But then he met Jimmy, and 40 years on they are still together, and now that the law’s changed, they can finally get married. At 27, he was left heartbroken after the break-up of his first long-term relationship. But the whole of society was saying it was wrong, the whole of society expected you to get married, produce children etc. ‘I knew when I got married,’ he says, ‘that I had that within me.
For example there’s the voracious sexual appetite – ‘In the last two weeks I’ve had sex 100 times with at least 70 different people and in the past two years the total must be 800 – 1,000’ – admitted to casually by 58-year-old Clive (above, far right), who came out to his wife two years ago. It’s shocking too, on account of the insights it provides into male homosexual life. Having established its theme, the programme goes on to interweave remarkably intimate portraits of individuals who have lived through the bad, oppressive times, enduring all the cruel abuse and prejudice that went with them, and emerged finally into a more liberal Britain. It’s taken 40 years, but at last the revolution is reaching the men who are now as queer as folk.’ While some gay men have always lived their lives openly, others had the best of both worlds: marriage with gay sex on the side. Before 1967, gay men could be imprisoned for having sex. ‘Forty years ago,’ it begins, ‘Britain was in the grip of a sexual revolution, but only if you were straight. This frank documentary explores the present-day lives and relationships of gay men who came of age when homosexuality was still illegal before 1967. Moving, funny and candid – and Alan finally kissed Jimmy after they exchanged vows.
Then there was Roger and Ian, 39 years separating them, touring Ian’s stripper act to hen parties. Alan and Jimmy, for example, were about to get married after 43 years together but had never kissed because Jimmy’s mother had told him that’s how you got diseases. Also last night, a wonderful collection of stories in Andy Wells’s Queer as Old Folk on Channel 4.
0 kommentar(er)
