Im currently reading Outing Yourself by Michelangelo Signorile which was written in 1995. Theres a chapter on meeting other lgbt people and I was reading it last night. The internet was new at that time and not many people had it, so theres only a very brief mention of it in the book. So while I was reading it I was thinking, how did gay people actually survive pre-internet?? :lol: I live in rural Ireland, dont drive, only know a few gay people and there are very few lgbt services in my area. If it wasnt for the internet I would be totally stranded. So my question, I guess its mostly for the older people on EC is: what was it like being gay before the internet came along? How did you actually meet other lgbt people? Were your gaydar senses more finely tuned back then?? :lol:
I was really surprised to see this thread, because I was thinking about this today too. Honestly, it's not that difficult for me to imagine, we only got the Internet three years ago. It made a HUGE difference to me personally, because up to that point I didn't even know that people could be gay, let alone there is a possibility that I mightn't be straight. Without the Internet I'd just have assumed that everyone felt like me or that I was just a late bloomer or something. I'm from rural Ireland too. There is no one out locally, the entire topic is taboo and the local secondary school is really homophobic. The idea of how isolated you'd be without the Internet is disturbing. (And yay, someone from home!)
Funny, I read that same book a few weeks back and was thinking the same - they really really need to do an updated version. I can personally say that it's once I got Internet access at home that I truly started to understand what being gay was about, as opposed to the stereotypical mainstream media version which is all I knew and didn't recognize myself in at all. I was in my 30s. I know that doesn't really answer your question tho... hmm guessing that clubs/bars had a bigger role to play, before ****** profiles there was the "hankie code", cruising areas in parks etc... ? Looking forward to reading other comments on this thread.
Given the simultaneous social climate of the time, you mostly met discreetly in dumpy old clubs or bars. Truly we've started to move out of the dark ages.
Well... before the Internet, there were "bulletin boards." These were popular from the late 1970s until the early 90s. They were sort of discussion communities like EC, but people ran them out of their homes, on a dedicated computer, with anywhere from 1 to maybe 5 or 10 phone lines. You dialed into the bulletin board with your dial-up modem, at the breathtakingly slow speed of 10 to 20 characters/second (.01 to .025 Mbits per second, or about 1/100th of a slow broadband connection), and read through threads. Video was nonexistent, photos and graphics were rare because a single tiny photo could take 5 or more minutes to download. And the number of people that could be online at once was limited by the number of phone lines, so many popular BBSes you'd have to retry incessantly to try to log on. And, of course, if the BBS wasn't located in your local area, it was a long distance call to connect to it, at 20 to 30 cents a minute. Some BBSes charged $25 or $50 a year (in 1980s dollars; minimum wage was $3) in addition. So if you were in the sticks, and were computer savvy, you'd call in to the closest BBS which might be 50 or 100 miles away, and read articles or leave messages for other guys (it was nearly all guys too; very rarely were there computer-savvy women in those days.) Other than that, there were a lot of small weekly or monthly publications aimed at gay men. There was one in DC called the Washington Blade that was quite famous, and most major cities had one. To meet people, you either went to gay bars, bathhouses, or other similar places. Major cities had one or more gay bookstores, and most were open pretty late (midnight) on Friday and Saturday, and the bookstores turned into total cruisefests. (Sorta gross, actually, if you happened to actually be there to look at books.) In some areas, like San Francisco, there were places like grocery stores situated in highly gay areas that became magnets for people looking to meet up. There's still a Safeway in the Castro known locally as the SafeGay. Or you took out a small classified ad in one of the above mentioned publications, and waited for people to send you a letter in the mail. Later on, some places started doing 900 number-based classifieds, where the ad was free, and it cost $2 a minute both for the person leaving the message and the person retrieving the message to communicate with each other. That's one of the reasons a lot of LGBT people didn't come out. It wasn't easy, even in the big city, to find others similar to you, to find information about being LGBT, to talk to others about what you felt. An awful lot of shame about being gay, which kept a lot of people in denial. We've come a long way.
I grew up in a very rural area, and became an adult right as the internet started to take off and become popular. To say the internet changed my life would be an understatement; I don't think I would have survived without the internet. Stranded is the right word. I felt utterly alone, and completely isolated. To make matters worse the entire climate was hostile toward LGBT people. My guess is that most gay people moved to the big cities to live in the gay ghettos, but of course that meant you had to hear about it from someone to even know they existed. THEN you had to have the ability to relocate. Finding and learning about gay bars and stuff was also important. I know before apps and the internet made it easy for sex hook-ups, there were hook-up places in parks, public bathrooms, bathhouses, etc. My guess is that a lot of guys in my position growing up likely got married to a woman, and when they learned about those things they visited them when they were able. Honestly, from what I hear a lot of people still do that. I've never been to a bathhouse or anything like that, but people I've talked to who sometimes go say mostly married men show up there.
I remember it quite well....was in my late teens then '95', we mostly met people at nightclubs and through chatlines, although those were scary!...some community centers here actually had a lgbt night where they would have games and stuff as well, but many were afraid to go...because straight guys would walk by the room in center and scream FAGS!! HOMOS!!! e.t.c....very scary and sad for a young person, our only safe haven was nightclubs...this was also the time that Ellen 'came out'l and I remember there being a big boom in the amount of people in the club especially females, It was like she was a loud and clear voice for us that said it was OK! much respect for her! especially considering the time.
