The pub type, the club type, promiscuous queers; the rebel, the call-boy — the ones who drink beers!
No, that’s not an excerpt from Dr. Seuss’ lesser-known Oh, The Gay Guys You’ll Know (but it should be) — these are just some of the “types of homosexuals” written about in this truly enlightening book from 1958.
But it’s not all fun and games in Richard Hauser’s The Homosexual Society: A new approach to the problem, including a sociological report prepared for the home office.
Aside from the camp factor of the categories listed above, the UK book also warns of the “abnormal” homosexual, the false transvestite and the “toucher,” among others. Homosexuality was criminalized in Britain until 1967.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
While clearly written from a nasty place, we’ve gotta say — we know plenty of people who fall into some of these categories.
Related: Here’s What This Skinny Straight Reporter Learned At Bear Week
The next page is a bit more directly insulting, though:
Here’s a taste of some of the descriptions:
As far as sociological breakdowns of gay people go, we much prefer this ’70s take on San Francisco subculture, Gay Semiotics. Woof.
h/t: Attitude
Brian Birch
The type that doesn’t like sex with women.
John Kuehnle
Really? I do. Joking
Mithrandir Greyholm
I’ve got to read this book!
Chris Duffy
War Queer!!!! I can’t even…..
joe
can you be more than one type at the same time!? i think i am…
TheBigOne
I’m so confused as I don’t fall into any of those categories.
scotshot
The depth of research must have taken the author deep into the orifices of his subjects.
I, for one, am jealous.
Pete
Looking at the font on the cover I suspected the book was from a later time and I was right: it was published in the 60s, not the 50s
Pete
Looking at the font on the cover I suspected the book was from a later date and I was right: it was published in the 60s, not the 50s
He BGB
It’s amazing that every family has a gay relative and has for all time but only now is it starting to be understood and discussed. I remember reading in the 70s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex….and how negative and insulting the section on gay was. And gay men are always chosen because women being “second class citizens” (!) and hetero men being fascinated with them they rarely put lesbians down or bother being fearful of them.
Stache
@He BGB: That’s a great point. Lesbians are rarely mentioned. It has more to do with the personal bias and projection of the authors me thinks. In their minds one is hot while the other is sick and disgusting.
Look at straight porn. Almost all have Lesbian scenes. Of coarse they’re only doing it to turn on the guy. Never for themselves.
robho3
I think I’m the ‘any age’ ‘promiscuous’ homosexual’ although a do like a good ‘cottage ‘
robho3
Thai is what Donald trump and Ted Cruz read to learn and gays.
dean089
Wow, and I thought the modern gay community was obsessed with labels. The 1950s anti-gays were even worse!
Billy Budd
This just shows how far pseudo-science can go. As a scientist myself, I am amused.
europeanguy
where can i buy this book XD or view it, this is hilarious, also the guy who wrote it….how does he know all these different types? should add “the knows too much homosexual” to his book (himself) definition: “straight” man knows too much about homosexual acts and society and is secretly one of them”
Mike Johnson
Sansacro
@Pete: It seems the book was published in Britain in 1962. However, from what I found, the book derived from a 1958 “study” for the government. But I’d love for a British gay history scholar, if there are any, to weigh in.
Male homosexuality really captured the public imagination 50s and pre-stonewall 60s; the films of that era (from Tea & Sympathy, Advise and Consent, The Detective, etc.) reveal a conflicted fascination that only obsessive desire and fear can produce. British cinema always handled the subject with less fear and more humanity (The Victim, Darling, The Leather Boys, A Taste of Honey). Ultimately, however, the attraction to the subject of gay male sex proved too great to let go, and remains lodged in the brains of conservatives like an intoxicating tumor to this very day. Of course, in terms of literature, American John Rechy, with his 1963 bestseller, City of Night, offered an empathetic and entertainingly baroque perspective from an active gay hustler; the book’s success further reflected, and fueled, society’s confused attraction to the salty, sweaty, male-on-male exchange of bodily fluids. 😉
Stache
@Sansacro: John Rechy was where I first learned of the Gay society. This was late 80s or early 90s so most of it was dated but still there. Now it’s all but gone or at least out of site. City of the Night was a literary great. Numbers and Rush were a great read for gay life in the 70s.
bobbyjoe
This looks like one of those books from the 60s that were thinly-veiled gay porn. You can find them on ebay sometimes: they have an anti-gay veneer of pretending to be shocked and condemning of homosexuality, but the various “case studies” and chapters are really just all the lurid details and sex scenes they could sneak past the censors.
