The Evolution of the Gay Male Public Sphere in England and Wales, 1967- C.1983 by Charles Smith
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The Evolution of the Gay Male Public Sphere in England and Wales, 1967- c.1983 By Charles Smith Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University © by Charles Smith, 2014 Abstract The Evolution of the Gay Male Public Sphere in England and Wales 1967-c.1983 This thesis is a reassessment of gay male politics in England and Wales during the period between the decriminalisation of homosexual acts in private in 1967 and the HIV epidemic of the early 1980s. It looks beyond the activities of the revolutionary Gay Liberation Front and its offshoots which have dominated previous accounts. Instead it considers a broader range of social and political organisations which developed for gay men in the seventies: including reformist NGOS such as the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, the gay club scene, and publications such as Gay News. Through a detailed consideration of these less formally radical enterprises it argues that the seventies saw the creation of a broadly Habermasian ‘public sphere’ of gay male life. The gay male public sphere was a set of social spaces, political campaigns, and communications media which were explicitly aligned to a gay male identity and had no direct precedent in previous queer public cultures. However, this was not precisely analogous to gay men ‘Coming Out’ as the GLF understood the term. Participation in the gay male public did not necessarily involve openly declaring your sexuality to all possible audiences. It was also not necessarily a radical challenge to the state and existing society and, this thesis argues, gay male politics in the seventies was characterised as much by people who wanted to work within existing systems as it was by those who wanted to overturn them. This thesis also considers the limits that were placed on the gay male public sphere, through an account of the operation of the Sexual Offences Act and Mary Whitehouse’s prosecution of Gay News for blasphemous Libel. As such it is a contribution to debates about the nature and extent of Britain’s postwar ‘Permissive Society.’ 2 Certificate of Originality Thesis Access Conditions and Deposit Agreement Students should consult the guidance notes on the electronic thesis deposit and the access conditions in the University’s Code of Practice on Research Degree Programmes Author…Charles Smith………………..……. Title…The Evolution of the Gay Male Public Sphere in England and Wales, 1967-c.1983 I, Charles Smith of 9 Bedford Gardens, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG41 3HZ, would like to deposit The Evolution of the Gay Male Public Sphere in England and Wales, 1967-c.1983,hereafter referred to as the “Work”, once it has successfully been examined in Loughborough University Institutional Repository Status of access RESTRICTED Moratorium Period Three years, ending 01/05 2017 Status of access approved by (CAPITALS):…………………………………………………………………… Supervisor (Signature)………………………………………………...…………………………………... School of……………………………………………………………………...………………………………… Author's Declaration I confirm the following : CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY This is to certify that I am responsible for the work submitted in this thesis, that the original work is my own except as specified in acknowledgements or in footnotes, and that neither the thesis nor the original work therein has been submitted to this or any other institution for a degree NON-EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS The licence rights granted to Loughborough University Institutional Repository through this agreement are entirely non-exclusive and royalty free. I am free to publish the Work in its present version or future versions elsewhere. I agree that Loughborough University Institutional Repository administrators or any third party with whom Loughborough University Institutional Repository has an agreement to do so may, without changing content, convert the Work to any medium or format for the purpose of future preservation and accessibility. 