Box Turtle Bulletin

Born On This Day, 1883: John Maynard Keynes

(d. 1946) The British economist has had a profound influence on macroeconomics and government economic policy. His ideas now carry his name — Keynesian economics — which argued that free markets didn’t always provide the best solutions in times of economic turmoil. He argued that counter cyclic spending during economic downturns could provide vital demand to keep businesses and industries afloat in times of lower employment levels. He advocated economic stimulus policies to keep people employed. “With men and plants unemployed, it is ridiculous to say that we cannot afford these new developments,” he wrote in 1928 of the need for spending on public works. “It is precisely with these plants and these men that we shall afford them.”

Keynes’s economic policies weren’t the only thing revolutionary about him in the early twentieth century. He was also very open about his sexuality. Between 1901 and 1915, he kept separate diaries where he tabulated his sexual encounters in a kind of a code that has baffled historians and biographers since then. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, a group of English writers, artists and philosophers which included E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, and the artist Duncan Grant, who is said to have been Keynes’s great love. Stratchy was also a lover, but he must have gotten a glimpse at Keynes’s diary: Stratchy was put off by Keynes’s manner of “treat[ing] his love affairs statistically.” Keynes eventually married the Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova, and their marriage did appear to have been a satisfactory one.

Born On This Day, 1898: Federico García Lorca

(d. 1936) Born in a small town to the west of Granada, García Lorca abandoned law studies at the University of Grenada to pursue literature and theater. When he staged his first play, El Maleficio de la Mariposa (The Butterfly’s Evil Spell, 1920, about an impossible love between a cockroach and a butterfly), it was laughed off the stage, which encouraged Garcí­a Lorca to instead turn his energies to poetry and fiction. His poetry collections included Impresiones y Paisajes (Impressions and Landscapes, 1918), Libro de Poemas (Book of Poems, 1921), Canciones (Songs, 1927) and Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Ballads, 1928). García Lorca became a fixture in Spain’s avant-guarde as a member of Generación del 27, an influential group of authors and poets who came of age between 1923 and 1927. Others influenced by García Lorca (and who, in turn, influenced him) included the surreal painters Salvador Dali and Óscar Domínguez, and filmmaker Luis Buñuel.

In 1929, García Lorca traveled to New York to study English at Columbia University, but he spent his time writing instead of studying. The result was another poetry collection, Poeta en Nueva York (A poet in New York), was published posthumously in 1942). Influenced by the Wall Street crash of 1929 which García Lorca had witnessed while there, Poeta en Nueva York condemned materialistic values and explored alienation, isolation, and the oppression of the African-American community he encountered there. When he returned to Spain in 1930, his iconoclastic art and left-leaning politics found instant favor in the newly established Spanish Republic. He was appointed director of a university student theatre company and was paid by the Ministry of Education to bring modern performances to remote rural areas free of charge. “The theatre is a school of weeping and of laughter,” he wrote, “a free forum, where men can question norms that are outmoded or mistaken and explain with living example the eternal norms of the human heart.”

When civil war broke out in 1936 between the Republic and rebellious Nationalists led by General Francisco Franco, García Lorca’s habit of “questioning norms” may have marked him as the Nationalists’ enemy, although contemporaries note that he maintained friendships on both sides of the battle lines. García Lorca’s sexual orientation, also, wouldn’t help matters. On August 18, 1936, his brother-in-law, mayor Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, was shot, and García Lorca was arrested that same afternoon. Controversy still surrounds the details of García Lorca death — who shot him and why — but it is believed that he was shot with three others outside of Granada on August 19. One executioner is reputed to have said, “I fired two bullets into his ass for being a queer.” A year later, an article appeared in a Nationalist newspaper lionizing García Lorca, calling him “the finest poet of Imperial Spain,” but Franco placed a general ban on his work until 1953 when a censored Obras Completas (Complete Works) was published.

Born On This Day, 1951: Suze Orman

She started out with a B.A. in social work and worked as a waitress in Berkeley before becoming a financial adviser for Merrill Lynch. In 1983, she moved to Prudential Bache Securities, where she became vice-president of investments. Four years later, she quit to found her own financial firm. Not bad for someone without an MBA. In 2002, she began appearing on television in her own program, The Suze Orman Show, which aired on weekends on CNBC until March, 2015. In 2010, Orman married Kathy Travis, a co-producer of The Suze Orman Show.