Tobi
@europeanguy: There are copies available at Abe Books http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=richard+hauser&sts=t&tn=the+homosexual+society
throwslikeagirl
Wow, talk about celebrating diversity! It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so inhuman and horrific.
onthemark
“The ‘Abnormal’ Homosexual”… lol… so are the other types “normal”?
“The Mentally Sick Homosexual”… different from “abnormal”?
“The Self-masturbator”… that’s oddly specific. Is masturbation something people usually did in pairs back then?
Stache
@onthemark: Taking the “normal” and making it look all sciencey and shit. That really good at making BS sound good.
Ronald Swain
Seriously?
Stache
They’re
John Malin
Well, firstly, ALIVE AND BREATHING!
Brian
In those days, male homosexual desire was extremely common. You could pick up a man off the street.
Today, it’s harder. The gay rights movement has pushed male homosexual desire into a reservation called “the gay scene”. Gay activists have thus succeeded in making male homosexual desire smaller and thus less common in the mainstream. Feminists have worked together with gay activists to ensure this happened.
It reflects the selling out of male homosexual desire to feminists by gay men.
Invert
@Brian: public cruising venues still exist but are less common due to the ubiquity of modern surveillance.
I don’t think that you’re exactly correct about the extent to which there was cooperation between feminists and gays to isolate homosexual desire and confine it to the gay identify. I concede you’re at least partially correct that there’s been some collaboration between the gay and feminist movements, but I don’t think it’s as big an aspect as you believe. Feminists to a large extent detest homosexuals and gays or are unconcerned about gay rights because of the focus on feminism on the rights of women. And gays are men- the enemies of feminism.
I know you don’t identify as gay and don’t rjink the gay identity is valuable, but there’s guys like me who do identify as gay- and it’s not because of homoSEXUAL desire per se- it’s because of homoROMANTIC desire. I agree that the number of men who experience homosexual desire is larger than the subset of homosexual men who identify as gay. But for some of us there’s a romantic transaction that is only possible between men. It’s the romantic aspect of gayness that is largely unrecognised by society, and I get the feeling from the focus in your posts that you’re not taking this aspect into proper consideration. Your language has male to make sexual desire as the crux of the gay identity. Or am I misunderstanding you?
Invert
Apologies for any typos, phone autocorrects.
Brian
@Invert: Well, you know, I think you bring up an important point about romance between men going unrecognized. I know where you are coming from. I have real problems with the word “gay”, nonetheless.
Romance between men can exist on a spectrum, by the way. Platonic bonding is a form of romance. Sexualized sharing between straight-identifying men is also a form of romance.
Invert
@Brian: Of course. I agree that platonic bonding and sexualised sharing between men is a form of…well, I wouldn’t quite term it as “romance”, myself, more like “affection”. And I think it’s a hugely important part of male society- and society in general- that is not addressed by the exclusively “gay” identity phenomenon. The general understanding is that men who experience same sex affection are gay, and you and I are in agreement that that’s not true.
What I personally correlate the gay identity with is those group of men that are solely capable of and solely interested in romance with another man. And while I agree that same sex desire and same sex affection is widely spread, I think that those of us that can only have and only want a romantic love relationship with another man should be allowed our own place in the world. That place doesn’t necessarily intersect with sexuality as such. The sexuality is a side issue and of course naturally generated from romantic love but I don’t think it’s the focus of the man LOVE identity.
Dev.C
@Brian: I can never understand how or why you always suggest that Heterosexual men’s same-sex exploration or Bisexual behavior as having anything to do with homosexual men?
I understand you don’t think us homosexual/gay men exist, but I’m sorry to break it to you, we do. This idea that being homosexual is a modern concept is BS and old propaganda used to destroy gay identity. Gay men excited before the 20th century and throughout historical account as artist, soldiers, philosophers, etc. The negative influence of women( or lack there of) had nothing to do with homosexual identity and it still doesn’t. Some people in the world have no need or desire for sexual/romantic relationships with the opposite sex,and that should be easy enough for you to respect, instead of trying undermine people’s truth and forcing your idealistic perspective on us.
