Alan Bray & Graham Wilson

Alan Bray (October 13, 1948 - November 25, 2001), who has died aged 53, was a rare combination; a senior civil servant, gay activist and scholar. His book, Homosexuality In Renaissance England, first published in 1982 and still in print, is a classic of meticulous research and independent thinking on the origins of the modern gay identity. It shows how sodomy was regarded in Elizabethan cosmology as a sinful desire to which all men were potentially subject, but that homosexual activity was widely tolerated and had not then come to signify the deviant psychological type it later became. (Picture: Alan Bray at London Gay Pride 1979 taken by Terry Waller. https://www.flickr.com/photos/terry6082books/4415591708/in/album-72157623404562861/)

Alan was brought up, in significant economic hardship, in Hunslet, Leeds, and the death of his mother, when he was 12, affected him deeply; he was vulnerable in relationships and retained an intense privacy, and sometimes loneliness, alongside unfailing tenderness towards his friends.

Educated at Central high school, Leeds, where he met his lifelong friend, Graham Wilson, and Bangor University, he spent a year in an Anglican seminary before building a distinguished career in the Inland Revenue. He worked in Lord Rayner's team at a time of civil service reform. His managerial acumen, and an ability to memorise complex cases, commanded great respect. Before taking early retirement as a principal in 1996, after a serious illness and an HIV diagnosis, he piloted through the highly technical issues surrounding the Lloyds insurance market crisis.

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2001/dec/18/guardianobituaries.gayrights (Stephen Gee, The Guardian, Tuesday 18 December 2001)

The work of Randolph Trumbach, Michel Rey, Alan Bray, Theo Van Der Meer, and a host of other historians has demonstrated that "sodomitical subcultures" had emerged in major European cities by the eighteenth century, and it is possible that similar subcultures took root in the ports of the American colonies, although their appearance may well have depended on the later growth of those cities. (In either case, the precise terms by which men involved in such subcultures understood themselves and distinguished themselves from others must be analyzed with care; threads of historical continuity may link the "molly houses" Alan Bray and Randolph Trumbach have located in eighteenth-century London with the Bowery resorts in the late-nineteenth-century New York, but much more work will need to be undertaken before we can establish their existence or analyze their significance). --Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey

In understanding the historical ramifications of laws that control sexual behavior, it is useful to remember that no universal baseline of appropriate sexual or gender behavior exists. "Sexual deviance" is often the cultural and political wild card used to demonize people who do not conform to certain sexual norms. Its accusation can be used by mainstream culture against marginalized groups or between marginalized groups themselves. We see throughout American history that restrictions against LGBT people are enforced "as needed" to maintain the contemporary status quo - a clear example of Alan Bray's concept of society as a process. Regardless of the status quo, process denotes adjustment, change, experiment, all in the name of an ideal way of life that is different for everyone. The Puritans, like most English dissenter groups, had been accused of envisioning "the world upside down". Puritanism was, in this sense, a revolutionary movement.
[...]
Homosocial space in the eighteenth century gave birth to distinct same-sex relationships that were referred to in popular and literary culture as romantic or intimate friendships. These friendships were important to the women and men who engaged in them - often as important and long-lasting as traditional heterosexual marriages - and were an accepted, praised, and significant social institution. Alan Bray argues that these friendships were largely a product of the Enlightenment - that the ideas of egalitarianism, brotherhood, and rational love (as opposed to uncontrolled, passionate love) helped contribute to a new concept of deeply committed, emotionally passionate friendship between members of the same sex. It is possible that some of these friendships embodied similarities to our contemporary ideas of romantic and sexual relationships. In many ways they were understood as a beneficial and complementary alternative to marriage. A major function of heterosexual marriage was to regulate sexual activity that would lead to reproduction, but this new idea of friendship, for men as well as women, often provided a more enlightening, expressive outlet. --A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
Amazon: Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Gail Collins (born November 25, 1945)

