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.

Real Gays Don’t Mince

Harmless, sexless, queenie homos; they’re everywhere.  Saturday night television,  there’s an inoffensive gayer prancing about like a jester in the court of the Queen, auditioning hopefuls for ‘Friends of Dorothy’ or whatever it’s called.  Daytime television, there’s another giving fashion tips and encouraging “girls” to “get their bangers out” snapping his fingers and giving salacious winks to camera.  Isn’t it wonderful that homosexual men are so outre, so seen and accepted?  well no, it’s not.

I grew up (or rather came of age) in the late 1980′s and it would seem that this culture of fem men providing giggles on a Saturday night hasn’t changed at all.  In those days we had the likes of Larry Grayson and John Inman, with wrists so limp they would have struggled to tie their own shoelaces, mincing around and dishing out the double entendres.  Shut that door, I’m free, ooh you are awful – oh do fuck off!

So what’s the big problem?  Why can’t I be thankful that gay men have a presence on prime time at all?

I searched around as a kid for someone, anyone, who might be gay and not a flamer.  I was just starting to realise the burden of my sexuality at about age twelve, possibly earlier and was mortified to find that most of my crushes and objects of desire were men.  I knew enough to know that this would, technically, make me homosexual and personally didn’t have a problem with that.  The problem was, all the gay people I saw on TV were as camp as Christmas ’round Julien Clary’s gaff.  This clearly wasn’t me.  By the time I was fourteen I was massively into punk rock, drinking lager and hurling myself about the dance floor at gigs.  It seemed to me that this was not what my assigned tribe did.  I should have been drinking Campari and Soda and squealing about how great the new Madonna record was.  I became engrossed in a search for someone who could represent for regular gay guys, with little luck.  I did however come across a term which I still hate to this day.  Straight acting.

At first the idea of a band of stealth Mary’s appealed to me.  I was sure that I some point one of them would recognise me as a member of their club and invite me in.  This did not happen.  By the time I got to eighteen, still in the closet to my friends and family, I decided to bite the bullet and go to a gay club.  I dreaded going, expecting to find a whole club full of Larry Graysons, who would destroy me with their catty remarks and withering looks.  Of course, there were a few of those types there but I was amazed to find regular talking, regular walking un-mincing lads, who were just as keen as I to hook up and get away from the god awful Hi-NRG dance music.

The fact was that the media image of the gay man, the one that was acceptable for television, had to be a parody.  They were there for laughs and nothing else.  No program maker was going to have a homosexual that looked like he may have ever had sex with another man on their show.  I began to realise that the queer who didn’t camp it up was still seen as a real threat, to the very fabric of society.  How could you be identified and pigeonholed  if you weren’t wearing our societies version of the pink triangle, camp.

This lack of role models delayed my acceptance of my sexuality by many years and I probably wouldn’t care if things had changed in twenty years but they haven’t.  Stand up Alan Carr, Graham Norton and Gok Wan.  At least tens these days have the internet, where like minded tribes are easy to come by and gain support and understanding from.

The day I nearly cried with relief was when I found out that Bob Mould from Husker Du was gay.  At last, someone who had been in hardcore punk bands and who I had seen thrash around on stage and talk with no hint of a Poofshire accent was out.  About a week later I stuck ‘Zen Arcade’ on at a preposterous volume, until I felt fearless blood rush around my veins and then went out and told my mates.  Shut that door?  No, I couldn’t.