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Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism
Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement
In 1951, a new type of publication appeared on newsstands--the physique magazine produced by and for gay men. For many men growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, these magazines and their images and illustrations of nearly naked men, as well as articles, letters from readers, and advertisements, served as an initiation into gay culture. The publishers behind them were part of a wider world of "physique entrepreneurs" men as well as women who ran photography studios, mail-order catalogs, pen-pal services, book clubs, and niche advertising for gay audiences. Such businesses have often been seen as peripheral to the gay political movement. In this book, David K. Johnson shows how gay commerce was not a byproduct but rather an important catalyst for the gay rights movement.
Offering a vivid look into the lives of physique entrepreneurs and their customers, and presenting a wealth of illustrations, Buying Gay explores the connections--and tensions--between the market and the movement. With circulation rates many times higher than the openly political "homophile" magazines, physique magazines were the largest gay media outlets of their time. This network of producers and consumers helped foster a gay community and upend censorship laws, paving the way for open expression. Physique entrepreneurs were at the center of legal struggles, especially against the U.S. Post Office, including the court victory that allowed full-frontal male nudity and open homoeroticism. Buying Gay reconceives the history of the gay rights movement and shows how consumer culture helped create community and a site for resistance.
Offering a vivid look into the lives of physique entrepreneurs and their customers, and presenting a wealth of illustrations, Buying Gay explores the connections--and tensions--between the market and the movement. With circulation rates many times higher than the openly political "homophile" magazines, physique magazines were the largest gay media outlets of their time. This network of producers and consumers helped foster a gay community and upend censorship laws, paving the way for open expression. Physique entrepreneurs were at the center of legal struggles, especially against the U.S. Post Office, including the court victory that allowed full-frontal male nudity and open homoeroticism. Buying Gay reconceives the history of the gay rights movement and shows how consumer culture helped create community and a site for resistance.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2019
42 people are currently reading
488 people want to read
About the author
David K. Johnson
26 books31 followersFor the Philosophy writer, see David Kyle Johnson
David K. Johnson is an award-winning historian and author. His first book, "The Lavender Scare" was made into a documentary film that garnered best documentary awards at over a dozen film festival. His book, "Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement", chronicles the rise of a gay commercial network in the 1950s and 1960s. Featured in a "starred review" in Publishers Weekly, it was released in February 2019 by Columbia University Press as part of its series on the History of U.S. Capitalism.
David earned a B.A.from Georgetown University and a Ph.D.from Northwestern University, both in history. He has enjoyed fellowships from the National Humanities Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Social Science Research Council. As an associate professor in the History Department at the University of South Florida, he teaches courses on the post-1945 U.S. and the history of gender and sexuality.
David K. Johnson is an award-winning historian and author. His first book, "The Lavender Scare" was made into a documentary film that garnered best documentary awards at over a dozen film festival. His book, "Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement", chronicles the rise of a gay commercial network in the 1950s and 1960s. Featured in a "starred review" in Publishers Weekly, it was released in February 2019 by Columbia University Press as part of its series on the History of U.S. Capitalism.
David earned a B.A.from Georgetown University and a Ph.D.from Northwestern University, both in history. He has enjoyed fellowships from the National Humanities Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Social Science Research Council. As an associate professor in the History Department at the University of South Florida, he teaches courses on the post-1945 U.S. and the history of gender and sexuality.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 15, 2019
During the 1950s and 60s, magazines focusing on the male form exploded across the United States, and yet their academic value has mostly been ignored. These magazines, created largely by and for gay men created a “gay market” which ultimately crafted the bones for the broader gay movement. Fortunately and finally, historian David K. Johnson has thrown back the curtain on this period which he has dubbed the Physique Era of gay American history.
For many, on first examining these publications, it might be easy to dismiss them. Most contain images of “beefcakes” somewhat awkwardly, somewhat suggestively posing in revealing straps. And yet, Johnson successfully captures their formation as the genesis to a broader movement. Bob Mizer might have been pushing the bounds for male art photography for commercial purposes when he founded the Athletic Model Guild, but there’s a compelling argument that he laid the groundwork for a broader social movement in the process.
