Shows
The Protagonist of the EroticNazario Vera by Huw LemmeySure, top floors have a striking erotic connotation; they're also the perfect vantage point to peer into the lives of others. High above Barcelona, yet grounded in sensuality, Huw Lemmey shares his admiration for Nazario Vera, the underground comic artist renowned for his punchy, sharp, and flamboyant portrayals of queer life. A cultural icon throughout the seventies and eighties, Nazario uses his stories to mock conventional sexual morals, especially through his memorable contributions and covers for El Víbora, a periodical that captured daily life, gritty bars with dusty decor, and the eclectic crowd gathered under the crumpled palm t...2024-12-1629 min
Casement's LeftoversBad Gays, Good Faggots (w/ Huw Lemmey)Ever wondered why so many gays throughout history are so tragic, resilient and brave? This month Casement's Leftovers set fire to condescending stereotypes with incomparable author and historian Huw Lemmey. Huw -along with his co-host and author Ben Miller- have released the essential read; "Bad Gays", which explores identity formation and some of the more icky homosexuals which didn't make the draft for Pride month martyrs. Helen and Glen chat with Huw about awful gays, how same sex attraction has been characterised throughout history and what terrible dead queens can tell us about queers today.Th...2023-12-211h 25
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Download Book Here ==> https://pegagaianmobil.blogspot.com/59012057-bad-gaysREAD [Pdf]Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw LemmeyRead OnlineBad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey is a great book to read and that's why I recommend reading or downloading ebook Bad Gays: A Homosexual History for free in any format with visit the link button below.Read Book Here ==> https://pegagaianmobil.blogspot.com/59012057-bad-gays**Download Book Here ==> https://pegagaianmobil.blo...2023-09-2200 min
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Download Book Here ==> https://jaranmlaku.blogspot.com/59012057-bad-gays[EPUB] [READ] Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw LemmeyRead Online Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey is a great book to read and that's why I recommend reading or downloading ebook Bad Gays: A Homosexual History for free in any format with visit the link button below.Read Book Here ==> https://jaranmlaku.blogspot.com/59012057-bad-gays**Download Book Here ==> https://jaranmlaku...2023-09-0800 min
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[EPUB] [READ] Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey**Download Book Here ==> https://jaranmlaku.blogspot.com/59012057-bad-gays[EPUB] [READ] Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw LemmeyRead Online Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey is a great book to read and that's why I recommend reading or downloading ebook Bad Gays: A Homosexual History for free in any format with visit the link button below.**Read Book Here ==> https://jaranmlaku.blogspot.com/59012057-bad-gays**Download Book Here ==> https://jaranmlaku...2023-09-0800 mindawet ayu[epub] FREE download Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey[EPUB] [READ] Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey**Download Book Here ==> https://jaranmlaku.blogspot.com/59012057-bad-gays[EPUB] [READ] Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw LemmeyRead Online Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey is a great book to read and that's why I recommend reading or downloading ebook Bad Gays: A Homosexual History for free in any format with visit the link button below.**Read Book Here ==> https://jaranmlaku.blogspot.com/59012057-bad-gays**Download Book Here ==> https://jaranmlaku.blogspot...2023-09-0800 min
The Sewers of ParisTo Be Disgusting Is Good (Ep 431 - Beautiful Thing/Huw Lemmey)On last week's Sewers of Paris podcast I spoke with Ben Miller of the Bad Gays book and podcast. This week I’m talking to his co-host and co-author, Huw Lemmey, a writer whose work investigates the disgusting. It’s an unlikely fascination, one borne out of attitudes he heard expressed about queer people when he was growing up. In looking at the realities of human life, from its best to its worst, Huw’s writing has evolved from asking whether people can be loveable despite being gross … to whether they are lovable because they are gross.Also, a...2023-08-3140 min
larauntu[epub] free Download Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw LemmeyREAD [Pdf] Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw LemmeyDownload at https://kesusuberi.blogspot.com/59012057[PDF] Download Bad Gays: A Homosexual History Ebook | READ ONLINEDownload Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey read ebook online PDF EPUB KINDLE Download Bad Gays: A Homosexual History PDF - KINDLE - EPUB - MOBI#ebook #pdf #mobi #kindle #audiobook #epub #free #downloadBad Gays: A Homosexual History pdf downloadBad Gays: A Homosexual History read onlineBad Gays: A Homosexual History epubBad Gays: A Homosexual History vkBad Gays...2023-08-0800 min
Bad GaysJulie D’AubignyShe's an icon, she's a legend, and she is the moment: today’s subject caused such a scandal in her life that even its fictionalized depiction in a novel was banned by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. The Mozart of bisexual drama, sword-fighting crossdressing opera singer Julie D'Aubigny burned through a dizzying series of lives, loves, husbands, mistresses, swordfights, operatic performances, lovers, and successes at the Paris Opera before dying in a convent in her early 30s.
Pre-order our book in paperback for a free E-book!
SOURCES
“Biographical Sketches and Ane...2023-03-2853 minBad GaysGeorge SantosWe're starting off Season Six with George Santos, who rocketed the pathological homosexual narcissism we've spent much of our show discussing to the halls of Congress. In gay bar, there is at least one delusional queen who can't stop lying about his life. If you give him firearms and crystal meth, he turns into Andrew Cunanan. If you elect him to Congress, he turns into George Santos, who we argue is as likely as anyone else to become the first gay President of the United States.
Pre-order our book in paperback for a free E-book!
...2023-03-201h 01Bad GaysJack Saul LIVE! at Foyles in London with Shon FayeHappy Christmas! It's Bad Gays Live! Relive our reading of the Jack Saul chapter – covering the life and times of the Victorian sex worker and pornographer – from our book BAD GAYS: A HOMOSEXUAL HISTORY at Foyles in London, with the inimitable Shon Faye reading out the saucy bits (maybe use headphones if you're spending today with Grandma, unless you and Grandma like joking about delicious frigging up the rear), followed by a conversation with her and the audience about the project.
Bad Gays: Season Six - Coming January 2023!
Thanks for listening!
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Chandl...2022-12-251h 26Bad GaysMagnus Hirschfeld (with Laurie Marhoefer)It's the Magnus Hirschfeld episode. We invited Laurie Marhoefer – Jon Bridgman Endowed Professor of History at the University of Washington, and one of our most-cited historians ever – to discuss their new book on Hirschfeld, called Racism and the Making of Gay Rights: A Sexologist, His Student, and the Empire of Queer Love. On the episode, we touch on Hirschfeld's life story as a pioneering doctor who helped invent modern homosexual identities and worked on some forms of trans-affirming health care –– while also discussing the ways he integrated racism into the homosexual identities he was creating, collaborated with eugenicists, and was often...2022-10-051h 10
Against Everyone with Conner HabibAEWCH 197: HUW LEMMEY & BEN MILLER (BAD GAYS PODCAST) or DON'T BE A GOOD GAYI talk about all things gay and queer with the hosts of the Bad Gays podcast and author of Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller!2022-08-301h 47Bad GaysUS Tour!