Born On This Day, 1974: Chad Allen

I didn’t know this until I was reading up a few years ago for this write-up: one of Chad’s early major roles was on the television series St. Elsewhere, where he played the autistic son of Dr. Westphall from 1983, to 1988. He also appeared in Our House and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. In 1996, he was outed by the supermarket tabloid The Globe, which published photos of him kissing another man in a hot tub. When he was cast to play the role of real-life Christian missionary Nate Saint in the 2006 docudrama End of the Spear, conservative Christians were outraged over an openly gay man in the role. The real Steve Saint, Nate’s son, however put aside his own reservations. After seeing the film, he felt that God was pleased with Chad playing his father. End of the Spear became one of the few independently released Christian films to earn more than a million dollars in its first three weekends of release.

In 2007, Allen took on Christian themes again when he starred in Save Me, about a drug-addicted man who entered an ex-gay program. In 2011, he co-produced and appeared in Hollywood to Dollywood, a documentary about twin brothers who travel across country in an RV named “Joline” to meet their idol, Dolly Parton. In 2015, he announced that he was retiring from acting and will study to become a clinical psychologist.

Today’s Agenda Is Brought To You By…

From The Advocate, October 24, 1973, page 10. (Personal collection)

The Church of the Beloved Disciple was founded in 1968 by Fr. Robert Clement. Modeled after the older rites of the Roman Catholic Church by way of three other breakaway catholic moments, Beloved Disciple’s main focus was serving the gay community. In 1970, his church innaugurated the sacrament of “Holy Union” as a substitute for marriage for same-sex couples. In 1973, the church moved into its first permanent home on 9th Avenue. Clement said the new church was “the first property to be owned by a gay east of the Mississippi River and north of Florida.” The Advocate described the church’s move to its new digs:

Fr. Robert Clement and Fr. Deacon John Noble. From GAY (New York, NY), November 1973, page 5. (Personal collection)

An estimated 75 members of the congregation assembled for the dedication march at I PM Sunday at the Moravian Church on Lexington Avenue at 30th Street, where Beloved Disciple worshipped for a time before its expulsion by Moravian officials. The group carried the Blessed Sacrament with vestments and altar furnishings to the new church.

There they were joined by about 300 other worshippers who entered the old three-story carriage house for the blessing of the altar and the sanctuary. Following the “Te Deum” sung in what he called “a festive setting.” Fr. Clement preached the sermon. The services followed the ancient Gallican Rite of St. Germain, thought to be the oldest Mass to survive complete in Europe.

Fr. Deacon John Noble, Fr. Clement’s lover, called “the simple splendor of the setting” a “moving experience for everyone who came.”

The Holy Union joined two young men from Montreal, who came to the services with 40 Canadian guests. Beloved Disciple, which has one mission in Philadelphia, is contemplating setting up another in Montreal.

According to another article in the New York City monthly GAY, the new church building would double as a community center. Rooms were being booked by a number of groups, including a lesbian Alcoholic Anonymous meeting.

Today In History, 1965: FBI Collects Info on Homophile Groups “Obstructing the Efforts of the Bureau”

On On June 4, 1965, the Birmingham, Alabama field office sent a memo addressed to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover with a copy of a document “furnished… on 6-1-65 by Major DON DRISSIL, Region 4, 111th Intelligence Group, Ft. McClellan, Alabama, U.S. Army Duty Station, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Major DRISSIL advised that the source of this document was unknown; however it had been furnished to him by one of his investigators who had obtained it somewhere in the State of Florida. It is being furnished to the Bureau for information and any action deemed necessary in the event it has not been previously furnished.” The memo, which had been routed to Associate Director Clyde Tolson and other senior staff at the F.B.I., quoted the following:

EAST COAST HOMOPHILE ORGANIZATIONS

How To Handle A Federal Investigator

The discriminatory policies of the Federal Government in disqualifying the homosexual citizen from Federal employment, from eligibility for a security clearance, and from service in and fully honorable discharge from the Armed Forces, are not only not justified, but are gravely injurious to the national interest. It is, therefore, the patriotic duty of every American citizen to do everything lawfully within his power to impede and to obstruct the implementation of these policies, and to encourage others to do likewise. Central to that implementation is the conduct of investigations involving the administration of interrogations. To those finding themselves subject to such interrogations, the following pointers and suggestions are offered.