Johnson’s research, pulling from a wealth of archives and personal interviews, is beautifully constructed. He approaches this obviously as a scholar, but understands how to pull back and keep everything accessible to a broader audience. The result is a text that’s both academic and breezy.
This is even more remarkable as Johnson explores beyond Mizer’s beginnings. Plenty of other magazines were publishing at this time, and they receive attention. Then there’s the Adonis Male Club, a pen pal service; Lynn Womack’s gay book club; and the business directories of Directory Services, Inc. What connects all of these institutions aside from the gay factor is the adversity they faced from the American government. These sections, discussing specific actions and court cases and the resulting uprising, are the most engrossing.
Buying Gay is nothing short of a triumph for gay scholarship.
Note: I received a free ARC of this book through NetGalley.
For many, on first examining these publications, it might be easy to dismiss them. Most contain images of “beefcakes” somewhat awkwardly, somewhat suggestively posing in revealing straps. And yet, Johnson successfully captures their formation as the genesis to a broader movement. Bob Mizer might have been pushing the bounds for male art photography for commercial purposes when he founded the Athletic Model Guild, but there’s a compelling argument that he laid the groundwork for a broader social movement in the process.
Johnson’s research, pulling from a wealth of archives and personal interviews, is beautifully constructed. He approaches this obviously as a scholar, but understands how to pull back and keep everything accessible to a broader audience. The result is a text that’s both academic and breezy.
This is even more remarkable as Johnson explores beyond Mizer’s beginnings. Plenty of other magazines were publishing at this time, and they receive attention. Then there’s the Adonis Male Club, a pen pal service; Lynn Womack’s gay book club; and the business directories of Directory Services, Inc. What connects all of these institutions aside from the gay factor is the adversity they faced from the American government. These sections, discussing specific actions and court cases and the resulting uprising, are the most engrossing.
Buying Gay is nothing short of a triumph for gay scholarship.
Note: I received a free ARC of this book through NetGalley.
February 18, 2020
At a time when queer artists are facing intense levels of censorship and scrutiny on social media platforms like instagram, David K. Johnson's "Buying Gay" dips into history to ties our queer present to queer past that fought the fights that give us the language to talk about censorship.
"Buying Gay" tells the history of a little known or remembered movement in publishing and gay history from the mid-1950s to the late-1960s. As Johnson explains, these physique magazine photographers and publishers can often get a rap for their blunt portrayals of sexuality but so many of them fought legal fights all the way to the Supreme Court over the US' long history of equating homosexuality with obscenity.
Johnson's book tells the story of a part of gay history that has honestly never been told before. Embracing nuance and understanding that even our heroes have faults, "Buying Gay" portrays the good and the bad of gay publishers. Pointing out the ways in which more traditional homophile organizations, such as the Mattachines, rejected many of the physique publishers, it's amazing how even in 1955 the dichotomy between respectability and sexual liberation was burgeoning.
"Buying Gay" tells the history of a little known or remembered movement in publishing and gay history from the mid-1950s to the late-1960s. As Johnson explains, these physique magazine photographers and publishers can often get a rap for their blunt portrayals of sexuality but so many of them fought legal fights all the way to the Supreme Court over the US' long history of equating homosexuality with obscenity.
Johnson's book tells the story of a part of gay history that has honestly never been told before. Embracing nuance and understanding that even our heroes have faults, "Buying Gay" portrays the good and the bad of gay publishers. Pointing out the ways in which more traditional homophile organizations, such as the Mattachines, rejected many of the physique publishers, it's amazing how even in 1955 the dichotomy between respectability and sexual liberation was burgeoning.
April 24, 2019
Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked A Movement
by David K. Johnson
2019
Columbia University Press
5.0 / 5.0
Gay entrepreneurs responded to and cultivated a gay market long before the Stonewall Riots in 1969. This amazing history chronicles the struggles with both the bodybuilding magazines, and the US Postal Service, who for years repressed and suppressed homosexuals, and it documents the important struggle between the US Federal Government and gays and lesbians into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, until Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It was only through these publications and gay book services that gay men had a way to connect to each other, or become friends. The magazines were sent discreetly and lists of subscribers were shared, and they found the lists keep growing. There was a need and market for these publications.