Our UK tour has been fun -- and the US is next! Ben (sadly Huwless) will be stopping in San Francisco, LA, Chicago, New York City, and Boston in the back half of June. All the events are available for RSVP and booking –– many with great discounts on copies of the book and swag included! –– so visit badgayspod.com/book to get your spot before they're gone, as most of our UK events have sold out!
2022-06-0803 minBad GaysEugen Sandow (with Ruby Hann)Happy Pride! We invited Ruby Hann, who completed her MA in History in 2020 and her MSc in History in 2021, both at the University of Edinburgh, to talk about Eugen Sandow, the bodybuilder who spread the cult of muscle around the world. Her research is focused on masculinity, sexuality, and the body in early twentieth century Britain. Ruby is not currently in academia, but she still occasionally writes, lectures, and attends conferences. You can follow her Twitter @RubyVolunteers to find her work.
Our book is available at badgayspod.com/book along with tour dates in the US and t...2022-06-011h 29Bad GaysOur UK Tour! (US Coming Soon)Our book, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History is now available for pre-order from Verso –– and we're making many, many stops across every corner of Great Britain (Northern Ireland, we're sorry and we'll be there soon) to promote it, including three stops in London and stops in Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol, and Cardiff. All the events are available for RSVP and booking –– many with great discounts on copies of the book and swag included! –– so visit badgayspod.com/book to get your spot before they're gone.
2022-05-1904 min
Cursed ObjectsGay Flags and Lavender Scares ft. Huw LemmeySeries 2 ends with a bang, and some serious vexillology: talking homonationalism, gay villages, the commercialisation of Pride, the history of criminalisation of LGBTQ people, the Gay End of History, and this flag - The Pink Jack, with legendary writer and podcaster, Bad Gays' Huw Lemmey.
Bad Gays: A Homosexual History is published by Verso on 31 May 2022 and you can (and should) pre-order it RIGHT NOW.
Huw Lemmey's Utopian Drivel Substack is here.
The Bad Gays podcast, which Huw hosts with Ben Miller, is here.
If you've enjoyed Cursed Objects s...2022-04-111h 10Bad GaysJeffrey DahmerFor white, suburban, heterosexual middle America, Jeffrey Dahmer, like AIDS, was the natural, even the righteous, consequence of homosexual promiscuity. He remains one of the exemplary constructions of the supervillain serial killer, the perfect subject of a true crime story. Today’s episode is about Jeffrey Dahmer as man and metaphor: about the phenomenon of the serial killer-monster, about the ways in which homophobia, racism, and the various true crime myths Dahmer helped reify ironically impeded his arrest and enabled his crimes, and about the twisted, slap-happy identification with Dahmer pursued by some gay men.
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...2022-03-151h 04Bad GaysJohn WojtowiczIt's a dog day afternoon: today's episode profiles the bank robber John Wojtowicz, who infamously (and as memorialized in Sidney Lumet's 1975 film DOG DAY AFTERNOON) held up a bank in 1972 to pay for gender-affirming surgery for Elizabeth Eden, his trans girlfriend. Or did he? We take a look, using the story to think through 1972 as a fault line for emerging attitudes about homosexuality and trans femininity, Wojtowicz' surprising involvement in early gay liberation activism in New York City, the DOG DAY AFTERNOON phenomenon and what it says about growing distinctions between gay men and trans women and how they...2022-03-011h 11
utopian drivelThey/Them NATOThe political landscape of other countries has always been used in the West for a proxy territory to hash out domestic politics, especially in the moments after crisis breaks, when informed knowledge is a little thin on the ground, like now. The wise thing to do, if you are uninformed, is to listen, not speak, but let's give ourselves a break - there is no real dopamine rush from observation online. So instead we see a mixture of good faith, bad faith and ugly faith attempts to read the crisis, as it were, from your standard misguided UK/Ireland...2022-02-2618 minBad GaysCressida Dick (Part Two)
Unusually for this show, which normally focuses on long departed historical figures, today we’re going to talk about someone who’s still very much in the news. Until last week, she was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, London’s police force, and was the first woman and the first LBGTQ person to hold the rank, Dame Cressida Dick. Today, part two of two: we discuss Dick's tenure at the Metropolitan Police, the extrajudicial murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, Dick's cynical deployment of her identity to deflect critique, the spy cops scandal, the botched investigation into gay serial...2022-02-221h 13Bad GaysCressida Dick (Part One)Unusually for this show, which normally focuses on long departed historical figures, today we’re going to talk about someone who’s still very much in the news. Until last week, she was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, London’s police force, and was the first woman and the first LBGTQ person to hold the rank, Dame Cressida Dick. Today, part one of two: we begin telling Dick's life story and then delve into the history of the Met, its relationship with LGBTQ people, and the conflicting strands of LGBTQ politics that emphasize conflict vs collaboration with the police...2022-02-1558 minBad GaysFreddie MercuryFor a time, one of the world's most famous rock stars – singer of stadium rock anthems that still signify foot-stomping machismo – existed as an avatar of the most exuberant, feared, liberation-era forms of homosexuality: going from a 1970s long hair in skin-tight leotards cut to the navel to a Castro clone with a handlebar moustache who wore fisting T-shirts in his music videos. If the legacy of Mercury and his music often seems to smooth his work, and that of his band, Queen, into a sort of middle-aged, KISS FM everyday normality, here we lean into the contradictions of the...2022-02-081h 20
utopian drivelPink NarcissusThere’s a bar near my apartment that isn’t a gay bar, not quite. At least it doesn’t have a little rainbow flag draped in the window, nor flashing pop videos scrolling across multiple widescreens, nor, I would imagine, a majority, explicitly “gay” clientele. There’s something queer about it though, genuinely queer. I visited this weekend with some out-of-towners after dinner, taking them down the narrow alley and through the nondescript door. Inside some friends were already dancing by the DJ, playing reggaetón off a laptop on one of the bar tables. The two barmaids...2022-02-0110 minBad GaysFranco ZeffirelliA very special opera queen episode profiling an opera queen gone wrong: the Italian opera and film director (of 1968's famous Romeo and Juliet) who fought fascists as a partisan in the hills over Florence, mingled with Visconti and Cocteau and Marais and Chanel, and directed Callas in many of her mid-career triumphs before beginning to harden his style from lush realism to a celebration of set decoration above all. Zeffirelli, born at a time when the last composers whose works still fill the grand opera repertory were dying, faced, like all practitioners of the operatic arts in the 20...2022-02-011h 21
utopian drivelAmbitionsNew Years’ resolutions, like lottery scratch cards, are best as a meditation on the direction of your life rather than a concrete plan for your future. I had an ex who made new years’ resolutions, and he still does. I never do. It suits his optimistic personality, but for me, it’s just giving myself another way to fail. Years ago, however, I read that Benjamin Franklin tried to make himself a better man by carrying a card on which were listed 13 virtues, and each day he’d choose just one to focus on. Let’s ignore what his virtues we...2022-01-2607 minBad GaysAnne BonnyAre you ready to have your timbers shivered and your mainbrace spliced? Today’s subject is a mysterious one, a historical figure whose life and reputation are confused by propaganda, romance and mythology: the Irish pirate Anne Bonny. We'll use her story to discuss gender, race, and class in the Golden Age of Piracy.
