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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK
July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK  [message #73114] Thu, 03 August 2017 17:06 Go to next message
timmy

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Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
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Fifty Years of Gay Rights

We were pretty early, and it was not all plain sailing after July 1967. More gay men were entrapped by the police after homosexuality became lawful than beforehand.

In July 1967 I was almost 15.

The mainstream press was vile, speaking about perverts, sick people, the lot, but sexual actis in private, between consenting adult males (over 21) became lafwul. A major problem is that it was unlawful to ask another man for sex!



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
But not so great for me  [message #73115 is a reply to message #73114] Thu, 03 August 2017 18:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

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While July 1967 was an aweosme gay milestone for the UK it was awful for a 14 year old boy.

I could not be gay, well, queer as we were then. If I had been then my mother woudl have had the gay part removed from me, even if she broke me for it. She would have broken me for it. I know. I asked her. She said she would have sent me for a cure.

So, in 1967 I was terrified of being who I was, am, and was villified in the press, and was not even old enough to dream of sex, let alone making love. I was in a school like this one:



Well, up to the scene in the café, that is. The first half is pretty much a documentary

Those schools' intent was to beat any individuality out of us and fit us for middle aspiration middle management running the empire we no longer had. That meant any hint of amorpus intent was stamped on.

Nowhere to turn for help and advice, I was doubly damned by being in love with a lad who sent me very mixed signals. Without that adoration I would have killed myself. I harboured hopes of his returning my love.

I could go on.

I was too scared to be gay.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Encapsulated here  [message #73118 is a reply to message #73115] Thu, 03 August 2017 22:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

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Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK  [message #73123 is a reply to message #73114] Fri, 04 August 2017 21:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Pedro

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Registered: March 2014
Messages: 93



Somehow I am disappointed but not surprised that nobody has followed up Timmy's posts. But there again, I would probably not have said anything if others had responded.

I have caught a couple of the programmes in the BBC's season marking the 50th anniversary of the passing of the act, in particular those with Susan Calman and Steven K Amos. It was sobering to be reminded how recent the current level of tolerance came into being, pretty much at the turn of the century. (Ok for any young'uns reading this that might be your lifetime, but to us old gits- that's recent). I was lucky, when (early 80's) I met my partner and went into business together we were in a part of the country that was relatively uninterested as long as it wasn't flaunted. Unlike some inner cities, queer bashing was not on the normal list of recreational pastimes. 

Elsewhere on these forums and a while back, someone said that current freedoms in this country could not be taken away. The programmes serve to remind us how fragile those freedoms are and that if some sections get the idea that gays are fair game to beat up or otherwise marginalise it could easily happen. One has only to look at the increase in anti migrant attacks after the Brexit vote as a warning.







Pedro
Re: July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK  [message #73124 is a reply to message #73123] Fri, 04 August 2017 21:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

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"Pedro wrote on Fri, 04 August 2017 22:19"
Somehow I am disappointed but not surprised that nobody has followed up Timmy's posts. But there again, I would probably not have said anything if others had responded.


--
I find, nowadays, that people seem to accept statements on the forum as statements and appear in general to have little interest in discussion. Or perhaps my words say it all (very unlikely). I appreciate your answer in this thread no end.

There were ever pockets of the UK that were queer tolerant. I had an aunt and uncle who lived just dowj the road form messgers Britten and Pears in Aldeburgh. My camp, homophobic cousin used to deliver their newspapers. I have often wondered if that was the cause of his intense homophobia.Britten and Pears were unmolested by the locals



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK  [message #73125 is a reply to message #73124] Sat, 05 August 2017 04:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mark

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Quote:
timmy wrote on Fri, 04 August 2017 15:55
"Pedro wrote on Fri, 04 August 2017 22:19"
Somehow I am disappointed but not surprised that nobody has followed up Timmy's posts. But there again, I would probably not have said anything if others had responded.



--
I find, nowadays, that people seem to accept statements on the forum as statements and appear in general to have little interest in discussion. Or perhaps my words say it all (very unlikely). I appreciate your answer in this thread no end.

--

Well, honestly, Timmy's comments are indeed why I, for one, don't "follow up" on a lot of posts here - they are statements that indeed "say it all," or at least enough that there's little left, in my very humble opinion, to discuss further.  It's kind of like saying, "The sky is blue."  Well, yes, it is.  What else is there to discuss about it?  Are you expecting me to say something along the lines of, "Well, I sometimes wonder what it would be like if the sky was chartreuse..." or "Yes, and I'm grateful for that fact"?

It's not that I'm not interested in discussion - rather, I don't always find every single item posted here to be discussion-worthy.  I'm not trying to be cruel or rude or anything like that, just that I find some things are more "open" to discussion than others, and somehow I suspect I may not be the only one here who feels that way.
Re: July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK  [message #73127 is a reply to message #73125] Sat, 05 August 2017 07:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Pedro

Toe is in the water

Registered: March 2014
Messages: 93



Mark, thanks for joining in. Your comments have set me to think on a few things which mean I shall now hi- jack this thread to discuss discussions.

We live in an age where we are continually being fed snippets on news and other information to the extent that often that only way to deal with the flow is to say 'that's nice' or 'that's interesting' and move on, taking what we have been given at face value unless we already have reason to discount the source/report. Unless it affects us immediately, we are unable to make the time to make a considered analysis of the piece. So when someone raises a discussion topic, if heading grabs our interest enough to read it at all, the default reaction will be to think 'OK' and move on to our other immediate concerns, not having the time to invest in formulating a reply. (And time consuming it is, this will have taken me at least an hour, excluding any 'preprocessing' time.)