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Restricted or Confidential access material will not be available on the World Wide Web until the moratorium period has expired. - That I am the author of the Work and have the authority to make this agreement and to hereby give Loughborough University Institutional Repository administrators the right to make available the Work in the way described above. - That I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the Work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge break any UK law or infringe any third party’s copyright or other Intellectual Property Right. I have read the University’s guidance on third party copyright material in theses. - The administrators of Loughborough University Institutional Repository do not hold any obligation to take legal action on behalf of the Depositor, or other rights holders, in the event of breach of Intellectual Property Rights, or any other right, in the material deposited. The statement below shall apply to ALL copies: This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. Restricted/confidential work: All access and any copying shall be strictly subject to written permission from the University Dean of School and any external sponsor, if any. Author's signature……………………………………..Date…………………………………...…………...…… user’s declaration: for signature during any Moratorium period (Not Open work): I undertake to uphold the above conditions: Date Name (CAPITALS) Signature Address 4 Contents Acknowledgements 6 Abbreviations 8 Tables and Figures 9 Introduction 10 Reassessing Coming Out 11 The Gay Male Public Sphere 19 Why Talk about a Public Sphere? Responding to the new British Queer History 25 Parameters, Definitions and Sources 37 Chapter One: ‘New Law But No New Deal?’ Gay Men and Permissive Law Reform 57 The Silences of Law Reform 60 The Operation of the Act 65 The Legal Regulation of the Gay Male Public Sphere 80 Public Sex and the New Gay Politics 90 Conclusion 99 Chapter Two: Gay NGOs and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality 101 ‘Make Friends Through CHE’: Changing the Nature of the Gay Social Scene 104 Political Debates and Communication 111 Political Action and Gay Men’s Citizenship 119 Conclusion 125 Chapter Three: ‘But you can’t share in something you don’t know about’: Gay News 127 and the evolution of the Gay Press ‘Just like Any Other Newspaper’: Gay News, Newspaper Form and Identity Politics 130 ‘Putting the sex back into homosexual?’ Gender, sex and commercialism 145 Conclusion 162 Chapter Four: Coming Out and Going Out? The Commercial Scene 164 Gay Guides and the Emergence of the ‘Gay Scene’ 168 Nighthawks: Gay Activism and the Commercial Scene 179 ‘Heaven is Gay Power!’: Ultradiscos and gay consumerism 192 Conclusion 206 Chapter 5: Opposing the Gay Male Public Sphere: the Gay News Trial 208 ‘An Attack on Gay News is an attack on us all’: The mobilisation of the Gay Male 212 Public Sphere ‘A kind of re-crucifixion’: Mary Whitehouse, Blasphemy and ‘the gay lobby’ 227 Conclusion 241 Conclusion 244 Bibliography 254 5 Acknowledgements The line of thinking that produced this thesis began when I was just short of twenty years old, with a tutorial essay titled ‘How Permissive was the Permissive Society?’ As I write these acknowledgements I am around a month past thirty and struck by the people I have had the luck to know in that tumultuous decade and the impossibility of doing justice to them all in the few words which follow. First off I must thank Peter Ghosh for setting me that essay and being an inspiring undergraduate tutor. Secondly John Davis, whose special subject on sixties London (‘Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll and Town Planning’) influenced so much of my subsequent approach and who was an incredibly encouraging Masters supervisor. Marcus Collins supervised this thesis. Daniel Conway, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley and Dave Berry all read sections as part of end of year reviews. As a commuting PHD student my community has been supplied by the IHR’s History Lab - a source of support, intellectual stimulation, and, crucially, excuses for going to the pub. Special thanks must go to David Turner, my co-chair Sally Osborn, and Guy Beckett. Outside of History Lab Craig Griffiths read early parts of my work and put up with me being frequently late to our coffees at the IHR. In the last months of writing up Justin Bengry has been a particularly encouraging and supportive reader, as well as wonderful company. Additional thanks are due to Helen Smith for allowing me to see her unpublished PHD thesis. Gratitude is due to Ken Owen and Martin White, for many things, but especially for that night they spent complaining about Habermas in The Bookbinders, when I gradually realised, six months late, what my Masters thesis had actually been about. My first ‘proper’ bosses, Norma Potter and Gaye Morgan of the Codrington, for coping with such a dazed 22- year old employee and supplying one of the best places to write in Oxford. David Buckle for so much, but especially for being so supportive during my most recent job search. Martin McNulty, for putting up with my constant jejune enquires about the contemporary gay scene. Shani Chachamu, especially for her sterling work reading the entire internet and opening my eyes up to debates and ideas of which I would never otherwise have been aware.