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Elder gays, were the late 60s as good of a time as it looked?

Those of you who lived it?

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by Anonymousreply 64December 4, 2022 11:48 AM

I’m wondering if it smelled as bad as it looked.

by Anonymousreply 1December 2, 2022 5:54 PM

That looks like Berkeley in the 80s, when I was a student! Or even now…until Peoples’s Park was finally re-conquered?

by Anonymousreply 2December 2, 2022 5:57 PM

I lived the early seventies and it was divine. things didn't really change until the embargo, and from there it was downhill. I cry when I think about how good life was , but Then again, I was from a wealthy, white background, so there's that

by Anonymousreply 3December 2, 2022 5:58 PM

It was a time of great conflict. War in Vietnam, race, youth rebellion. Women rights and gay rights just beginning to be thought out. All of this against a the monolithic post war culture. A far more conservative and rigid world than the one we live in today

by Anonymousreply 4December 2, 2022 5:59 PM

R4 is Funk…of Funk & Wagnall’s 🙄

by Anonymousreply 5December 2, 2022 6:01 PM

I was a kid, but it was an ugly time. War, multiple assassinations, horrid fashion and people reeked of patchouli.

by Anonymousreply 6December 2, 2022 6:01 PM

How was the air quality and cleanliness of the streets prior to recycling laws and the EPA?

by Anonymousreply 7December 2, 2022 6:04 PM

R7 it was not different, honestly. I luved in alpha cities, it was alright. perhaps better than it is now (looking at you, Paris)

by Anonymousreply 8December 2, 2022 6:29 PM

In some ways, yes. But in other ways no.

But there was a sense of freedom in the air and hope. The whole point of it all was the freedom to think and speak without our elders or the establishment trying to shut us up. That freedom alone helped us change many things for the better.

by Anonymousreply 9December 2, 2022 6:32 PM

I don't know...I'm still too stoned to remember.

by Anonymousreply 10December 2, 2022 6:33 PM

Each age has highs and lows. I was very young, but it was almost as polarizing as our era.

by Anonymousreply 11December 2, 2022 6:34 PM

[quote] there was a sense of freedom in the air and hope

that I miss most. Life seemed glorious and full of promises. And there was Peyton Place , and lots of fab programs on the telly

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by Anonymousreply 12December 2, 2022 6:35 PM

So I'm guessing not everyone was hippie and these are a people at select festivals.

by Anonymousreply 13December 2, 2022 6:37 PM

Long hair, and a 'hippie' vibe would get the shit kicked out of you in much of America. Also when you refer to the 60's (summer of love) you really mean 1967-71

by Anonymousreply 14December 2, 2022 6:46 PM

What strikes me is how much is the same

the generation gap

outrage that anyone would seriously question institutional power

A 'war' on culture

The difference seems to be that the late 60's were the first time YOUTH actually had a chance to have their say.

by Anonymousreply 15December 2, 2022 8:42 PM

R15 I'm a toaster.

by Anonymousreply 16December 3, 2022 2:56 AM

R15 yeah but they were about sensible ideas like peace and not bombing people.

Not making up 70 genders to identify yourself by and deciding who has a moral high ground for sake of argument.

by Anonymousreply 17December 3, 2022 4:55 AM

It was great being young. For all the problems of the war and the assassinations and LBJ and Nixon, I'd go back there in a heartbeat. Life's been so dull and empty of promise ever since.

by Anonymousreply 18December 3, 2022 10:19 AM

It was a lot of fun because young people really did have their own sub culture,. You could travel around the country and immediately connect with other young people based on your vibe and look. You could live with them, travel,with them make friends immediately. Great while it lasted. Pretty much ended by 1970 when people realized there were crazies like the Manson family around..

by Anonymousreply 19December 3, 2022 10:29 AM

Drugs, sex and rock-n-roll. Live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse... Yeah, except for that Vietnam/Kent state shit, it was pretty cool. I was 14 when the 60s ended and was still mad that my parents wouldn't let me go to Woodstock 😠... Thanks, mom and dad, glad you did your job.

