BijouBlog

When I was younger, much younger, I slept with a guy who one could safely say was blue collar. He worked at various constructions jobs (mostly unskilled). He was hot (muscles, beard, deep voice, big hands) and he was gay, and he was kinky. What more could one ask for? In fact, at a gathering I held when I was sleeping with him off and on, a cultured friend of mine who sold suits to mostly white collar executives met him. He blurted out to me, “You slept with him! Can I touch you?” He meant it jokingly, but I think much was implied in his reaction, much about class, education, sexual orientation, and how that all ties into how we view what is masculine.
 

Where does the term blue collar even come from?
 

The term blue collar was first used in reference to trades jobs in 1924, in an Alden, Iowa newspaper. The phrase stems from the image of manual workers wearing blue denim or chambray shirts as part of their uniforms.
 

Some blue collar workers have uniforms with the name of the business and/or the individual's name embroidered or printed on it.

Historically the popularity of the color blue among manual laborers contrasts with the popularity of white dress shirts worn by people in office environments.

The blue collar/white collar color scheme has socioeconomic connotations, which comes from the British class system, especially as it transmuted because of the Industrial Revolution.

The people who worked in factories were called the working class, and they varied in degrees of respectability, ranging from the skilled laborers who could afford a small house and raise a church-going family (think Archie Bunker types), to unskilled day laborers at the bottom of the social ladder.

These individuals, because of their lack of education, were stereotyped as coarse and ill-mannered, but also as physically strong and big-hearted; perhaps Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners exemplifies the best and the worst of this image.
 

The people who ran the factories and eventually created the big corporations of the Gilded Age and beyond, combined with the older, genteel professions of teachers and doctors, became the white collar middle and upper middle classes, and at the top of that ladder, the nouveau riche.

This structure pretty much held for a long time in the United States, but once factory jobs moved to China and other places because of globalization, a new working class replaced it, working lower paid service and retail jobs jobs, and also in office jobs, ostensibly white collar, but working mostly as servants to upper middle class and upper class high level professionals like lawyers and corporate executives.
 

Now, how do gay men fit into this social picture? The stereotype of gay men is definitely not the “rough” guy who works with his hands, but the effeminate artsy-fartsy queen who thrives in refined cultural environments, the “sissy.” If you weren't out in that way and consigning yourself to stereotypical gay professions like acting and hairdressing, you conformed to the social structure above, and if you were in the working class, you definitely didn't proclaim your sexual orientation.
 

Thus, in the book Maurice, the aristocrat Maurice is really taking a risk by loving Alec Scudder, a gamekeeper, much below him in social class.

So, what was a gay construction worker or trucker to do?

Hide their true selves, it seems. But note, so many gay porn fantasies involve these blue collar guys in places like truck stops and construction sites, but how much are they the projected fantasies of white collar gay guys who fetishize the conventional masculinity of these straight guys?
 

Tellingly, we saw this projection become dominant very soon after the initial liberation of Stonewall, when the gay clone look involved construction boots, denim, and keys hanging from belts.
 

And of course, one of the Village People guys was a construction worker.
 

Thus, in my case, it was almost a status symbol that I really slept with a real blue collar guy (I also slept with a fireman).

Neither relationship worked out, and it wasn't because of the social gap.

Yet, since the 1990s, when those relationships occurred, some social distinctions have blurred, but not all. Even in the increasingly mainstream LGBTQ community, upper middle class wealthy white educated males have wielded the most power and influence, ostensibly for the good of all in a diverse community, but the dynamic mirrors the class structure of the society as a whole.

The Veda Pierces (the snobbish daughter of Mildred Pierce) who looked down upon dollar days and men who wear uniforms (today what many retail employees have to wear) still exist, but they come from all social classes as the world of cyberspace creates a level playing field for everyone.
 

Yet, the world of Twitter can create identities that don't correspond with one's real life social status, and thus the opposite of the above can occur: an Amazon delivery person can show more class and education and insight than a nouveau riche person, the most powerful man in the world, who embodies the worst stereotypes of the blue collar worker every time he tweets.

1978 was a seminal year in LGBTQ history, mostly because it was the year Harvey Milk was elected in San Francisco to the Board of Supervisors, one of the first openly gay political candidates in United States history. He was elected on January 8, but he was assassinated 10 months later by Dan White, on November 27.
 