Gail Collins (born November 25, 1945) is an American journalist, op-ed columnist and author, most recognized for her work with the New York Times. Joining the Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board, from 2001 to 2007 she served as the paper's Editorial Page Editor – the first woman to attain that position. Collins writes a semi-weekly op-ed column for the Times, published Thursdays and Saturdays. She also co-authors a blog with David Brooks, "The Conversation," at NYTimes.com, featuring political commentary.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1945 as Gail Gleason, Collins has a B.A. in journalism from Marquette University and an M.A. in government from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She wrote for Connecticut publications like the Hartford Advocate and, in 1972, founded the Connecticut State News Bureau, a news service providing coverage of the state capital and Connecticut politics; when she sold it in 1977, it had grown into the largest service of its kind in the United States. Collins later wrote as a columnist for the New York Daily News, Newsday, and the Connecticut Business Journal, as a financial reporter for United Press International, and as a public affairs host for Connecticut Public Television.

Collins joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board, and later as an op-ed columnist. In 2001, she was named the paper's first female Editorial Page Editor, a position she held for six years. She resigned from this post at the beginning of 2007 to take a six-month leave to focus on writing her book When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, returning to the Times as a regular columnist in July 2007.

Beyond her work as a journalist, Collins has published several books: The Millennium Book, which she co-authored with her husband, Dan Collins; Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics; America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines; the aforementioned When Everything Changed; and As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda'. She also wrote the introduction for the 50th anniversary edition of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan; the 50th anniversary edition was published in 2013.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Collins

( Further Readings )

Lars Eighner (born November 25, 1948)

Lars Eighner (born November 25, 1948) is the author of Travels with Lizbeth, a memoir of homelessness in the American Southwest during the late 1980s; the included essay "On Dumpster Diving," which is widely anthologized both at full length and in abridged form under the title "My Daily Dives in the Dumpster"; Pawn to Queen Four, a novel; Lavender Blue: How to Write and Sell Gay Men's Erotica, also published as Elements of Arousal (an early edition includes an introduction by noted erotica author John Preston); Gay Cosmos, a work of gay theory; and numerous short works of gay men's erotica, collected under various titles.

Lars Eighner was born Laurence Vail Eighner in Corpus Christi, Texas, the son of Alice Elizabeth Vail Eighner (later Harlow) and Lawrence Clifton Eighner, and the grandson of the Texas poets Alice Ewing Vail (The Big Thicket) and John Arthur Vail (John Vail Ballads). He grew up in Houston, Texas, and was graduated from Lamar High School in 1966. He studied creative writing under George Williams of Rice University at the Corpus Christi Fine Arts Colony, and attended the University of Texas at Austin, doing major work in ethnic studies.

Eighner began writing for publication in the early 1980s. By that time he was generally known as Lars, the result of having worked in a small office with two Larrys. Because in early writing attempts he had been confused with Black Mountain poet Larry Eigner, Eighner used 'Lars' for writing. His first book was a collection of short stories, Bayou Boy and Other Stories (Gay Sunshine Press, 1985). In the late 1980s, he and his dog Lizbeth became homeless, and his experiences as a homeless person in Austin, Texas; Los Angeles, and places in between are the subject of Travels with Lizbeth. Eighner was elected to the Texas Institute of Letters in 1994.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Eighner

( Further Readings )

Laurence Harvey (October 1, 1928 – November 25, 1973)

Laurence Harvey (1 October 1928 – 25 November 1973) was a Lithuanian-born actor who achieved fame in British and American films, being best known for his lead performance in Room at the Top (1959).

He stood with John Wayne in The Alamo. He wooed Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8. And he took a Walk on the Wild Side in 1962. He was Laurence Harvey, one of Hollywood’s most versatile leading men.

