Buying Gay

In 1951, a new type of publication appeared on American newsstands--the physique magazine produced by and for gay men. For many in Cold War America, these magazines served as an initiation into an extensive world of photography studios, mail-order catalogs, pen-pal services, and book clubs, targeting a gay market. In Buying Gay, David K. Johnson shows how this gay commercial network--long thought to be a result of the gay rights movement--was actually a crucial catalyst for the gay rights movement.

Each chapter offers a vivid, behind-the-scenes look at a physique entrepreneur and their battle with the U.S. Post Office, which considered their products obscene and engaged in a relentless campaign to shut them down. It reveals how Bob Mizer founded Physique Pictorial in Los Angeles as a direct response to postal authority intimidation. It uncovers the story of The Grecian Guild, founded by a gay couple who met at the University of Virginia, who offered their subscribers access to a gay fraternal order. It tells the story of a New York publishing executive who pioneered the notion of niche marketing of gay books. It tells the story of Elsie Carlton, a straight woman who ran one of the nation's first gay mail-order book clubs.

Threatening all these physique entrepreneurs was Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, who had members of the first gay pen pal service arrested and sent its founders to prison. It would take Lynn Womack, who consolidated the field into a physique publishing empire--including his own distribution network, printing plant, and legal library--to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court and win one of the first and most important gay rights cases. Manual v. Day in 1962 paved the way for a vibrant gay print and commercial world that could help sustain a movement.