Being Gay was just starting to be ok about the time I was coming to terms with being Gay, so I'm thankful for that. The "us" vs "them" was confined to youth vs elders, so I was glad to be on the correct side of that social struggle. There was no "right" vs "left" like now. Young people really stuck together to fight off the old conservatives and their wars and strict morals. It breaks my heart that so many of my generation grew old to only become MAGA. What the hell happened to you? ☹️

by Anonymousreply 20December 3, 2022 10:35 AM

I must admit that I look back with rose colored glasses. A lot was lovely. I loved the anything-goes fashion: Pucci prints, vintage clothing, ethnic clothing, Liberty of London, Marimekko, vinyl, paper dresses. Boutiques stores sat side by side with the old department stores. We had the best of both worlds. Boutiques were like FAO Schwarz for adults. They might, on the surface be clothing stores, but one could find anything there from antique dolls to homemade jam next to the Gemma Taccogna hat stands and Tiffany lamps. I had a lavender plaid fuzzy mohair pullover sweater and I was considered cool for it.

On the other hand, the was was a fog of sorrow that blanketed the country. Draft lotteries were something out of the Hunger Games. Everyone was worried about their sons being drafted. For all the upbeat attitude of the time, I believe most parents know that their son being sent to Vietnam was a death sentence. If he survived, he would be severely mentally damage and drug addicted.

Drugs were a real problem. The old cop shows actually did not exaggerate. It hit all levels of society. Death by drugs was constant of everyday life. Before Nixion made healthcare for profit, the nuns ran the local hospital. One of the nuns OD-ed, which brought out the ugly truth that even the nuns had a drug problem. There was also the collateral effects of child neglect, abuse, and death due to parental drug use.

Apparently, one of the reasons for Reaganomics was that the 1960s-70s consumer led economy was lousy for profits. Vintage and ethnic clothing really put a serious dent in new clothing sales. Handmade pottery, macrame, killed housewares. Antiques did not help big business' profits.

by Anonymousreply 21December 3, 2022 11:01 AM

R21 The draft was like a Hunger Games. But it was real with real consequences if you lost. Seems strange to admit it now, but there was a certain excitement mixed with deep fear when you got that card with I-A on it and had to quickly figure out how to deal with it.

by Anonymousreply 22December 3, 2022 11:31 AM

R20 What's funny is the old people didn't have such strict morals. They were out fucking and running around in the 20s, 30s and 40s. They knew what sex was.

by Anonymousreply 23December 3, 2022 12:28 PM

R3- It makes sense. Our standard of living in the United States 🇺🇸 peaked in 1973. It’s been declining ever since.

by Anonymousreply 24December 3, 2022 12:32 PM

R21 What did Nixon do for health care?

by Anonymousreply 25December 3, 2022 12:34 PM

OP- When you talk about the 1960’s - you are referring to the late 1960’s- 1960 to 1964 was very conservative. Things didn’t really start to change until at least 1965.

by Anonymousreply 26December 3, 2022 12:35 PM

R21, He did nothing*for* healthcare. The HMO Act of 1973 greatly changed the way healthcare existed in the USA... for the worse. It wasn't that for-profit healthcare did not exist before then, but the act opened the doors for all kinds of shenanigans.

by Anonymousreply 27December 3, 2022 12:39 PM

1968, first apartment in the Tenderloin. Glorious but as others said, the horror of the draft and Vietnam playing in the background.

Also, gay life wasn’t quite as free and open and safe as mid 1970s

by Anonymousreply 28December 3, 2022 12:41 PM

Whether you were with the counter-culture types or with the whitebread types, there was a dynamism in the air and you knew that important things were happening in society and that somehow you were a part of it like it or not. You didn't know if they were good things or bad things, which gave life a nervous thrill of "Let's see what happens next!"; there was always a feeling in the pit of your stomach that the old stability (of the 50s and early 60s) was gone and there was nothing safe to anchor to. Maybe it's just that age and experience make us calmer, or youth made us more sensitive; but today's shenanigans don't feel as deep-seated or threatening.

by Anonymousreply 29December 3, 2022 12:42 PM

Aside from the racial stuff. Racial strife always sucks no matter what color or year you're in.

