Fag Rag

Fag Rag

First issue of newspaper
Type	Gay men's newspaper, quarterly
Founder(s)	The Fag Rag Collective
Publisher	The Fag Rag Collective
Staff writers	Larry Martin Charley Shively Michael Bronski Thom Nickels John Mitzel
Founded	June 1971 (1971-June)
Ceased publication	c. 1987 [1]
City	Boston
Circulation	~5000

Fag Rag was an American gay men's newspaper, published from 1971 until circa 1987, with issue #44 being the last known edition. The publishers were the Boston-based Fag Rag Collective, which consisted of radical writers, artists and activists. Notable members were Larry Martin, Charley Shively, Michael Bronski, Thom Nickels, and John Mitzel. In its early years the subscription list was between 400 and 500, with an additional 4,500 copies sold on newsstands and bookstores or given away. ^[2]

During its run, Fag Rag published interviews with, and writing by, prominent gay and bisexual authors including William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno, Christopher Isherwood, John Wieners, Arthur Evans, Allen Young, Maurice Kenny, Gerard Malanga, John Rechy, Ned Rorem, and Gore Vidal. ^{[3] [4] [5]}

History and background

The newspaper originally started out as Lavender Vision, a coed organization with both gay men and lesbians, with half of the periodical devoted to men, and the other half to women. After a few issues though, the lesbians left to start their own publication. After they left, the men debated titles for their new publication, such as: Surrender Dorothy and Kumquat Times, before settling on Fag Rag, which Mitzel said was "to the point". ^[6]

Shively described Fag Rag as offering up a collection of "sexual liberation, anarchism, hippie love, drugs, peace, maoism, marxism, rock and roll, folk song, cultural separatist, feminist, effeminist, tofu/brown rice, communal living, urban junkie, rural purist, nudist, leather, high camp drag, gender fuck drag, poetry, essays and pictures". ^{[7] [8]} They reported on multiple LGBT topics, including: gay Vietnam servicemen, the Cuban gay scene, gay senior citizens, the gay community with special needs, sex workers, and interracial LGBT relationships. They also had the standard fare for a gay newspaper; local news, editorials, poems, artwork, short stories and cartoons. ^[8] The first issue argued for gay men not to be embarrassed or ashamed when called "cocksucker", but to wear the moniker proudly. ^[9]

The periodical refused advertisements, claiming ads were “bribery and ugly", so they relied on being funded by donations, sales and the intermittent government grant. ^[8] The volunteer staff would gather in the basement of a local book store, where editorial judgements were made as a group. They made a conscious decision not to showcase writings that demonstrated approval towards, "God, family, state or other oppressive institutions". ^[8] Bronski, who started in 1972, described their gatherings as “fun and gossipy". ^[8] They also had problems getting the newspaper published. As Shively tells it, one press shop informed him it couldn’t print Fag Rag on the same printing press they used to print Bibles. ^[8]

In 1972, they started the Good Gay Poets Press, which was a pun on Walt Whitman’s label as the 'Good Gray Poet'. Shively saw the 'Poets' as a pathway for authors to have freedom to write "whatever and however" they wanted to. ^[10] Maurice Kenny, the first known LGBT Native author to publish openly queer writings in the United States, contributed poems to the newspaper. ^{[11] [12]} They started out publishing with the intentions of a regular quarterly basis, but as the years passed it became sporadic, with issues 30 through 39 being one special 12th anniversary special. The publication ceased operations in 1987.

In his Fag Rag interview, Gore Vidal famously called Truman Capote "a Republican housewife from Kansas with all the prejudices," and described Norman Mailer as "a VFW commander in Schenectady." ^{[13] [14]}

Arson

The Fag Rag collective shared offices with the Gay Community News . ^[10] On July 7, 1982, the building shared by them was set on fire by a group of firemen, policemen and security guards, who had set a number of fires in the city. ^{[10] [lower-alpha 1]} The fire destroyed all back issues of GCN and Fag Rag. ^[16] According to testimony from two of the arsonists, Gregg Bemis and Robert Groblewski, the arson ring set over 200 fires in 1982 and 1983, mostly in Boston. They claimed their motive was to scare Boston voters into repealing Proposition 21, a state tax-limiting measure which would lay off or freeze hiring of firefighters. ^[17] The ringleader of the group, Donald Stackpole, was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison. ^[18] The group of arsonists were ultimately held responsible for the destruction of more than $50 million worth of property, and at the time, the arson case was considered to be the largest in state or federal history. ^[18]

