INDECENT PROPOSAL
A bevy of books were published timed for the 50th anniversary of Stonewall but few as fascinating and maddening as Indecent Advances: A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall. In it, James Polchin uncovers queer stories from the crime pages—sensationalized, lurid, euphemistic—that show how violence against gay and bisexual men was often blamed on the victim’s gender and sexual “deviance,” letting the killers off scot-free.
You discuss how crimes against queer men were portrayed by the media, the courts, and psychologists with the men often seen as both the victims and the
