GREY MATTERS: The Deep Importance of Vintage Photos

I’m intrigued by the B&W or sepia vintage photos of males together in various states of clothed affection. They indicate that male bonding has been around always — at least since at least the beginning of photography.

There’s usually nothing to indicate the participants were gay or queer — though my gaydar tells me that’s obvious. 

Invariably, they’re just two men seemingly happy to be in each other’s company, even if by our modern standards, homoeroticism permeates the image. In 1993, author Paul D. Hardman coined the term “homoaffectionalism”, though today we might describe it as a ‘bromance’.

We’d like to think that these were our gay predecessors, and these photos definitively prove that gay men have been living quiet, hidden lives in Western communities forever. Perhaps! 

These men in these vintage photos were seemingly happy to be photographed, but who processed the films? A home darkroom was not another name for a gay sexual play space, but a genuine asset of an ‘understanding’ friend who could quietly process your rolls of film. Remember, there was no same-day pharmacy printing.

What were Kodak and other giant processing labs’ limitations on what they printed? From what I’ve discovered, so long as a man had some clothing on you would be printed, with no moral judgments regarding men holding hands, or frolicking as happy ‘gay’ friends. Ah, such innocence!

With the standard print originally being matchbox size, I wonder how many men carried a photo of their lover in their wallet or breast pocket. And aren’t we doing the same today with photographs of our loved ones stored in our phones?

How innocent were those days of film? But how amazing we have such an in-depth visual historical record of men sharing intimacy, whether gay or not. 

So, make sure that your youthful bromance photos don’t get destroyed after your death. History needs your contribution, too.