A new docudrama set to air on the BBC tackles gay hookup culture from the 1970s until now.
Have We Met Before? gives a crash course in cruising, from public restroom “cottaging” that offered closeted men an outlet to explore their heavily-guarded sexuality, to the rise of apps like Grindr and Scruff that now dominate the hookup landscape.
The story revolves around two gay men living in London played by Pierre Emo and Stanton Plummer Cambridge. While their characters remain the same age throughout the film, they find one another across several decades using the hookup style du jour.
Interjected with the acted scenes are interviews with real-life gay men between the ages of 19 and 73, giving commentary and context on how gay sex culture adapted and changed over the course of half a century.
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The film premiered at the BFI Southbank and was broadcast on BBC 4 last month. No word yet on when and how American audiences can watch.
Check out the trailer below:
buzzy58
Now this is a documentary that I would LOVE to see, in ALL its’ details.
AlexEf
I just watched it… there is not much actually. It a 15-minute episode.
AlexEf
what a bitter queen 🙂
Sammy Schlipshit
Oh, no.
You know what? I miss the parts of good old days when we were outlaws.
Mainstreaming has homogenized homos.
Yuck.
Who the heck wants to be as boring as most people?
One must be of a certain age to have realistic perspective on such historical times.
All this video will do, especially here in the USA, is inflame all the homophobes, religious freaks and the basic all-round nut-jobs, to step up their attacks with new, sordid details of the ‘things we do in the dark’.
Another danger will be the national broadcasting of the exact places to go find our brothers. Easy pickens.
The rage filled, ignorant, homophobe str8 males will now have a road map to our former secret, special places.
Stay alert, boys.
That cute guy might be Mr. Wrong place, Mr. Wrong time.
AlexEf
Don’t worry.. The series is based on the UK gay history, and it goest from ‘Clubs’ to cruising to online dating to Grindr.
Stephen
Well It is representational of life before homosexuality was legal and just thereafter. So I lived it. In San Francisco and Vancouver. So why are you judging it? It’s as relevant as Brokenavk Mountain. First man on man encounter … I did not even know what it was, let alone it was not unique. Oh ye who are quick to judge. Have some regard for in the 60-70’s we had no shame. We were fearless. And we loved our lives. Stonewall was one of many touch stones that were about celebration a liberation from fear. Don’t tell me regulars aren’t still in 2019 still having sex in bathhouses 6-7 nights a week. I worked in one for several years. It was social, sexual, community for them. I respected that. I did not judge it.
mattkorey
This troll again.
Wayne_in_NYC
Oh look! Another privileged young gay who doesn’t realize that the freedoms he’s enjoying now, open to date in public and live his life openly and free was paid for by the blood, sweat, and tears of all of those innapropriate clownish gays of the 70’s who had to hide in those dark alleys, just to find someone who was also homosexual in order to have any kind of life at all. Who had to pretend to be like everyone else just to survive and whose community was ravaged by the HIV virus because we had a President who ignored the existence of the virus until it had gotten completely out of hand. Who had to flag their pockets with the inconspicuous color coded hankies to give subtle hints to those who knew what they meant because there was no search engines built into apps where they could seek out those who had matching interests. You just keep on judging those who came before you as you enjoy your open life with your husband as you raise your gayby with your white picket fence and join in the PTA. You will reap what you sow as well!
Frank Lee Mideer
Absolutely the most self hating comment I’ve ever seen. Please see a doctor.
nitejonboy
Great just what we need, something else to give us a bad name and remind the heteros just what they don’t like about us.
Jon in Canada
Oh great, another queer theorist concern troll who demands we conform to heteronormative standard so as to not offended or cause a scene. Honey, stop clutching those pearls before you make a mess.
Brian
Like it or not, this is a big part of our history. We are always saying that young gays have no idea how easy they have it because they are ignorant of history. Now some can be enlightened.
adje
Some people feel they can only be homosexual under their marital duvet. Fine, but many others feel that is just away, hiding and siding with the ‘normal’ people. I feel our ‘cruise’ and party culture is one of our communities’ greatest assets. Some heteros will continue to “not like us” no matter what. We’ve had to get used to them kissing, and more, in public, tv-ads and movies , so why can they not get used to us?
YouNeverKnow
You look at these disgusting gays cruising in the parks and dark alleys and having unsafe sex in the bushes, is there any wonder that San Francisco was the capital of AIDS in the 80s and 90s?
Brian
You look at the history of homosexuality in this country, is there any wonder that gay men were reduced to having sex in the shadows?
YouNeverKnow
But we are not talking about the rest of the country. The worst AIDS epidemic is in the most liberal regions in the country, not some Bible Belt rural areas.
