The Big Cock Comes Out: The Courage of DSI Sales in the 1960s

Who? What? Where? 

Why would this story make the front cover of the then fledgling gay newspaper, The Advocate, in September 1967? 

 

 

 

The 1960s may have been swinging and sexually liberating for some heterosexual segments of the population (were there any openly gay hippies?), but a gay person could still get arrested for kissing a member of the same sex in public, could not join the military (which could be a way to avoid the draft, then going on because of the Vietnam War), and could be fired from a job because of his/her orientation. 

At this time, after such events as the MANual vs. Day case and Chuck Renslow's stunning defense in his obscenity case (he showed the prosecution a Greek statue), homoerotic publications began to show genitalia. But still, in 1967, the fear of censorship, indicating a strong current of social disapproval of such material, is still there, even though in this year in Great Britain, the Sexual Offences Act came into force in England and Wales, and decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age and in private. 

Yet in the United States, at least, and this development proved to a be a rather tenuous least, a gay man could now, after the famous MANUAL Enterprises vs. Day decision, not have to worry about being arrested for owning homoerotic physique magazines like Bob Mizer's Physique Pictorial for showing in the privacy of one's home what were the equivalent of male stag films. 

But tragic cases like Newton Arvin, the closeted English professor at Smith College whose life was ruined because of possessing “lewd” materials like this (he was arrested for possessing them in 1960), were still fresh in the memory (see the photo below, the guy with the glasses). 
 

In 1965, DSI Sales (DSI stands for Directory Services, Inc.), founded by Lloyd Spinar and Conrad Germain in Minneapolis, began publishing a magazine called Butch. Besides the nude photos and artwork, the first issue contains four articles entitled: No Link Between Obscenity and Delinquency; Curbing 'Bugs' and Telephone Taps; and The Church Takes a New Look at Itself (excerpts from an article by famous theologian Harvey Cox which was published in Playboy); and Commentary. 
 

The statement of purpose of the publication ties into the issues covered in the articles: "there is no obscenity in God' s handiwork," and "BUTCH hopes to do its part to bring about a world wherein man will, form the moment of birth, accept himself -- not with guilt and shame but with esteem and serenity-- in his totality as God made him." 

Note here the emphasis on making the content seem wholesome, even religious: the fear of an obscenity charge was always looming in the distance.                  
Yet, within a year, DSI was printing an astonishing 50,000 copies of each issue of Butch, and had started a second magazine, Tiger. It, too, printed a whopping 50,000 copies per issue. That's an amazing amount of copies, given the fact their audience was a marginalized, oppressed minority. But that minority needed a more public voice to speak for them. 

By 1967, DSI had 14 full-time employees and was the largest gay-owned and gay-oriented business in the world. Spinar and Germain were making millions of dollars. Inserts for their products, which also included film loops made by Bob Mizer, gay travel guides, jewelry, fashion accessories, and campy items, began appearing in the more conventional homoerotic magazines. 

Then they got busted. The case went to trial. And they won! 

The judge in the U.S. Federal Court of Minneapolis pretty much confirmed the ruling of MANUAL, but not after the government produced almost every item produced by the company. The prosecutors argued that these materials are indeed obscene because the average person considers homosexuality morally offensive and intolerable. (Do you see circular reasoning here? The materials are obscene because homosexuality is obscene? Huh?) 

Academic and medical experts successfully argued against the case, and the Court made a quite progressive statement beyond just affirming that the materials were not obscene, proclaiming, “The rights of minorities expressed individually in sexual groups or otherwise must be respected.” Now, the Court still considered such materials deviant and those who used them as deviants, but not to the point, it claimed, where the sexual norm of the majority would be threatened. 

If it weren't for DSI's courage and the ruling in this case, one might wonder if gay culture and its own unique media might not have emerged so quickly out of the closet after Stonewall. In the days before the Internet, obviously, print really mattered. And in this case, the pen proved to be not mightier than the sword, but more like a big cock finally emerging, triumphantly and shamelessly, from years, even centuries, of hiding furtively behind posing straps and T- room stalls.

For more detailed information on DSI Sales, check out this link: http://tim1965.livejournal.com/2019638.html