Boyd McDonald (1925-1993) had the makings of a successful life in the 1950s an education at Harvard, a job at Time/Life but things didn t turn out as planned. After 20 years of resentful conformity and desperate alcoholism, McDonald dried out, pawned all of his suits, and went on welfare; it was then that his life truly began. From a room in a New York SRO hotel, McDonald published Straight to Hell, a series of chapbooks collecting readers true homosexual experiences. Following the example of Alfred Kinsey, McDonald obsessively pursued the truth about sex between men just as gay liberation began to tame America s sexual outlaws for the sake of legal recognition. Admired by such figures as Gore Vidal and William S. Burroughs, Straight to Hell combined a vigorous contempt for authority with a keen literary style, and was the precursor of the first queer zines decades later, and McDonald became a key figure of the American underground.
Meat: How Men Look, Act, Walk, Talk, Dress, Undress, Taste & Smell – True Homosexual Experiences from Straight To Hell (originally published in 1980) is the first volume collecting very raw, reader-submitted accounts of their own sexual encounters. There are several more. If only I had access to these when I was growing up in the 90s!
Not for everyone, but a treasure trove for anyone interested in the sexual practices, fantasies, and even delusions of homosexual (vs. gay) males before AIDS. Expect all five sense to be engaged with this altogether hilarious, sexy, and disgusting archive of what men got up to behind closed doors—and sometimes in public. Part diary entries, part letters from the front, these true sex accounts are broken up by a handful of interviews, gossipy news items, and nude photos that paint a very vivid picture of quite a proudly masculine and mostly lost homosexual world.
[From Wikipedia: S.T.H. (an acronym for Straight to Hell), also known as The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts, is an American gay pornography and erotic non-fiction zine founded by Boyd McDonald. It publishes autobiographical stories of male-male sexual encounters, as submitted by the magazine's readership. First published in the early 1970s, S.T.H. became an influential publication in New York City's arts and culture spheres, and counted notable literary figures such as William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Gore Vidal among its readership.]
Meat and all of the Straight to Hell stuff remind me of a lost podcast called “Gay Sexcapades.” An anonymous American man detailed his various sexual adventures in an unnamed city. But this was during the advent of podcasts (Dawn and Drew, anyone?) and as they became more mainstream there was a furious backlash against the show by Gay, Inc. and it was legit memory-holed. Good luck finding even one episode about it. Anyone remember that show? There’s a book to be written! (Accompanied by the re-release—and remastered because why the hell not—episodes. With photos and interviews. A movie. Make it a movie. First a documentary, later Oscar bait.)
Boyd McDonald should be a name every homosexual male knows. Interestingly, he definitely held a more punk point of view when it came to his idea of liberation. Alack and alas, for better or worse, the corporate-friendly faction won in the long run. Goodbye toilets, hello Disney. Thanks, Gay, Inc.