HST 222 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Invisibility
Document Summary
The comstock society for the suppression of vice starts to take a back seat in prosecuting sexual crimes, it"s taken over by the police. Police start to invade gay bars under the premise of thinking there was liquor there, but would then charge the patrons with disorderly conduct (pg. 341) - plainclothes officers seducing men and then arresting them. Bars became less likely to accept gay patrons because they were afraid of getting raided by the police. Men no longer able to take care of the household by themselves. Kind of the opposite of what they hoped would it be. Lots of interracial mixing, more people going out to bars, homosexual activity on the rise - at least in public. Persisted in american culture despite attempts to police gay culture and eliminate it. It"s in this period that gay, not queer or fairy, that becomes the way to define it define it.