British actor John FRASER wrote in his memoir Close Up that Harvey was gay, and that his lover was his manager James Woolf. “As a teenager, he started out living with Hermione Baddeley, a blowsy star of intimate revue more than twice his age. Then he married Margaret Leighton, old enough to be his mother, but a woman of style. When this marriage was over, he married Joan Cohn, widow of Harry Cohn, managing director of Columbia Studios. Throughout all these career marriages, he still managed to string Jimmy Woolf along.” Eventually he married Paulene Stone. Harvey met Stone on the set of A Dandy in Aspic, and while still married to Cohn he became a father for the first time when Stone gave birth to a daughter, Domino, in 1969. Harvey divorced Cohn (who was 17 years his senior) and married Stone in 1972.

Noël COWARD once commented on Harvey’s unhappy marriage to actress Margaret Leighton: “It really isn’t surprising that homosexuality is becoming as normal as blueberry pie.”

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Stern, Keith (2009-09-01). Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals (Kindle Locations 5981-5989). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

( Further Readings )

Martin Worman (July 19, 1945 - November 25, 1993)

Martin Worman (July 19, 1945–November 25, 1993) was an actor, playwright, lyricist, director, female impersonator, activist and academic, working in the United States, primarily in San Francisco and New York City from the late 1960s through the early 1990s. He is most known for being a member of the psychedelic San Francisco drag troupe, The Cockettes. Later, he wrote a rock opera and worked in theater, both in San Francisco and (after 1979) in New York City. He studied and then taught at New York University, where he wrote his dissertation about The Cockettes and was a mentor to Antony Hegarty, later the leader of Antony and the Johnsons. In 1992 he went to Antioch College in Ohio to start a regional theatre company; he died of AIDS in Dayton, Ohio on November 25, 1993. (P: Martin Worman, photo by Peter Hujar, New York Public Library)

Worman's papers, including voluminous research on the history of The Cockettes, served as a basis for a documentary and book about the group and were later acquired by the New York Public Library.


Martin Worman And John Rothermel

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Worman

( Further Readings )

Eric Féliu & Pierre Seel

Pierre Seel (August 16, 1923, Haguenau, Bas-Rhin – November 25, 2005, Toulouse, Haute-Garonne) was a gay Holocaust survivor and the only French person to have testified openly about his experience of deportation during World War II due to his homosexuality.

Pierre was the fifth and last son of an affluent Catholic Alsatian family, and he was born at the family castle of Fillate in Haguenau. At the age of eleven, he discovered that his younger sister, Josephine (Fifine to him), was in fact his cousin, adopted by his father when her mother died. His father ran a successful patisserie-confiserie shop on Mulhouse's main street (at 46 rue du Sauvage). His mother, Emma Jeanne, once director of a department store, joined the family business when she married. By his late teens, Pierre Seel was part of the Mulhouse (Alsace) gay and Zazou subcultures. He suspected that his homosexuality was due to the repressive Catholic morals of his family which forbade him to show interest in girls his age during his early teens. He found it difficult to come to terms with and accept his homosexuality, and described himself as short tempered.

In 1939, he was in a public garden (le Square Steinbach) notorious as a "cruising" ground for men. While he was there, his watch was stolen, a gift that his godmother had given to him at his recent communion. Reporting the theft to the police meant that, unknown to him, his name was added to a list of homosexuals held by the police (homosexuality had not been illegal in France since 1792; the Vichy Regime did not, contrary to legend, recriminalize homosexuality, but in August 1942 it did outlaw sexual relations between an adult and a minor under twenty-one). The German invasion curtailed Seel's hopes of studying textiles in Lille. He completed vocational training in accounting, decoration and sales and found a sales assistant job at a neighbouring shop.

On 3 May 1941, Seel was arrested. He was tortured and forcibly sodomized with a piece of wood. He was then sent to the city jail before being transferred on 13 May 1941 to the Schirmeck-Vorbrück camp, about 30 km west of Strasbourg. His prison uniform was marked with a blue bar (marking Catholic and "a-social" prisoners) rather than the infamous pink triangle which was not in use at Schirmeck. He later noted: "There was no solidarity for the homosexual prisoners; they belonged to the lowest caste. Other prisoners, even when between themselves, used to target them." During his stay in the camp he also witnessed the execution of his eighteen year old lover, Jo, by means of assault from a pack of dogs.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Seel

( Further Readings )

Rosa von Praunheim & Oliver Sechting

Rosa von Praunheim (born 25 November 1942), is a German film director, author, painter and gay rights activist. He lives in Berlin with his companion and assistant Oliver Sechting (born October 5, 1975).