1. No citizen is required to submit to an interrogation by any Federal official — F.B.I., Civil Service Commission, military investigators, etc. — or even to speak to them. However, in certain instances (for example, where you yourself, rather than an acquaintance are the subject of the investigation) it may be advisable to grant the Government the privilege of interviewing you.

2. In case of such interrogation, your choice is NOT between telling truth or untruth, but between speaking and not speaking. Never lie, falsify, or misrepresent. On matters relating to homosexuality — yours or anyone else’s — just refuse to speak.

3. If you are asked any questions at all on homosexuality, in any aspect, your ONLY answers should be: “These are matters which are of no proper concern to the Government of the United States under any circumstances whatsoever.” and “This is information which the Government does not have to know.” Stand your ground on these. Do not engage in philosophical or psychological or sociological discourses. Do not make use of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution; it is not necessary, and may be harmful.

4. Sign no statements; take no lie detector tests; give no names or other information about any other person.

5. Under no circumstances tolerate unannounced visitations by investigators at your home or your place of employment. Refuse to speak to them. Insist upon a proper appointment, at a time and place of YOUR choice and convenience. INSIST upon the right to be accompanied by one or more persons of your choice (without restriction to professional legal counsel) to act not only as counsel, but as witness.

6. The interrogators will try to cajole, to persuade, to bully, to demand, to threaten, to bargain. Do not be taken in. Regardless of what they may say and how they may act, they are “out to get you.” Among a few of their favorite techniques are:

a. “You are not cooperating.” Of course you are not. Continue not to.

b. “All of this is not really very important, and nothing will happen to you; we just need a few questions answered and your signature, so we can complete our records and close our files.” Do not believe it.

c. “The laws or regulations require you to reply.” This is not true, regardless of what may be quote to you or even shown to you in print.

d. The “good guy and bad guy” approach. After interrogator A has unpleasantly browbeaten you for a while, interrogator B will intercede, supposedly as your friend, to try to make things easier for you, and to modify interrogator A’s attitude. Do not be taken in. They are both your enemies.

7. This is stated with very strong over-emphasis because extensive experience has shown that without it, this advice, as simple as it is, is not properly heeded: On matters having to do with homosexuality, say NOTHING; “nothing” means NO thing, and “no” means NONE AT ALL, with NO exceptions. It does NOT mean “Just a little.” This means that you do NOT discuss juvenile homosexual experiences, and you do NOT discuss so-called passive acts, or anything else at all. You say NOTHING whatsoever. Do not attempt to exercise your judgment as to what may or may not be harmful to discuss. Close the door firmly and absolutely to discussion or comment upon ANY and EVERY aspect of homosexuality, and, in fact, of sex generally.

8. Do not confirm information which they allegedly have. They may not have what they have led you to believe they have and they may be only guessing and deducing. Even if there is no doubt as to their possession of information, you will be better off if there has been no confirmation or corroboration from you.

9. Insist that you be treated with the full respect and dignity due ALL American citizens in every status, by ALL their public servants, at ALL levels, at ALL times. If you are not so treated, walk out and do not return until you have received, in writing, an apology for past improper treatment, and assurances of future proper behavior. If you receive no such apology, object, by letter, to the appropriate Cabinet-level official, with details of the behavior and language involved, and inform you local Mattachine Society or other homophile organization.

10. Remember that the information involved in investigations is classified, as far as the Government is concerned. If anyone — particularly including your employer — is informed by anyone but you, of the subject or any details of an investigation of you, you can bring criminal charges against the investigators or other officials who have disclosed the information. Do so. At the same time, do not allow yourself to be misled into believing that you are not permitted to discuss any and all aspects of the matter with anyone you choose. You may seek counsel and advice from anyone, and are completely free to discuss all aspects of the matter with persons of your choice, at all times.

By following the advice above, you will be serving not only your own best interests and those of your acquaintances and fellow citizens, but the best interests of your country.

