Giving to my husband all he deserves Every nerve would strain. All those nerves Operating in concert are not enough For the rich symphony of fine stuff, Failure to avoid: no option I’d say As a celebration of this birthday. Time passes my dearest at such a pace Each year of our marriage I’d again … More To Geoff, my husband, 80 today. With love, Steve.

‘ “Will you walk a little straighter?” said a clergyman I knew’.[1]: On Stephen “Tommy” Tomlin and why sexual categories can be so confusing when used to summarise a life! Reflecting on : The Bloomsbury Stud: The Life of Stephen ‘Tommy’ Tomlin by Michael Bloch & Susan Fox (2020) London, M.A.B. Available direct from publishers … More ‘ “Will you walk a little straighter?” said a clergyman I knew’.[1]: On Stephen “Tommy” Tomlin and why sexual categories can be so confusing when used to summarise a life! Reflecting on : ‘The Bloomsbury Stud: The Life of Stephen ‘Tommy’ Tomlin’ by Michael Bloch & Susan Fox (2020).

Justice demands that your birthday be sung Under Princely order, it must be done. So let the royal name give way to one That shows that artists over monarchs shone. In this light your birthday glitters pure  joy.  No-one may sing like him, but this! our Boy. This verse is not strong, not enough to … More To Justin on his birthday.

When the Sea Pinks fade will white boys fear the heat of the Sun. Identity Markers, and Arrested Male Development: reflecting on the Cicely Robinson’s [Ed.] (2021) Henry Scott Tuke. New Haven, CT., Yale University Press (in association with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art). Images of Georgie Fouracre, aged 14. Cropped … More When the Sea Pinks fade will white boys fear the heat of the Sun. Identity Markers, and Arrested Male Development: reflecting on the Cicely Robinson’s [Ed.] (2021) ‘Henry Scott Tuke’.

‘I heard the words …/ “… a ridiculous farrago supposedly linking various allegedly important moments of homosexual history of the past century. Period. …”’.[1] ‘… hardly  what my shy new friend Andrew Holleran … called “Big Girl Stuff” … but lately, whenever people of importance in the gay world were mentioned, my name always seemed … More ‘“… a ridiculous farrago supposedly linking various allegedly important moments of homosexual history of the past century. Period. …”’. ‘… , whenever people of importance in the gay world were mentioned, my name always seemed to come up. … ’. Writing up a name in queer history: reflecting on the gay epic in a time of AIDS in Felice Picano’s (1995) ‘Like People In History’.

‘… half in love with the male camaraderie of the regiment’. Reflecting on the contribution to queer history as a side-effect of Chris Bryant’s (2020) The Glamour Boys: The Secret Story of the Rebels who Fought for Britain to Defeat Hitler, London, Bloomsbury Publishing. Chris Bryant MP is described on the flyleaf of his new … More ‘… half in love with the male camaraderie of the regiment’. Reflecting on the contribution to queer history as a side-effect of Chris Bryant’s (2020) ‘The Glamour Boys: The Secret Story of the Rebels who Fought for Britain to Defeat Hitler’.

Reflecting on the Gay Bathhouse (not – let it be noted! – that I have ever been to one). A note on The Savoy Baths, 97, Jermyn Street, London and the compatibility of Artistic Mimesis with Surreal Invention in Christopher Wood’s Art. As usual I want to do too much in this blog. My initial … More Reflecting on the Gay Bathhouse (not – let it be noted! – that I have ever been to one). A note on The Savoy Baths, 97, Jermyn Street, London and the compatibility of Artistic Mimesis with Surreal Invention in Christopher Wood’s Art.

‘Sargent, like James, was fascinated by the world of appearances, by the pose, by the gaze. … in the concealed self, the arranged presence, the surface elements used to hide and reveal, as though painting and sitting were a game, a way of handling and handing over power’.[1] As I see it, Colm Tóibín’s essay … More ‘Sargent, like James, was fascinated by the world of appearances, by the pose, by the gaze. … in the concealed self, …’. Colm Tóibín’s essay implicitly challenges the history of art as a discipline with a plea for a nuanced social history of appearances and disappearances in both graphic and literary art. Reflecting on the significance of Colm Tóibín’s (2020) ‘Secrets and Sensuality: The Private Lives of John Singer Sargent and Henry James’ in Nathaniel Silver (Ed.) ‘Boston’s Apollo: Thomas McKeller and John Singer Sargent’

Reading the evidence on sex, gender and sexual practices. ‘”L’amore masculino is solely a work of virtue, which joins males together …” [Epigram to Chapter 5 from] Gian Paolo Lomazzo Il libro dei sogni (1568)’ .[1] Michael Rocke (1996) Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence.  New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press … More Reading the evidence on sex, gender and sexual practices. ‘”L’amore masculino is solely a work of virtue, which joins males together …” [Epigram to Chapter 5 from] Gian Paolo Lomazzo Il libro dei sogni (1568)’ .[1] Michael Rocke (1996) ‘Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence’.

‘What does this mean? What are the layers of knowing and unknowing that I went through’ .[1] Reflexes from Michael Rosen’s narrative of how a Covid pandemic has exposed the liminal nature of our experience of identity. Michael Rosen Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS (Waterstone’s edition ISBN … More ‘What does this mean? What are the layers of knowing and unknowing that I went through’ . Reflexes from Michael Rosen’s narrative of how a Covid pandemic has exposed the liminal nature of our experience of identity. Michael Rosen ‘Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS’.With visits by @MichaelRosenYes

‘”… . There is one good thing we learn in Rocky mountain life; there is no high or low, knowledge or ignorance, except what applies to the needs of men who come together. So there are needs which most men have, and go all their lives hungering for, because they expect them to be supplied … More ‘”… . So there are needs which most men have, and go all their lives hungering for, because they expect them to be supplied in a particular form.”‘ Enlightenment Heteronormativity and Classical Humanism tie themselves in knots in service to the moulding of the American dream in the ‘close, rough, naked contact’ between men on the Western frontiers of venture capitalism. Is Bayard Taylor’s ‘Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania’ of 1870 really the first gay American novel or a misogynist’s celebration of patriarchal values?