I remember when Ellen came out. I used to watch her sitcom, because she was literally the only other gay person that I could physically look at, and it made me feel less isolated and alone. (Yes, I know how bad that sounds.) I also remember when Matthew Shepard was murdered. It was very upsetting to me, because I lived in a similar community as him. My thinking was that if I came out, that's probably what was going to happen to me. It was also sad, because he was really the first openly gay man I ever physically saw and he was dead. Yeah, that sends a strong message to a teenage mind. :icon_sad:
We had some Internet when I was in high school. Dial-up, AOL. Nothing like now. I wasn't aware that I was a lesbian. Maybe if I'd had access to something like we have now, I would have talked online with people about the massive crush I had on a girl, and figured it out. When I finally did come out to myself, a lot of my process happened over the Internet. Also potentially relevant to this situation: When I was in high school, cell phones were only for businessmen. Very little communication with peers that wasn't monitored by parents, except when you were actually with them in person. And then, you were usually in a group. The very first GSAs apparently started in the late 80s, but I had never heard of them when I graduated high school in 1998. In my artsy magnet school, there was one student who was out. Our school had a reputation in the district for being gay, too. A friend of mine, who is a transwoman in her 60s, says she never knew transgender existed before the Internet.
I wouldn't really know what it would be like without the internet as I'm not that old but I know what it was like without facebook. Back then I was in highschool and my first exposure to other gay men was IRC which I found an existing group in a local chatroom for people in my area. They were discrete and easy to socialize without the hassle of meeting up first. Not many people have camera technology back then so you weren't pressured to reveal the only pic you had of yourself, only to those you choose. Not sure if the chatroom still exists. But now that I think about it, I might be tempted to go back just to see
Loved reading the responses, it definitely made me realise how lucky I am to be sitting here with the world at my fingertips! @Catkin I love seeing other Irish people here too, makes me feel like Im not all alone!
I don't want to be one of those people who pulls a "When you and I were young, Maggie" or "You whippersnappers don't know how good you have it". Because things ARE better now, and I'm ecstatic that they are. And yeah, I wish I could've had things this way than the way I did have it. That said, there were some things I got to experience that I don't think anybody now has to...and some of them were actually kind of fun. Henry Rollins used to do a bit in his spoken word pieces. He said "Do you remember what it was like? To not KNOW? Like you might wake up at night and say 'What was the SALT II treaty, again?' And back then, you tried to figure it out...and if you couldn't, you said 'Oh, well, maybe I'll call the library tomorrow'. Now? You go online. And there's the SALT II treaty. And pictures of the signing of the SALT II treaty. And FAN ART of the SALT II treaty. Do you realize how amazing it is to be able to KNOW, any time you want?" And that IS the main difference. The access to information. When I first started thinking I might be gay, the only source of information I had were a couple gay magazines from the Los Angeles area. They were out of date by about a year. The first section was news articles, which I pored over. I found out what the big political issues dealing with gay men were - access to AIDS education and prevention was the big one. The second section was art-based. Pictorals. No frontal nudity in these magazines, but they had some ass shots, which of course were something I committed to memory almost immediately. (I can still recall the pictures taken in the desert with the two muscular guys, over two decades later. ) And the third section was the "personal" sections. It included "men looking to date", "men looking to make friends", "men looking to hook up", and "escort" ads. And those fascinated me. Because nothing was explained. I could only try to guess what things meant in context. It was like getting a quick glimpse into another world - one of which I probably would be a part very soon - and trying to figure out what it was all about. I quickly figured out what "top" and "bottom" meant. It took longer to figure out "uncut" and "cut". (I knew what circumcision was - I just hadn't heard those terms to refer to it before.) "In/out"? "B/D"? "NFNFNF"? It was somewhat daunting, but more exciting. I liked poring over those magazines, trying to wonder what it'd be like. Now? Anyone who wonders can have their answers in ten minutes. Lex
That is the best things about the modern Internet. I remember when I was a kid I wanted to build a jet engine. My dad told me he remembered reading an article in Popular science as kid. The Liberian at school gave a list of a bunch of libraries in North Texas. I called a bunch and found a University library which had old Popular Science magazines. I had to pay for the long distance calls out of my lawn mowing money. Got someone to give me a ride to the library 40 miles away. Spent all day looking could not find the article. Found out that the article was likely in Popular Mechanics. Took a few more hours but found the article. Spent 2 dollars to photocopy the article. Now lets contrast that to three weeks ago while I was on vacation. Sitting at the top of the mountain I get hungry. I pull out my phone go to Google Places and boom I have a list of all of the restaurants in the area and reviews.
Oh my I couldn't amagine a life without internet esp. with being gay and trying to meet guys. Finding other masculine guys like me has helped me along with my process with coming out. I'd probably be hiding my sexually still and not being too happy with myself.
These are really interesting responses! Its quite entertaining.... its fun being one of the last generations to remember VHS and dailup!
On the east coast, in the Blade, the terms were "Greek active" or "Greek passive." It took me a while to figure out what in the hell they were talking about. I was wondering if everyone wore togas or something