A prolific director, he has made over seventy feature films. He began his career associated to the New German Cinema as a senior member of the Berlin school of underground filmmaking. He took the artistic female name Rosa Von Praunheim to remind people of the pink triangle that homosexuals had to wear in Nazi concentration camps. A pioneer of Queer Cinema, von Praunheim has been an activist in the gay rights movement.

He was an early advocate of AIDS awareness and safer sex, but has been a controversial figure even within the gay community. His films center on gay related themes and strong female characters. His works are characterized by excess and employ a campy style. His films have featured such personalities as Jayne County, Vaginal Davis, Divine, and Jeff Stryker.

Von Praunheim was born in Riga, Latvia Central Prison during the German occupation of Latvia in World War II. His biological mother died in 1946 at the psychiatric hospital in Berlin Wittenauer Heilstätten. After his birth, he was given up for adoption. He only knew these facts when his adoptive mother, Gertrud Mischwitzky, told him in 2000. He discovered the fate of his biological mother in 2006 after a lengthy investigation. He documented his quest in the film Two Mothers (2007).


Rosa von Praunheim is a German film director, author, painter and gay rights activist. He lives in Berlin with his companion and assistant Oliver Sechting. A prolific director, he has made over 70 feature films. He began his career associated to the New German Cinema as a senior member of the Berlin school of underground filmmaking. He took the artistic female name Rosa Von Praunheim to remind people of the pink triangle that homosexuals had to wear in Nazi concentration camps.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_von_Praunheim

( Rosa von Praunheim, 1987, by Robert Giard )

( Further Readings )

More Particular Voices at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Particular Voices

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Mats Klingberg & Tyler Brûlé

Jayson Tyler Brûlé (born November 25, 1968) is a Canadian journalist, entrepreneur, and magazine publisher. He is the editor-in-chief of Monocle and a columnist for the Weekend FT. Brûlé is in a relationship with Mats Klingberg, former banker and current owner of London's Trunk Clothiers.

The only child of Canadian football player Paul Brule (of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Saskatchewan Roughriders, and Montreal Alouettes), and Virge Brule, an artist, he attended but did not graduate from Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto. he moved to the United Kingdom in 1989 and trained as a journalist with the BBC. He subsequently wrote for The Guardian, Stern, The Sunday Times and Vanity Fair.

In March 1994, Brule was shot twice by a sniper in an ambush in Kabul while covering the Afghanistan war for German news magazine, Focus. Brule lost partial use of his left hand resulting in a long hospital stay — and plenty of time to read home-design and cooking magazines which he found mundane. In 1996 Brûlé took out a small business loan and launched Wallpaper, a style and fashion magazine which was one of the most influential launches of the 1990s. Time Inc bought it in 1997, and kept Brûlé on as editorial director. During this time at Wallpaper, Brule focused his attention on a branding and advertising agency he'd started, called Winkreative, which he still runs and which has counted among its clients companies like American Express, Porter Airlines, British Airways, BlackBerry and Sky News.

In 2001, he became the youngest ever recipient of the British Society of Magazine Editors' Lifetime Achievement Award. That year he and Winkreative were hired to design the "look and feel" of Swiss International Air Lines at their relaunch, after the collapse of Swissair.


