“There was no such gay business in the past!”

where are our fatty forebears?

Any photos of King David and Jonathan?

[quote] where are our fatty forebears?

Please no.

R7 = Olivia de Havilland

You all can post photos also. 🙄🙄🙄

Love the vintage pix. Thanks, OP.

FWIW, I've been coming here since 2002 (I know...) and cannot tell you the number of times people have shocked me with their lack of awareness of gay life pre-Stonewall. Just consider, for example, an entire legion of gay men who believe anal sex was invented and/or popularized in the 1970s.

Sure. Sodomy got invented somewhere on Fire Island, along with disco and track lighting. Don't let those ancient Grecian pottery illustrations fool you.

no fats in the past

R11 exactly. Sodomy is even in the Bible, but it didn’t exist until the 70s.

And this is coming from many gay men!!!

❤️❤️❤️❤️

R15 early throuple ? . I thought that was invented last year?

My grandmother had a pic of her brother and another man standing in their underwear with their arms around each other from the WWII era. The friend was looking at my uncle with obvious affection. When I saw it, it was obvious to me what was up. That uncle never married, claiming to not be "the marrying kind." He also lived with his mother for the rest of his relatively short life. Wish I had that photo.

Were any of them #guncles?

Teenage queers of yesteryear

How does one know some of these were gay rather than just guys being playful or affectionate? The kissing ones are quite obvious though.

What men would hold hands etc. years ago? That was as big a no no as being gay.

The guys at R24 are so cute and they aged into very attractive older men as well. We should all be so lucky.

Great thread and thanks to all all contributed pics.

....

Our lesbian sisters

Honestly! Some of these are just regular brahs being brahs together.

You boys think every attractive man is gay.

Gay wedding, 1957.

I love these photos 🥰💋🌈

Gay life in Australia in 1932:

In an article in the tabloid The Arrow newspaper entitled Wide Open Immorality, the newspaper’s writers describe a growing gay subculture with men marrying men and appeal for police action to halt the phenomenon.

‘The growth of the pervert population of Brisbane, beautiful capital of Queensland, is astounding, and in the last year hundreds of these queer semi-feminine men have made the city their headquarters,’ the newspaper wrote.

‘Now they have evolved into a cult, with two main sects, one on the north and the other on the south side of the town, with the river dividing them. And occasionally they meet at queer, indecent, degrading ceremonies when perverted lusts come into full play and shocking rituals are celebrated.

‘In the last two weeks there have been two "weddings" — ghastly, horrifying spectacles of painted men and primping lads united in a sacrilegious blasphemy that they call the "bonds of matrimony".’ the newspaper wrote.

‘They conduct these luridly immoral gatherings absolutely free from police interference… Professional people have been invited as guests to witness the weddings — astounding revelation that perversion of this rotten type is so openly accepted in Brisbane. Nowhere else in the world — not even in Berlin, with its open homosexual clubs — is there the open boast that there are these ceremonies or the widespread extension of this sordid cult of male perversion.

‘It is all conducted in these gatherings as if there were no ban on this horrifying indecency… This in Brisbane, in the year 1932! It is almost unbelievable.’

Check out this website for more pictures.

At R24, young guy on the right is stunning in a movie star way. Super handsome! I like the young/old pics.

Cary and Randy

R48 he was beautiful!!!

Blog with vintage pics.

Beautiful thread thank you.

Love these photos. Keep them coming

Of course, you realize that most of these photos are being posted by the people shown in the photos. They just pulled them out of their photo albums with the little paper corners.

What the

Yup buttsex was not invented in the 70s

R60 I see nothing

Hot.

Loved the pics, [R61], but I kinda think they are modern recreations... Back in the day, the Kodak company wasn't going to develop and print pictures like that. And some of the models look like they trim their pubes. But mostly, I don't see any artifacts or scratches that would be typical of authentic photos from that time. I think this is like those pictures of naked swimmers that were in vogue awhile back.

#instagay

[quote] but I kinda think they are modern recreations... Back in the day, the Kodak company wasn't going to develop and print pictures like that. And some of the models look like they trim their pubes. But mostly, I don't see any artifacts or scratches that would be typical of authentic photos from that time. I think this is like those pictures of naked swimmers that were in vogue awhile back.

You're wrong. Different from the others is from 1919 and is a full blown gay film. People would print anything, specially if you paid for it. Most pictures are just two guys together and could be read as friends posing with each other.

Is the guy on the left in R63 suffering from Peroni's? Agree with R64, unless the photographer had his own dark room, I don't believe some of these pics are legit.

Photography was a very popular hobby from its beginnings, many people were amateur photographers who could print their own photographs, and from what we know of human nature one of the first impulses is sex. click click

Exactly R67 - Lots of people used to develop and print their own photos - my grandfathers did in his apartment bathroom in the 40's. I think the sock garters in R61 are one reason it is legit -- someone re-staging it now would most likely overlook a period detail like that, as well them not looking at all "sexy" to most modern eyes. When you click through and see the series, other tells for authenticity are the patterned fabric having in the back of the sepia shot, as well as the rung that the chair is on -- they look "real" in the sense that they are just everyday unnoticed objects, not studied art directed props.

wow - auto-correct really fucked me above - fabric hanging, and rug. Also, grandpa wasn't plural.

