I still remember that day. It was cold. The fall sunshine was no match & the photographer took forever to get the settings ready. A wind from the north cut thru the woods, & my skin shows too well the truth in the picture. He said we were making history. We were. That was over 50 years ago.
Things have changed. Computers. Digital cameras. Me.
And the one thing that I saw 1st hand, was the d/evolution of the "gay community". The young man in that photograph had a few very close friends whom were welcome to visit & stay overnight at the farm I lived on. People were polite to a fault & so naive of evil men & their evil deeds that to merely speak of their acts was considered shameful! Life was harder & people closer. And best friends were treated with a respect so absolute that to violate it was seen as unthinkable. "GAY" was a word that meant "happy" & TV was still "a fun, social experiment".
And guys like me were hooking up discretely with other guys -without the insane paranoia or the decadent acts like that surround anything "GAY" today!
Male bonding was something that happened in the same bed between two guys who loved each other as men to the very core. Shared sexuality was a totally private, wonderful thing. Neither I nor any guy wanted to do "it" up the arse! Never! Then people began to use the word "homo-sexual". Almost simultaneously a lying accusation began to connect guy-love w. "sodomy". I remember how disgusted I felt when my best friend told me about men who treated other guys as a stand in for female-anatomy. I remember getting sick to my stomach when he told me that people were beginning to joke coarsely about guys like us who were "best friends" -maybe secretly playing in arseholes. Such innuendo's absolutely mortified me.
I hated Stonewall, "gays" & "pride parades".
Such images didn't represent me or the guys I loved.
Finally, there is a men's movement that represents who we were, but in the NOW! See the Related Link below for more information!