by James Gardiner, Montague Charles Glover This is a fascinating book on several levels. The pictures document a classic gay aethestic that survives today, and the text douments what was really behind it.
"Rough Trade" is a gay term that dates back to the 19th Century, and was a term coined by artistocratic gay males whose sexual tastes were toward physically robust, crude working class men and boys. To the effete artistocrats with their soft bodies and socialization, the pure physical lust and crude masculinity of the simple farm boy or laborer was the ultimate sexual delight. The 'sin' of flouting class differences and having wild sex with your so-called 'inferiors' doubled the pleasure for these men.
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These 30 postcards, taken from the pages of A Class Apart, which was serialized in Out magazine and which has achieved, after only two years in print, the status of "Gay Classic," comprise what Booklist calls "an altogether extraordinary document."
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James Gardiner's eclectic collection of gay male photos, postcards, play bills, theater posters, and other ephemera is an unguided tour through 100 years of gay male life and culture. Gardiner has wisely followed no specific historical or literary plan--although the photos are arranged in general chronological order--and the effect is striking. As you page through the hundreds of images, you are forced to make your own connections, construct your own sense of reality. Who's a Pretty Boy Then? is a historical and artistic tour de force that brings gay male history alive.
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