BijouBlog

Emily Litella of Saturday Night Live fame might have got this term wrong and called it something like “tanspread” or “manshead or even “sandwich spread;” I am waiting for this term to perhaps get into the Oxford English dictionary in a few years.

So what is it? Is it a noun, a verb? Animal, vegetable, or mineral? Bigger than a bread box? It actually could be all of these.

Here's a pic which shows, not tells, what it is, and it mostly takes place on the subway or other forms of public transportation, perhaps making it a more urban image:

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 make any money,” said owner Deacon Maccubbin in retrospect.

Maccubin opened up a second store in Maryland in 1984, but it closed in the spring of 2008, as part of the trend toward LGBT bookstore (in fact, practically all brick-and-mortar bookstores) closures in the early 21st century.

Lambda did try to save one famous LGBT bookstore: The Oscar Wilde Bookshop, the United States' first gay and lesbian bookstore. Craig Rodwell in 1967 at 15 Mercer Street in Greenwich Village, later moving to the corner of Christopher and Gay Streets in Manhattan. Lambda Rising got the store going on again financially, but then sold it to the long-time manager.  

Other famous LGBT bookstores that have closed include A Different Light in Los Angeles and San Francisco and Giovanni's Room in Philadelphia.

Specifically, Maccubbin announced in 2009 that his stores would close in 2010. He said:

The phrase 'mission accomplished' has gotten a bad rap in recent years, but in this case, it certainly applies. When we set out to establish Lambda Rising in 1974, it was intended as a demonstration of the demand for gay and lesbian literature. We thought ... we could encourage the writing and publishing of LGBT books, and sooner or later other bookstores would put those books on their own shelves and there would be less need for a specifically gay and lesbian bookstore. Today, 35 years later, nearly every general bookstore carries LGBT books.
 

What “general bookstores?” In Chicago, I've witnessed the disappearance of Kroch's and Brentanos, Crown Books, Barnes & Nobles, Barbara's Bookstore (where I bought my first gay book, The Sexual Outlaw by John Rechy) and Borders. Unabridged Books, a local (now it's trendy to be local) icon, in the Boystown area still thrives, but it is not exclusively LGBT, but does carry quite a bit of stock in that area.
 

Was the Will and Grace duo (gay guy and his “BFF” straight woman) that epitomizes, for many heterosexual audiences, a slice of gay life really that much of a groundbreaking novelty? Yes it was, because the show was aired on national TV, so it created a lot of discussion about that type of relationship. But believe it or not, in a late-sixties publication called Sex Play: A Marital Guide for the Gay Male (from our extensive collection of gay sexual history materials) there is an hilarious article on the gay guy and his “BFF” straight woman.

In the late sixties, once the Post Office lifted censorship restrictions about showing full frontal nudity, homoerotic publications started showing not only cocks, but couples in a variety of sexual positions (still rather risky for that time period). In order to continue to cover their asses, these publications advertised themselves as “how to” or “guide to” material, and often included articles on various aspects of gay life that may or may not have had anything actually to do with the sucking and fucking going on in the pictures. Thus, this supposed marital guide, though offering relevant articles about gay couples getting married (yes, they did at this time period) and why it is beneficial to be a homosexual, is billed as “educational material not to be sold to minors.”

But why is there material on, as the term on the street labels them, “fag hags,” in this publication? In accordance with its educational mission, the article “Living It Up Together” purports to offer a heterosexual reader a glimpse of the “homosexual life,” which includes feelings of love which can result relationships not dissimilar to “straights,” the author claims (including marriages in “homosexual churches”). But the author also claims to offer insights into some a special relationship prevalent when gays and straights mix in social settings (apparently a more common occurrence during that time period, though either group would be in the minority depending on the party). That relationship is the gay man-straight woman. The article proclaims:

Many “straights” get a tremendous charge out of the company of inverts and actually prefer associating with them rather than their own crowd. Older women are constantly added to the list as patronesses or benefactresses because they adore the flattery and attention lavished up them after the “normal” society has given up complimenting their fading egos. They are caught up in the gaiety and effervescence (more sham and pretense, but usually convincingly so) of the seemingly light-hearted, brilliant conversationalists and exhibitionists of which this (gay) crowd is comprised.

Pretty heady, campy stuff! I won't get into the use of the term invert (now an old-fashioned word for gay, meaning that somehow the usual sexual attribute and desires of one's gender are inverted, turned around, even reserved in gays and lesbians), but what I find really interesting is the now-offensive stereotype here in full force, one that was assumed, hinted at, but not necessarily shouted from the rooftops for many years. For example, gay icon Joan Crawford surrounded herself with gay men (her best friends were a gay, by all practical purposes married, couple, William Haines and his lover Billy), but the darker side of this relationship also applied to her. According to some of her biographers, a few gay men, then called “starfuckers,” supposedly took advantage of her good will as she aged.

