Shaun Cole: Do We Still Don Our Gay Apparel? Seminar

Event details

In my 2000 publication Don We Now Our Gay Apparel, I explored the history of gay men’s relationship with clothing and their dressed appearance, considering how clothing choices were impacted upon by sexual orientation and broader societal conditions. I particularly argued that the history of gay men’s style was marked by a vacillation between hyper masculinity and overt femininity. With the changing position of, and attitudes towards homosexuality, sexual orientation can be considered just one of many subject positions that an individual represents through his dressed appearance. Equally important are age, race and ethnicity, and social class. Drawing on notions of intersectionality and research undertaken for my new book, including interviews conducted with a gay men and analysis of representations in television, I will discuss some of the ways in which gay men in the westernized world have negotiated their subject positions. I will particularly look at race and ethnicity, and ideas of aging and how these gay men have navigated between, concepts and manifestations of masculinity and macho, and camp and effeminacy.