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by Anonymousreply 30December 3, 2022 12:42 PM

@r23, No they weren't 😂

The 20s, maybe, but Hollywood's strict moral code put a damper on all that. Before the pill girls that "did it" got pregnant and left town to have their babies which then were put up for adoption. Men with the smallest bit of responsibility married the girls they knocked-up while everyone counted the seven months until their first child was born, then whispered behind their backs. Girls that "did it" were shunned and labeled whores and couldn't marry into respectable families (hello, Camilla)

by Anonymousreply 31December 3, 2022 12:43 PM

People don't seem as authentic today.

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by Anonymousreply 32December 3, 2022 12:47 PM

Re: Gay life in the late 1960s- early 70s. It was still *very* stereotypical. I remember hairdressers with pastel Marcelled hair and pink poodles. Drag was heterosexual entertainment, basically gay minstrel shows. There was a restaurant in San Diego where the owners would perform fake hissy fits because to gay men having a cat fight is soooooo entertaining.

by Anonymousreply 33December 3, 2022 12:47 PM

^ It got better after Stonewall (1968), but slowly. At least I knew "Gay" was a thing, which I didn't before 1968

by Anonymousreply 34December 3, 2022 12:51 PM

^ Also, it was dropped as a mental illness in 1972, that helped a lot as well

by Anonymousreply 35December 3, 2022 12:51 PM

Seems like it would be really hard to be gay or black or a woman in any time before 2000.

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by Anonymousreply 36December 3, 2022 12:58 PM

Really? The election of Nixon? Vietnam? Serial killers? Assassination

by Anonymousreply 37December 3, 2022 12:58 PM

R17, I wonder if the middle class kids yearn to be as creative & meaningful as the 1960s youth…so they make things up….instead of invisible friends, they have invisible genders to make them special.

by Anonymousreply 38December 3, 2022 1:04 PM

I was in high school which would be miserable in any era but I hated the 60s, the 'fashion' the anti-intellectual stoner culture, the music (except for madrigals and broadway musicals} the long dirty hair. Someone asked about pollution--I lived in silicon valley which was orchard back then but looking down from the Santa Cruz mountains was almost always blanketed in a layer of brown gunk. I wasn't political but when Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther KIng were murdered and Charles Manson was ringing doorbells it was like, yeah, how's this working out for everybody?

And we had no idea how to use drugs so kids were eating anything offered to them and going full psycho. I didn't do drugs but dumb enough to let stoners drive the cars and was almost killed once or twice.

by Anonymousreply 39December 3, 2022 1:06 PM

Watch their kids will rebel against them and be like I don't believe in gender labels. It's no one's business.

by Anonymousreply 40December 3, 2022 1:06 PM

Are you kidding, r36?

The 90s were golden to be gay. Really fun times.

Now we don’t even have gay bars. I mean, literally.

You could go into any city back then & find a gay bar & instantly meet homosexuals.

by Anonymousreply 41December 3, 2022 1:07 PM

Nixon hated the war protesters so he villfied pot even though he knew it wasn't dangerous.

by Anonymousreply 42December 3, 2022 1:12 PM

Women trying to assimilate to the hippie(or black power)ethic found themselves as used and tossed aside as ever. Those striving for equality as the answer were dismissed as frustrated lesbians. It was the pits unless you were stoned. There was the art, but it was exploitation behind the scenes as much as ever. Everyone’s bad behavior was explained as an impossible to bridge generation gap. Potential was a fuel burned or snuffed out by 1970.

by Anonymousreply 43December 3, 2022 1:17 PM

I was a little too young back then, but looking back....I think 1967, the year it basically all began, was the most innocent....starting with good intentions. Maybe that extended into 1968, but by 1969...a lot of the innocence became dark. Kids that experimented with drugs to "tune in and drop out"....many became addicted and junkies. Violence crept in, with demonstrations and protests....and then there were the Manson family murders. I think Manson really drew attention to the steady downfall. That window of time in 1967 looked like a lot of fun, with the Monterey Pop Festival launching the "summer of love".

by Anonymousreply 44December 3, 2022 1:18 PM

I remember Spiro Agnew being even worse than Nixon. Still, what can you say about a culture that allowed Nixon to be re-elected in a landslide?

by Anonymousreply 45December 3, 2022 1:21 PM

R38.....Interesting. You have a good point.

by Anonymousreply 46December 3, 2022 1:43 PM

Two words: THE DRAFT

by Anonymousreply 47December 3, 2022 1:49 PM

There weren’t cameras and apps everywhere tracking your every movement. If somebody made you mad, you could get back at them and it was harder to get caught.

by Anonymousreply 48December 3, 2022 1:50 PM

[quote]That looks like Berkeley in the 80s, when I was a student! Or even now…until Peoples’s Park was finally re-conquered?

