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‘Confidential,’ The Magazine Which Showed Hollywood’s True Face

by Hans Hafkamp

Nowadays, with Perez Hilton and others blogging faster than celebrities can create scandals and amateur paparazzi publishing slip-ups and shameless behavior of the jet set on the worldwide web as soon as they happen, it’s hard to imagine that there once was a time that news on, for example, movie stars could be tightly directed and controlled by the publicity departments of movie studios.

Sex For Sale

by Hans Hafkamp

No New Light On The Hidden World Of Gay Prostitution

In 1983 Boudewijn Büch published an article on the “lush wilderness of German publications from the glory days of culture-philosophic and sexuality-science craze” at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the collection “Het orgasme van Lorre” (Lorre’s orgasm).

The Resurrection Of The DOK

by Hans Hafkamp

Many complain about how little is happening in the Amsterdam gay scene over the last years. Well, the creativity and initiative which are needed to make a change in this situation seem to have been lacking in what was once the Gay Capital of Europe. Fortunately there are a few people doing their utmost to create new possibilities. Like club night producers Abiad & Malenka, who want to re-invent the DOK.

Drag Performer Dolly Bellefleur Celebrates Twentieth Anniversary

by Hans Hafkamp

‘Dolly’s A Lot Darker Then You’d Say At First Sight’

Dolly Bellefleur is turning twenty this November and this happy occasion is celebrated with the exhibition “Van hem naar haar naar Hippolytushoef: Twee decennia Dolly Bellefleur” (From Him to Her to Hippolytushoef: Two Decades of Dolly Bellefleur) in the main branch of Amsterdam’s Public Library from the 7th of November till the 7th of January.

Record Price For First Edition Of Early American Gay Novel

by Hans Hafkamp

Abebooks.com, a website for antiquarian books, sends users monthly updates on the ten most expensive books that were sold via the site. “Gay books” seldom or never made it to that list but last month showed a surprise. The most expensive book sold in April 2009 was a rare first edition of Xavier Mayne’s novel “Imre: A Memorandum,” which appeared in 1906, 500 copies only, funded by the author himself and published by English Book Press in Naples.

Murats Traum

by Hans Hafkamp

Child Porn Hysteria In Germany About Erotic Novel

In 1966 the law educated, homosexual bibliophile John Sparrow wrote in the preface to his collection of “Controversial Essays” that he “find[s] it difficult to decide at what point the censor should be allowed to interfere, whatever grounds the case for censorship is based on.” Sparrow wrote these words with reference to the British publication in 1960 of D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (after having been published in Italy in 1928).

Observations Worth Listening To In Gerrit Komrij’s Mosse Lecture

by Hans Hafkamp

On September 17 Gerrit Komrij delivered the Mosse Lecture in the main branch of Amsterdam’s Public Library. A week later the text was published in the leftish weekly “De Groene Amsterdammer.” Because not all readers of “Gay News” will have attended the lecture or read the text, it seems worthwhile to highlight some of Komrij’s observations. He might have unfolded a self-willed, and some people will even say archaic, point of view, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t say things which are worthy of consideration.

Book Review - Mates & Lovers

by Hans Hafkamp

An Impressive History Of Male Love In New Zealand

Two years ago a “world history of homosexuality’ appeared in an international co-production. The Dutch version is called “Van Alle Tijden, in alle culturen” (Of all times, in all cultures). This may be so, but it is not said we know as much about the different times and the different cultures, not even if we stick to the Western ones. In Holland we have two historic works.

The Big Penis Book

by Hans Hafkamp

Big, Bigger, Best!
Notes On The Attraction of ‘A Little Bit More...’

Who, where or when I can’t remember, but somebody once said that there are two kinds of faggots: size queens and liars. Both now have “The Big Penis Book,” edited by Dian Hanson. Hanson writes in her preface “Size Matters...” that many people she showed the selected photos to, spontaneously cried out: “I wouldn’t let that near me!” I’ve heard a couple of those responses in my own circle as well - clearly from the second category, sorry.

Jean Daniel Cadinot (1944-2008)

by Hans Hafkamp

Amsterdam, second half of the 1980s. Together with the publisher of the gay magazine “GA-Magazine” I leave his house above a boy’s club. There’s a man in the doorstep looking at the photos in the display. The publisher looks, and looks again: “Mister Cadinot?” Indeed, we’d run into the world famous French pornographer, although Cadinot himself, like many of his generation, didn’t like the word pornography because it has a negative connotation.

Fetish Fashion - ‘Leather should wrap the body of a handsome guy’

by Hans Hafkamp

“The screaming queens are crazy about heavy and macho leather jackets and impossibly high boots. When you look at them you think he’s a young submarine commander, but if you’d hand him a gun he’d start to whimper and would probably drop it on his toes. Real men... I don’t think so.” Gerard Reve wrote this on the 29th of January 1974 to a lover, referring to a young Dutch writer who had visited him.