The statement ends with the addresses and phone numbers for the Mattachine Societies of Washington, D.C. and New York, the Daughters of Bilitis’ New York Chapter, and the Janus Society of Philadelphia.

That same day, another memo from the Louisville field office, also addressed to Director Hoover, contained the same mimeographed document. According to the Louisville memo, that copy was obtained by a Commanding Officer at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. The following day, another memo from the Newark office provided a two-page printed brochure with the same title that had been “found in a public telephone booth at Fort Monmouth, N.J.” In fact, “How To Handle A Federal Investigator” had been published in March of that year in The Eastern Mattachine Magazine, the official newsletter of the Mattachine Society of New York. Eastern Mattachine didn’t give an author’s name, but judging by its emphatic cadence and authoritative tone, it’s hard to imagine it being written by anyone other than Frank Kameny (see May 21), who had been working with several Federal employees who were being hounded out of their jobs and denied security clearances.

Four weeks after those memos were sent to Hoover, another memo went out from the FBI to an official of the Justice Department responding to a suggestion from the Department’s Training Division that the FBI provide “instructions issued by such groups as the American Nazi Party and the Mattachine Society to their members to obstruct the efforts of the bureau and law enforcement.” The FBI provided the Mattachine’s “How To Handle A Federal Investigator,” along with material from the Communist Party, the American Nazi Party, the Minutemen of America and the Ku Klux Klan, all of which the Bureau apparently viewed as equal threats.

Today In History, 1971: GAA Activists Conduct Gay Marriage Protest In New York

The Gay Liberation Front formed in July, 1969, almost immediately after Stonewall, formed by a younger generation of LGBT people impatient with the cautious and quiet ways things had always been done by the established gay rights groups in New York. Right out of the gate, GLF undertook several highly visible marches and protests (Jul 27, Sep 12, Nov 12, Mar 8). If the general public hadn’t heard about Stonewall yet, GLF’s protest made sure that they would nevertheless come to learn more about those young activists’ grievances. GLF was very effective in making voices heard and raising awareness. They were also good at delivering a swift kick in the butt of the gay community. But they got bogged down in figuring out what to do beyond that. A lot of that had to do with the GLF’s rejection of “patriarchal” leadership structures. Everything was done by group consensus, and that only came after exhaustive and often interminably picayune political discussions.

About six months after the GLF formed, a group of activists broke away to form the Gay Activists Alliance as a more professionally-run organization, with set goals, planning, leadership, and a specific focus on gay rights — the GLF was often distracted by a broader political platform encompassing the Vietnam War, Third World issues, and support for the Black Panther Party.. The GAA was less militant than the GLF, although it wasn’t above organizing marches, protests and sit-ins (Oct 8, Oct 27). Their focus was on addressing issues related to discrimination and anti-gay attitudes in the media. Gay marriage was never really on their radar, but in 1971, the GAA found themselves tackling the that very issue. They weren’t the first post-Stonewall activists to do this; Jack Baker and Mitch McConnell had unsuccessfully tried to get a marriage license in Minneapolis the year before (May 18). But unlike Baker and McConnell, the GAA’s interest in gay marriage didn’t rest in anyone wanting to get married. Instead, it came about as a result of a very specific provocation by a city official.

That provocation was a threat by New York City Clerk Herman Katz to sue Father Robert Clement for allegedly performing “illegal” gay marriages. Fr. Clement was pastor of the Church of the Beloved Disciple, a predominately gay church, where he performed “Holy Union” ceremonies at the request of gay couples. After the New York Post published Katz’s remarks, the GAA immediately decided, as one activist put it, “to raise his consciousness a little bit.”

Until a few years ago, it was hard to find much information about what happened during that day’s protest at the City Clerk’s office. But thanks to a three-part film posted by GAA member Randolfe Wicker (Feb 3) on YouTube in 2010, we have a lasting document of what a classic “zap” looked like back in the day.