An article in Gay Life, a Chicago gay periodical of that period, reacts:

"Gay people all over the United States reacted with shock, dismay and outrage to the murders Monday of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Before their deaths both men have proven themselves to be strong advocates of equal rights for gay men and lesbians. Milk, the first open homosexual elected to citywide office in San Francisco, was widely regarded as one of the most visible and influential leaders in the American gay community. Moscone during his term as mayor had been an active supporter of gay rights ..."

Some other news in this volatile year, showing both progress and regression, with a focus on Chicago:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected an application by Gaysweek magazine to register its name, claiming that it is “immoral.”

The Chicago Gay Pride Parade, according to a statistics compiled by its now iconic mover and shaker, Rich Pfeiffer, boasted an attendance of 10,000. The increase in numbers built on the previous year's increase, mostly because of the anti-Anita Bryant protests that took place at Medinah Temple.
 

Gay porn movies (and probably playing at the Bijou Theater) released that year included El Paso Wrecking Corp. (the famous Joe Gage movie) with Fred Halsted and Richard Locke and Hot Truckin' featuring Nick Rodgers and the muscle god Gordon Grant. Also released were A Night at the Adonis with Jack Wrangler and Malo show us the inside of the gay sex palaces of that time period, and Dune Buddies (also starring Malo). Jack Deveau of Hand in Hand Films was producing some of his best work this year!
 

We are always researching LGBTQ history and culture. Check out the blogs on our website, and we always welcome your comments and feedback!

Randomly channel surfing on a blissfully quiet evening as I attempted to escape from the current political mudslinging, I came across a movie on Turner Classic Movies, Hollywood Canteen, from 1944. Yes, the supposedly good ole days, America's greatest generation, depicted in Norman Rockwell pictures. The movie definitely evokes a show (in more ways than one) of unity, in its context, a unity of the free world against the dictatorships of Germany and Japan. 
 

Two soldiers on leave spend three nights at the Hollywood Canteen (an actual place founded by Bette Davis) before returning to active duty in the South Pacific. Slim Green (Robert Hutton) is the millionth G.I. to enjoy the Canteen, and consequently wins a date with starlet Joan Leslie. The other G.I., Sergeant Nolan (Dane Clark) gets to dance with Joan Crawford and in a really funny scene, faints when she tells him she doesn't just look like Joan Crawford, but is Joan herself. (At that time, Joan had left MGM and had signed on with Warners, where Betty was queen; she didn't like the scripts her new studio offered her, and bascially went on suspension, only making a cameo in this piece as part of her support for the war effort.) 

Canteen founders Bette Davis and John Garfield give talks on the history of the Canteen. The soldiers enjoy a variety of musical numbers performed by a host of Hollywood stars, and also comedians, such as Jack Benny and his violin. Jack Benny actually does a “violin play off” against the really famous Hungarian violinist, Josef Szigeti. Soprano (later mezzo-soprano) Kitty Carlisle of Marx Brothers and later What's My Line fame sings Joan and Slim Green's theme song, “Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart.” 

Not much of a plot, but in the days before the 24/7 culture of celebrity, the parade of movie stars doing cameos seems unusual, but they do so not to build their own images, but to, like the country did at that time, present a united front during WWII. Looking back in retrospect, these were the days right before the Cold War hysteria, where Hollywood became the enemy, filled with Communists and Jews (pretty much stereotyped as being synonymous). 

A couple of other points that I found quite telling in retrospect. Eddie Cantor (he was Jewish, by the way) and Nora Martin sing “We're Having a Baby.” It takes Nora a while to tell Eddy she is pregnant (she can't say that word, of course). One can see that postwar baby boom essentially being advertised. The soldier will come home to a now stay-at-home wife in an apron and produce more little soldiers (as part of the banter, the possibility of a girl seems almost an afterthought). 

And those who make those babies are of course heterosexual. In this film, soldier boys Hutton and Clark are rewarded with girl kisses. In one scene, one of the comedians, whose name escapes me, jokingly kisses a sailor guy on the cheek. Of course, the sailor wipes off the cheek. It's a joke, of course. Boys don't kiss other boys. Boys are your pals. Hutton and Clark one could say are kind of in the bromance phase, but the separate twin beds and pajamas that could wake the dead in one scene reveal a world of male-male relationships far from today's sexually fluid, bi-curious bros. 