I think there's more going on here than “times have changed” since the late sixties. Straight women apparently (so I've heard from private sources) can hang out in gay bars with their gay friends and not be derided as “fag hags” as the core parts of what used to be the “homosexual lifestyle” become assimilated into the mainstream. But is the stereotype totally dead? After all, there is a show on the LGBT Logo channel called "1 Girl 5 Gays," in which five “outlandish, fabulous” gay men tackle topics ranging from love and sex to celebrity pop culture, with a female host acting as “ringleader.” Is this show more like entertainment or reality, I wonder...

Whatever the reality, I wonder if we finally are starting to realize that whatever relationships end up coming our way, we need to see ourselves as whole persons, not get so bound up in dualisms that lend themselves to potentially harmful stereotypes like gay guy/straight woman.

When ABC premiered his first prime time special, “The Barry Manilow Special” in 1977, one would have thought the second coming of Christ had occurred in our house.

(By the way, Barry is Jewish. I found out his name was originally Barry Alan, the son of Edna and Harold Pincus. Harold deserted the family when Barry was two. Manilow was his mother's maiden name, which he adopted at his bar mitzvah. )

My poor mother. She didn't now that so many of her favorite artists were/are gay. As I said above, Barry never came out as gay, but she was quite enamored of the openly gay Village People. (If youtube had existed at that time, I am certain her YMCA dance might have gone viral.) She also liked Saturday Night Fever. Yes, John Travolta … still in the closet.

Now, I am not trying to denigrate the very talented Manilow (I just don't get his music), but what I find fascinating is the attraction Manilow holds for women of a certain age. I don't know of any girl going to high school at that time who liked him (or admitted to liking him). It was always someone's MOTHER who loved him.

I remember reading somewhere that Barry's most fanatic “fanilows” or “Maniloonies” are British homemaker types. Manilow himself proclaimed his “love affair” with the United Kingdom fans, lauding them for their loyalty.

There was even a 48 Hours special on these fans, but I found out that Manilow himself was not thrilled about it; he wanted to ensure people knew younger people liked him too, not just the Mums.

I wonder if my mother still likes Barry Manilow.

I know I'm not about to confess, like on the show Family Guy, a secret love for him.

And congratulations to Barry, who is also doing his final tour this year.

Posted on craigslist, missed connections:

Thursday night it was the backyard at Manhandler. You were sucking guys off with your shirt off. You smoked a lot. That's nasty by the way. You seemed to be in my proximity or in my face the whole time I was there. You were inside fucking with your tired little cell phone (probably seeking even more cum from the web) and I got a good look at your face in the light. No wonder you lurk around dark sex venues. You are at least 55, maybe 60, wrinkled, fugly, and that Sean Hayes hairstyle has GOT to go. Please, do us all a favor, and take the summer off from sex. Don't come to water sports parties or bear naked or anything else. Stay home, or whatever the fuck. And the next time you try to elbow your way into the middle of my sex with someone, I'm going to give you a swift kick into your dried up decayed little balls. You know who you are, the one who looks like Jack from Will and Grace, and wears that ridiculous half-lopsided little harness thing sometimes. Go pickle yourself, hon.

Reply to the above: OMG I know exactly who you're describing. He is everywhere!!!! And so rude and will try to horn in on your action. He needs to stay home for about 20 years until sex no longer matters lol.

I am damn mad. I understand the poster's need to vent on one level, but I actually felt sorry for the person this individual was complaining about.

I wasn't surprised by the poster's crass materialism (”tired little cellphone”) and of course, obviously, the insults about the person's age and physical appearance. Such unabated viciousness seems to be common these days in a culture of narcissism and entitlement.

And let's face it: these have always been problems with ageism in the gay community, as well as the rampant discrimination against those who don't possess an ideally perfect youthful body. Even in vintage Hollywood, an actress over 35 was over the hill.

And the prejudice against age and those who don't match up to certain physical standards has escalated in a world where sex is available on a phone app, bodies can be photoshopped, and Kim Kardashian is a role model.

Regarding the reason for the vent, I do understand the etiquette about not “horning” in on public sex scenes, but rather than posting something so hurtful anonymously (the coward's way out), how about speaking kindly to the person and perhaps explaining the etiquette, for a start?

(But then, in the middle of a circle jerk, counseling might not come to mind.)

As I said above, I feel deeply sorry for this person who was the target of such vitriol. Loneliness … sexual addiction … who knows what drives this person to behave this way? I think his fate is the fate of so many unattached older gay men, many of whom don't know how to develop relationships (or, even more sadly, they could be lonely survivors of the AIDS epidemic of the eighties) because their only exposure to gay life was “dark sex venues,” which before today's environment of acceptance, were often the only places a gay person could connect?

And finally, to the person who posted that craiglist ad: Who are you to judge? You also seem to frequent these “dark sex venues.”

I don't think I would be wrong in predicting that you will be that person in about twenty years. Karma's a bitch, bitch!