Visit www.badgayspod.com for an episode archive, a link to pre-order our book, and more information about the show.
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B. R. Burg, Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth-Century Ca...2022-01-251h 08Bad GaysPhilipp, Prince of EulenburgThe "Eulenberg Affair," a series of media scandals about homosexual behavior at the highest levels of the German Imperial court, dragged on in the press for years as it made and broke careers in journalism, sexology, and the court while helping define both Imperial Germany’s relationship to masculinity and the emerging homosexual emancipation movements. Plus drag ballet, Wagnerists, extremely racist paintings, songs about roses, and moustaches with names.
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Robert Beachy, Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity (New York: Vintage, 2014)
Miranda Carter, “What Happens When a Ba...2022-01-1859 minBad GaysErnst vom RathThis Nazi diplomat was assassinated by the Jewish activist Herschel Grynszpan –– and his death became a pretext for the murderous pogroms of Kristallnacht. Grynszpan's lawyer, the flamboyant anti-fascist Vincent de Moro-Giafferi, pioneered in this case what was perhaps the first –– and only morally good –- use of some version of a 'gay panic' or ‘gay blackmail’ defense. But was vom Rath actually gay?
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Jonathan Kirsch, The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplomat, and a Murder in Paris, First Edition (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, A Division of W...2022-01-1157 minBad GaysJoe CarstairsThe eccentric inheritor of an enormous oil fortune and gender non-conforming-lesbian-trans man (we'll talk about it!) who dated Marlene Dietrich, raced speedboats, and turned their private Bahamian island into a domain over which they ruled over native people with an iron fist while allowing themselves and their guests every possible eccentricity and pleasure. All this accompanied by their lifelong companion: a foot-tall leather doll named Lord Tod Wadley.
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SOURCES
Michael Craton, A History of the Bahamas, 3rd ed (Waterloo, Ont., Canada: San Salvador Press, 1986).
Kate Summerscale, The Queen of Whale...2022-01-041h 03Bad GaysFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon was an artist whose radical generosity teetered on the edge of self-obliteration –– and he sometimes pulled others over the edge with him. Many of our listeners will be familiar with Bacon’s work, or at least would recognise his idiosyncratic style if they saw it; sweeps of fleshy paint across black fields of colour, portraying contorted, mangled bodies, racks of hanging meat, and the iconic screaming mouth. But Bacon is almost as famous for the way he lived his life: his raucous partying, brutal barbed tongue, and love of boozing made him an emblem of London’s bohemian...2021-12-241h 13Bad GaysPacchierotto and Florentine Sodomites (with Max Fox)Not a huge amount is known about Pacchierotto, a sodomite who was convicted and publicly humiliated in Florence, Italy, in 1486, but his story tells us much about the changing fortunes of sodomites at the time, and the important role they played in the politics of the time. In this special episode, Huw talks to Max Fox, editor of Christopher Chitty's Sexual Hegemony: Statecraft, Sodomy, and Capital in the Rise of the World System about Florentine sodomy in the Renaissance, and Chitty's groundbreaking new book.
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Chitty, Christopher, Sexual Hegemony: Statecraft, Sodomy, and Capital in the Rise of the World Sys...2021-08-101h 32
utopian drivelMeaningless SexFor every major prophet — rebels and mystics — whose words become religion, there are 100 minor prophets — baptists and soothsayers — who are merely shadows of what was to come. For every minor prophet are 100 failed prophets — madmen and prisoners — whose visions of a world to come were never more than rackets among marketplaces. Yet, but for a changing wind, any of the failed prophets may have been minor ones, any of the minor may have been major, and the ladder may just as easily have been a snake. Our Gods of doves and grace, of sin and conquest, may just as easily have...2021-07-0710 minBad GaysArthur Gary Bishop (with David Eichert)The crimes, trial and execution of Utah citizen and devout Mormon Arthur Gary Bishop seemed to be the manifestation of many of both the public fears and moral panics of the United States in the 1980s. 'Stranger Danger', pornography, homosexuality and childhood sexual abuse became the focus of heated public debate and new religiously-inspired political organisations such as the Moral Majority. Huw is joined by David Eichert, a PhD candidate studying international law, sexual violence, gender and sexuality, to discuss Bishop, his relationship with his Mormon faith, and wider social attitudes towards his crimes.
Visit our website...2021-04-1355 min
utopian drivelWindy Day. Hell, Figure 10I wanted to try something new, an experiment, and that is both today’s episode, and the reason there has been a pause in ‘utopian drivel’ for a few weeks, sorry for that. Experiments, learning new skills, making mistakes, all take a bit more time than something you’re used to making. So here’s the result: a sort of audio essay meets ASMR meets guided tour. I recommend putting on some headphones, and listening while following along with the images if you can. If you like this format (I enjoyed making it, and would like to try something a bit more...2021-03-3034 minBad GaysDennis Cooper (with Diarmuid Hester)On the (in)famous author of the George Miles cycle, The Sluts, and many other classic works of radically transgressive gay fiction. Joining Ben to tackle Cooper's work–as challenging to traditional notions of identity-driven and self-consciously pretty gay fiction as it is to the hetero mainstream–is Diarmuid Hester, a radical cultural historian of the United States after 1950, and an authority on sexually dissident literature, art, film, and performance. He is based at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, and is the author of the acclaimed new critical biography of Cooper, Wrong.
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RabblesHuw Lemmey on homosexuality, espionage & classIn this episode, Huw Lemmey takes us on a tour through London to explore the twentieth-century world of spies and sex, crime and cruising. He discusses the class composition of British homosexuality, collusion between queers and the state's security apparatus, moral panics around sexuality, anti-communism, and more. Felix and I then have a conversation with him about this mind-bending history.
You can find Huw on Twitter @huwlemmey (https://bit.ly/2YaKzJW), subscribe to his amazing newsletter at https://huw.substack.com/, or listen to his podcast BadGays at https://badgayspod.com/.
