Sure, everyone's looking forward to a new year, but let's not forget the years gone by, like the 1970s. Why not relive the decade of decadence by heading over to the Queer Cultural Center and checking out their pages on Hal Fischer? A queer artist and theorist, Fischer turned his lens on the cultural iconography of the gay 70s. Of the project, Fischer wrote:

The gay culture's new visibility has exposed a subculture developing its own myths, cultural heroes, stereotypes and sign language (semiotic). Long before the current women's journals began picturing naked men as sex objects, gay magazines were exploring aspects of male eroticism. And since gay men needed a method to communicate sexual preferences, a sexual semiotic was developed.
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Like the straight culture, gay culture has evolved a set of public, sexual prototypes. In gay magazines men are pictured in situations which were initially inspired by established male fantasies. Within the gay community certain characteristics of the fantasy have been adopted as fashion, thereby creating a 'gay look', i.e. Gay Prototype, the cowboy; Contemporary adaptation, flannel shirts, jeans, short hair.

While we no longer wear bandanas as a code for sexual proclivity, most of these social emblems still exist today. In fact, we're wearing flannel right now. It's purple. So, what does that say about us? Well, according to Fischer, we're channeling American archetypes of pioneering masculinity. Although, we're also wearing high heels and a beehive wig. Something must have gotten lost in translation.