Queer and Disco
It was between the 1960s and 1970s that “gay culture” began to sprout, despite the aversion written and recounted in the “scientific” treatises of those years, as well as the aversion of religious fanatics and bigots. The American Psychiatric Association would not remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders until 1973.
When and why gay clubs were born: the Continental Baths
Do you know when the first gay club was established?
It was September 1968 when the Continental Baths opened in New York, in the basement of the old Ansonia Hotel.
And what was the role of disco in those years?
“Disco,” Shapiro writes, “aimed to break the shackles of shame that had held gay men prisoner for centuries,” even though the road for gay people was still very difficult. The pill changed the concept of “sex” and the way millions of Americans related to it. The early 1970s saw an explosion of sex in mainstream hetero popular culture: it was the era of suburban swinging and open couples, the years of films like Deep Throat, Last Tango in Paris, and Shampoo. However, this openness, if we want to call it that, only concerned the heterosexual world.
The first gay clubs that flourished were clandestine venues where sexual energy was predominant and where social barriers did not exist. Homosexuals became instrumental in the rebirth of discotheques and had a significant influence on American society, far more than the activists of the Gay Liberation Front. Throwing a party for gay people did not mean dressing elegantly or walking around sipping a drink while perhaps talking business; it meant recreation, fun, and celebration (dance your troubles away… work hard and play hard). In the new gay clubs, they knew how to celebrate together: being in the same place, with the music that bound them, created atmospheres of intensity and warmth.
And what was the dance floor?
The dance floor was like a space for cathartic escape and community expression.
Regarding this, Shapiro writes: “The multi-genre pile-up constructed by the restless ears and fingers of the first DJs reflected the delicious promiscuity of the bathhouses. Their mixes, with smooth and seamless transitions, were emblematic not only of a newly found group identity but also of a newly emancipated hedonistic principle; they were a music and a scene of prodigious physicality, embracing an idea of the body to its extreme limits.” And further: “Just as soul music had become the voice of pride and awareness that animated the struggle for civil rights, disco rapidly assumed the role of the soundtrack for the gay movement. Disco was the embodiment of a morality that aligned pleasure with the political claim of a new generation of gay culture, raised on police raids, draconian laws, and the darkness of locker rooms. […] Disco culture would never change legal discrimination, but it was the most effective tool in the fight for gay rights. Disco did not have to shock anyone with slogans or regiment militants with declarations of peremptory seriousness; its message was a hedonistic principle. Disco was born from an outlaw desire, branded as an affront to God and man: its symbiosis with pleasure therefore necessarily became its political platform, and by extension, its politics merged with pleasure. The bursting sexual energy and community spirit of the early discotheques were the perfect antidote to the persistent hangover of the 1960s.”
Thus disco, which gained more and more sympathizers, became the symbol of a new type of political resistance.
Do you know who the first openly gay city councilor in San Francisco was?
Harvey Bernard Milk (1930–1978) was an American politician and activist in the gay liberation movement who was assassinated due to homophobia. His words have remained famous in history: “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet shatter every closet door behind which gay people hide in the country.”
The gay community has dedicated many institutions to Milk (including the Harvey Milk Institute and the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Club of San Francisco), schools such as the Harvey Milk School in New York, and a restaurant called Harvey’s. The recent film “Milk“, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn, who won the Oscar for Best Actor, was a great success.
We have talked about the United States. What about Italy?
In Italy, disco music was associated with the gay universe primarily because of the wild (and considered unmasculine) way in which one could dance, and because of the ostentation and exhibitionism typical of many gay people at that time. The American phenomenon did not bring any political or social connotations with it across the ocean.