Looks more like Golden Gate Park.

by Anonymousreply 49December 3, 2022 4:33 PM

I was in high school in the SF Bay Area from 1966 through 1970, and started college that fall. Any specific questions?

by Anonymousreply 50December 3, 2022 4:34 PM

OP, watch this video from 1967 and then get back to us.

by Anonymousreply 51December 3, 2022 4:36 PM

Sorry ... forgot link.

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by Anonymousreply 52December 3, 2022 4:36 PM

r50, were you able to indulge in as much cocksucking as you wanted?

by Anonymousreply 53December 3, 2022 4:37 PM

I didn't suck a cock for many years ... I think 1980 was the first time.

by Anonymousreply 54December 3, 2022 4:59 PM

Poor you, r54 r50. Some summer of love. I'm around your age, and my first was in 1970.

by Anonymousreply 55December 3, 2022 5:02 PM

R50 Me too, Santa Clara. Just threw away my yearbooks during my last move.

by Anonymousreply 56December 3, 2022 5:11 PM

r56 My first job after college was in San Jose in 1974. My first apartment: $125/mo. Can you imagine?

by Anonymousreply 57December 3, 2022 5:22 PM

I lost my virginity in 1969, I thought that was a good time 😜

by Anonymousreply 58December 3, 2022 7:49 PM

R49. No shit , Sherlock. I didn’t write that it was Berkeley; I wrote that Berkeley still looked like that in the 80s. Reading IS fundamental 👀

by Anonymousreply 59December 4, 2022 12:12 AM

I’m pretty sure I saw Elizabeth Warren, Cher, and Queen Camilla in OP’s video.

by Anonymousreply 60December 4, 2022 12:19 AM

@r57, " My first apartment: $125/mo. Can you imagine? "

Yes, that same year I rented a small house in suburban Chicago for that exact amount

by Anonymousreply 61December 4, 2022 3:07 AM

Best time evah

by Anonymousreply 62December 4, 2022 3:35 AM

It was turbulent. Going through puberty made it all the more turbulent.

by Anonymousreply 63December 4, 2022 3:41 AM

If you want to know what Gay life was like in the 60s, watch the film The Gay Deceivers (1969). The entire film is on Youtube. It is more accurate than most people are comfortable believing. The out, Gay actor Michael Greer worked with the director and writers to tone down and remove the homophobia in the original script, but being a product of his time, Michael Greer still indulges in the kind of crowd pleasing, Gay minstrelsy that heterosexuals expected from Gay men. (Of course, the film also has some of the most tired sitcom humor, such as the straight character putting ketchup on an omelette.) It is worth noting that Michael Greer wrote his own dialog for the film of Fortune in Men's Eyes and added the same heterosexual friendly Gay humor and a drag performance.

The film was released days after the Stonewall Riots. Gay rights groups protested the film when it opened. I think it really was pre-Stonewall We-can-survive-as-the-court-jester 1960s vs we are US citizens with all the rights and privileges. However, for all of its numerous problems, there are some sweet moments such as Elliot watching Malcolm in the kitchen and generally Gay positive intentions. Note: the coda at the end where one of the fathers list all of the thing that the boys will not be able to do because the played gay was allegedly imposed on the film by the US government. It is a rumor, but an interesting one.

Lastly, the set design is more accurate than one might want to believe. I knew Gay men with statues of The David and The Dying Slave, copies of Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin's, Study, Young Male Nude Seated beside the Sea on the wall, and faux Rocco tat everywhere.

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by Anonymousreply 64December 4, 2022 11:48 AM
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