The history and struggles are excellent and thoroughly documented. The struggles with the US Postal Service, and the early formations of gay publications and book clubs were my favorite parts. I am grateful for these courageous men and women who fought for our rights, against incredible odds, so gay people could read and share their life stories and fiction books. And to be able to connect to one another, for support and friendship.
Special thanks to Columbia University and David K. Johnson for sharing this ARC for review.
#BuyingGay
#NetGalley
by David K. Johnson
2019
Columbia University Press
5.0 / 5.0
Gay entrepreneurs responded to and cultivated a gay market long before the Stonewall Riots in 1969. This amazing history chronicles the struggles with both the bodybuilding magazines, and the US Postal Service, who for years repressed and suppressed homosexuals, and it documents the important struggle between the US Federal Government and gays and lesbians into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, until Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It was only through these publications and gay book services that gay men had a way to connect to each other, or become friends. The magazines were sent discreetly and lists of subscribers were shared, and they found the lists keep growing. There was a need and market for these publications.
The history and struggles are excellent and thoroughly documented. The struggles with the US Postal Service, and the early formations of gay publications and book clubs were my favorite parts. I am grateful for these courageous men and women who fought for our rights, against incredible odds, so gay people could read and share their life stories and fiction books. And to be able to connect to one another, for support and friendship.
Special thanks to Columbia University and David K. Johnson for sharing this ARC for review.
#BuyingGay
#NetGalley
June 21, 2019
There just isn't enough historical material on gay life and LGBTQ contributions. The argument Johnson puts forward here--that consumer-driven forces (physique magazines) helped create a gay community and culture--is more-or-less convincing; however, a significant value of this book is the number of brief biographies of gay entrepreneurs he includes. These are fascinating and complicated characters, and their triumphs in court helped create the conditions for fuller liberation. Buying Gay is an academic study, but it is far from dry.
February 25, 2021
Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement by David K. Johnson was a brief academic read about the role physique magazines played in gay liberation pre-Stonewall. Its brevity did not belie its intellectual heft: 236 pages followed by 49 pages of endnotes made for a thoroughly researched read which propelled me after each chapter to search on-line for the source material. With dozens of endnotes (and two of the seven chapters had over a hundred endnotes each) I saved referring to all of them until I had finished each chapter.
Johnson wrote about the history of physique magazines--as distinct from workout or bodybuilding magazines--from post-WWII to the seventies. At first these magazines, such as Physique Pictorial, were marketed under the ostensible purpose for artists specializing in figure drawing. Buff satyrs wearing nothing but posing pouches filled these magazines at first. Reader surveys led to more features such as personal ads, mailing lists and book distribution. To postwar gay men, these magazines served the same purpose as bars and Grindr do today. Johnson profiled the earliest magazine editors, such as Bob Mizer, and their relentless pursuit by the US Postal Service for allegedly using the mails to distribute obscenity. The physique magazines were challenged also for printing mailing lists and catalogues of books dealing with homosexuality. If there was ever a hero of freedom of expression--regardless of sex or sexual orientation--it was Mizer. He was an out and proud gay man decades before Stonewall who was not afraid of tackling the US government in court. His victories outnumbered his defeats and inspired later publishers to be fearless before the courts. Even after the courts had declared that the images were not obscene, publishers still found themselves before judge and jury. It became very clear that the images themselves weren't the issue: the courts were in fact putting the intended magazine audience on trial by trying to suppress LGBT forms of expression. It was homophobia pure and simple.
Physique magazines and homophile organizations advanced the causes that the Stonewall riots continued to fight for. Johnson's level of detail, from interviewing magazine publishers and customers, finding court transcripts and the magazines themselves produced a work like no other in LGBT history. While an academic read true to the core, Buying Gay was nevertheless a page-turner.
Regardless of the state of my poor eyesight, I don't think anyone would have been able to read some of the reproduced magazine pages within the text. Shrunk to fit standard hardcover page dimensions, the text accompanying the physique images or magazine ads required me to use a magnifying glass in every case. (Not that there was anything disconcerting about looking at nearly nude buff men with a magnifying glass.) For an academic read there were a handful of spelling errors, the most striking was referring to Tom of Finland artist Touko Laaksonen as "Finish".
