Gay mojo

Sorry for the lack of posts, but as I managed to post from my phone the other day I have no broadband at home until March 6th at the earliest. Which sucks. Hugely.

Anyway, I had a revelation the other day. One of those things that just suddenly comes to you. Pieces of a puzzle that I didn’t know existed appeared, fit together and *pow* a solution presented itself.

Gay people didn’t exist before the early 1970’s.

No, really, I have proof. Of a sort. OK, so it’s more of a theory but there’s a solid piece of evidence to back it up.

Back-story: for some reason I’ve found myself in two gay bar/clubs in the last couple of weeks. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never been in one before in my life, but having said that – in the case of the second – I didn’t know I was in a gay bar until a friend pointed it out to me. So I might have been in one before and been equally oblivious. The fact that the more recent one is, I believe, multiple award winning for its gayness and has posters outside saying this didn’t register at all before I walked in.

I also failed to notice – or at least attach any significance to – the plastic chandeliers. Or the “friendly” bar staff. Or the male couples.

Or the late 70’s / early 80’s soundtrack.

And it is on the latter that I will focus. You see, apparently all gay men like the classics of that era. Erasure, Ultravox, Carly Simon, Gloria Gaynor, ABBA… I sit in a bar like that and the only thing I think is “retro… what great songs these are from my childhood”. When in reality I’m – apparently – listening to gay anthem after gay anthem.

Let’s bring these facts together. I like them because they’re from a time when I was growing up and was exposed to them when they were first released. Gay men like these tracks because they’re famed in the gay world as gay anthems (sorry for the overuse of “gay” here), but why these songs? Why not older ones?

The answer? Gay people didn’t exist until around the same time as I was born. The progenitors of the gay movement are about the same age as me. Nobody particularly gay was born before the early 1970’s.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Mind you, I don’t find two men kissing to be particularly weird so what the hell do I know?