357: I’d Rather Swish Than Fight

I was going to make the title “Suck Cock, Dodge the Draft” (which was a real Gay Lib placard from 1970-71) but I thought I’d show a little decorum

One area in which homosexuality began to impinge upon the younger generation in the 1960s was its usefulness as a way of avoiding the draft. It worked for the straight Ken Tynan in the UK. It didn’t work for the American writer Tom Disch, and he was gay. Swings and roundabouts. Other than actually admitting to a homosexual act, the rough and ready method of immediately proving one’s homosexuality was a little transvestism. Because, as I’ve covered elsewhere, cross-dressing stands in fro homosexuality. And so the following couple of gags.


By Guindon
In “The Realist” April 1966


Cover to “Esquire” September 1966.
Well this is underwhelming. The English style magazine had a fashion spread in the early ‘60s with the drag artiste Danny La Rue modelling the new styles for women. That was witty and daring (some of the advertisers objected at the time). One lipstick reluctantly held by one very straight looking boy is not much of a snappy eye-catcher.

And of course there was the character Klinger in the sitcom “M.A.S.H.” (1972 – 1983). Klinger played on the “mental unfitness” rather than the “sexual perversion” line. Klinger, played by Jamie Farr, was always dressed in women’s clothing to try and prove his psychological unsuitability for the army. Apparently the character was originally written as an effeminate gay man, but then inspired by Lenny Bruce’s escapeds, they subsequently decided that it would be more interesting to have Klinger be heterosexual, but wear dresses in an attempt to gain a Section 8 discharge. So Klinger just ended up being a fast-talking heterosexual who was the go-to guy for a hairdryer with a concern for the the standard of his wardrobe.

“Greetings” (1968)
Directed by Brian De Palma
Written by Charles Hirsch and Brian De Palma




Starring Gerritt Graham, Robert De Niro and Jonathan Ward.

This rather choppy, fly-by-the-seat-of-its-pants early comedy-drama effort by Brian De Palma follows three young counter-cultural sorts and their escapades attempting to evade the draft and get laid in New York City. When the Jonathan Ward character is called to attend his conscription office, there’s is a brief scene where Gerritt Graham gives him a lesson in how to mince and swish before De Niro relo-playing as sergeant – a very limp wrist, a fey lisping voice, primping his hair, some not very veiled come-ons and invading personal space. A bunch of straight guys showing each other how to act gay is never particularly rewarding, except as a display of degrees of cluelessness, and this is really just flailing around.



1.10 – 1.20
Then there’s this brief clip from a “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” episode from early 1969. A brief man-on-man kiss between an officer (Jonathan Williams) and a draftee. I suppose even just a brief peck on the cheek must be accounted relatively bold for this time. Especially because of the throwaway compliment on the kiss even as the soldier is kicked out of the army.

258 - American Unisex 2: Richard Guindon

Richard Guindon, “The Realist”, August 1967

Ah, a good honest gay come-on joke inspired by unisex, rather than coy sneers and hints. A fresh breath of filthy air.

168: Gay Sports - Anxiety and Embarrassment

Almost all the cartoons I shall be dredging up over the next couple of days, when they’re not about inappropriate sexual attraction, are instead demonstrating how gay men are unfit to play sports and therefore silly and ridiculous. Here are a couple of cartoons where heterosexual discomfort is the engine of the joke.

in “Mad Magazine” January 1973

A little gay panic. Vast tracts have been written and rewritten about homophobia and homosociality in sports, about how you can only have the intense heterosexual affection demonstrated in team sports through the explicit disavowal of any homosexual feeling – blah blah blah, blah bla-bla-blah. I’m not even going to attempt to add to any of that.
Here, given “Mad Magazine”’s target teenage audience, it just comes down to anxiety about how, when you’re least expecting it, normal manly behaviour suddenly turns into an unexpected sexual encounter. On several levels this is a refusal to play by the acknowledged rules.
I didn’t notice it immediately, and then only after I’d looked at this several times, but the gay player not only has a limp wrist but there also appear to be some lacy frills poking out of the bottom of his shorts. It is a fairly good thunderstruck expression on the first chap though.


by Richard Guindon, “Minneapolis Tribune”, 1977

In this one it’s about feeling the shame of being beaten by gay players, when in the natural scheme of things one might expect to be superior to a gay team.
And has there ever been an article with a gay team that hasn’t included the question, “How do the other teams feel being beaten by a gay team?” Well done, Mr Guindon for being decades ahead of the curve there. And I do often admire Richard Guindon’s cartoons – particularly one from the late 70s/early 80s which is spot on in its prediction of the horror of a world where everyone has a mobile phone.