exodus it’s funny how fluid bentness can seem to people both a thing to love and a thing to fear! And how the sublimity of it means you can love it before you’re taught to fear it - if you’re lucky.
For me the big case study in the UK is George Michael. Possibly in the rest of the world too? I’m not sure. In the UK, we had this weird tradition of loving gay-presenting entertainers, on the condition that they never actually said they were gay. It was this weird cat-and-mouse game of innuendo: Kenneth Williams, Larry Grayson, Frankie Howerd (note, all men). Possibly because homosexuality was only (partially) legalised in 1967.
They were always out, but never out. In contrast George Michael has a timeline with an in phase and an out phase, the pivot point being Outside, essentially his diss track / coming out party / response to being caught in a toilet in LA (performing a ‘lewd act’ on a police officer). It is such a glorious F you to the media, and the public loved it, and I love it. I remember, and deeply regret, the cruel jokes that went round the playground. But with Outside he had the last laugh:
“I’d service the community, but I already have, you see.”
Also, police dancers, in a toilet.
But before that, was the in period really in? Not if you know the subtext.
Fastlove Pt.1: cruising. “I do believe that we are practising the same religion.”
Spinning The Wheel: trying to reconcile desire with the fear of AIDS. “I will not live in fear of what may be.”
There must be so many more examples in hindsight, such fantastic code not just for gay desire but any desire, lust, a celebration of the self. And he did some of that most potent stuff while under scrutiny. I was too young at the time so I don’t really know how it all went over: was it like Williams et al; everyone knew it but nobody would say it? Or was everyone in denial? After all, from Wham! to Faith he’d been built as a universal sex symbol.
And did he reach the people who he was really speaking too? I have a feeling he did. I miss George Michael.