🦋 NAVIGATION 🦋
2:30 — Huw's talk...2021-02-151h 44
AQNB's Artist Statement podcastEpisode 16: The Body Politic with Huw Lemmey (Teaser)See here for full episode: patreon.com/aqnbIn this episode Jared talks with Huw Lemmey, a writer whose novels create alternate imaginings of the present, casting a critical and at times satirical eye on topics from politics to belief systems, gay culture to psychotropic drugs.Having relocated from the UK to Barcelona, Huw is the author of novels including Unknown Language via Ignota Books, Red Tory: My Corbyn Chemsex Hell from Montez Press, and a prolific critic having written for the Guardian, Frieze, Flash Art as well as his regular essay series on the...2021-01-2007 min
utopian drivelGay Stories for Straight AlliesI write regular essays on everything from gay sex to Romanesque architecture, from Joan Didion to Francisco Franco, from grief to murder. If you would like to get regular essays from me direct to your inbox, please consider subscribing. For this week only I’m offering 20% off for a year’s subscription, meaning you pay $4 a month or $40 for a year’s worth! A steal…It’s said that the representation of queer people on television has been revolutionised over the past ten or twenty years. But has it? While it’s true that there are more openly queer...2021-01-0620 min
Interdependence GuestsCollaborating with the dead, Hildegard of Bingen, genius and villainy with Huw Lemmey (Bad Gays)This week we are thrilled to welcome the author and critic Huw Lemmey in celebration of his new novel https://ignota.org/products/unknown-language (Unknown Language), written in collaboration with Hildegard of Bingen and out now on Ignota books
We discuss what it is like to channel the dead and write a novel together, Hildegard's visions and genius, constructed languages, and Bad Gays; Huw’s wonderful podcast with the historian Ben Miller.
We could have talked for a few lifetimes :)
Thanks again for the support and have a wonderful week!
LINKS
Unknown Language out now on Ignota Books
https://ignota.or...2020-12-241h 57Bad GaysViolette MorrisViolette Morris, a powerhouse athlete with 14-inch biceps, discovered a love for trousers and fast driving while piloting ambulances for the Red Cross during the First World War. But her outrageous and mannish style – she dated Josephine Baker, smoked, and cut her breasts off to better fit behind the wheel of a race car – outraged the respectable upper-middle-class world of women's athletics. And when she was cast out of respectable society, she became a Nazi spy and a sadistic torturer known as the "hyena of the Gestapo."
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Colvin, Kelly Ricciardi. Gender and Fren...2020-12-221h 05Bad GaysCamilla HallCamilla Christine Hall was born on March 24th, 1945, in St Peter Minnesota. Her father was a Lutheran pastor, and her childhood was suburban and unremarkable. Like many of her generation, she would become involved in the anti-war movement and the New Left; unlike many of her generation, she would also become involved in Gay Liberation, and a strange cult-like organization called the Symbionese Liberation Army, which became infamous for bank robberies, murders –– and the 1974 kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst.
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Hearings, Reports and Prints of the United States House Committee on Interna...2020-12-1456 minBad GaysGertrude SteinGertrude Stein is remembered as a novelist, playwright, poet, and, art collector –– and the hostess of a Paris salon that gathered the cream of interwar modernism, including Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Matisse. A semi-open lesbian, her books include Q.E.D., one of the earliest English-language lesbian novels, and Tender Buttons, a book of poems full of allusion to lesbian sexuality. But in the last years of her life, as a Jew living in Nazi-occupied France, Stein sustained her lifestyle as an art collector and ensured her safety through the protection of powerful Vichy government officials – part of a patter...2020-12-0851 minBad GaysPrince Albert VictorToday’s subject is the man who would be King, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, firstborn son of Edward VII, Grandson of Queen Victoria, known to his friends and family simply as “Eddy." Wrapped up in a sizzling sex scandal, he became a prime example of a British royal story: an intellectually dull man, charmless, with neither cultural interests nor creative talents, but who, due to sheer accident of birth, found himself permitted to indulge all his whims.
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Ackroyd, Peter. Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Pres...2020-12-011h 00Bad GaysTruman CapoteBorn in a violent and difficult childhood in the American South, Truman Capote would rise to the highest levels of literary celebrity, praise, and fame: even joining the highly-exclusive jet set of 1960s and 1970s high society. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966), which he labeled a "nonfiction novel". His works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television dramas. But Capote would be pursued by demons throughout his life – alcoholism, other forms of addiction, and cr...2020-11-241h 15Bad GaysCarl Van VechtenA man with a passion for the dangerous, subversive, and avant garde; who eschewed the middle brow and loved the urbane and modern. Known in his life not just as a man of taste, but a tastemaker, someone who set the tone for elite cultural society in his lifetime; the white author, critic and photographer Carl Van Vechten became enchanted with the Harlem Renaissance, approached Black cultures as a source of ideas that he could take and exploit, and perpetuated racist stereotypes in his work.
Visit our website at badgayspod.com for an episode archive, T-shirts...2020-11-1757 min
InterdependenceCollaborating with the dead, Hildegard of Bingen, genius and villainy with Huw Lemmey (Bad Gays)This week we are thrilled to welcome the author and critic Huw Lemmey in celebration of his new novel Unknown Language, written in collaboration with Hildegard of Bingen and out now on Ignota booksWe discuss what it is like to channel the dead and write a novel together, Hildegard's visions and genius, constructed languages, and Bad Gays; Huw’s wonderful podcast with the historian Ben Miller.We could have talked for a few lifetimes :)Thanks again for the support and have a wonderful week! LINKSUnk...2020-11-101h 20Bad GaysBenjamin BrittenThe composer Benjamin Britten was a central figure of 20th century music; and the national composer that Britain had been searching for since the death of Henry Purcell in 1695. He never shook his Communist and pacifist sympathies –– even as he rose to the highest levels of elite British cultural production. A fervent pacifist, antinationalist, and homosexual –– with a deep, complex, and troubling love of children –– Britten, through the strength of his music and through the nation’s desire to have a musical hero of its own, became an utterly unlikely national celebrity.
Content warning: this episode contains discussions of...2020-11-101h 20Bad GaysJeremy ThorpeThis is a story of sex, death and political malfeasance that will make Teddy Kennedy look like Anne of Green Gables. It has everything you’ve come to expect from a Bad Gays story about the English upper classes — psychosexual repression, violence, class prejudice, hypocrisy, the brutality and cheapness of life at the heart of the political system, and plenty of people named things like Rupert, Auberon and Emlyn.
=Content warning for child sexual abuse in the early parts of this story=
But as ridiculous and kinky as the fruity rulers of Britain are, the stor...2020-11-031h 12Bad GaysLiberaceThis "deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love" rose to stardom playing "classical music without the boring parts" and didn't need to stay in the closet because he wore its entire contents. How could he become an emblem of Middle American family entertainment? The United States of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s was undergoing enormous social change –– the Civil Rights Movement, the Summer of Love, Women’s Lib, the Stonewall Riots, Gay Liberation, and the beginning of the AIDS movement –– and Liberace was an entertainer who appealed to precisely those parts of t...2020-10-271h 22Bad GaysCecil RhodesSeason 4 –– ! –– with apologies for socially-distanced audio quality. Today's victim was a British colonist and mining magnate who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. An ardent white supremacist – no matter what revisionist historians and the right-wing press claim – he rose from being a sickly child to having a near-complete domination of the world diamond market. Come for the "private secretaries," stay for the Big Hole.
