Back in Time

[vaneramos]

This morning I searched old Time Magazine covers and found this one:

How Gay is Gay?, April 23, 1979

I remember this cover story vividly. My memory had placed it later. In fact I was only 15. I was self-aware and read it with longing, but I wish it had given me a greater sense of validation. I didn't try talking to anyone about my sexuality for another three years.

Comments

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating. I'd love to read the actual article. I wonder if the 'voice' of the article wasn't actually a hinderance instead of a validation about your sexuality.

In my usual compulsive style, I went and made 2 icon bases out of that cover and then an icon. I'm such an addict... >.<;; I probably won't keep this one or use either base personally, I'm just showing my 'leet graphix skillz', or rather my 'leet procraztinashun skillz', and that cover just hit me as being very telling.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I would love to get my hands on the article. Unfortunately Time only has archives online going back to '85.

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

In 1979 I was beginning the slow process of coming out to my friends... I'd come out to my first close friend the year previously, a couple of months after losing my virginity.

'79 was also the year of the first "official" Radical Faerie Gathering, though there had been Gatherings of "gentle country gay men" happening around the US for some years previously, including a couple of documented gay communes back in the late Sixties.

I completely missed out on this article, though I well remember that the first friend I came out to used to call Time "the rectal thermometer of America."

I wonder what temp Time was gauging on gay issues back in 1979. It must have been better than those awful mid-Sixties exposes on "the twilight world of the Homosexual."

Shimmer

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

The tone, as I remember, was that homosexuality was becoming more acceptable and mainstream. The people interviewed for the story were successful and attractive.

I remember one statement (in hindsight rather silly) to the effect that "everyone wants to hire gay men nowadays because they're better at spotting trends."

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

I'll bet the article is a hoot, when it isn't an annoyance. Some of the old "oh my God, we *just* discovered there's this thing called bisexuality, who knew?!" articles [which appear about once a decade ... because you can "discover" bisexuality over and over and over, and then misplace it again ... ooops, it went missing, pesky thing! :-) ] can be fun reading if they don't piss one off with their version of the "twilight world" effect leafshimmer noted. :-)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

For those days I believe the article was very positive, though it would probably sound awfully funny now.

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

I certainly do not remember that issue. I had come out, and gone back in by that time. Actually I was celibate at the time. :-)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Funny I remember it so well. I looked through all the the Time covers between 1979 and 1984 in order to find this one, and recognized very few of them.

[ranger1.livejournal.com]

The title strikes me as being very much of its era. By the mid-1980s, I think most people had ceased using "gay" as a synonym for happy, as popular awareness increased that the same word also referred to Those People.

Huh, April 23, 1979. Little sister was about to turn one year old. I was in pre-school. My parents were soon to move us out of the stately brick apartment building in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood where I'd spent my first years. Destination: deep suburbia and several years of unpleasantness.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Interesting point. When I was little, the meaning of the word was still ambiguous, but not by the time I finished high school in 1982.

[twillhead.livejournal.com]

I too remember that article, because it seemed to me like a faint yet distinct sign of hope, that the message of Stonewall and everything occurring in light of its angry wake was finally being heard by scholarly, erudite, tuned-in individuals. If I'm not mistaken, it contained an account of the Anita Bryant brouhaha written in a quiet, almost invisible, voice of damnation against her. However, Van, as you point, read today it might seem tame and perhaps apologetic.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I remember the reference to Anita Bryant, too. I must see if I can find a copy of that article somehow.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Comin' right up. As it were.

So, what shipping address shall I give the seller? Don't tell me to have him send it to me -- it'll get lost (or packed, if I'm ordered out of the country).

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

DS, you are a gentleman! Best to ship it to this mailbox, which I only check a couple times a month, but mail coming to my house risks getting damaged:

Van Waffle
Box 115, 3-304 Stone Rd. W.
Guelph ON N1G 4W4
Canada

Thank you!