I also discovered that Bette Davis insisted the canteen be integrated, quite revolutionary for theat time period. In the movie, a quartet of African-Americans, The Golden Gate Quarter do a number (not as cringeworthy as some during that period), but they are an act, and they don't mingle with the guests and the movie stars. Still, the actual place was open to African-Americans and another significant ethnic minority in Los Angeles during that period, Filipino-Americans. 

Bette was always a risk-taker, and if she lacked Joan Crawford's glamour and charm, she never lacked for the sincerity of her convictions (which some people interpreted as abrasiveness). When she says at the end of the film that our hearts are with the soldiers, and that connection transcends, at least in that case, segregation, it isn't mawkish sentiment. She means it with certainty of Immanuel Kant's “starry heavens above and moral law within.” 
 

 

I, Madam Bubby, the author of practically all these blogs,  like to think not only our movies not just as “classics,” but some of our reviews.

One twitter follower recently complimented us on our movie descriptions, and in this more visually-oriented age, our reviews show the power of the word to give some in-depth insight into really groundbreaking porn movies.

Many of our films date from the heady, trippy days of 1970s gay liberation, and the gay pornography of that period probed for the first time gay men's sexual identity and expression. 

Sometimes it's even more exciting (and educational) to read the reviews of these movies in particular (of course we want you to buy and watch them too!).

Remember the late great Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert? I might consider these reviews close to their level; just click on the hyper links and enjoy. 
 

Check out the reviews of Born to Raise Hell, the uber-gay-leather-BDSM movie, from 1974 with the legendary Val Martin. Note we've got two approaches to this movie (which still both disturbs and excites viewers with its brutal edginess), almost like Siskel and Ebert sparring. 

 

The review of Jack alludes to the famous Continental Baths, where Bette Midler got her start, because guess what? That's where the movie takes place! 

 

The review of Adam and Yves is stunning in its detail and intensity (like the movie), and the author also ties  it deftly into the French New Wave movement. And there's a surprise guest appearance by a legendary actress of the silver screen. 

 

Attack of the Amazing Colossal Latino is in some ways so bad it is good, and reading the review itself a real camp fest like the movie itself, which clumsily attempts to do some genre crossing. Science fiction meets gay porn! 

 

All these movies stream at www.bijougayporn.com!

Watch now!

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Renslow, a legendary figure in LGBTQ history, passed away on June 30, 2017, at the age of 87. 

The the whole leather contest circuit actually began in a leather bar, the famous/infamous Gold Coast founded by Renslow. I know one person who remembers this bar; he is in his eighties (hard to believe). 

Much has been written on this place of LGBT history already; I’ll just add that it seems to be the granddaddy of places where like-minded men could meet others who shared their sexuality. 

Much of what is perhaps now the traditional dynamic of gay leather bars originated there: the leather biker look, the rough sex and BDSM, the hypermasculinity revealed in the famous artwork of Etienne aka Dom Orejudos, lover of Renslow now displayed in the Leather Archives and Museum. 
 

The Gold Coast closed in 1988 (alas, I never went there) at the 5025 North Clark location, having moved from its original location at 501 North Clark Street. Renslow later opened the Chicago Eagle in the 1990s; I remember the entrance being the inside of a truck, and the basement Pit. 

I actually consider this place my “coming out” bar as a leatherman. I was flogged in public down there, my first big BDSM scene. The Eagle closed in the early 2000s; the last time I went there was 2007; by that time the totally hot Pit had closed. 

Without Renslow's pioneering efforts that date back to the times when homoerotic muscle magazines were considered obscene by the government, the LGBTQ leather community might not even exist; in fact, he always showed the courage to navigate and eventually surmount oppressive political and social systems in that pre-Stonewall time when to even operate a gay bar one had to pay off the Mafia, when gay sex itself was illegal, a crime against nature. 

I consider his immense legacy (just look at his obituary) an inspiration, not just to LGBTQ persons, but to any marginalized group fighting for the right to full human dignity.