Johnson wrote about the history of physique magazines--as distinct from workout or bodybuilding magazines--from post-WWII to the seventies. At first these magazines, such as Physique Pictorial, were marketed under the ostensible purpose for artists specializing in figure drawing. Buff satyrs wearing nothing but posing pouches filled these magazines at first. Reader surveys led to more features such as personal ads, mailing lists and book distribution. To postwar gay men, these magazines served the same purpose as bars and Grindr do today. Johnson profiled the earliest magazine editors, such as Bob Mizer, and their relentless pursuit by the US Postal Service for allegedly using the mails to distribute obscenity. The physique magazines were challenged also for printing mailing lists and catalogues of books dealing with homosexuality. If there was ever a hero of freedom of expression--regardless of sex or sexual orientation--it was Mizer. He was an out and proud gay man decades before Stonewall who was not afraid of tackling the US government in court. His victories outnumbered his defeats and inspired later publishers to be fearless before the courts. Even after the courts had declared that the images were not obscene, publishers still found themselves before judge and jury. It became very clear that the images themselves weren't the issue: the courts were in fact putting the intended magazine audience on trial by trying to suppress LGBT forms of expression. It was homophobia pure and simple.
Physique magazines and homophile organizations advanced the causes that the Stonewall riots continued to fight for. Johnson's level of detail, from interviewing magazine publishers and customers, finding court transcripts and the magazines themselves produced a work like no other in LGBT history. While an academic read true to the core, Buying Gay was nevertheless a page-turner.
Regardless of the state of my poor eyesight, I don't think anyone would have been able to read some of the reproduced magazine pages within the text. Shrunk to fit standard hardcover page dimensions, the text accompanying the physique images or magazine ads required me to use a magnifying glass in every case. (Not that there was anything disconcerting about looking at nearly nude buff men with a magnifying glass.) For an academic read there were a handful of spelling errors, the most striking was referring to Tom of Finland artist Touko Laaksonen as "Finish".
July 13, 2021
This book is a revelation. Although the writing can be a little dry and academic at points, it uncovered a history I was heretofore completely ignorant of — and I have written an LGBT history textbook! Johnson documents how commercial physique entrepreneurs helped market to and create a gay male community in the pre-Stonewall era, and how the court battles they fought laid the groundwork for much of the progress made by later LGBT rights advocates. Particularly fascinating is his account of the truly evil role played by the US Postmaster General in abusing his powers to persecute gay men, which will leave the reader enraged. If you have even a passing interest in LGBT history, this is a must-read.
April 19, 2020
BUYING GAY sets out with the provocative argument that the consumerist culture around physique magazines - and, less controversially, the censorship battles faced by their publishers - paved the way for the post-Stonewall gay liberation movement, thus complicating anti-capitalist attitudes in queer culture. But it then drops this thesis and just offers a history of the magazines through the '60s, which is fairly interesting but the larger context gets slightly lost.
June 26, 2019
Johnson's book looks at the history of Physique magazines and how they helped bring together gay men creating in essence a community through a commodity.