In October 1982, The Body Politic reported that a right-wing paramilitary group identifying themselves as the 'Werewolves' had put up flyers in the Boston region alleging they were responsible for the fire. In addition, they threatened to "follow up" by killing lesbians and gays. ^[19]

Analysis and critique

Jonah Raskin opined that Fag Rag had a "proselytizing air" about it. ^[20] He suggested they wanted to convert heterosexuals to the LGBT world, so they could "develop a sense of gay pride". He argues that the name of the publication itself was designed to be objectionable to the "straight world of heterosexuals", and that the name celebrates faggots, "as the writers define themselves". ^[20]

Raymond Jean-Frontain wrote that Fag Rag often included provocative photographs of men bending over or spreading their legs wide open "in an invitation to participate in ass fucking as an act of revolution". ^[21] He states the newspaper refused to "keep hidden what society was determined to control" through censorship, and that the men in these photos illustrated the "world quite literally turned upside down". ^[21]

Jim Downs opined that Shively "wrote himself into history, becoming part of the historical record and embedding his perspective in the public memory that would dictate the course of gay history for the next few decades". ^[22]

New Hampshire governor Meldrim Thomson described the newspaper, after seeing a copy of it, as "the most loathsome publication in the English language". ^[10] Thompson had been attending a play by Jonathan Ned Katz at the University of New Hampshire, and Shively was selling the newspaper there, which prompted his visceral reaction. ^[23]

Publication history

Publication history (sporadic)

Issue	Date	Notes
1	June 1971
2	Fall 1971
3	Summer 1972
4	January 1973
5	Summer 1973
6	Fall/Winter 1973
7/8	Winter/Spring 1974
9	Summer 1974	Stonewall 5th Anniversary Issue
10	Fall 1974
11	Winter 1974
12	Spring 1975
13	Summer 1975
14	November/December 1975
15	February/March 1976
16/17	June/July 1976	Fifth Anniversary Special
18	Fall/Winter 1976
19	Spring 1977
20	Spring 1977
21/22	February/March 1978	Cold Weather Issue
23/24	Fall 1978
25	1979
26	1979
27/28	1980	Supplement: Folie A Deux a play by Maya Silverthorne
29	1981
30-39	1983	Special 12th Anniversary Issue
40	1984
41	1986	Includes premier issue of Bad Attitudes: A Lesbian Sex Magazine
42/43	1987
44	1987	Special binding
Source: Digital Collections of The History Project [24]

