The online lgbtq magazine Queerty points to footage of a gay pool party from 1945! The story about how this footage came to be is quite fascinating. Apparently after some extensive research on the actual films which were discovered by Geoffrey Story, it turns out the party took place in the back yard of a St. Louis mansion owned by the wealthy Buddy Walton and his partner.
Buddy was apparently a famous hairdresser (yes, well, a cliché, but that's what many gay men did during this time) to stars like Rosalind Russell and Lana Turner, and another famous person: Abigail Van Buren of Dear Abby fame.
The guys camp it up, and two even do a swing dance together, but the passionate kiss .. wow! If that couple had done that in public in those days, they would have been arrested. But note the setting is rural, isolated: such events had to be hidden.
And Buddy and his partner (pictured to the left, with his partner Sam Micotto and dowagers of St. Louis society) were wealthy, and they possessed the resources, most conveniently a large, private estate, to create havens for their lives and the lives of those like them who loved men.
After the complex social experience of serving in WWII, many guys and girls from rural areas and small towns (America at that time was still a little less than 50 percent rural) interacted with so many different people (even people of different races and ethnicities, unusual for that time) and often to their surprise and shock discovered their true sexuality.
The experience was life-changing, but the cultural norms that shaped the social environment of small town American remained, and the emphasis after the war was on heterosexual home and family, getting back to “normal.” The Cold War and the ensuing fear of communism threw up more barriers and exacerbated by a fear of the “other.” The Hollywood where Buddy Walton found fame was a target as many actors and actresses were blacklisted, accused of being threats to America.
Still, these guys managed to be gay in a world that was not always allowing them to be both gay and happy, that is, pursuing their American right to happiness. They put up the pennant of different colors and in their own way get back to nature. Because who they are is fun and lovely and natural in the deepest sense.
Enjoy the links, and enjoy more pool parties and guys kissing at BijouWorld.com, BijouGayPorn.com, and on our YouTube channel full of vintage gay porn clips, including this one on classic gay romance!