"Film scholar Thomas Waugh argued in his important book on gay visual culture, "Our most important political activity of the postwar decades...was not meeting or organizing or publicly demonstrating but consuming."...As early as 1982 Dennis Altman alerted us to the central role that commercial enterprises have played in the development of gay community. "One of the ironies of American capitalism," he wrote, "is that it has been a major force in creating and maintaining a sense of identity among homosexuals." Writing about the same time, John D'Emilio also stressed how the development of of urban wage labor capitalism opened a space for men and women attracted to members of their own sex to find one another and forge community." viii
"As John D'Emilio famously noted, before activists could mobilize a community, they first had to create one, and physique enterpreneurs were engaged in that enterprise on a scale homophile activists could only dream of. By making gay desire visible, by marketing it to the masses and defending it from government censorship, physique entrepeneurs helped create a sense of a national gay community." xi
"By combining the study of consumer culture with that of LGBT history, Buying Gay significantly alters the way in which we conceive the history of the gay movement. Offering a close examination of how gay enterepeneurs used the marketplace in the 1950s and 1960s to mobilize a constituency and create the notion of "gay power," it shows how gay consumer culture developed sooner than we imagined it." xiv
"These magazine appeared nearly everywhere thanks to the structures of capitalism-major commercial magazine distributors insisted that a newsstand or drugstore accept all its offerings." 5
"Fitness and bodybuilding magazine were an outgrowth of the turn-of-the century physical culture movement, a response to a crisis in masculinity in a rapidly urbanizing and industrializing America." 6
"Mizer was the first with Physique Pictorial in 1951, quickly followed by Irv Johnson, owner of a gym in Chicago, who started Tomorrow's Man, and then a gay couple who met at the University of Virginia, Randolph Benson and John Bullock, debuted the Grecian Guild Pictorial." 8
"Perhaps the most racially inclusive physique study was Kris of Chicago, comanaged by Domingo Orejudos, a Chicagoan of mixed Italian and Philippine heritage. Kris featured a number of models of color, including Johnny Menendez, Joe Harris, Tom Cowans, and Jay Young." 17
"Beyond the images and the merchandise, what the publishers were really providing their customers was contact, both real and imagined, with other customers." 19
"In 1967 the Winston newsletter announced the first sex reassignment surgery at John Hopkins..." 75
"By invoking a past that was imagined as a golden age for homoerotic desire, the Grecian Guild was engaging in the construction of a collective memory, a practice common to virtually all social groups. They were "inventing tradition," to borrow the phrasing form Eric Hobsbawn." 94
"The physique world was a type of alternative social space to gay bars, distinct for its emphasis on the desire to consumer visual images rather than desire to consumer alcohol-and for its embrace of a masculine ideal that eschewed camp." 98
"Males, Morals and Mores...in Vim, 1959." 127
"In the end the first meeting for what became the North American Conference on Homophile Organizations (NACHO) was held in a hotel in Kansas City. NACHO would go on to adopt a Homosexual Bill of Rights and endorse Frank Kameny's slogan "Gay is Good" as the motto of the movement." 185
"Romantic poet Robert Blake
Children of future Age
Reading this indignant page
Will know that in a former time
Love! Sweet love! was made a crime." 213
"Film scholar Thomas Waugh argued in his important book on gay visual culture, "Our most important political activity of the postwar decades...was not meeting or organizing or publicly demonstrating but consuming."...As early as 1982 Dennis Altman alerted us to the central role that commercial enterprises have played in the development of gay community. "One of the ironies of American capitalism," he wrote, "is that it has been a major force in creating and maintaining a sense of identity among homosexuals." Writing about the same time, John D'Emilio also stressed how the development of of urban wage labor capitalism opened a space for men and women attracted to members of their own sex to find one another and forge community." viii
"As John D'Emilio famously noted, before activists could mobilize a community, they first had to create one, and physique enterpreneurs were engaged in that enterprise on a scale homophile activists could only dream of. By making gay desire visible, by marketing it to the masses and defending it from government censorship, physique entrepeneurs helped create a sense of a national gay community." xi
"By combining the study of consumer culture with that of LGBT history, Buying Gay significantly alters the way in which we conceive the history of the gay movement. Offering a close examination of how gay enterepeneurs used the marketplace in the 1950s and 1960s to mobilize a constituency and create the notion of "gay power," it shows how gay consumer culture developed sooner than we imagined it." xiv
"These magazine appeared nearly everywhere thanks to the structures of capitalism-major commercial magazine distributors insisted that a newsstand or drugstore accept all its offerings." 5
"Fitness and bodybuilding magazine were an outgrowth of the turn-of-the century physical culture movement, a response to a crisis in masculinity in a rapidly urbanizing and industrializing America." 6
