The handkerchief code is a system of color-coded cloth handkerchief or bandanas for non-verbally communicating one's interests in sexual activities and fetishes. The color of the handkerchief identifies a particular activity, and the pocket it is worn in identifies the wearer's preferred role in that activity. Wearing a handkerchief on the left side of the body typically indicates one is a "top" while wearing it on the right side of the body would indicate one is a "bottom". For example, a dark blue handkerchief indicates an interest in anal sex, and wearing it in the left pocket indicates a preference for being the penetrating partner. The code was first used in the 1970s in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, by gay and bisexual men seeking casual sex or BDSM practitioners. Over time the colors and types of apparel in use have greatly proliferated.
James Alan Bidgood, also known by the pseudonym Les Folies des Hommes, was an American filmmaker, photographer and visual and performance artist, known for his highly stylized and homoerotic works.
Queer Eye is an American reality television series that premiered on the Bravo network in July 2003, initially broadcast as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The series was created by executive producers David Collins and Michael Williams along with David Metzler through their company, Scout Productions. Each episode features a team of gay professionals in the fields of fashion, personal grooming, interior design, entertaining, and culture collectively known as the "Fab Five" performing a makeover : revamping wardrobe, redecorating, and offering lifestyle advice.
"New queer cinema" is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in Sight & Sound magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s.
LGBTQ slang, LGBTQ speak, queer slang, or gay slang is a set of English slang lexicon used predominantly among LGBTQ+ people. It has been used in various languages since the early 20th century as a means by which members of the LGBTQ+ community identify themselves and speak in code with brevity and speed to others. The acronym LGBT was popularized in the 1990s and stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. It may refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. To recognize this inclusion, a popular variant, LGBTQ, adds the letter Q for those who identify as queer or are questioning their sexual or gender identity.
Touko Valio Laaksonen, known by the pseudonym Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist who made stylized highly masculinized homoerotic art, and influenced late 20th-century gay culture. He has been called the "most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by cultural historian Joseph W. Slade. Over the course of four decades, he produced some 3,500 illustrations, mostly featuring men with exaggerated primary and secondary sex traits, wearing tight or partially removed clothing.
The Athletic Model Guild, or AMG, was a physique photography studio founded by Bob Mizer in December 1945. During those post-war years, United States censorship laws allowed women, but not men, to appear in various states of undress in what were referred to as "art photographs". Mizer began his business by taking pictures of men that he knew. His subjects would often pose for pictures which illustrated fitness tips and the like, but were also viewed as homoerotic material.
Bruce LaBruce is a Canadian artist, writer, filmmaker, photographer, and underground director based in Toronto.
Pornographic magazines or erotic magazines, sometimes known as adult magazines or sex magazines, are magazines that contain content of an explicitly sexual nature. Publications of this kind may contain images of attractive naked subjects, as is the case in softcore pornography, and, in the usual case of hardcore pornography, depictions of masturbation, oral, manual, vaginal, or anal sex.
A gay skinhead, also known as a gayskin or queerskin, is a gay person who identifies with the skinhead subculture. Some gay skinheads have a sexual fetish for skinhead clothing styles.
The Body Politic was a Canadian monthly magazine, which was published from 1971 to 1987. It was one of Canada's first significant gay publications, and played a prominent role in the development of the LGBT community in Canada.
Over the course of its history, the LGBTQ community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both within their communities and to mainstream culture. The two symbols most recognized internationally are the pink triangle and the rainbow flag.
Rick Castro is an American photographer, motion picture director, stylist, curator and writer whose work focuses on BDSM, fetish, and desire.
Bisexual erasure, also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.
Queer heterosexuality is heterosexual practice or identity that is also controversially called queer. "Queer heterosexuality" is argued to consist of heterosexual, cisgender, and allosexual persons who show nontraditional gender expressions, or who adopt gender roles that differ from the hegemonic masculinity and femininity of their particular culture.
Fantastic Man is a semi-annual men's fashion magazine which was launched in 2005. It presents men's fashion by detailed interviews with male celebrities and intellectuals from many different backgrounds.
Pin–Up is a biannual independent architecture and design magazine based in New York City. The subtitle of the magazine is The Magazine for Architectural Entertainment and covers a range of highbrow and lowbrow topics in fashion, art, politics, architecture, and design. Pin-Up was founded in 2006 by architect, curator, and creative director Felix Burrichter. Burrichter currently serves as creative director of the publication, and Emmanuel Olunkwa serves as editor.
David Randolph Hurles was an American gay pornographer, whose one-man company, run from a private mailbox, was called Old Reliable Tape and Picture Company. His work, produced primarily in the 1970s and 1980s, falls into three categories: photographs, audio tapes, and videotapes. Hurles' models were typically ex-convicts, hustlers, drifters, and ne'er do wells. Hurles died on April 12, 2023, at the age of 78.
Penny Martin is an editor, writer, and curator. As of 2009 she is the editor-in-chief of the women’s magazine The Gentlewoman.
The Gentlewoman is a biannual magazine which is focused on arts and culture published by Dutch duo Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom. It was launched in 2010 as the sister publication to Fantastic Man. The inaugural issue featured designer Phoebe Philo on the cover. The magazine is based in Soho, London.