Thank you OP for these pics, this thread is a real delight, especially R61 - not what I'd expect on Xhamster! They do look real to me, as R67, 68 and 69 say plenty of people had the ability to do their own developing. And like R69 says, period details like the patent leather shoes in the pic R69 described arent something a modern porn recreator would think of

I seen an amazing book called Mates and Lovers about the history of gay life in New Zealand, it has over 300 pics like this dating back as far as the late 1800's

OP, did the ignoramus what said "There was no such gay business in the past!" actually say it on here? If so what thread? I gotta see this tard for myself

Lesbian marriage

Ah, R34 - you beat me to Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep!

Ok, then - how about gay Etruscans, from the 'Tomb of the Diver'?

BTW, OP - where did you hear "there was no such gay business in the past"?

Does anyone really need to even mention the ancient Greeks and Romans in all this?

Do you know the way to Pompei I've been away so long I might go wrong and lose my way

R77, your image from Pompeii depicts a man and a woman (you can tell by the skin color - men were depicted as ruddy, while women were paler). R78's has two men and a woman.

R76 someone said it on Facebook and tons of people were commenting in agreement about how homosexuality is a new age plague etc. and it didn’t exist in the past.

I've always loved this one:

R80, the originator of that comment and every single individual who posted in agreement are complete hypocrites! Though the lifestyle may not be realized, the propensity for it exists within. Hypocrites! All of them!

Many straight people think being gay is some 20th century thing

R81 that pic is contemporary no? If not when and where from?

Interesting topic. People always neglect the east. They forget that Iran, when it was Persia had regulated same sex brothels in the middle ages, or that the biggest Persian poet was a man who only wrote about other men, or that the Bushido code from Samurais was focused on same sex, its almost impossible to portray samurais without talking about their bisexuality or the fact that it was even expected that you gave your youngest SON to a samurai to be penetrated, etc. Japan has so much same sex art it's virtually impossible to ignore it. Africa pre colonialism had a huge art history of depicting same sex relationships, there was a documentary in the works about homosexuality in ancient Africa, I wonder where it went. Pan africanism hates this, they probably buried the documentary.

They actually don't R83. They only act as though they do - feigned ignorance - playing dumb.

It saddens me to think that the vast majority of gay people throughout history felt they had to enter into marriages with the opposite sex in order to please their parents, conform with social norms, etc. And most probably never had anything like the kind of love or sexual experience they really wanted. I wonder how significantly different the numbers would be today. And how has that changed over the last 50 years?

The numbers would still be low.

The Pansy Craze: it lasted for about a year. 1930

"Wigs, Waxing, and Song"

1920's Berlin was gayer than New York today

Frolicking in Provincetown.

Scotty Bowers and friends, 1950's

Jeffrion & Felix

Ladies Night, 1920's

As long as there have been men, there have been men who loved them.

Who are those sexy black brothers?

I hate to break it to you, fellas. But a lot of the Victorian photos are Victorian Death Photos not gay couples. Lol. It was a common practice to pose the dead body and take a photo as way of memorializing the dead relative before they were buried. The body was posed. Often times the living family member is holding up the body to keep it from falling over. It's so creepy! The ones with children are super creepy!! Most times the photos were the first time the person ever had their photo taken. It was very expensive and most working class people would spend their life savings to have a photo done of their deceased loved one.

In the navy

Come on and join your fellow man

In the navy

Come on be bold and make a stand

"Gay Cruise"

Apparently a well-thumbed copy...

R80, How can people be so stupid? Of course homosexuality always existed. It just wasn't talked about in certain circles, only whispered in private.

Then again het marital sex and pregnancy was also not discussed in "proper" circles either. Think man-woman oral sex didn't exist before "Deep Throat?"

There was a very interesting book titled "Murder at the Priory" about a man killed back in the Victorian era, supposedly by his wife. It went into very interesting detail about how anal sex was practiced quite often in those days by married couples to prevent pregnancy. I don't think that was why she killed him, though!

R101 - "Then again het marital sex and pregnancy was also not discussed in "proper" circles either. Think man-woman oral sex didn't exist before "Deep Throat?"

It most certainly DID NOT!

Oh, yes it did, Mamie.

There were two sites I used to love. One seems to have gone the way of the web the other might still be around. Heretic Tom - the gay Catholic priest who dished about the homosexual stuff inside the church. The other was NYCNOTKANSAS - I think that one might still be around.

Why do people think that everything has to stay the same anyway?

It’s like when women were considered uppity for wanting to vote.

R105, I've been reading that site you linked, absolutely amazing find, I've spent hours on it, its very absorbing

Highly recommend to others for an easy to read primer on gay history

Lucifer/R105 Thank you. I spent an hour in it and I'm only up to 1961.

I was about 10-12 years behind him and it's funny how much life had changed in that time and yet, so far nothing he's written was a surprise to me a decade later.

Yeah, I'm a few hours in and havent even got up to when I was born yet, I was 35 years behind him

More gay couples from the past.

I've always loved the vintage gay pics...I think one mistake is to think that "same sex" attachments were all the same... so very many ways a man can love a man, with expression framed in the context of the culture. Gender fluidity is in this mix... some pics of cross dressing assume it's "evidence" of the "gay"...

But with all that enlightened viewing, I notice as I tracked this thread, looking at a "loving couple", my mind went right to "which one is the top, which one is the bottom..." That's not very open to differences, is it?