"Mizer was the first with Physique Pictorial in 1951, quickly followed by Irv Johnson, owner of a gym in Chicago, who started Tomorrow's Man, and then a gay couple who met at the University of Virginia, Randolph Benson and John Bullock, debuted the Grecian Guild Pictorial." 8
"Perhaps the most racially inclusive physique study was Kris of Chicago, comanaged by Domingo Orejudos, a Chicagoan of mixed Italian and Philippine heritage. Kris featured a number of models of color, including Johnny Menendez, Joe Harris, Tom Cowans, and Jay Young." 17
"Beyond the images and the merchandise, what the publishers were really providing their customers was contact, both real and imagined, with other customers." 19
"In 1967 the Winston newsletter announced the first sex reassignment surgery at John Hopkins..." 75
"By invoking a past that was imagined as a golden age for homoerotic desire, the Grecian Guild was engaging in the construction of a collective memory, a practice common to virtually all social groups. They were "inventing tradition," to borrow the phrasing form Eric Hobsbawn." 94
"The physique world was a type of alternative social space to gay bars, distinct for its emphasis on the desire to consumer visual images rather than desire to consumer alcohol-and for its embrace of a masculine ideal that eschewed camp." 98
"Males, Morals and Mores...in Vim, 1959." 127
"In the end the first meeting for what became the North American Conference on Homophile Organizations (NACHO) was held in a hotel in Kansas City. NACHO would go on to adopt a Homosexual Bill of Rights and endorse Frank Kameny's slogan "Gay is Good" as the motto of the movement." 185
"Romantic poet Robert Blake
Children of future Age
Reading this indignant page
Will know that in a former time
Love! Sweet love! was made a crime." 213
December 15, 2019
As a thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced readers copy I shall give an honest review of “Buying Gay by David K. Johnson.” Buying gay tells how consumerism by gay men in the 1950’s assisted the gay rights movement in a pre-stonewall era. It examines the role physique publications had within the gay community and importantly the discourse that would be had over the visibility and rights of its Gay American citizens. These publications defined a generation of gay men who viewed its images, read its articles, and engaged with other readers providing what we consider as gay culture. These publications were gay-owned meaning they were produced by and for gay men. These publications held many roles for the men and women part of its early history. In creating this niche that predominant publications Playboy and Esquire offered heterosexual males these publications offered something to homosexual men in a discreet way adhering to the bylaws reinforced at the time. Buying Gay explores the many legal battles these publications went through in the name of artistic expression and censorship. Overall, I enjoyed learning an area in the gay rights movement that is often not discussed as much. It certainly holds a special place alongside the Stonewall riots and other momentous events that led to the creation of the Gay rights movement. I recommend this for those interested in history, and Gay rights.
January 8, 2020
A fascinating piece of queer history. Johnson shows how many burgeoning gay communities in 1950s and 60s USA were the product of physique entrepreneurs whose magazines - only implicitly for a gay audience to begin with - provided the chance for isolated readers to contact each other through mailing lists and purchase gay material, including photos and novels. While modern queer theory and activism often defines itself in opposition to capitalism, Johnson argues that the structures of capitalism itself were crucial for allowing gay men to create networks in a period of extreme censorship. He argues convincingly that the anti-censorship victories won by entrepreneurs in the courts in the early 1960s were crucial for the development of gay liberation in the 1970s. Johnson’s style is engaging and fluid, his research meticulous but always linked to a broad-picture sense of the growing gay movement. Highly recommended.
January 11, 2022
This book highlights an important aspect of gay activism and liberation which has often been overlooked in the historiography. As Johnson notes, the sources of homophile organizations are well preserved in comparison to capital ventures. Moreover, early researchers and writers often possessed ties to these homophile movements and held anti-capitalist sentiments, thus research paid little mind to the activism that took place with and relied on capital markets. And while Johnson certainly notes the importance of selling and marketing magazines, novels, and pen-pal services to the gay community perhaps the work would have benefitted from a more precise study of the economics involved. Particularly because, as Johnson notes, gay historiography divides itself on the importance, or lack thereof, of capitalism to gay liberation.
May 5, 2019
I found Buying Gay to be fascinating reading. The history is well told and only out shined by the extensively thorough research, which is well documented at the end of the book. My expectations were far exceeded, detailing the pictorials place in gay history as well as the huge impact it had on the fight against censorship and changes in cultural acceptance. The impact both economically and historically cannot be underestimated. David K. Johnson should be very proud of his tireless efforts, producing this fine work. Thanks to him, this part of gay history will not be lost or forgotten.
