BijouBlog

On June 8, 1974,the Lambda Rising Bookstore opened its doors in Washington, D.C., with a stock of three hundred titles and average sales of about $25 a day. By 1987, it had opened a second store, established a thriving mail-order business, offers more than twenty thousand titles, and has annual sales of $1.5 million. “We really didn't expect it to

The Bijou Theater, the oldest consecutively running gay porn movie theater and sex club in the United States, officially closes its doors on September 30, 2015, at 9 a.m.   Bijou has become an icon representing that time in gay history, the 1970s, where gay men, long hidden in the shadows, emerged as both liberators and the  liberated. T

  When I first started working here a long time ago, I reviewed porn. One of my challenges was to not only find different words that mean cock, but to actually describe cocks specifically in terms other than size (of the lack thereof). What I found interesting was the diversity of cock heads, yes, the head, as in giving head. Some guys got wh

The early 1970s. An affluent suburban landscape with plenty of space between spacious homes that today would be characterized as vintage. The high school that serves part of this district is a 1960s building with only two floors, bright brick on the outside, gleaming white tiles in the hallway, and wide windows, quite progressive compared to the m

  posted by guest blogger Miriam Webster   Jack Deveau: [Credits include Left-Handed, Drive, Ballet Down the Highway, Good Hot Stuff, Wanted: Billy the Kid, A Night at the Adonis, Rough Trades, Sex Magic, Fire Island Fever, Dune Buddies, Times Square Strip]   "We were looking for a while to describe the porno movie because it doesn'

posted by Madame Bubby “He always brought class to his shoots.” – Josh Thomas, “Gay Spirit Diary” His hot hung blond self was everywhere, and here he still is at Bijou Video, appearing in a stunning repertoire of films: Philip St. John's Getting It, Nova's stunner Heroes, LeSalon's supersexed Cabin Fever, and our new release Tough Competition, amo

posted by Madame Bubby In 1979, Stephen Lachs becomes the first openly gay judge appointed in the United States. He is also thought but not proved to be the first openly gay judge appointed anywhere in the world. He served as a judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court from 1979 to 1999.   Stephen Lachs May 21 – The White Night riots occ

posted by Madame Bubby Now that I am in the autumnal phase of my life (early autumn, mind you), and International Mr. Leather is fast upon us (its fortieth year!), I share again a paragraph I wrote a few years ago about this event: “The leather community has entered a new age. It's no longer so much on the margins, even of the gay community. I eve

posted by Madame Bubby I passed by a booth at the leather market, and I noticed witches' hats. Yes, the kind with the peak. I heard a woman cackling. No, I am not making the above up, and I am not recounting a surrealistic dream. And this booth was also selling a particularly hot item at the mart, a leather crown (for Baby Boomers like me, it rese

posted by Madame Bubby In 1994, I attended the Stonewall 25 celebrations in New York City. And, most significantly, it was my first visit to New York City. And even more significantly, it was the beginning of my intense journey into the world of BDSM relationships.   That year, I had pretty much abandoned the more “vanilla” activities of the

posted by Madame Bubby On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a mass shooting inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police Department officers shot and killed him after a three-hour standoff. Three years later the current administration of the Unite

posted by Madame Bubby My first major experience riding a bicycle was finally being able to ride a two-wheeler, and the fashion then was a banana seat bicycle. The seat was shaped like a banana. Mine was purple. (How gay was that?) I got yelled at by my dad because I was coasting to a stop rather than using the breaks. At that time, kids rode thei

posted by Madame Bubby Four million persons are expected to be at Stonewall 50 in New York City. The 48th annual Chicago Gay Pride Parade in Chicago promises to be quite impressive too, one big party. Even in these times of turmoil in the United States when the human rights of so many are becoming increasingly precarious, LGBTQ communities are sti

posted by Madame Bubby I was there. It was humid and crowded, and luckily I was standing near some hot shirtless guys with cute asses. Nothing terribly exciting or, to be honest, much different from previous years, even if it was celebrating 50 years since Stonewall.   Photo Credit: Time Out Chicago I left early to cool down in a friend's apa

posted by Madame Bubby Just came upon this old post from the Bilerico Report: “Just about any grocery store is perfect for picking up a man. There's a reason why single women in the 70's and 80's swore by the produce section... Is he shopping for one?” Now, this post was written in 2009, and obviously our shopping habits have changed. I know where

posted by Madame Bubby Oh wow, this summer has certainly been a summer or reading for me, in addition to the process of assembling many of these blogs into a book format. I guess I am lucky, to enjoy such large amounts of time to sit there and read. For hours. As usual, I am way behind the trends. I tend to get interested in media after it is popu

posted by Madame Bubby "Like something out of a Greek tragedy (or Clash of the Titans), a naked man lies spread-eagled on his stomach on the center of a ceremonial plaza. The Falconhead appears out of nowhere, clad in black robes that look oddly medieval, and presents an ornately framed mirror to the prostrate man, pushing his face into it with hi

posted by Madame Bubby In our archives, we carry a fascinating title called The Guild Dictionary of Homosexual Terms, which looks to be from the early to middle of the 1960s. Guild Press was a grounbreaking outfit as H. Lynn Womack was not afraid of being open about the audience of his diverse array of publications: gays and lesbians. He did not c

posted by Madame Bubby Yes, it is still there. I had to ask, especially now that that the area around it is gentrified and homogenized in so many ways since the last time I was there, early 1990s. Why was I there? The Lucky Horseshoe Lounge, known to its regulars as the “Shoe,” is a gay bar yes, but one that features dancers. Not strippers (no nud

posted by Madame Bubby Jay Richards appears in so many Robert Prion and other gay porn movies and has such a long career span that the word prolific seems to be an understatement.   According to Gay Erotic Index, hailing from Glendale, California, he is identified also as an Athletic Model Guild model in the 1960s under the name Ernie Matthew