Gay Culture

This study used a qualitative research design to examine the meanings and circumstances underpinning practices of ‘barebacking’ - unprotected anal intercourse in episodic sexual encounters among younger (mainly in their 20s) same-sex attracted men - in Melbourne, Australia. Using a modified grounded theory approach, a series of in-depth interviews with 24 men were conducted. The results reveal that understanding practices of barebacking requires an appreciation of how sex takes on multiple meanings in practice. Meanings in sex for the men in this study tend to be organized around masculinity. In sexual negotiations, meanings, initiation, emotions, dynamics (e.g. ‘shared’ communication, ‘directing’) and wider contextual influences (e.g. public health discourses) all play a role in sexual choreography and risk taking. Implications for health promotion and policy are discussed.

This article draws on qualitative interviews with 40 gay male undergraduates at four universities across England to explore the dynamics of participants' friendship networks in the context of decreased homophobia. Describing their schools and universities as gay-friendly spaces, most participants developed close friendships with both straight and sexual minority peers in spontaneous ways, away from institutional venues such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender student societies. Building on Bourdieu's conceptualization of the symbolic economy of class, I introduce a new concept to understand how having a visible gay identity can act as a form of privilege in inclusive, post-gay social fields: gay capital. Through shared knowledge of gay cultures, belonging to gay social networks, and having one's gay identity recognized as a form of prestige, gay capital supplements cultural, social, and symbolic forms of capital. These findings trouble traditional generalizations of gay youth as victimized due to their sexual minority status. However, finding that participants' experiences differed across the four research settings , this article also develops an intersectional analysis by highlighting that access to gay capital is limited by other forms of class, gender, and sexual hierarchy.

This paper examines the processes through which a commercial bar is transformed into a hospitable space. Drawing on a study of a venue patronized by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual/transgender consumers, it considers how social and commercial forms of hospitality are mobilized. The paper argues that hospitable space has an ideological, normative and situational dimension. More specifically, it suggests the bar’s operation is tied to a set of ideological conceptions, which become the potential basis of association and disassociation among consumers. It examines the forces and processes that shape who participates in the production and consumption of hospitality and how. Finally, it considers the situational, emergent nature of hospitality and the discontinuous production of hospitable space. Rather than focusing exclusively on host-guest or provider-customer relations, which dominates existing work on hospitality, the paper examines how consumers’ perceptions, actions and interactions shape the production of hospitality. By doing so the paper offers an alternative approach to understanding queer spaces, bar operation as well as hospitality.

This article explores Warhol and Nico's relationship with Europe through their formative years and subsequent collaboration in Warhol's underground and experimental filmmaking. In the 1950s Warhol was a commercial artist in New York, circulating in a gay milieu, and his work often conveyed Europe and a European sensibility in its illustration of 'all things Europe', but especially fashion. Nico was a fashion model and frequently seen in European fashion magazines before landing a few film roles, including a small part in La dolce vita (Fellini, 1960) and a featuring role in the French erotic film StripTease (Poitrenaud, 1962). Nico moved to New York and found her way to Warhol's art studio and social scene known as The Factory. At The Factory Nico joined the art-rock group The Velvet Underground at Warhol's insistence and featured in several films Warhol made between 1966 and 1967, including Chelsea Girls (Warhol, 1966) and a number of portrait films called Screen Tests (Warhol, 1964–1966). This article explores the presence and negotiation of Europe in both Nico's and Warhol's life and work in the 1950s and 1960s. The article pays particular attention to their early careers and the shifts in Nico's persona demonstrated by the difference between the French StripTease and Warhol's experimental Screen Tests.