Brian
Gee, you mean gay men historically chose to live in the most liberal regions of the country instead of the Bible Belt? Imagine that.
Vortece
What Brian said! You might be too young to remember, but there was a time in this country when having sex with a man you’d never see again (and who therefore couldn’t ruin your life by outing you) was the safest way for gay men to indulge their sexuality.
YouNeverKnow
What I mean is these gays lived in the urban liberal regions where they could easily meet other gays at bars or at church but instead they chose to cruise the parks and indulge in anonymous sex with strangers. So in a way, they were to blame for their downfall.
Brian
At church? Why are you even on Queerty?
Toofie
Did somebody change their name again?
Brian
Yeah, it’s definitely HereIam. Queerty must have given him the boot yet again, so he’s back with his fourth or fifth screenname.
Kangol
@YouNeverKnow (HereIAm wannabe), you wrote, “The worst AIDS epidemic is in the most liberal regions in the country, not some Bible Belt rural areas.” Actually, you’re WRONG. The highest rates of AIDS are in the Bible Belt, not the most liberal regions of the country. You pulled that false BS straight out of your @ss, so ram it right back in.
YouNeverKnow
The AIDS epidemic started in the urban areas in the 80’s and it is a fact. It spread so fast because of gays’ sleazy and promiscuous behaviors.
Vince
@Brian. Since we’re talking about San Francisco I choose to remember him as Castlesf.
one more thing
Sorry but back in the 80’s in the Midwest it was 50/50, half gay and half married straight men cruising the bookstores, ballparks, state parks, I did my own scientific poll on this….lol
Aires the Ram
@one more thing: It’s been that way in all the rural areas of the country since the end of WWII. Most of the homosexual men lived in the hinterlands versus the large cities. The exodus to the America large cities by homosexual men began right after WWII with the gay soldiers returning. They found love/sex in the military, and didn’t want to go back to Hooterville and live on the farm. Thus the beginning of the “gay ghettos” in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Jacksonville, New York & Miami. Also, from 1940 to 1960, the volume of mail more than doubled, as the Postal Service began paying attention to, and creating accounts for, business customers, bulk mailings and magazines and catalogs. During that period began magazines targeted at homosexual men, Athletic Model Guild, After Dark, etc., which allowed those with access to a newsstand and/or bookstore or drugstore, access to publications that allowed men to know there were others like them. If you wanted sex, you quickly learned what was going on at the roadside rest areas, boat ramps, parks, public restrooms. That is the way it was. There were no gay bars anywhere, other than in the largest cities. So, for those who clutch their purses and run away whenever this subject comes up on Queerty, you are either to young to have lived through this period of time, or just too immersed in your own self indulgence to even care.
YouNeverKnow
I totally get that gays in the rural areas back then had only very limited options of meeting with other guys but what about gays living in SF or NY back in the 70s? What were their excuses for cruising for anonymous sex and terrorizing other park goers? And what are the excuses for gays who still visit the bathhouses in 2019? Why do we still have operating bathhouses in the urban areas anyway?
PinkoOfTheGange
@YouNeverKnow
Don’t like bathhouses? Here is new idea…don’t go to one.
As for why…let us go with…because consenting adults like to F…. and cleaning up after an orgy is a pain.
OzJosh
As someone who was around during the 70s and the heyday of cruising, allow me to disabuse you of all the myths and romanticism around “the hanky code”. First up, almost nobody knew what all the different colours supposedly meant. You’d have hilarious conversations at bars and parties about them, during which it became immediately apparent that “the code” did nothing but create total confusion, and guys who were sporting hankies as nothing more than a fashion item would suddenly realise that they’d been mistakenly advertising themselves as an “FF top” (or whatever). Not that anybody had ever noticed or propositioned them accordingly. Of course, there was always one know-it-all who could decipher and recite what all the colours represented, but they were invariably one of those “all talk; no action” types, or someone so bizarre or gross that insider knowledge would be unlikely to help them. In short: it was a total crock. And all the endless cruising around parks and backstreets was unbelievably tedious, often dangerous and more often than not a complete waste of time. At least you can cruise on Grindr from the comfort of your couch or a cafe.
adje
And still, online date apps are a far more tedious waste of time than going around the local bar, park or nude-beach. The feel, smell, looks and words of real people are far more appealing than bitchy age discrimination online.
Aires the Ram
@OzJosh: You said: “And all the endless cruising around parks and backstreets was unbelievably tedious, often dangerous and more often than not a complete waste of time.”
Did it ever occur to you that ‘cruising’ was very exciting and even addictive for a lot of guys? Just because you think all of this was “unbelievably tedious”, doesn’t mean the next guy feels the same way. If you lived in a place where the closest gay bar was 150 miles away, and you wanted sex, you went to places above mentioned, and cruised….Honey.