Brian
@Dev.C: I said the gay identity was recent, not homosexual desire. Male homosexual desire has been around since time began but the gay identity has only been around for 50 or so years.
In terms of the time period prior to the societal birth of the gay identity, I’m not saying that men with exclusively homosexual desires did not identify as being different to other men but there was never this above ground, highly politicized, segregationist social model called ‘gay” that we see today in gay-identifying men. at least not in Anglo-Saxon societies.
If anybody has evidence to the contrary, I’m all ears.
martinbakman
To me, gay stereotypes are a construct that evolved for some reason. such as
Beyonce wannabe (in heels)
Award show red carpet fixture
Smarmy bar goofus
The ripped, selfie hunk
Crystal meth queen
Loud screaming attention whore
But, Judging people for being the way they are doesn’t buy me much.
Reality is most gay men don’t appear stereotypical. They appear to
live a hum drum life like all men do.
onthemark
@Brian: “In those days, male homosexual desire was extremely common. You could pick up a man off the street.”
Are you unfamiliar with the internet? You’re on it right now.
onthemark
Why do all those FB posts (that say nothing) happen 12 or 15 at one time?
Deepdow
Brian just hates it when men who are homosexual and bisexual are open about it. He doesn’t care about homophobia or the totally true facts about illogical and irrational antigay policies and violence born from religion and politics – which are reasons why gay men and women (notice he never brings up women) had to battle the powers that be for the rights that we enjoy today.
Deepdow
Brians wants to police men and wants gay men to live secretive, furtive lives in the shadows – just the way he has been lives. Whenever one person demonizes a whole group of people it’s because that one person hates his or herself. Brian, a gay male, demonizes other gay men. BIG SURPRISE THERE RIGHT GUYS?
Juanjo
@Brian: You stated “If anybody has evidence to the contrary, I’m all ears.” Fair enough if in fact you had posted any evidence for any of your position which you have not.
Juanjo
@Brian: You state, “In those days, male homosexual desire was extremely common. You could pick up a man off the street.”
That still goes on and even in remote small town America as well as large cities with a gay subculture. A lot of it has moved to the internet but it still goes on in public streets and locales.
Brian
It was better before the word “gay” was invented. The word “gay” has guided people into thinking in very narrow terms, creating an identity that is small, segregated and avoidable. It has not helped male sexuality in general but simply created a small class of people who enjoy their small sexual clubs where they can easily pick up others.
My view of male homosexuality is MHD (male homosexual desire). It recognizes the truth about male sexuality – and that is that all men are capable of turning to men for same-sex enjoyments. We need to get away from “gay” and go back to MHD. MHD is the truth.
Gay is an invention of the Left. It was designed to make male homosexuality less offensive to women by creating a small community of segregated male homosexuality that does not interfere with female privilege in general society.
ProfessorMoriarty
Hi, Page 95 here, damn glad to meet ya.
Deepdow
@Brian:
Brian thinks that gay men (not gay women – he hates women therefor they are not a part of his opinions) should shoulder all the hate, bigotry and disgust because of one word. He also thinks that Black people aren’t Black, just Persons with Overcharged Melanin Production or POMPs – and if you call them Black that’s just because you are a Leftist who needed a word to invent in order to create a small community of blah blah blahs.
Again, when it comes to the distinction of things, Brian has absolutely no problem with heterosexual men calling themselves straight. Of course not. Brian is a classic self-hater who tries to use spread his misanthropy to others in order to feel complete. For Brian, homophobia and antigay violence are the faults of gay men. “You deserved it,” said Brian.
ugh
Brian
@Deepdow: Your comment is inane as it is inaccurate. Try being more thoughtful next time.
Deepdow
@Brian:
“Your comment is inane as it is inaccurate. Try being more thoughtful next time.”
Don’t try to pretend that your comments are serious and factual. They reek of outright homophobia.
Terrycloth
All I can think of is..who would i cast for each category if this were made into a musical or born flick or even a movie. My list would be Amazing !
Terrycloth
*porn flick…
Charlie in Charge
Ooh what do I need to do to become a Cottage Type? That sounds lovely.
Danny279
So 60 years ago, the homophobic UK government called gay people “queer” and lumped us in with crossdressers and transsexuals. Today, we have gay organizations and media calling gay people “queer” and lumping us in with crossdressers and transsexuals.
loulou2lou
How depressing.I lived through the 50’s and with all the classifications sick was the override.