Of leather daddies, Al Pacino, and the disappearing edginess of gay masculinity

[Meursault]

While I'm on the subject of horror films, one of my all-time favorites is William Friedkin's Cruising, starring Al Pacino (I appreciate it far more than Friedkin's overwraught, conventional The Exorcist). The 1980 film follows Friedkin into the world of gay S&M clubs on the hunt for a serial killer. The picture was shot on location in New York City in a cinema verite style, dark and nihilistic in a way only films of the late 20th century could be, and capturing, among other things, a man getting fisted in a sling. Perhaps most incredibly, the film anticipates the "faceless killer" of AIDS by several years through having multiple actors play both victims and killer alike.

(Con't)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

...

[Meursault]

Gay groups at the time hated it, declaring it homophobic (despite a disclaimer tacked on at the beginning disavowing its portrayal of the fetish scene as a depiction of mainstream gay life, it probably is homophobic). Several times they interrupted shooting, blowing air horns to ruin takes and forcing scenes to be overdubbed. Primarily they objected to its recognition of the S&M scene.

They got their wish eventually. The Manhole is gone. So too is the Snake Pit. The mainstreamification of homosexuality continues apace. The image of a leather daddy in a gimp suit and a Nazi cap is considered kitsch.

I am a straight man, but watching Cruising makes me wish I were gay. Anyone else feel sorry for the gay community to have lost something so unique in the process of mass acceptance? I feel like we all have - the continued watering-down of Western sexuality.

[badgate]

Anyone else feel sorry for the gay community to have lost something so unique in the process of mass acceptance?

We're good thanks.

[Meursault]

I simply think it's a shame that the leather scene, and the liberationists, were driven into the desert to facilitate the assimilation of homosexuality to milquetoast liberalism. That's all.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Okay.

[tik 🪀✨]

I simply think it's a shame that the leather scene, and the liberationists, were driven into the desert to facilitate the assimilation of homosexuality to milquetoast liberalism. That's all.

It's an interesting idea, but I think it's probably simplifying things.. a lot.

[afleitch]

If you think that subculture is gone then you don't know much about gay subculture!

[Meursault]

Not extinct obviously - there are gay BDSM enthusiasts on Fetlife - but certainly not a public face of homosexuality the way it was in the 1970s and 1980s.

There was definitely a conscious attemp to suppress visible fetishism among gay men during the AIDS crisis. But the trade-off for this, in my opinion, was (A) to increase the prevalence of the opposite stereotype, the feminine gay man; and (B) to basically cause the LGBT movement to stall out at mirror-image equality, as opposed to its more radical earlier stances.

[Platypus]

It's still very, very much there if you go looking for it.

But the issue is that, along with most gay subcultures, it's all very contrived.

Gay subcultures are always terrible because they aim to use their sexuality as a definining characteristic, whether that means using gayness as an excuse to be bitchy while wearing designer clothes, an excuse to be misogynistic while wearing a leather codpiece, or an excuse to be exclusionary after spending all day at the gym and/or salon.

That is not what it means to be gay, it's a usurping of a sexual orientation towards cultural associations in what it means to be homosexual. There are many things most gays share, from risk of HIV to inequalities under the law, that matter. The fact that we may or may not have a penchant for leather, Lady Gaga, and crystal methamphetamine is not what we should use to bind us together, because for many gays it simply isn't true, and it imposes limits rather than frees us from them.

I do like Lady Gaga, though.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Can I get an invite to Einzige's coming out party?

[memphis]

In short, Mersault is mourning the fact that being gay is no longer considered edgy? What a curious complaint! I suggest that he try to live his life more for his own happiness and less for the purpose of trying to get a rise out of others.

[retromike22]

I don't think the gay community purposely changed into acting more mainstream, instead I think that because the "edginess group" was the most visible, that it was what most people thought that most if not all gay people were like. But when more people started coming out, they were the ones who weren't already in the "edginess group," it was the mainstream ones who came out. So now I think that most gay people are mainstream, just like most straight people are mainstream, but with a small "edginess group" in both.

Also, if you're so nostalgic for those type of clubs, I'm sure there are still some today. Maybe you should visit

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Einzige, you are not an English literature Professor and this is not the 1990s. Sorry to inform you of this but it is the truth.

[Flake]

what

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

Einzige, you are not an English literature Professor and this is not the 1990s. Sorry to inform you of this but it is the truth.

If it isn't the 1990s then why is my hair curtained.