The first part of the video covers pre-zap activities. It opens with Wicker interviewing Fr. Clement, going over the difference between marriage and “holy unions.” “We don’t use the term ‘marriage’,” explained Clement, “because that implies a legal concept and a marriage certificate and Bureau of Vital Statistics, and we are interested in a church concept which is spiritual, people pledging their love together in the eyes of God and asking for the blessing of God. …This was misinterpreted.” Back at the GAA Firehouse headquarters, GAA member Marc Rubin was preparing to go over their strategy for that day, while acknowledging that he was “scared shitless.” To get everyone literally on the same page, he read aloud from one of the leaflets they would be distributing:

Gay people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Gay people have the right to their own bodies. Gay people have the right to love. No nation, state or city has the right to deny gay people these inalienable rights. And no petty municipal clerk has the right to tell gay people how to live.

City Clerk Herman Katz has the arrogance to do this, saying, “If it looks like a marriage, it is a marriage. And I don’t care what they’re calling it, they’re violating the law.” We demand:

1. Mr. Katz keeps his bureaucratic nose out of gay relationships.
2. A full public apology from Mr. Katz to the entire gay community.
3. That Mr. Katz remove all suits pending or threatened against Fr. Robert Clement and the Church of the Beloved Disciple.
4. Gay Power to Gay Lovers.

Rubin stressed that the issue wasn’t gay marriage, although he recognized that that was all that people would likely be talking about. “Try and keep it to the point about gay rights and discrimination against gays,” he counseled. He also urged the gathering to hold firm in their convictions and not to concede ground to contrary views. “I think that we should never ‘understand’ their point of view. Any point of view which is opposed to gay rights is a wrong point of view — categorically, by fiat and word of God.” As for marriage, “This is not an issue at this particular time that we want to be arrested for. … So we’re going to avoid arrests. Which means that if the cops come and they say ‘We’re giving you five minutes to clear out’ and we can’t talk them into letting us stay longer, we’ll leave with some gay power chants and we’ll take our cake back here.”

These are the videos you want to watch if you ever want to see how the GAA conducted their protests. It’s pretty calm as GAA activists file into the Clerk’s office. Then Arthur Evans leads the group in a “Gay Power” chant while others setup of coffee and cake. When challenged by various officials, the protesters remain calm while declaring their demands. Voices rise with another chant of “Gay Power” and “Bigot! Bigot! Bigot!” as one official, who refuses to identify himself, calls the police.

Much of the rest of the zap consisted of answering phone calls from unsuspecting callers, laughing, joking, singing protest songs, and even a little bit of dancing while officials try to figure out what to do. After the initial tensions subsided, it actually looks like it was a pretty fun party. The cake was beautiful. When police arrived, activists broke out into another couple of chants of “Gay Power” before moving out, just as they had planned. “Would you like some cake?” one activist asked the smiling officers just before they packed up and left.

Today’s Agenda Is Brought To You By…

From The Advocate, April 16, 1981, classified section, page 17.

The Rusty Nail was opened sometime in the 1970s by three lesbian owners, although the bar catered to the bears and other men who flocked to the Russian River from San Francisco. It was little more than a run-down shack located on the way to the major gay resorts of Guerneville, but it boasted a large outdoor patio that was packed with men on Sundays as they made one final stop on the way back to San Francisco.

Emphasis Mine

Frank Kameny (May 21) to the editors of the Washington Post:

June 3, 1968

Gentlemen:

I note that the State Department has just gone through its annual American “fertility rite” by announcing the firing of a certain number of homosexuals in the preceding year. …

The ancient Aztecs or Mayans used to sacrifice virgins, annually, to propitiate the gods and to gain favors from them. The State Department sacrifices homosexuals, annually, to propitiate the House Appropriations Committee, and to gain money from them. There is little difference.

Sincerely yours,
Franklin E. Kameny

[Source: Michael G. Long (ed.) Gay Is Good: The Life and Letters of Gay Rights Pioneer Franklin Kameny (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2014): 155.]

Today In History, 1961: “Morals Raids” In Tampa

Deputies staged a series of raids in what Hillsborough County Sheriff Ed Blackburn called “the biggest morals crackdown, to my knowledge, in the history of the state of Florida.” Thirty-six were arrested in a series of early morning raids by a team of city, county, and state agents, with another 100 more expected to be taken into custody by the time the operation was finished. A few days later, Tampa police chief Neil Brown also spoke on the “ever growing problem” of homosexuality in Tampa. “We’re going to clean them up and get them out of town,” he declared. “I don’t know where they will go, but we’re going to get them out of town.” City police then rounded up 48 people from “known homosexual hangouts.”