Visit our website for t-shirts, an episode archive, and a link to our Patreon.
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SOURCES:
Aldrich, Robert. Colonialism and Homosexuality. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2003.
Brown, Robin...2020-10-201h 09
utopian drivelSanta Maria de l'AssumpcióI have a new novel out this month, on 17th September. It’s called Unknown Language. It’s about a crisis that signals the end of the world, and a public health official who looks to escape this certain destruction by looking beyond her world to something else; to escape, queerness, nature and grace. It’s also some of the most collaborative work I’ve ever done, written alongside and influenced by the visions of the 12th century nun, mystic, and polymath, Hildegard of Bingen. It includes an amazing introductory story by Bhanu Kapil and an afterword on the life of...2020-09-0211 minBad GaysSpecial Episode: John Maynard Keynes (with Richard Power Sayeed)Despite beginning his career as a member of the civil service ruling Britain's colonial empire, John Maynard Keynes was also a key member of London's cultural and artistic elite, the Bloomsbury Group, whose libertine approach to sexuality and relationships marked them out from their stuffy Victorian forebears. A patron of art, literature, opera and ballet, Keynes' economic writings would go on to make him one of the 20th century's most influential economists. Huw discusses the life and theories of John Maynard Keynes with Richard Power Sayeed, author of 1997: The Future That Never Happened (Zed Books, 2017).
Our intro...2020-09-011h 54Bad GaysRadclyffe Hall
The author of the iconic lesbian –– and trans –– novel The Well of Loneliness was born to privilege before consorting with suffragettes and radicals, embarking on scandalous lesbian affairs with singers, and writing the novel whose release and censorship would turn it into "the Lesbian bible" and them into "sapphic Jesus." But what problematic racial politics –– and flirtations with Fascism –– lie lurking in the biography of Radclyffe Hall, who offers a non-gay perspective on early 20th century theories of sexual inversion? Ben discusses these questions with special guest Dr. Jana Funke, co-editor of a critical edition of The Well of Loneliness set to...2020-07-281h 17Bad GaysLisa MillerTo close our season, the story of Lisa Miller, an American woman who gave birth to a child coparented with her partner Janet Jenkins, and then left Janet, became a self-proclaimed ex-lesbian, sued for single custody of their daughter, and when the courts decided against her, abducted their child and fled the country with the assistance of well-connected far-right pastors in 2009. Lisa and their daughter, Isabella, are still missing.
Visit our website for T-shirts, an episode archive, and more information about the show.
If you have any information on the whereabouts of Lisa and/or I...2020-05-2651 minBad GaysMorrisseyAn essay on the Smiths frontman whose music and lyrics turned the abject aspects of the identities of so many queer teenagers into something that made them stand out and shine – and whose focus on working class cultures of masculinity began to turn towards the far right.
Visit our website for T-shirts, an episode archive, and more information about the show.
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SOURCES:
Bret, David. Morrissey: Scandal & Passion. London: Robson Book Ltd, 2004.
Goddard, Simon. Mozipedia: The Encyclopedia of Morrissey and The Smiths. 8/29/10 edition. New York: Plume, 2010.
Jonze, Tim. “Bigmouth Strikes Again and Again: W...2020-05-1952 minBad GaysAileen WuornosIn 1992, Aileen Carol Wuornos, an itinerant sex worker, was arrested for the murders of seven men in or near Volusia County, Florida in 1989 and 1990: all of them shot while Wuornos was on the job, all of them shot at point-blank range. She became, in the view of the public, according to the filmmaker Nick Broomfield, who made two documentaries about her and about the media storm that surrounded her, a "man-hating lesbian prostitute who tarnished the reputations of her victims,” a useful foil for family-values string-em-up-dead politicians who wanted to show that they were tough on crime–and an unli...2020-05-1252 minBad GaysRoger CasementAt the height of his career, today's subject was a national hero in the UK, knighted by George V. His life ended as a traitor and a pervert, executed by hanging in Pentonville Prison before being thrown in an unmarked grave in the prison yard, his body covered in quicklime. His name was Roger Casement, and we'll talk about his rise and fall, Britain’s hypocritical relationship with imperialism and colonialism, and secret black diaries full of "gentle thrusts" and "splendid erections."
Visit our website for T-shirts, an episode archive, and more information about the show.
...2020-05-051h 00Bad GaysPhilip JohnsonPhilip Cortelyou Johnson may be more responsible than anyone for the shift from Modernism as a new way of living to Modernism as an elite bauble. Born into immense power and privilege, he was a deeply committed elitist, and dilettante fascist, who used his money and connections to whitewash his youthful (and ongoing) embrace of Hitler in specific and far-right politics in general. As a key curator and preacher of the Modernist gospel in the United States, he was central in divorcing the style from its egalitarian political aspirations. In response to criticism, he said: “I am a whore. Very...2020-04-2845 min
utopian drivelI Sing for TwoThe written record of gay history is, by and large, a charge sheet. A list of crimes. When same-sex desire became formulated and medicalised into ‘homosexuality’ in the late nineteenth century, we began to see the start of a corpus of homosexual literature, but one that, inevitably, was the preserve of a class who could afford to protect itself from the implications of self-expression. Gay literature is a light canon. But a gay culture? Oh boy, was there a gay culture. It just wasn’t written, but instead passed, if you will pardon the expression, from tongue to tongue, an ora...2020-04-2321 minBad GaysElmyr de HoryA fraud and liar of epic proportions: a dashing art forger whose difficulties selling his naturalistic work in the Modernist-dominated 20th century art market, and experience of persecution as a gay Jew in Central Europe during World War II, fueled the creation and sale of millions' worth of fake Picassos, Matisses, and other masterpieces: some of which are still hidden in major collections and museums.
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SOURCES:
Forgy, Mark. The Forger's Apprentice: Life With the World's Most Notorious Artist. Scott's Valley, CA: CreateSpace, 2012.