Now, sometimes when Timmy posts a topic I think he has borrowed the wooden spoon from the kitchen and is trying to stir things up to see what happens. Usually I find those are conversations I have no wish to get into. Other times, like this one, he will raise a topic with a statement hoping it will make us think of its implications, some of which he might not have thought of himself. To push Mark's analogy, he is saying 'the sky is blue' to prompt us at least to look out of the window to check, but also to remind us that the sky isn't always blue and if we turn around and look out of the other window we will see that big black cloud getting ready to piss down on us and that we should be prepared to pass on the storm warning.

These forums are not the most active around, few topics make it to double figure comments, but at least things are usually conducted in a considered and civilised manner. Quality over quantity? l too am not normally willing to write comments of the 'me too' variety that do not contribute to the discussion. However those comments do at least let us know that someone is reading what has been written. Feedback these days is something that is more often observed in its absence, but that is a topic for another time.

[Updated on: Sat, 05 August 2017 07:14]




Pedro
Re: July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK  [message #73128 is a reply to message #73127] Sat, 05 August 2017 07:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Bisexual_Guy is currently offline  Bisexual_Guy

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As a teenager in the USA in 1967, I took little notice of the events across the Atlantic Ocean.  I was struggling with my own sexuality, although I did not fully realize it at the time.  I was very interested in girls, but I really liked watching the guys in Physical Education class (PE) undress, shower, and dress at the end of class.  My best friend and I were discussing sexual things all the time, and looking forward to marriage and "sex all the time."  He was straight as an arrow; I wanted to go both directions at once.

Sexuality was not a big deal in our rural community, as long as no one flaunted it.  But if you discussed anything other than with the very closese and discreet friends, it better have had girls involved in it!

I think we all must work to uphold our freedoms.  In the USA, the election of the current President and the homophobic and the bigoted picks he has made has brought home how fragile our sexual freedoms really are.  We must not be overconfident that things will stay as enlightened as they have been.
Re: July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK  [message #73129 is a reply to message #73123] Sat, 05 August 2017 10:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Foggy is currently offline  Foggy

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Think you are not inaccurate.  Freedoms winning with out mercy are a grant, not a real hard win. In the USA, there are Senators and Representatives, federal and state, who are homo, publicly, plus their fellow beaurocrats.  And some judges.  And in the high and low military.  PUBLIC.  Power they win politically.  Still, they get no more than any one else as any guarantee.   See the MEGAN'S LAW consequences, for example.  [Even the LGBTQI hate boy / girl homo lovers.  That includes any teens under 18.]  The LGBT people agree to marry as per the old rules ... guaranteeing any others cruelty.  Even boys under 18 cannot legally have sex as per the rules which the LGBT people adhere to.  The Conservatives and their Liberal allies regarding LGBTQI are won with antagonisms against the other minorities.  So, who really wins ?  Former boy lovers are now ensconcing safety within the Conservatives and up holding their rules.  . 
Re: July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK  [message #73137 is a reply to message #73129] Sat, 05 August 2017 22:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



"Foggy wrote on Sat, 05 August 2017 11:00"
Think you are not inaccurate.  Freedoms winning with out mercy are a grant, not a real hard win. In the USA, there are Senators and Representatives, federal and state, who are homo, publicly, plus their fellow beaurocrats.  And some judges.  And in the high and low military.  PUBLIC.  Power they win politically.  Still, they get no more than any one else as any guarantee.   See the MEGAN'S LAW consequences, for example.  [Even the LGBTQI hate boy / girl homo lovers.  That includes any teens under 18.]  The LGBT people agree to marry as per the old rules ... guaranteeing any others cruelty.  Even boys under 18 cannot legally have sex as per the rules which the LGBT people adhere to.  The Conservatives and their Liberal allies regarding LGBTQI are won with antagonisms against the other minorities.  So, who really wins ?  Former boy lovers are now ensconcing safety within the Conservatives and up holding their rules.  . 

--
In the UK the age of sexual consent is 16. In other nations it is different.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: July 1967 was a momentous year for the UK  [message #73139 is a reply to message #73127] Sun, 06 August 2017 01:09 Go to previous message
Mark

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Pedro, certainly do not feel that you did anything wrong by "hijacking" this thread.  I'm glad to know that my comments were found to be of some value.

One aspect of the Internet (and certain aspects of the Internet, such as social media websites) can sometimes make it seem like we're suffering form information overload.  We not only have access to news 24/7/365, but we also have access to every kind of commentary on that news that you can imagine, and then some.  And sometimes, that can make it seem like we're only giving a cursory glance at things that maybe we should give more thought to and nodding, saying, "That's interesting," and then bouncing off to some other random snippet of information and not giving the previous item we read any further thought.

For me, at least, that's not always the case.  I have sometimes indeed pondered on something, marveled at its profoundness...and still not said anything publicly about it.  Other times I have commented, but not immediately, because sometimes I, too, like to think it over before I start typing; I've found that doing so sometimes helps me to be able to better formulate a response in such a way that it makes sense, and thus avoiding the stereotypical "Me too!" or "Yeah, what he said!" style responses (also, I sometimes read over a post when I only have a few minutes and am passing time, so I might not always be in a position to immediately comment, even when I already know what I want to say).  And some people may very well be reading stuff (on websites like this) who may not be in a position for a variety of reasons to respond at all in any way, shape, or form, even if they'd very much love to.

So I hope that people know that "lack of response" (or at least a lack of an immediate response) isn't always the same as "lack of caring."  Quality over quantity.  I can appreciate seeing the blue sky after a storm, and be grateful for that, without running around shouting that fact from the rooftops every single time.  (As a side note, a good song to listen to on that is "Let Her Go" by Passenger.)
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