The crackdown was the result of a year-long investigation in which city and county officers compiled “mug books” containing names, addresses, and other identifying information on gay people either living in Tampa or visiting on weekends. The data was compiled from court records beginning in the year 1955. Tampa vice squad detective Bill Whitmer said that he still had about three more years’ worth of dockets to go through. Brown said that homosexual “is definitely on the increase,” adding that ten years ago, “we had very little homosexuality here.”

Among those arrested was a thirty-five-year old-principal of Citrus Park Elementary School, who was being held on a $1,000 bond. Others arrested included a doctor, a former Air Force Major, and a sixty-seven year old retired psychology professor who had operated a school for mentally-retarded boys at Brooksville, Florida, about 45 miles north of Tampa. The names of both educators were emblazoned on Associated Press reports nationwide. Local papers printed the names and addresses of everyone arrested.

Later that month, State Attorney Paul B. Johnson told reporters, “Investigations have shown this problem to be even more widespread than we first anticipated. We have arrested at least 130 persons for crimes against nature, and lewd and lascivious acts in the past 90 days. Most have admitted their guilt.”

ONE magazine received a letter from a reader in Tampa filling in more details. It read:

On June 16th I received a letter from my best friends. The two have been living together for 11 years. One is a teacher the other a doctor. They have a lovely home outside Tampa on.. .. ” A part of the letter reads, ” I don’t know what you have read in the papers or whether radio or TV has carried the news in your city or not. At any event our worst fears have been realized, the reign of terror struck Tampa and made front pages here.

On June 2nd, B was arrested without warning at … and charged with a ‘crime against nature.’ He is awaiting trial and is out of jail on $2,000 bond. [$2,000 is equivalent to about $15,500 in today’s dollars] Being a school teacher he enjoyed adequate publicity. Needless to say, just about everything has collapsed for us.

“Fortunately, I am not involved legally, but of course otherwise, especially financially, we’ve had it. I don’t know how we’ll get through the next few months . . ..”

[Sources: “Del McIntire” (pseudonym for Don Slater, Aug 21) “Tangents — Tampa Tempest” ONE, 9, no. 8 (August 1961): 24-25.

Associated Press. “Morals raid held in Tampa.” (June 4, 1961).

Associated Press. “Morals crackdown staged in Florida.” (June 5, 1961).]

Today In History, 1967: “Aversion Therapy in Management of 43 Homosexuals”

An article under that title by Malclom J. MacCulloch and Maurice Philip Feldman appeared in the June 3, 1967 edition of the British Medical Journal. While electric shock aversion therapy was an expensive form of therapy, it was also surprisingly common. The authors reported the results of 41 men and two lesbians who they treated at Crumpsall Hospital in Manchester, U.K. The treatment consisted of administering painful electric shocks while projecting photos of attractive men (or women, in the case of the two lesbians). Of the 43 subjected to this torturous treatment, five were between the ages of 15 to 20. Eighteen were being treated under court order. Seven dropped out without completing the treatment, and 11 were “unimproved.” That left 25 who claimed that they were “improved” after twelve months. The “failures,” they said, tended to have a higher Kinsey rating — in other words, they didn’t have a basis in bisexuality to work with.

The authors concluded that “In our opinion the approximately 60% rate of improvement achieved in our series (over other reported studies) is mainly due to the use of an aversion therapy technique which has been carefully designed to make the most effective use of the findings of the experimental psychology of learning.” With an advertised success rate like that, this paper for the British Medical Journal proved highly influential, inspiring hundreds of therapists to try electric shock aversion therapy on perhaps thousands of subjects (see, for example, May 8). As far as therapists were concerned, this paper confirmed the value of electric shock aversion therapy as a relatively highly effective means for “curing” homosexuality.

That confirmation however fell apart ten years later, when Dr. Sheelah James and colleagues from Hollymoor Hospital in England published the results of their own study which failed to replicate MacCulloch and Feldman’s findings. Among the second group’s problems was a very high dropout rate, one which was much higher than what MacCulloch and Feldman reported. “It appears that the Feldman and MacCulloch group had undergone some clinical preselection before referral,” they wrote, a process which would have inflated Feldman and MacCulloch’s so-called “success” rate. (In a subsequent paper, James advocated an alternative therapy for “curing” gay people involving hypnosis.) Ten years later still, aversion therapy would finally be largely abandoned — not just for ethical reasons, but also because of the growing realization that it simply didn’t work.

