straight up making out. Or are they?

As with many of the other images I've collected, their original sources were either not documented (does anyone believe in references anymore?) or obliterated by history.

I did a little investigation of this image entitled "Good Bye" to see what I might be able to find out. The story of this embrace was fairly easy to extract from the internet.

The image was taken by Robert Gant (1854-1936), a photographer from New Zealand. For those of you with a great deal of interest, you might consider checking out Chris Brickell's book "Manly Affections." Brickell wrote the following about his book (you can also check out a YouTube clip :

What if New Zealand's male settlers were not all as stoic and unemotional as we tend to assume? What if homoeroticism existed alongside - or even at the heart of - male society? What if the colonial social pattern actively facilitated intimate and sexual relationships between Pakeha men? 

Manly Affections doesn't provide any clear answers, but it does explore the questions. It focuses on the life and photography of Robert Gant, who left us some 450 late nineteenth and early twentieth century images. Part biography, part cultural history, part visual analysis and part provocative speculation, this book project extends the analysis begun in Chapter One of Mates & Lovers. Along the way, I place homoeroticism within a broader discussion of masculinity and community life, and I discuss locally-circulating representations in their global context. The book will include approximately 150 images. While most histories of same-sex desire and intimacy explore urban lives, this project looks at small towns and rural locales: Gant spent much of his time in the Wairarapa settlements of Masterton and Greytown. In Gant's photographs, life on farms and in homesteads mingles with classicism, light bondage, romantic friendship and theatrical dress-ups. Gant and his enigmatic friends wove together Pakeha settler masculinity, emotion and eroticism in surprising and fascinating ways.

Take the time to watch this YouTube clip that the publisher of Brickell's book put together of Gant's images. You can also listen to a podcast about Robert Gant here.

FFor 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.

Tommy and Buzz: All My Love

I recently came across this picture of Tommy and Buzz. I got to wondering what the story was behind the moment they shared together on the beach. The inscription on the back of the photo is so tantalizing and sweet:

"To Buzz, I'll always remember the times we spent together. All my love, your Tommy."

If Tommy or Buzz are still alive they are now both close to or well into their 80s. The world has totally transformed in the time that has elapsed since this moment was captured on the beach. Do you think they still remember that day?

I've carefully looked at each of the 300+ websites that this image appears on and searched for clues to their identity. There are none. It's likely neither know that their image has been populated around the internet.

Who they are and were--and what times they shared--are likely forever lost to history. If someone had not located this picture and taken the time to digitize it, the entire memory of this experience might have been erased for all times.

 I'm overwhelmed contemplating that thought. It inevitably reminds me that some day I too will be erased from the this world. All that I am will be reduced down to ever-smaller bits of data. Eventually that which is I will evaporate and return to whatever it was from which I emerged from when I became an I. It will happen to you too.

Go back and read that again slowly. 

...and now back to Buzz and Tommy

Men in Photo Booths

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I've become transfixed by vintage images male friendships captured on film. They provide an interesting and unexpected view on changing notions of masculinity, friendship, and possibilities of intimacy between men. Of course I've gone overboard and decided that I need to collect, inspect, and ponder the meanings of every possible image available on the internet.

It's just my way. Something captures my interest and I'm down the rabbit hole.

Keep your eye on my Tumblr or Twitter feed -- I'll be posting the images I'm looking at in both places.

Here is a small collection of pictures of men together in photo booths. Some images are easily read: two men kissing convey a very strong message of same-sex attraction. It's also helpful that some of the images are from a collection of an LGBT archive and the men and their relationships are named. 

In the case where the people in the individuals can be identified, we can be clear that the image of intimacy between men suggest sexual attraction. The other images are not so easy to read. The identities and feelings of most of the men pictured here have been swallowed up by history. We don't know if they are friends, lovers, or something else. 

The level of intimacy men are permitted to have with each other changes through time. There are ample accounts of men walking hand-in-hand down city streets in modern & past culture (here, here, here, here, and here). These men aren't gay--they are friends expressing closeness and intimacy that is no longer permitted in American culture.

Block and J.J. Belanger, at PGE exhibition, Hastings Park,  c. 1953

That's precisely what I find so interesting in these photos. We don't know the nature of the relationship between these men in the photo booths. Some are friends, capturing an image of their friendship to cherish. Others are lovers, capturing an image of their friendship to cherish. These images of men cause to wonder how easy (or hard) it was for men with primarily same-sex attraction to live out a public life featuring their intimate relationship without notice.