See also

• Come Out!
• History of LGBT in journalism
• List of LGBT periodicals

Notes

1. View of the façade of at 22 Bromfield Street where Gay Community News and Fag Rag had its offices above. ^[15]

References

1. "Fag Rag #44". Alexander Street . edited by Michael Bronski, in Fag Rag (Boston, MA: Fag Rag Collective, 1987, originally published 1987), 40 page(s)
2. Downs 2016 , p. 126
3. Moore, Patrick (2004). Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality. Beacon Press. pp. 6–11. ISBN   9780807079560 . Retrieved July 30, 2015.
4. Wachsberger, Ken (April 1, 2012). Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press, Part 2. MSU Press. ISBN   9781628951677 . Retrieved July 30, 2015.
5. Nickels, Thom (December 18, 2020). "City Safari: The Beat gay poet". The University City Review. Archived from the original on May 12, 2021.
6. Downs 2016 , pp. 120–121
7. Shively, Charley (February 24, 1991). "The history of Fag Rag (part 1); The early evolution of the most 'loathsome publication in the English language'". Gay Community News . 18 (30). Boston: Northeastern University. ISSN   0147-0728. ProQuest   199324643.
8. Lybarger, Jeremy (September 11, 2020). "Fag Rag: The '70s Paper of Gay Political Revolution". Columbia Journalism Review . Archived from the original on June 10, 2023.
9. Streitmatter 1995 , p. 194
10. Grundy, David (2021). "A Gay Presence: Publication and Revision in John Wieners' Behind the State Capitol". In Kassir, Leila; Espley, Richard (eds.). Queer Between the Covers: Histories of Queer Publishing and Publishing Queer Voices. London: University of London Press. pp. 7–31. ISBN   9781913002046. JSTOR   j.ctv123x59r.6. OCLC   1252627692.
11. Scudeler, June . (2015). "The Queerness of Native American Literature". Studies in American Indian Literatures . 27 (3). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press: 124–126. doi:10.5250/studamerindilite.27.3.0124. ISSN   0730-3238. ProQuest   1749275631. Using archival materials, Tatonetti chronicles Mohawk writer Maurice Kenny's writings in 1970s gay newspapers and magazines such as Fag Rag... he is the first known gay Indigenous published author
12. Ryan, Hugh (June 15, 2020). "For Pride Month: A Taste of Queer Brooklyn". New York Society Library . Archived from the original on October 18, 2021.
13. Nickels, Thom (November–December 2005). "When Vidal spoke, people taped". The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide . 12 (6): 37. ISSN   1532-1118. OCLC   0013042. Gale   A138540067.
14. Grobel, Lawrence (March 15, 1985). "Feuding with Gore and Jackie". The Boston Globe . Boston. p. 65 – via Newspapers.com.
15. "View from street of the fire damage at Gay Community News office at 22 Bromfield Street in Boston". The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ Boston.
16. Hage, Cate (1982). "Gay Paper Burned". Off Our Backs . 12 (8): 17. ISSN   0030-0071. JSTOR   25774568.
17. Poggi, Stephanie (March 2, 1985). "Last Of The Boston Arson Gang Convicted". Gay Community News. Vol. 12, no. 32. Northeastern University. ISSN   0147-0728. ProQuest   2171701350.
18. Irvine, Janice (January 19, 1985). "Suspected GCN Arsonist Sentenced To 40 Years". Gay Community News. Vol. 12, no. 26. Northeastern University. ISSN   0147-0728. ProQuest   2171701011.
19. "Rightist group claims credit for GCN arson". The Body Politic . October 1982. p. 19 – via EBSCO Information Services.
20. Raskin, Jonah (1974). "The Underground Press". Change . 6 (2). Taylor & Francis: 55–58. doi:10.1080/00091383.1974.10568644. ISSN   0009-1383. JSTOR   40162005. OCLC   300189995.
21. Frontain, Raymond-Jean (1999). ""Sweet Boy, Gimme Yr Ass": Allen Ginsberg and the Open Body of the Beat Revolution". CEA Critic. 61 (2/3). Johns Hopkins University Press: 83–98. ISSN   0007-8069. JSTOR   44377309.
22. Downs 2016 , p. 62
23. Streitmatter 1995 , pp. 203–204
24. Elder, Andrew (2009). "Fag Rag Publication" (PDF). The History Project. pp. 1–2.

Sources

• Streitmatter, Rodger (1995). "Defining Gay Male Culture". Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston: Faber and Faber. ISBN   978-0-571-19873-3. OCLC   32745788.
• Downs, Jim (2016). Stand By Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation. New York: Basic Books. ISBN   9780465032709. LCCN   2015040030. OCLC   920018216.

Further reading

• Fag Rag Collective (1994). "Second Five-Year Plan". In Jay, Karla; Young, Allen (eds.). Lavender culture. New York University Press. ISBN   0-8147-4216-5.
• Tu, Kathy; Low, Tobin (June 2, 2019). "A History of the Queer Press". New York Public Library . Interview with Michael Bronski
• Bronski, Michael (December 20, 2017). "The Last Gay Liberationist". Boston Review . ISSN   0734-2306. Archived from the original on June 12, 2023.

External links

• Fag Rag videos at Vimeo
• Small collection of Fag Rag online at University of Southern Maine