I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
November 3, 2024
Excellent book. Yes, as much as we'd like to think otherwise, the impetus for the Gay Liberation movement was not so much Mattachine and the Daughters of Bilitis as it was the publishers of and the subscribers to physique magazines. Not quite as respectable but a lot more mass. We begin with Bob Mizer and physigue magazines and we end up with Chuck Renslow and IML in Chicago. It's not quite a seamless progression as the Eisenhower-era Postal Service tried to stop these magazines and eventually failed to do so, thanks to the courts.
May 25, 2019
An extremely fascinating and compelling read. I personally found it a bit difficult and dense to get through at times, but please don't let that stop you from reading it - it was well worth it! I'm glad I now know about these unsung physique pioneers and the part they played in the fight for gay rights.
I received a digital ARC from the publisher via Netgalley.
I received a digital ARC from the publisher via Netgalley.
July 16, 2020
Fascinating look at how gay-oriented businesses in the United States (starting with physique magazines) fostered a sense of community among homosexual men in the 1950s and 1960s, well before the beginning of the modern gay rights movement in 1969. Very well written and of interest to anyone interested in gay history and culture in the U.S.
May 31, 2020
I really wanted to enjoy this but I found this quite dry to read. There was often very little to hold my interest and I kept putting this down and not picking up for ages. That was such a shame as I wanted to love this.
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
April 25, 2023
A well-researched look at the rise of gay consumer culture between the end of WWII and Stonewall, Johnson's writing shines a light on a forgotten aspect of the LGBTQ movement in the US during a formative time in its history.
April 29, 2019
This is a very well-researched and accessible account of a highly influential segment of gay history. Some good pictures too.
May 23, 2020
A well-told and previously little-known story, this book was a finalist for the Publishing Triangle's Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction
March 5, 2021
A really engrossing account of entrepreneurs who used photography and magazines to create what makes gay people's identity so clear and understandable today.
March 24, 2022
An illuminating history of gay entrepreneurs who used the power of gay consumerism to challenge a climate of cultural censorship.
April 3, 2021
This was an absolutely fascinating read. It explored a period of gay history in a way that I’ve never encountered before and really made me consider the blurred lines between the gay rights movement’s activism, its focus on respectability, and our sexuality. Highly recommend for any one looking for a fresh perspective on the history of gay rights.
October 15, 2021
This much needed gay history book does an amazing job of shifting the focus of pre-Stonewall gay history from the small Homophile movement, the mafia-owned bars, and the conservative magazines and newsletters of the homophile press, instead focusing on physique magazines and other consumer products and networks that were composed of much larger sections of the gay population. Any book on the homophile movement, Stonewall, and gay liberation of the 70s should be read in conjunction with this book, which shows the community building and court battles won that paved the way for gay liberation, and the gay liberation that was already happening in the milieus described by Johnson in this book.
A couple books that would be paired well with this one are The Deviant's War by Cervini, which focuses on Frank Kameny and the Mattachine Society, and also The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History, by Stein, in which this book is referenced in its really great introduction that does a great job of outlining and untangling the pre-Stonewall progression to Liberation. Coming Together by Ryan Powell would also be a good book to read to help further understanding of gay media production and mediation of gay life, love and politics, sexual or otherwise.
See also my review of Cervini's the Deviant's War for a better juxtaposition of both books.
A couple books that would be paired well with this one are The Deviant's War by Cervini, which focuses on Frank Kameny and the Mattachine Society, and also The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History, by Stein, in which this book is referenced in its really great introduction that does a great job of outlining and untangling the pre-Stonewall progression to Liberation. Coming Together by Ryan Powell would also be a good book to read to help further understanding of gay media production and mediation of gay life, love and politics, sexual or otherwise.
See also my review of Cervini's the Deviant's War for a better juxtaposition of both books.
July 1, 2021
Now almost everyone thinks that Stonewall was the pinnacle of gay liberation but David Johnson shows us that's not the case. By looking at where the money is, Johnson weaves a very detailed portrait of pre Stonewall gay life and it's struggles to connect socially amid the surprising veracity of the postal service. The postal service was out to get a literature and photos based on obscenity laws that eventually were dismissed in the supreme court.
December 21, 2018
I found this absolutely fascinating and deeply researched.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews