The margins of the city: gay men’s urban lives

181 Pages·2017·3.62 MB·English

by  Stephen Whittle (ed.)

The Margins of the City
Gay men' s urban lives
edited by
Stephen Wh ittle
t Stephen Whittle 1994
Ali rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprouced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any frm or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the
prior permission of the publisher.
Pblished by
Arena
Ashgate Publishing Limited
Gower House
Crof Road
Aldershot
Hants GUl 1 3HR
England
Ashgate Publishing Company
Old Post Road
Brookfeld
Vermont 05036
USA
British Library Catoguing i Pblction Dat
The Margins of the City: Gay Men's Urban Lives.
(Popular Cultural Studies)
l. Whittle, Stephen 11. Series
306.766
ISBN 1 85742 201 5 (Hardback)
ISBN 1 85742 202 3 (Paperback)
Printed and Bound i Great Britain by
Athenaeum Press Ltd, Newctle upon Tye.
Contents
Prefce Vll
The Authors IX
Introduction
lt's Queer Up North 5
l. Gay Communities and Gay Space in the City
Paul Hinle 7
2. Consuming Diferences: The Collaboration of the
Gay Boy with the Cultural State
Stephen Wittle 27
Tales of the Citie 43
3 . Community With/Out Pro-Pin-Uity
Hans Almgren 45
4 . Gentrifcation by Gay Male Communities: A Case
Study of Toronto's Cabbagetown
Anne-Marie Bouthillette 65
5 . A Sociological Pb Crawl Around Gay Newcastle
Marc Lewis 85
V
Marginal Issues 1 0 1
6. Gayspea, The Linguistic Fringe : Bona Polari , Cap,
Queerspea, and Beyond
Leslie J Cox and Richard J Fay 1 03
7 . Bi-sexuality - A Place on the Margins
David Bel/ 1 29
8. Sex in the Margins
W outer Geurtsen 143
9. The Twil ight World of the Sadomasochist
Jan Binnie 1 57
Maps and Diagrams
Gay Businesses in San Francisco 1 5
Manchester' s Gay Village 1 993 1 8
Map of the 'Gay Ghetto ' , Toronto 69
Map of 'Cabbagetown' , Toronto 7 1
Change in Average Prce of House in Cabbagetown 75
The Commercial Gay Scene in Newcastle upon Tye 86
vi
Preface
Postmodem (or multinational) space is not merely a cultural ideology or
fantasy, but has genuine (and socio-economic) reality as a third great
expansion of capitalism around the globe (after the earlier expansions of the
national market and the older imperalist system, which each had their own
cultural specifcity ad generted new tyes of space appropriate to their
dynamics) . . . . We canot [ therfor] retm to aesthetic practices elaborated
on the basis of historical sitations and dilemmas which are no longer ours
. . . . the conception of space that has ben developed here suggests that a
model of political cultur appropriate to our own situation will necessarily
have to raise spatial issues as its fndamental organizing concem.
(Jameson, 1 984, in Soja, E.W., (l 989) Postmodern Geographies, Verso,
London)
In our cities we mix COMMERCE with CULTURE ad PLEASURE. That
close afnity is what cities ar al i about. (Caeser Pelli - Architect)
vii
The authors
Stephen Whittle, School of Law, Manchester Metropolitan University,
Hathersage Road, Manchester M l 3 OEP, United Kingdom.
Paul Hindle, Deparment of Geography, Salfrd University, Manchester, M5
4WT, United Kingdom.
Hans Almgren, Deparment of Geography, Rutgers State University, New
Brnswick, New Jersey, NJ 08903, USA.
Anne Marie Bouthillette, Deparment of Geography, University of British
Columbia, #2 1 7 - 1 984 West Mali, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T
IZ2.
Marc Lewis, ex Department of Geography, University of Newcastle Upon
Tyne , United Kingdom.
Richard Fay, Centr fr English Language Studies ad Education (CELSE),
University of Manchester, Oxfrd Road, Manchester M l 3 9PL, United
Kingdom.
Leslie Cox, Centr fr English Language Studies and Education (CELSE),
University of Manchester, Oxfrd Road, Manchester M 1 3 9PL, United
Kingdom.
David Bell, Geography Division, School of Sciences, Stafordshire
University , Leek Road, Stoke on Trnt, ST4 2DF, United Kingdom.
Wouter Geurtsen, Departent of Leisur Studies , University of Tilbrg,
Room S l 55 , PO Box 90 1 53 , 500 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Jon Binnie, Department of Geography , University Col lege London, 26
Bedfrd Way, London WC IH OAP, United Kingdom.
ix
lntroduction
Members of the United Kingdom's Parliament have just voted (February
1994) that the age of consent fr consensual sex acts between gay men
should be lowered to eighteen years old. Unfrtunately over this apparent
victory fr the liberal fce of democracy, there hangs a cloud. Is this really
a victory or is it in fct fr those gay men who have battled fr over 30
years fr the same rights to make love as their heterosexual counterparts, a
frther defeat ? Whatever it is, it is a 'victory' which does not bring either
equality or inclusion. Gay men, along with their sexual preferences are not
being accepted into lawfl society as such, the legislation merely means that
fwer of them are likely to be physically removed fom society and
incarcerated because of whom they love. They may still be socially
excluded. This theme of exclusion whilst apparently being included, is what
this book is about.
lt is a book about place and about the infaction of space, the exploration
of new territories and flling of the edge of the world - it was only when
we landed that we discovered we were on the edge of the middle of our
cities. We entered the Twilight Zone.
The geography of the twilight zone of the city has been a major academic
area of study throughout the last three decades. We have obsessively looked
at the decay and decline of the areas of land, marginal to the city centre, yet
not quite the suburbs. But why? The very nature of the 'zone of urban
transition' is that nothing happened there, except its slow degeneration into
becoming the 'wastelands' - empty and unused warehouses, land into car
parks, and a descent into urban places of far, crime and the terror of the
unknown.
For sore of us, our fscination went beyond an academic interest: these
were the places we haunted, these were the spaces we knew intimately, in
which we met our fiends and lovers and in which we 'lived' our lives. As
geographers (by which 1 mean ali those of us who study the relationship
between 'man' and the environment) we knew that other places were fr