Hellbent, The First Gay Slasher Movie

by Hans Hafkamp

A couple of years ago I was chatting to a friend of mine in an Amsterdam gay bookshop, when a customer asked him what a certain DVD was about. He answered: “About two guys who fall in love with each other during a holiday.” The customer picked up another DVD, asked him the same question and my friend said: “About two guys who fall in love... while on holiday.” At the third DVD he giggled: “Same,” and at the fourth: “That one as well.”

Gay History - The Morgue Yawns For Me

by Hans Hafkamp

Oscar Wilde's Death

“I died in prison,” Oscar Wilde said after he had served two years of hard labour in 1897. And emotionally that might indeed have been the case as after that he only produced one more work of some weight, “The Ballad of Reading Goal.” In reality however he had a couple of years left. The Dutch paper “Het Vaderland” reported in the December 2nd/3rd edition his death on the 30th of November 1900 “in a small hotel in the Quartier Latin where he had lived for a few months under the name Menworth.”

Gerard Reve, Dutch Author And Gay Emancipation Pioneer, Dies At 82

by Hans Hafkamp

On Saturday March 8, just after sunset, Dutch author Gerard Reve died at the age of 82. The last few years, he was hospitalized because dementia had obfuscated his once so sparkling mind. The man who could once conjure with words and language like no other, couldn’t utter more than: “Schrum..., brum...” This is tragic, because Reve was undoubtedly the most virtuoso stylist of contemporary Dutch literature. Love played a major part in his oeuvre, just as did death.

Gay Capital - Amsterdam and Gay Tourism

by Hans Hafkamp

Early this year the results were published of an inquiry into Amsterdam as a gay tourist destination in the 21st century, which was conducted by the department of Leisure Management of InHolland College. The researchers wanted to know if Amsterdam will stay an inviting holiday city for gay people. However, they stress the fact that this inquiry has more far-reaching implications. With the present changes in world economy, many production facilities are transferred to low-wage countries and regions. But for the creative and innovative tasks personal contacts remain very important, and these will be increasingly concentrated in so-called “creative cities.”

Cybersex - Lawmakers Try To Impose Restraints On Internet Porn

by Hans Hafkamp

Internet, and especially the erotic sides of it, keeps troubling the lawmakers’ minds. In our last issue we reported on the recently accepted legislation 2257 in the US, which is supposedly aimed to combat child abuse and child porn. However, because of its ridiculous definitions of “sexually explicit material” as well as “producer”, and the very strict rules for “producers”, the new rule affects the porn industry severely, as it does anyone in the US who posts erotic material on the internet, even if it’s pics of yourself and you’re 47 years old.

Queer History - The Lovers Of Sidi Bou Saïd

by Hans Hafkamp

In an extensive “Terminal Essay” that Sir Richard Burton wrote for his translation of “The Arabian Nights”, this English explorer developed his theory of a “Sotadic Zone.” The distinguishing characteristic of this geographic zone is that homosexuality “is popular and endemic, held at worst to be a mere peccadillo.” The boundaries are “the northern shores of the Mediterranean (N. Lat. 43o) and the southern (N. Lat. 30o).

Portfolio - One And A Half Century Of Male Photography In One Hefty Tome

by Hans Hafkamp

In 1980 the then eighteen-year-old Benedikt Taschen started a bookshop in Cologne. Four years later he published his first art book and since then Taschen Verlag has become a household name in the international book world. Taschen’s publishing company has specialized in sumptuous coffee table books that, unlike the largest part of the art book productions, are very friendly priced. Another remarkable characteristic of this publishing company is that they do not just stick to so-called high art, but also have room for commercial and sub cultural art expressions.

Enemapleasure -Let the water flow...

by Hans Hafkamp

The enema, also called clyster, belongs to the grossly underrated anal pleasures. Unjustified. Through the ages all over the world men have taken enemas, alone or together. Good old Mark Twain said it in the nineteenth century already: “If you really want to be moved, don’t read a book, take an enema.” Twain would have agreed with me that if you can’t enjoy taking an enema, reading about it is second best. Unfortunately, in his time (1835-1910) he didn’t have access to a book that will give the modern reader many hours of pleasure and that has his quote as a motto: David Barton-Jay’s “The Enema As An Erotic Art And Its History,” a beautifully produced and richly illustrated work.

The Hun’s Pornographic Universe Of Dominance And Submission

by Hans Hafkamp

The last few years Tom of Finland has found a place in many coffee table books about male or queer art. It would be interesting to discuss why this honor was bestowed on Tom of Finland and not on other gay erotic artists. Undoubtedly the quality of his work is an important aspect, but I think that also the fact that he doesn’t indulge in excessive sexual activities in many of his drawings, has something to do with it. Although Tom looked upon his work as pornographic, it’s rather easy to compile a collection of his drawings which wouldn’t shock the general public.

A Treasure-trove Of Vintage Gay Graphics

by Hans Hafkamp

In his recently published ‘Beneath the Skin: The Collected Essays’, John Rechy makes some remarks about the importance many people assign to the Stonewall Riots for gay emancipation: “Overnight, the legend declares, gay liberation was born [...]. The truth is that the riot at Stonewall was only one event, one battle in the long war for sexual freedom. Used as the point of separation, the myth of Stonewall falsifies history.

