Bad Gays: A Homosexual History
by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller
Verso
Huw Lemmey is a novelist, artist and critic and Ben Miller is a writer and researcher who has taught queer history, literature and visual cultures in Berlin.
They have gathered life stories that expand our knowledge of sexual identity and argue that gay politics needs to look beyond questions of identity.
Although homosexuality has been around as long as recorded history, the concept of homosexuality is not fixed and this is reflected in changing language. According to Lemmey and Miller, “The changing words emerge out of a recognition that what it means to be gay has shifted, and new words are needed to understand it.”
Over the centuries, homosexuality has sometimes just been accepted, but often associated with the need for secrecy, social stigma and state suppression. History is full of the martyrs, pioneers and heroes who have challenged the suppression of their desires.
Bad Gays looks at some failed attempts at liberation by same-sex loving and gender non-conforming people. Some attempts were well-meaning but flawed; some people who were in positions of influence could have done more and some homosexual people actually inflicted appalling damage.
The authors mine history for those who cannot be made into heroes – “the liars, the powerful, the criminal and the successful” and those “nefarious Nellies” who existed before there were laws to prevent homosexuality.
Based on the hugely successful podcast of the same name, Bad Gays asks what we can learn about LGBTQ+ history, sexuality and identity through its villains, failures and baddies. Claiming that homosexuality itself was an idea that emerged in the nineteenth century, the authors are passionate about rethinking social and political identities.
From the Roman Emperor Hadrian to Lawrence of Arabia; from anthropologist Margaret Mead to architect Philip Johnson and from notorious gangster Ronnie Kray to FBI boss J Edgar Hoover, these stories add to our knowledge and challenge mainstream assumptions about sexual identity.
Lezly Herbert
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