Let’s Mosh! Hardcore Punk and Homoeroticism

Taut muscular torsos, glistening with sweat, rub against each other in a frenzy of movement and passion.  I could be describing any amount of gay porn film scenes or I could be describing the mosh pit at a Black Flag gig.  Give young males the chance to strip to the waist and get intimate with each other and they go for it in a big way.  Whether it be the mosh pit or the communal bath after a football match, guys aren’t short on opportunities to bond.  But how many of them would identify this behaviour with sexuality and what does it matter?

The american hardcore punk scene of the late 1970′s, early 80′s was typically confused.   On the one side there were skinheads, ready to beat the crap out of any gay kid or hustler who was unlucky enough to get in their path.  On the other, were the openly queer and in your face bands such as The Dicks and MDC.  The mosh pit was often an explosive melting pot of the two.  There are some valuable anecdotes in Steven Blush’ ‘American Hardcore, A Tribal History’ (Feral house 2001).  This from Gary Floyd of the Dicks

There was a lot of queer shit going on – tons of closet cases….A lot of straight guys were getting their dicks sucked and I was sucking a little bit too – because it was happening.  It was every place, people were just doing it.

As with all scenes, whilst some good souls were breaking down barriers, there were others who didn’t get it and used the violence of the music as an excuse for violence against anyone who they perceived didn’t fit in.  Then, of course, there were the lowliest types who would beat up fags by day and fumble for cock when the lights went out.

Women did not feature heavily in the hardcore punk World; did this have something to do with the confusion over sexuality?  Holly Ramos (a rare female in the New York scene) is quoted in ‘American hardcore’

It was a real guy thing; I think a real gay thing too.  Girls weren’t involved whatsoever in bands…….There was that whole male bonding/sweating/being-naked/doing that dancing going on.

Perhaps the absence of women, coupled with close proximity, bare chested moshing enabled guys to explore sides of their sexuality that would have remained dormant in less aggressive more gender equal surroundings?

Sexual ambiguity has certainly played its part in most of the youth cults that have shaped our cultural landscape.  From the “long haired” bi sexuality of the rolling stones and Bowie, to the gender bending of glam rock and the new romantics and on through to the loved up experimentation of the E generation.  Even recently with the Emo explosion, young guys can be seen wearing their skinny jeans so that half of their arses show; inviting for who, if not for someone explicitly interested in that part of their anatomy?

These days homocore has its own sub division of the hardcore genre.  Bands like Limp Wrist, Pansy Division, Queer Mutiny and the wonderfully named Black Fag are loud and proud but mostly preaching to the converted.  I think a mixed scene, for all its confusion, is much more useful to the kid who doesn’t necessarily identify them self as queer but who realises it’s OK through the music they love.