Homoerotic Archaeology: Mandate (April 1980), Part One

Friday, April 19, 2024

Mandate (April 1980), Part One

In 1988, Scott Thorson published his memoir Behind the Candelabra, in which he recounts his five-year relationship with musician Liberace. In the text, Thorson explains how, at the age of eighteen, he met the famed pianist, who was fifty-seven at the time, and they became instant paramours, with their relationship bitterly ending after Liberace rejected Thorson for a younger man. Sadly, Thorson’s tale is not unique. In Edmund White’s 1980 States of Desires, an excerpt of which is published in this April 1980 issue of Mandate (which has been broken into two parts), the writer tells about a couple he met in Kansas City with the same dynamic as Liberace and Thorson: a thirty-year-old bar owner who has jilted his nineteen-year-old partner and former bartender for younger men. Also included in this first half is an interview with actress Mae West.

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What is Homoerotic Archaeology?

In 2016, I discovered several discarded boxes at an estate sale. Under their flimsy flaps were hundreds of well-worn issues of homoerotic magazines from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. I purchased them out of mild intrigue and, as I perused their pages, I was startled to realize that something commonly disregarded as pornographic smut earnestly chronicled the evolution of gay culture: the social and sexual liberation of the 1970s, the crushing devastation from AIDS during the 1980s, and the gradual strengthening of the community in the 1990s. As a gay man, I was touched by the subtle narrative these publications told. As a historian, I was motivated to digitally preserve their content. And, as an educator, I was driven to create a platform to share that information freely with others interested in the progression of gay society. Homoerotic Archaeology is that venue. Here you will find the advertisements, articles, short stories, and (of course) pictures found in these magazines lovingly preserved and presented for future generations of gay men to enjoy and study.

Why Preserve Homoerotica?

As early as the 1970s, scholars such as June Rook have stressed the need to preserve homosexual history in an effort to combat repression and establish a cultural background for future generations. Much of the preservation process admirably focuses on the substantial works of homosexual artists and thinkers; however, it sadly ignores other elements quintessential to the community’s history, particularly homoerotica. Although frequently labeled obscene filth, homoerotica has, just like the significant creations of artists and thinkers, been a prevalent part of the group’s culture and has played an integral role in shaping identities and perceptions (consider how influential Tom of Finland’s hypermasculinity has been in molding the body ideals of modern gay men). Due to this factor, the conservation of homoerotica is just as essential as the preservation of major artistic and theoretical homosexual works.