Out/Lines underground gay graphics from before Stonewall

T. Waugh

Gay male representation of sexuality has a long history of varied visibility and acceptance, but the 100 or so years of queer life before Stonewall were a period of unprecedented self-identification as well as renewed pressure to hide and suppress the erotic imagery of gay men in western culture. Out/Lines features a resurrection of erotic gay images, once virtually buried and invisible, that circulated in clandestine communities whose sexualized visibility was a potentially devastating risk _ a wealth of approximately 200 previously unpublished "obscene" images from the queer pre-Stonewall underground.