The Secret Gay Business Network of Midcentury America | Hacker News Reader

The Secret Gay Business Network of Midcentury America

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93 pointslermontov27 comments

>Syrett also notes that despite their transgressive behavior, the men writing each other were generally quite conservative and uninterested in challenging the sexual politics of their time: “Though they were clearly not engaged in a struggle for gay liberation… these men organized in service of their own personal liberation and did so through corporate capitalism and not leftist political organizing.”

...ok? Just because someone likes dudes doesn't mean he wants to seize the means of production. Obviously capitalism has worked out pretty well for businessmen financially, so probably they'd be more likely to lean right-libertarian.

It should be kept in mind that the departments that research this part of history tend to have a certain political viewpoint which allows things to be published that would be far out of place in other field's journals. They tend to allow direct political statements that would never be permitted in most professional academic publications. Imagine seeing a paragraph decrying, in harsh language, industrial environmental damage in a Nature article! Or a climate science paper railing against Republicans for denying it.

I didn't see any "harsh language" or "railing" in the article. It had a definite point of view, but it was mostly pretty descriptive about an interesting historical sub-culture.

"Hard science" journal articles often have a clear point of view too. I would be not surprised if an article about industrial environmental damage in Nature had a "certain political viewpoint" that such damage was bad, and we should avoid or mitigate it.

Let's not get confused about what "a viewpoint" means - sure, the viewpoint of An innovative anodic approach for efficient immobilization of an acetylenic triple bond via silicon‑carbon bond scission is that their approach for immobilization is innovative. That's different from what you see in the journals I'm talking about, which sometimes contain pieces of text written like a political organization's internal memoranda. The culture of doing that probably lead to the mention of capitalism vs. "leftism" at the end of the article. Why else would the author have brought it up, if it wasn't commonly seen as a relevant topic?

Left-libertarian is more likely, given their distrust of institutions but openness to capitalism. Right-libertarian is far more norm-preserving in praxis.

When someone says "left libertarian" they are usually referring to anarcho-socialism (they are not friendly to capitalism).

Obviously people could use this term and mean something else, but the thought leaders in that space believe that the state of nature and man is not capitalism, but it's socialism, and that capitalism is only able to exist because governments create the conditions necessary for it. Thus the "libertarian" or elimination of government would bring about socialism. That's quite a contrast to that most libertarians and anarcho-capitalists believe.

I can dig up some links in a bit (currently on mobile and in transit so don't have time right now)

So I understand better, where in the spectrums would Bleeding Heart Libertarians fall?

> When someone says "left libertarian" they are usually referring to anarcho-socialism

God no. Anarcho-socialism would be far left. Part of liberty is the freedom able to do your business without someone destroying it because they want to (anarchism, as implemented by it's followers), or 'siezing' it because they believe it is just to do so (socialism).

I agree that left libertarianism is its own thing, but I don't think you know much about anarcho-socialism.

I know a large amount of self identified anarcho-socialists through the tech world and I know enough to understand the difference between what they espouse and how they act.

You're projecting a narrow, contemporary artefact of how these groups happen to be organised, but "freedom to live the way I want to live" has always been a very strong meme on the right-libertarian side. Also, as norm-breaking becomes the norm, seeking to preserve the norm becomes radical. Those aggressively advocating the policies of '68 are rapidly entering the realm of (small-c) conservatism.

There's more to it than that - these men were into their own personal liberation rather than helping change society to make their own underground organizing unnecessary.

(I happen to think it's presumptuous to make that an obligation for members of oppressed groups, but okay.)

>obligation for members of oppressed groups, but okay.

Presumptuous even to consider MSM to be part of the same oppressed "group." I understand that unity, as a minority, is essential for fighting the good fight. But, it's also important to recognize that not every MSM identifies as "gay," and behavior does not dictate identity. People must be free to identify as they wish, without judgement. Describe, don't prescribe.

What makes this group of businessmen so fascinating is that they subvert the homogeny of the modern gay rights movement -- "you're one of us! Admit it!" -- and reveals a different kind of queer.

Indeed, I thought the origin of the MSM term was through people who didn't want to be associated with the gay-rights movement or politicise their identities that way.

No, it originated in the medical/scientific field. When trying to evaluate, say, the epidemiology of AIDS in the "gay" community, they realized that there were a lot of men who would deny being gay even in a confidential survey, but still had sex with other men and would admit that in the same survey. To be crude, they would often have these exchanges: "When's the last time you sucked a guy's dick?" "Last week." "Are you gay or bi?" "No." Which makes a lot of your study's results useless if you're keying on the second question rather than the first.

Plus, you know, bi men make "gay" a bad term if what you're studying is the phenomenon of men having sex with men.

So, they started using a category "men who have sex with men" instead of "gay men", and classified study subjects into those categories based on questions about specific behaviors rather than about identity.

It's not a label invented by the people to whom it applies, and doesn't have much to do with politicization or activism (though of course MSM who don't identify as gay or bi are less likely to be politically active on LGBTQ rights issues, but many gay-identifying men also aren't politically active).

In this case, though, they did identify as gay: "But Syrett writes that the 50 letter-writers he studied identified as gay, at least privately, and did not marry women. "

I don't think "identify" in your quote is meant in the same sense as GP. I read the quote as meaning merely that they weren't confused about their sexuality, but weren't willing to let that define them any more than eg their hair colour.

Perhaps they would not describe themselves as gay as a primary identity, but rather as a facet of a broader identity. This type of complication is the essence of queerness: people are different even though they share things.

Note, I do agree with you, I am trying to clarify terms only.

It's worth noting that remaining unmarried, in that era, was itself a pretty loud social signal.

I don't think that's really true, in the sense of signaling homosexuality, even if being single was very slightly risqué.

It didn't 100% signal homosexuality, but it signaled that something was odd, with homosexuality as a possibility.

I'll also note that a lot of gay people from that era report that they felt pressured to be heterosexually married to fit in. I have a couple of friends from a more recent era, currently in their mid 60s, who felt that pressure when they were younger. One had "an arrangement" with his wife, and two "came out" in their 50's and had extremely messy divorces.

What if they did not want to make it "unnecessary" because they enjoyed having this kind of club and such connections? The power to improve the lives of other men if they so chose, for example.

Not arguing with you, fwiw, just pointing out that more reasons could be in ay besides "personal liberation".

Oh, it's an obligation for everyone, not just members of oppressed groups. None of us is free until all of us are free, and all that.

Ellen Page had a travel show and I think in the first episode she visited Japan and explored the gay culture there. One of the older Japanese gay men expressed a sentimentality, maybe even a preference, for the time when everything was more secretive.

The show was otherwise interesting but that scene was a standout.

Things are honestly still pretty secretive. Even here in SF. Anti-gay bias is everywhere and pushes many gay people to just quietly hide their sexuality. Fun fact, one of the two times I was ever called a faggot by a stranger was on an SF Muni bus (I was holding hands with a dude). Stuff like that, plus the long glances and stares, plus you remembering other forms of discrimination, just kinda makes most gay people in my experience very reserved in public compared to straight couples.

It's particularly odd given that capitalist societies tend to be on the cutting edge as far as LGBT rights are concerned (with, of course, many exceptions).

You took this as an assumption but I think it's more simply an interesting note. There's no value judgment being assigned by the language of the writing, they are simply noting that their method of personal liberation was an unusual/unexpected approach for the time compared to the rest of the gay community.

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