Keats, Jonathon. Forged: Why Fakes are the Great Art...2020-04-2144 min
Bad GaysBarney FrankOn the "complicated" side of "evil and complicated" that makes up our show's motto, we present the story of the gravely-voiced Congressman who blazed trails for gay political involvement at the highest levels of power in Washington, only to spend the latter part of his career selling out the left to finance capital and excluding trans people from fights for non-discrimination legislation. Whip-smart, funny, and always ready with a biting comeback, Barney Frank came to embody the transformation of the Democratic Party away from the working class and towards a suburban party preoccupied with shallow diversity rather than true...2020-04-141h 00
Rune SoupTalking Bad Gays and History | Huw LemmeyThis week we are speaking to the co-host of one of my very favourite podcasts, Bad Gays. Author, Huw Lemmey, joins us to talk about the importance of history, what it tells us, what it doesn't tell us, and how notions such as homosexuality change over time. Very cool stuff. Check it out. Show Notes Bad Gays Podcast. Bad Gays Podcast Patreon. Huw on Substack. Huw on Twitter. 2020-04-1054 min
utopian drivelThe Fag PoetsThe days are heating up and my mind passes into that place that finds itself longing. I’m looking for a little sensitivity, a little visual sensitivity. I guess something aesthetic. I’m looking for the softness that I learn is so unfashionable today. An awareness of the near and made, the little conjunctions of brand names and overheard words. The sensitivity of the fag poets. An awareness of material things that set in motion non-specific emotions, I guess some might say wistfulness, or beauty, like, for example, dusty shades of colours that are washed out, shades produced only by v...2020-04-0807 minBad GaysLord CastlereaghThe Anglo-Irish aristocrat, politician and statesman Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry: better known, like Bjork or Madonna, by his mononym - Castlereagh. A Whig politician, he was hated by the populations of both England and Ireland for his support of vicious repression against liberal, reformist, and radical politics and activism. Lord Byron put it best: "Posterity will ne'er survey / A nobler grave than this: / Here lie the bones of Castlereagh: / Stop, traveller, and piss."
Like our show? Support us, buy cute shirts, and check out past episodes at www.badgayspod.com/
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S...2020-04-0749 minBad GaysJames BuchananThe United States of America's first gay – and worst – President. This bumbling slaveholder collaborated with the Confederacy, promoted the racist Dred Scott decision at the Supreme Court, and cohabited in Washington with a dashing Alabama Senator who, in the words of President Andrew Jackson was the "Aunt Nancy" to his "Aunt Fancy."
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Like our show? Support us, buy cute shirts, and check out past episodes at www.badgayspod.com/
Sources:
Baker, Jean H. James Buchanan: The American Presidents Series: The 15th President, 1857-1861. Macmillan, 2004.
Balcerski, Thomas J. Bosom Friends: The Intimate World o...2020-03-311h 04Bad GaysNikolai Yezhov
A man variously known as the “Iron Hedgehog” and a “malignant Dwarf”, but also as charming, courteous, and, most importantly “a good party man,” a man who held the position of the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs - the head of the NKVD during Stalin’s Great Purge - Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov.
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Like our show? Support us, buy cute shirts, and check out past episodes at www.badgayspod.com/
Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929-1940. London: Verso, 2003.
"Gay in the Gulag." Libcom. https://libcom.org/history/gay-gulag
Getty, J. Arch, and Oleg V. Naumov. The Roa...2020-03-2453 min
utopian drivelThe Swallow's NestFor the past few weeks I’ve been starting work on a new long-term research project, something that will hopefully end up as a film. It doesn’t have a name yet – it’s all just going into a google drive folder named ‘gay spies’. It’s come out of a walking tour I did a few years ago for London-based gallery Studio Voltaire called ‘Only the Shallow Know Themselves’. On the tour I took a group of participants around various parts of Westminster, Lambeth and Clapham, visiting sites that have had some sort of significance in the British imagination on the...2020-03-1008 min
Tender Buttons003 Huw Lemmey: Flesh, Meat and Fighting the Guerrilla Culture WarWe chat to writer Huw Lemmey about queer desire, shame, a politics of bodily love and ways to fight the British culture war.
References:
You can subscribe to Huw’s weekly essays on his ‘Utopian Drivel’ substack here: huw.substack.com
His two novels are Chubz: The Demonization of My Working Arse (Montrez Press: 2014) and Red Tory: My Corbyn Chemsex Hell (Montrez: 2019)
His Bad Gays Podcast, with co-host Ben Miller: badgayspod.podbean.com
Other References: Richard Scott Soho (Faber: 2018) Jean Genet Thief’s Journal (1949)2020-03-011h 07Bad GaysIowa Caucuses Special: Pete ButtigiegWith special guests Mac Folkes and Edna Bonhomme (@jacobinoire), Ben explores the life story, politics, and cultural phenomenon of Pete Buttigieg. From his resume-polishing early life to his racist record as Mayor to his recycling of stale right-wing attacks on progressive policy, we look at how longer-term trends in gay life and culture, including the split of the "mainstream" wealthy and white gay rights movement from multiracial struggle, have influenced both his politics and the broad audience they have found.
== Update, 8 March, 2020 ==
We are devastated by the recent death of Mac Folkes, one of our t...2020-01-291h 33
utopian drivelMeghanomania and the Big BongEverything seems to be of a piece at the moment. News stories that, on the face, have no connection, somehow seem to make sense, to rhyme. Clicking between a few news articles in my browser, I closed one lamenting Meghan Markle’s influence on Harry Windsor and another popped up with the headline 'Bung a bob for a Big Ben bong'. I pinched the top of my nose and closed my eyes. What the fuck is happening to me? I thought. I opened them again: a former TV show host and journalist who made a career with outrageous polemics ag...2020-01-1715 minBad GaysChristmas Special: Colonel Victor BarkerFor a special episode, Huw is joined the writer and filmmaker Juliet Jacques to discuss Colonel Victor Barker.
As a military nurse, ambulance driver, kennelman, horse trainer, fascist, car salesman, thief, and actor, Colonel Victor Barker was the embodiment of early 20th century upper-class British masculinity. But he became famous after his trial and imprisonment for committing perjury on his marriage certificate to his wife —because Victor Barker was assigned female at birth. Juliet and Huw explore his life, and the questions it raises around gender identity a century ago.
SOURCES:
Collis, Rose. Colonel Barker's Monstrous Regiment: A Tale of Fe...2019-12-251h 04
utopian drivelSpaghetti al FascismoI hope everyone is having a great winter. Before I start today’s essay, I’d like to offer, by way of a Christmas gift, a special offer — 20% off a paid subscription to my weekly newsletter. I send out a newsletter each week to my subscribers’ inboxes, with personal essays and podcasts on topics from gay pride to the political history of spiritualism, from notes scribbled in found books to story-telling, from sex to more sex. Your subscriptions help me pay the rent as a writer, and allow me to put out essays that could never find a home in mains...2019-12-2308 minBad GaysJ. Edgar HooverThe other polestar of human evil. "Justice is incidental to law and order." Johnny and Clyde.
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SOURCES:
Johnson, David K. The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Medsger, Betty. The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI. New York: Knopf, 2014.
Simkin, John. "Clyde Tolson." Spartacus Educational: https://spartacus-educational.com/USAtolson.htm
Summers, Anthony. Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 19...2019-11-2758 minBad GaysPiers GavestonThe namesake of the secret dining society at Oxford where David Cameron may or may not have committed unspeakable acts with a pig. Perhaps you’ll have a clue to the themes of today’s episode when we tell you that the motto of the Piers Gaveston Society is "(Sane) non memini ne audisse unum alterum ita dilixisse" or, for those of us without a private school Latin education, "Truly, none remember hearing of a man enjoying another so much".