[Sources: M.J. MacCulloch and M.P. Feldman. “Aversion therapy in management of 43 homosexuals.” British Medical Journal 2, no. 5552 (June 3, 1967): 594-597. Available as a free downloaded from the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.

Sheelah James, A. Orwin, R.K. Turner. “Treatment of homosexuality, I. Analysis of failure following a trial of anticipatory avoidance conditioning and the development of an alternative treatment system.” Behavior Therapy 8, no. 5 (November 1977): 840-848.

Sheelah James. “Treatment of homosexuality, II. Superiority of desensitization/arousal as compared to anticipatory avoidance conditioning: Results of a controlled trial.” Behavior Therapy 9, no. 1 (January 1978): 28-36.]

Born On This Day, 1879: Alla Nazimova

(d. 1945) The larger-than-life Russian-born Hollywood silent film star was as exotic and flamboyant off the screen as on. Her screen debut in 1916 led to eleven more films in two years. Her specialty was outrageously exotic yet tragic characters. Her most famous role was that of the title character in Camile, a 1921 film starring Rudolf Valentino (May 6). It was at about that time that she became a producer, specializing in experimental artistic masterpieces which, unfortunately, were commercial flops. 1923’s Salome was particularly scandalous, as was her thinly concealed bisexuality off screen. Her “marriage” with gay actor Charles Bryant didn’t fool anyone. Her home, which she named “Garden of Allah,” was the scene for many glamorous private parties, and her name was connected with several Hollywood starlets and women of the arts. She’s credited with coining the phrase “sewing circles” to refer to lesbian or bisexual actresses who concealed their true sexuality. Her career ended in 1925 with the advent of the Hayes Code, although she had some minor film appearances in the 1940s (she was Doña Maria in The Bridge of San Luis Rey). She died in 1945.

Born On This Day, 1902: George Quaintance

(d. 1957) “My ancestors were all farmers,” he later wrote of his family in Shenandoah Valley hamlet of Luray, Virginia. “There were no artists or talented people among them, yet I drew, painted and modeled in clay as early as I can remember, and I did it with the assurance and the ability of experience, while the mysteries of running a farm… are still very great mysteries to me, after all these years.” Quaintance — he later became one of those artists known only by his last name — left Luray for New York City to become a dancer in 1920, but not before leaving behind a mural for his mother’s church, that of a spectacularly broad-shouldered (though fully clothed) Christ being baptized in the River Jordan by a similarly handsome John the Baptist. While in New York, he became a vaudeville dancer, women’s hair designer, and commercial illustrator.

In the early 1940s, Quaintance became increasingly focused on male figurative art in the style of the emerging “physique” magazines. His lover (and later business partner) Victor Garcia and his friendship with photographer Lon Hanagan (a.k.a. Lon of New York) supplied him with a steady stream of models, and Canadian bodybuilding publisher Joe Weider signed him to illustrate the covers of several of his physique magazines. In 1946, Weider appointed Quiantance art director of Your Physique, Wieder’s best-selling magazine, where Quaintance’s paintings became regular fixtures on the magazine’s covers. In 1947, Quaintance left Weider, and he and Victor moved out west, first to Los Angeles and then Phoenix. There, Quantance branched out into physique photography — he had always photographed his models as portrait studies, so selling those photographs wasn’t that much of a stretch for him. But he remained focused on his paintings.

His paintings took on a distinctly western flair. Quaintance’s exaggerated form of the ideal male dressed in denim and boots would define an esthetic for an entirely new subculture of Levi aficionados. He would also influence other artists like Tom of Finland, who would become something of a Quaintance of Leather. After Quaintance died in 1957, Victor kept the business going, but the business fell off in the late 1960s after full male nudity and porn became legal. After that, he simply disappeared.