Gay Kingdom Declares War On Australia

by Hans Hafkamp

On the 13th of September 2004, the Gay Kingdom declared war on Australia. This also means that the kingdom sees itself as an independent country. The independence is based on the fact that Australia is guilty of “unjust enrichment,” because of the government’s plan to amendment the marriage act so as to prevent gay couples who were married overseas to have their relationship recognised. The law of “Unjust Enrichment” states: “If something is unjustly taken compensation must be made.”

Billy Bean Goes The Other Way

by Hans Hafkamp

When baseball player Billy Bean decided at age 31 that he wasn't going the stay in the closet any longer, his coming-out received national news coverage in the United States. In his autobiography "Going The Other Way", published last year, he tells about the long way he had to go before he could make this decision. At a certain moment he felt he "couldn't bear any longer the constant fear of exposure, the anti-gay remarks of teammates and coaches, and the exhausting, grinding pressure of being someone I wasn't."

Walter Kundzicz' Champion Studio

by Hans Hafkamp

It's a remarkable development that nowadays, when you can find depictions of every perversion imaginable on the world wide web, the interest in the rather innocent erotic photography of pre-emancipation days is on the rise. Frequently the pictures of almost forgotten photographers get a second life in beautiful monographs. Recently we received Champion, dedicated to the studio of Walter Kundzicz.

Dancing on the Homomonument

by Hans Hafkamp

At the eve of the Amsterdam Gay Pride, the completely renovated Homomonument was put into use again. The ceremony was conducted by Anne Lize Van Der Stoel, president of the City Center Council, who, from 1981 till the unveiling of the memorial in September 5, 1987, was the president of the Homomonument Foundation. At the time of the unveiling Pieter Koenders’ book The Homomonument was published. It soon sold out and since then no other study on the subject has been available.

US Supreme Court ends discriminating sodomy laws

by Hans Hafkamp

When on Juy 4, 1776, the then thirteen United States of America decided to break away from their British motherland, in their Declaration of Independence state representatives spoke of some "self-evident Truths", including that "all Men are created equal" and that they are endowed with "certain unalienable Rights", like "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". The next centuries showed that some citizens are more equal than others and that unalienable rights are not the same for everyone.

'I’ve always been an outsider’
Hans Becker and his many careers

by Hans Hafkamp

Last year saw the publication of Buon Natale in Antona, written by Hans Becker. On the backcover the author is described as “a colourful Amsterdam enterpreneur” and how true that is. For some twenty years Becker was running the indoors antique market De Looier and later was at the helm of the bridge club of the same name.

Jacob Israël de Haan, the outsider

by Hans Hafkamp

For friendship such boundless desire." A line of poetry gracing, in its original Dutch, the gay monument at the foot of the Amsterdam Wester Church. Coming from the poem To a Young Fisherman" by the Dutch poet Jacob Israël de Haan (1881-1924)

Cock & Feathers Party

by Hans Hafkamp

The first anniversary of the Cock & Feathers at the Amsterdamse Zeedijk is more than reason enough for owner Gerard to raise the flag.

Kirmser's nightshift: The (mis)fortunes of a gay bar in 1945

by Hans Hafkamp

The gay emancipation movement has always viewed gay nightlife with suspicion, in the belief that bar owners are merely busy filling their own pockets. An opinion also colouring many a gay study. Meanwhile in Holland a sizeable bookshelf can be filled with high minded medical studies of the homosexual phenomenon, the repression of sodomites, the emancipation movement of predecessors and so on

Wild californian boys

by Hans Hafkamp

In the sex issue of Flemish gay mag Zizo collector Daniel Christiaens talks about his field of collecting interest, the physique magazines, expressing his surprise at the little gay interest in this phenomenon, since, according to him, we’re all crazy about great bods afterall

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?

by Hans Hafkamp

Shortly before the turn of the year, the Dutch magazine for the young gays Expreszo was saved from ruin once more. Expreszo’s courting disaster has two main reasons. Its editors suffer from the ineradicable misconception a gay magazine should cater to a "mixed" crowd, where gays, deplorably or not, in general don’t give a hoot what concerns lesbians, and vice versa.

The Rise and Death of Teen Idol Sal Mineo

by Hans Hafkamp

On February 13, 1976 Sal Mineo was stabbed to death in an alley near his home in San Francisco. Some twenty years earlier, Mineo had captured the hearts of many girls and boys by his role as Plato in the classic Rebel Without a Cause. In this film he starred next to James Dean and for the discerning eye it was obvious that the relationship between Dean and Mineo was more than just a "normal" friendship between two guys

The love of uniforms of Willem Staring

by Hans Hafkamp

Willem Constantijn Staring was born in 1847 as the Benjamin of seven children. In 1830 his father had marched in the Ten Day Crusade against Belgium and since then had a lifelong dislike of the military. Nevertheless Willem chose for a career in the army. In the 19th century a not uncommon choice for an upper middle class boy. Yet the army didn't bring him much adventure. At the time Staring joined the army, the country wasn't involved in a war and also wouldn't be till WWII.

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