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SOURCES:
Hamilton, J. S. Piers Gaveston: Politics and Patronage in the Reign of Ed...2019-11-1946 minBad GaysThe Stonewall ColonyWhat happens when a political analysis that comes out of the politics of alliance ends up departing from alliance: in other words, when people think that making something “gay” is enough. The kinds of people that get forgotten and spoken over when a certain kind of essentialist gay politics are deployed. And even though this crackpot plan never came to pass, today's show, about the failed attempt to establish a gay nation in rural California, reveals some of the flaws at the heart of ‘70s radical gay politics.
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SOURCES:
Bérubé, Allan. My Desire fo...2019-11-1255 minBad GaysNicky CraneA young white London lad driven by a passion for extreme violence and racial hatred, who climbed pretty easily through the ranks of a small fascist party, and went on to become something of a big fish in the far-right's murky, polluted, poisonous pond. But in 1992, the Sun ran the following story, under a photo of Nicky Crane in his White Power vest: "Nazi Nick is a Pansy."
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SOURCES:
Eden, Jon. Uncarved. http://www.uncarved.org/
Forbes, Robert, and Eddie Stampton. The White Nationalist Skinhead Movement: UK and USA, 1979-1993. Lond...2019-11-051h 02
utopian drivelSoho and Raval with Richard ScottIt’s cold, and I am still ill, and I find myself in bed with the shutters drawn, the fingers of crisp mediterranean sunlight creeping through the thin louvres of wood matched by the fingers of the rude wind that is trying to peel them back, to slam open the shutters and the windows, to fill the room with a bracing cold air. I shudder at it. Leave me alone. The wind is like this all day; powerful and gusty. I hear a terracotta pot scrape across some distant balcony before it falls 2, 4, 5 storeys to the pavement below and sh...2019-11-031h 00Bad GaysPim FortuynThe fairy godmother of the new European far-right. A vile racist named "The Greatest Dutchman of All Time" in a 2004 TV poll. A lens into how a particular version of homosexuality is compatibile with a particular kind of far-right politics – how a certain kind of “live and let live” attitude at the heart of white liberal gay politics can immediately turn into a wave of immigrant-bashing hatred that turns, inevitably, on queer people themselves. “I don’t hate Arab men," he said. "I even sleep with them.”
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Kolbert, Elizabeth. "Beyond Tolerance: What did the Dutch see in Pim...2019-10-2948 minBad GaysGordon of KhartoumA colonialist and conqueror, upholder of ideals of English masculinity, and religious fanatic; possessed of a powerful death wish. “Yes, that is flesh, that is what I hate, and what makes me wish to die.”
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Ellis, Heather, and Jessica Meyer, eds. Masculinity and the Historical Other. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.
Faught, C. Brad. Gordon: Victorian Hero. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.
Pollock, John. Gordon: The Man Behind The Legend. London: Constable Books, 1993.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distribut...2019-10-221h 00Bad GaysFrederick the GreatEnlightenment monarch! Composer of hundreds of flute concertos. Emerged from the “sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire" to conquer vast swaths of Europe! Built a giant pink palace his wife wasn't allowed to visit. Worst dad in Bad Gays history? "Everything that speaks to eyes and touches hearts, Was found in the fond object that enflamed his parts."
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SOURCES:
Blanning, Tim. Frederick the Great: King of Prussia. New York: Random House, 2016.
Gaines, James. Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment. New York: Ha...2019-10-1542 minBad GaysPietro AretinoA vituperative satirist who made kings tremble. Also, he wrote this:
My fingers are but stragglers at the rear,
Who go a-foraging for what they find;
And they are not ashamed to lag behind,
Since there’s no foe in front they need to fear.
They’ve wandered through a tufted valley near.
And you yourself have said they were most kind,
And so, I know, my lady will not mind
If they see other booty, nor think it queer.
And yet...2019-10-0843 min
utopian drivelSweet Moderation, Heart of this NationI recorded an audio version of this article above, as an experiment, for those who prefer it, or want something to listen to when doing the ironing. Let me know your comments and feedback. If people like it or find it handy, I can set it up as a regular thing.Yesterday afternoon I read that Rory Stewart has announced he’ll be standing down as an MP at the next election, and will be running for the Mayor of London. I suspect he’ll do well. He’s shot to prominence in the last couple of months...2019-10-0514 minBad GaysAndrew Cunanan"The man who shot Versace." Vague intimations of homosexuality as a form of bloody death. A pure expression of the poisonous narcissism of American celebrity culture. The dark heart of evil twink energy. A black hole of gay narcissism. Black holes are attractors. We risk being sucked in.
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SOURCES:
Goldberg, Michelle. "The Gay Golem." Metroactive, May 13-19, 1999. http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/05.13.99/cunanan-9919.html
Indiana, Gary. Three Month Fever. (Reprint.) Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2017.
Orth, Maureen. Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U. S...2019-10-0144 minBad GaysAlexander the GreatSeason 2! The Greek Vice. Our first evil twink! Plutarch! Prophecies of world domination! Conquests of Persia! Pan-hellenism! Whitney Houston?
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SOURCES:
Badian, Ernst. Collected Papers on Alexander the Great. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2012.
Fox, Robin Lane. Alexander the Great. New York: Penguin, 1973.
Plutarch. The Life of Alexander. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Alexander*/3.html
Donate on Patreon.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music i...2019-09-2442 min
Probably TrueStranger (with Huw Lemmey)Writer and podcaster Huw Lemmey talks about that time a late-night Grindr hookup went sideways, and what happened next. Sometimes, relying on the kindness of strangers is exactly what you need. Other times... Not so much. Time to be brave. (Apologies for the slight sound quality issues this week - we were working from backup mics instead of the usual high-quality ones. Back to normal next episode!)Always interesting, definitely amusing, Probably True. Join the community at https://flick.group/probablytrueProbably True is the repeatedly-award-winning, slightly filthy storytelling project tackling LGBTQ issues in...2019-07-2218 minBad GaysSpecial Episode: Andy Warhol (with Sholem Krishtalka)For the first of our very special interview episodes, we welcome the artist and writer Sholem Krishtalka to talk about Andy Warhol. How did a shy, fey outsider become the ultimate art world insider? And what price did his superstars pay for the fame he exposed them to?
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SOURCES:
Andy Warhol (New York: Viking, 2001).
A Low Life in High Heels: The Holly Woodlawn Story. (New York: Perennial, 1992).
Warhol, Andy. The Andy Warhol Diaries. (New York: Warner Books, 1989).
2019-06-2449 minBad GaysTeaser: Season 2 and Special GuestsThanks to your support, Season 2 is incoming. And stay tuned for special guests in the weeks to come...
2019-05-2800 minBad GaysEpisode 10: Roy CohnThe Polestar Of Human Evil.
Stay tuned to this feed for Season 2 coming late summer/early fall; and special episodes featuring interviews and other content all summer. Thank you so much for your overwhelming support over the course of this first season. We're chuffed. We wish you productive, healthy, happy summers; free of evil twinks.