Tyler Brûlé is a Canadian journalist, entrepreneur, and magazine publisher. He is the editor-in-chief of Monocle and a columnist for the Weekend FT. Brûlé is in a relationship with Mats Klingberg, former banker and current owner of London's Trunk Clothiers. On 3 July 2006, the British website pinknews.co.uk voted Brûlé 37th on its list of the most influential gays and lesbians in the United Kingdom. In 2005 he came in 43rd on the similar list that was published in the Independent on Sunday.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Br%C3%BBl%C3%A9

( Further Readings )

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

New Release Ebook Giveaway: Long the Mile Blog Tour

Ally Blue is running a contest along with the tour-wide giveaway I'm hosting today. Comment on this post or any of the other posts in the tour, and you’ll be entered to win an ebook copy of Demon Dog, book one in my Mojo Mysteries series. Ally will pick a winner on December 1st at 5 p.m. EST. Enter your details in the Rafflecopter below and leave a blog post comment to gain entry in the *Long the Mile* giveaway! This week of the tour closes at midnight, EST, on November 30th. One grand prize winner will be contacted at the end of the tour on December 16th. Contest is valid worldwide.

Rafflecopter Link: Rafflecopter Giveaway

Long the Mile by Ally Blue
Publisher: Riptide Publishing (November 23, 2013)
Amazon Kindle: Long the Mile

Sometimes it takes losing everything to find what you really need.

When Judah went to prison for insider trading, he lost everything he thought was important: his business, his money, his power. But when he gets out, homelessness strips him of the one thing he has left: his self-respect. When another homeless man saves him from a beating, he begins to learn to rely on the goodness of those around him.

For Toby, life on the streets has become familiar. Comfortable. So comfortable he wonders if he’s given up on changing his life for the better. Then comes Judah. Formerly rich, newly homeless, all his pride and attitude gone along with his material possessions. Helping Judah feels good. Their unexpected connection—physical and beyond—feels even better.

Their shared situation nurtures a growing closeness that blossoms into something deeper. But when change comes knocking, it will take all their strength to keep fear and insecurity from tearing them apart.

20% of all proceeds from this title are donated to the Ali Forney Center in New York, whose mission “is to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning (LGBTQ) youth from the harm of homelessness, and to support them in becoming safe and independent as they move from adolescence to adulthood.” To learn more about this charity or to donate directly, please visit http://www.aliforneycenter.org/.





Ally Blue is acknowledged by the world at large (or at least by her heroes, who tend to suffer a lot) as the Popess of Gay Angst. She has a great big suggestively-shaped hat and rides in a bullet-proof Plexiglas bubble in Christmas parades. Her harem of manwhores does double duty as bodyguards and inspirational entertainment. Her favorite band is Radiohead, her favorite color is lime green and her favorite way to waste a perfectly good Saturday is to watch all three extended version LOTR movies in a row. Her ultimate dream is to one day ditch the evil day job and support the family on manlove alone. She is not a hippie or a brain surgeon, no matter what her kids’ friends say.
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Rainbow Awards pre-party and 7th anniversary (Day 25)

November 2013 marks the 7th anniversary since I opened my first journal (and yes, I have an itch, but I will scratch it!), on LJ, and the 5th anniversary of the Rainbow Awards. So, of course I decided for a big bash party. 190 authors, all of them in the 2013 Rainbow Awards, have donated or an ebook, or a print book, and I will use them for a Treasure Hunt. Every day, for all November, I will post 6 excerpts (a random page of the book). No reference to title, or author, or publisher. You have to match it with the book ;-) comment on the blog (do not leave anonymous comments, if you post as anonymous, leave a contact email (comments are screened)), you can comment 1 time for more matchings (you can even try for all 6 books if you like, so 6 chances to win every day). Until the end I will not say which matching is right, so you will have ALL month to try. No limit on how many books you can win, the more you try the better chance you have to win. End of November, among the right matchings, I will draw the winners. So now? let the game start!

Be aware that these previous excerpts: 11, 23, 25 have not yet been matched, so if you go back there is good chance to win them! if at the end of the treasure hunt they will be still unmatched they will go to the one who matched more books.

The books are (Author - Title - Format of prize):

( The books are (Author - Title - Format of prize) )

Previous Post: reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3936980.html

( Today excerpts are )