LGBT News An interesting read about being gay and rock music in the 70s

"...it’s hard to fully appreciate the social power wielded by rock-star-thin pretty things in the ’70s."

The author proposes that the 70's sexual ambiguity was a con job. Generally, I agree with him as things turned out. At the time, it seemed quite real. There was plenty of gay bashing going on, but a substantial number of youth were open to the existence of homosexuality. It was the time of Gore Vidal.

And there's no denying that the rock star fashions of the day, for men, were highly sexualized. Not only that, but youthful society was far more sex positive, than it is today. I was suckered by this liberated atmosphere, just as much as anyone else.

And that brings me to the con job. The Baby Boomers grew up, got elected to political office, and proceeded to outlaw and criminalize everything in the three pillars of "sex, drugs, and rock and roll." Today we have a lot more sex offenders, because there are endless degrees of new sexual offenses. Kids used to talk about "statutory rape" in the 1970's, but today the consequences are far, far worse for kids, with lifelong sex offender registration and a scarlet letter in virtually every state. The whole thing was a con, just like Miley Cyrus is a con, for the growing conservatism of the millennial generation. If they try what she does in their own lives, many of them (poor, not popular, or minorities), they will be slapped down, hard.

The 1970's were an interesting time for me. But they and the subsequent decades taught me a lot about human nature. A lot of us have our fun, and then lecture others when we get older. My former sister-in-law, who abused most every drug ever invented, and copulated with most of the population of the universe, could always be heard, uttering to her teenage daughters, "I never did that when I was your age." This, of course, is why so many 1970's era moral majority types end up getting busted with Ted Haggard's male prostitute drug dealer.

 

Wow! "...sissy minstrelsy" haha, love it! I think we see a current form of this today but with a broader context including television and youtube personalities. I'm not sure it's a bad thing. The whole article is a great read and I love the last line.