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SOURCES:
Von Hoffman, Nicholas. Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
Johnson, David K. The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Gov...2019-05-2137 minBad GaysEpisode 9: Leopold and LoebThey were young, rich, and in love in the Jazz Age – until they killed their neighbor just to prove they could get away with it. Hitchcock's Rope is based on their story; now learn the truth behind the fascinating lives of Leopold and Loeb.
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SOURCES:
Baatz, Simon. For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago. New York: Harper Collins, 2008. Excerpts: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/leopold-and-loebs-criminal-minds-996498/
Barrett, Nina. The Leopold and Loeb Files. Chicago: Agate Midway, 2018. Reviewed: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/07/26/reopening-the-case-files-of-leopold-and-loeb/
Darrow, C...2019-05-1450 minBad GaysEpisode 8: Ronnie KrayHe was a a thug, a bully, and a murderer who made himself a British popular hero. He was a friend of Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, and he once said, “I’m homosexual but I’m not a poof”. We use the deplorable story of Ronnie Kray to explore class, crime and postwar British attitudes towards homosexuality. A content note: this episode contains frank discussions of childhood sexual abuse; as such, listener discretion is advised.
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SOURCES:
Campbell, Duncan. "The Selling of the Krays: How Two Mediocre Criminals Created Their Own Legend." The Guardia...2019-05-0737 minBad GaysEpisode 7: Friedrich RadszuweitBorn in 1876,Weimar-era gay publisher and activist Friedrich Radszuweit joined public gay life in 1923, when he founded the Bund für Menschenrecht (Federation for Human Rights, or BfM) in Berlin and began publishing dozens of gay, lesbian, and trans*-themed periodicals. The BfM grew to become the largest (indeed in some sense the only) mass-membership LGBT organization of its time. It claimed 100,000 members. Too bad its founder would end up advocating for collaboration with the Nazis.
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SOURCES:
Beachy, Robert. Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. New York: Vintage Books, 2015.
Hali...2019-04-3042 minBad GaysEpisode 6: Sir Antony BluntCambridge-educated art historian, Keeper of the Queen's Pictures, expert in French baroque art – and soviet spy? We profile Sir Antony Blunt, an art historian whose youthful political convictions reveal intriguing connections between sexuality and espionage, and whose dramatic life provided the basis for John LeCarrè's classic Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
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SOURCES:
Boyle, Andrew. The Climate of Treason. London: Coronet, 1982.
Carter, Miranda. Antony Blunt: His Lives. London: Macmillan, 2001.
Costello, John. Mask of Treachery: Spies, Lies, Buggery, and Betrayal. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1988.
Lownie, Andrew. Stalin's E...2019-04-2343 minBad GaysEpisode 5: Andrew SullivanIt's Andrew Sullivan: the gay catholic conservative journalist, supporter of race science, inventor of gay marriage, and self-appointed arbiter of the morality and respectability of the gay community.
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Sources:
Murray, Charles N. and Richard Herrnstein. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. (New York: Free Press, 1994).
Rubin, Gayle: "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality." in: Carole Vance, ed., Pleasure and Danger (Abingdon: Routledge, 1984).
Sullivan, Andrew: published works and interviews/profiles of, including:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/06/gay-marriage-votes-and-andrew-sullivan-his-landmark-1989-essay-making-a-conservative-case-for-gay-marriage.html
...2019-04-1641 minBad GaysEpisode 4: James VI and IIf you liked Yiorgos Lanthinos' court psychodrama The Favourite, you'll love this exploration of the complicated life of James VI and I – a king who united Scotland and England, persecuted witches, and granted his male favorites extraordinary power and privilege. Come for the court drama and stay for in-depth discussions of primitive accumulation and the question of whether using the word 'gay' to describe a 16th-century monarch makes any sense at all.
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Sources:
Anderson, Perry. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London: Verso Books, 1979.
Ackroyd, Peter. Queer City: Gay London from the Rom...2019-04-0938 minBad GaysEpisode 3: Lawrence of ArabiaWe take a look at the fascinating life of T. E. Lawrence: poet, archaeologist, sadomasochist, and agent of Arab self-determination and British colonial rule.
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Sources:
Aldrich, Robert: Colonialism and Homosexuality (Routledge, 2002)
Lawrence, T. E.: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
ed. Norton, Rictor: My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries (Leyland, 1998) http://rictornorton.co.uk/lawrence.htm
Sattin, Anthony: The Young T. E. Lawrence (Norton, 2015)
2019-04-0240 minBad GaysEpisode 2: BosieWe profile Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas, the beautiful and dissolute poet, publisher, and lover of Oscar Wilde–who helped bring Wilde to ruin, became an antisemite, and generally personifies the term "evil twink energy."
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Sources and further reading:
Frank Harris: Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions
Oscar Wilde’s Last Stand
Douglas Murray: Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas
2019-03-2642 minBad GaysEpisode 1: Ernst RöhmA discussion of the life and ideology of Ernst Röhm, the world's first openly gay politician: and a Nazi. ----more----
Sources and further reading:
Eleanor Hancock: "Only the Real, the True, the Masculine Held Its Value: Ernst Röhm, Masculinity, and Male Homosexuality." Journal of the History of Sexuality Vol. 8, No. 4 (Apr., 1998), pp. 616-641.
Laurie Marhoeffer: "Queer Fascism and the End of Gay History." Notches Blog, June 19, 2018. http://notchesblog.com/2018/06/19/queer-fascism-and-the-end-of-gay-history/
Laurie Marhoeffer: Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. University of Toronto Press...2019-03-1937 min
Reel Politik PodcastEpisode 56 - A Shit-Eating Unanswerability (ft. Juliet Jacques & Huw Lemmey)Writers Juliet Jacques and Huw Lemmey are back in the saddle to conclude our lengthy discussion of Juliet's time in the mainstream liberal press and the structural barriers that make it a difficult medium through which to convey left-wing ideas. We read from two superb pieces by Joe Kennedy (see bottom of description for links), discuss the dynamics and power relations between public figures and their "trolls", how the social media wars of the early 2010s dovetailed into those of the Corbyn era, and which prominent nerd's stapler narrowly avoided a jelly-related fate.
Read Joe Kennedy's piece on The Stuplime...2018-02-201h 29
Reel Politik PodcastEpisode 55 - Journey to the Heart of the Liberal Commentariat (ft. Juliet Jacques & Huw Lemmey)In the first of a two-part conversation, Laura and Jack are joined by the writers Juliet Jacques (author of Trans: A Memoir, host of Suite (212) on Resonance FM, and contributor to the Guardian, the New Statesman & elsewhere) and Huw Lemmey (author of Chubz: the Demonisation of my Working Arse, and contributor to the London Review of Books, New Humanist, Huck & elsewhere) so Juliet can tell the story of her rise through the ranks of the mainstream liberal press in the 2000s and 2010s, and how she came to decide she wanted out of journalism.
With assistance from her friend Huw...2018-02-131h 33