In 1988, Durk Dehner of the Tom of Finland Foundation tried to track him down, but the trail ran cold at Victor’s last known address near West Hollywood, where he found several of Quaintance’s scrapbooks and paintings abandoned in an otherwise empty carport. Fifty-five canvases are believed to have been created, but eighteen of them are lost. A diptych turned up at an antique store in Dallas in the early 1990s, but now its whereabouts are unknown. In 2010, Taschen published Quaintance, a lavish monograph of all his known work, including dozens of examples of his early commercial art for Procter and Gamble and several New York dance companies.

Born On This Day, 1906: Josephine Baker

(d. 1975) The Jazz Age icon and Art Deco chanteuse was born in St. Louis, but after a brief stint in New York during the Harlem Renaissance, she quickly moved to Paris where her career as actress, dancer and singer achieved instance success. Everything about her was made for Paris, and Paris for her. Her erotic dancing and nearly-nude performances were appreciated by her French audiences, and her exotic beauty as an African-American posed far fewer challenges in France than in the U.S. She become a French citizen in 1937 when she married a Frenchman, Jean Lion, who was Jewish. During World War II, she left Paris and went to her home in the south of France and, later, Morocco, where she provided assistance to the French Resistance. As an entertainer, she was able to continue touring Europe, particularly non-combatant nations like Switzerland and Purtugal. In her travels, she smuggled secrets for the French Resistance by writing them in her sheet music with invisible ink.

After the war, she supported the American civil rights movement, and whenever she toured the U.S., she refused to perform before segregated audiences. But through the rest of her life, her home remained in France. She married four times, and had twelve children — all of them adopted. She also had a string of female lovers, including the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Her son, Jean-Claude Baker, interviewed over 2000 people for Josephine: The Hungry Heart, his biography of his mother. He described her in one interview:

“She was what today you would call bisexual, and I will tell you why. Forget that I am her son, I am also a historian. You have to put her back into the context of the time in which she lived. In those days, Chorus Girls were abused by the white or black producers and by the leading men if he liked girls. But they could not sleep together because there were not enough hotels to accommodate black people. So they would all stay together, and the girls would develop lady lover friendships, do you understand my English? But wait wait…If one of the girls by preference was gay, she’d be called a bull dyke by the whole cast. So you see, discrimination is everywhere.”

Born On This Day, 1926: Allen Ginsberg

(d. 1997) “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by / madness, starving hysterical naked, / dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn / looking for an angry fix…” Those were the opening lines of what is arguably the most infuential American poem of the twentieth century. Most Americans however have never read past those lines, but Allen Ginsberg’s Howl unleashed several forces which have had a lasting impact in American culture.

Howl was birthed not in print but at a celebrated 1955 public reading at Six Gallery in San Francisco, where Ginsberg’s disenchantment of American materialism, his identification with the outcasts of American society, and especially his frank discussion of sex — and most especially of  homosexuality (one line described those “who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy”) caught the attention of Customs officials when City Lights Press published Howl and Other Poems in 1956. Publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Bookstore manager Shigeyoshi Murao were arrested and charged with disseminating obscene literature. At the trial, nine literary experts testified on the poem’s behalf. California State Superior Court Judge Clayton Horn decided that the poem was of “redeeming social importance.” As to the poem’s explicit language, Horn asked, “Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?”

Ginsberg was one of the defining figures of the Beat Generation. He also became an integral part of the the next generation’s hippie movement. He was sympathetic for the ideals of communism, but disdained its repression of free speech. He was invited to visit China, Cuba and Czechoslovakia when authorities believed his anti-capitalist statements would be propaganda coups, only to discover that this was the least of his concerns. He was unceremoniously deported from Cuba and Czechoslovakia after wearing out his welcome there, but the ideas he left behind in Czechoslovakia inspired another generation of artists, including playwright Václav Havel, to strive for freedom of expression. In 1974, his collection The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-1971 shared the annual U.S. National Book Award for Poetry, and he was awarded the National Arts Club gold medal  in 1979, the same year he was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1995 his book Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1992 was named a Pulitzer prize finalist. Ginsberg died of liver cancer and complications from hepatitis in 1997.

The 2010 film Howl, starring James Franco as Ginsberg, portrayed the poem’s debut at Six Gallery and the subsequent obscenity trial. John Krokidas’s film Kill Your Darlings (2013) depicted a 1944 murder which brought together the three figures who would be known as the greatest poets of the beat generation: Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs (Feb 5), with Daniel Radcliffe playing Ginsberg.