Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History Reviews

• 
  milo in the woods

  queer villains and evil twinks you say? i’m in 😏
• 
  Gerhard

  I only found out about this title because it popped up on my newsfeed. It is certainly not the kind of book I would stumble upon in my local vanilla bookstore, so thanks to my Goodreads friends for their consistent forays into the weird and wonderful!
  
  I had just finished a book about Jeffrey Dahmer, probably the epitome of a ‘bad gay’, but curiously he is not included here. That points to a fundamental problem. With a title like ‘Bad Gays’, you’d expect a juicy rundown of a rogues’ gallery of horrible people who just happened to be gay. Well, yes and no. The problem is with that second part of the title, ‘A Homosexual History’.
  
  It all begins as expected when the authors question why Oscar Wilde’s legacy endures as opposed to that of “the Machiavellian, anti-Semitic, and louche” Lord Alfred Douglas, or ‘Bosie’ as he was fondly known. They continue: “…[W]hy do we assume that Wilde’s life and attitudes shaped the track record of the project of homosexuality better than Bosie’s?” That phrase ‘project of homosexuality’ immediately raised my hackles.
  
  The authors state that by examining the lives and sexualities of a range of “evil and complicated queers from our history”, the book “investigates the failure of homosexuality as an identity and a political project.” Note the conflation of ‘evil’ and ‘complex’, probably a half-baked attempt to explain what Lawrence of Arabia and Margaret Mead (incidentally the only woman here) have in common in terms of ‘badness’.
  
  Below is the authors’ attempt to define their notion of ‘failure’:
  
  The failure, however, of mainstream, actually existing white homosexuality to enact liberation and its embrace instead of full integration into the burning house of the couple-form, the family unit, and what we might hopefully call late-stage capitalism is real, and it is arranged on three primary axes: first, its separation from and fear of gender non-conformity; second, its simultaneous appropriation of the bodies and sexualities of racialised people and denial of those people’s full humanity, political participation, and equality; and third, its incessant focus on the bourgeois project of ‘sexuality’ itself.
  
  There is a lot to unpack in that statement from the Introduction, and I am unconvinced that the book lives up to its premise. For one thing, it is difficult to deduce what Hadrian and Pim Fortuyn, firstly, have in common and, secondly, how they contribute to the so-called failure of the homosexual project.
  
  I am aware that this book is based on a popular podcast, but therein lies its greatest weakness. The individual chapters are entertaining enough, if not offering anything new that even a casual student of gay history is likely to not already know. The heart of the book is in the above statement, and the authors seem to do a lot of unsuccessful shoehorning to come up with a unifying hypothesis.
  
  What would have seemed an obvious approach is barely addressed, except for a stock statement in the Conclusion that “we are not just the protagonists, but also the products of history”: How do the authors themselves fit into the Great Homosexual Project, and how do their own (invariably privileged) positions in terms of class, wealth, sexual choices, politics and history influence their ultimate selection of ‘bad gays’. After all, there are only 14 listed here. Surely you could come up with a completely different argument by selecting another, diametrically opposed bunch of gay idiots.
  
  There is value to the argument that the leaders of the so-called ‘gay movement’ “were often not working-class or people of colour, but instead members of the emerging bourgeoisie who sought to assign positive values to their sexual acts within the prevailing value systems of their time.” Yes, Stonewall was a protest by marginalised drag queens. If you look at progress since that tipping point, especially regarding the treatment of trans people, the path has not always been on the straight and narrow. And the resurgence of right wing attitudes and general extremism and intolerance globally is of huge concern.
  
  However, while the authors rightfully point out that the Great Homosexual Project has “failed to live up to its utopian promises of liberation” – a statement that clearly is going to read differently in Africa or the Middle East than it does in the US – it is a bit of a leap to claim that homosexuality itself does not exist at all outside of the white picket fences of a fiercely controlled and regulated social construct.
  
  The authors conclude, rather alarmingly, that “The history of homosexuality is a long history of failure – failure to understand of ourselves, failure how we relate to society, and the failures of racism and exclusion.” They unpack this broad statement a bit further:
  
  It is not always so easy, especially when subjects are marked by whiteness and other forms of power and privilege, to neatly separate the good from the bad, the right from the wrong. The answer, though, is not to simply stan our heroes and shush up about their flaws and faults; rather, it’s to understand how people have made and been made by history, how and why they have failed, and how and why we might succeed.
  
  That is a welcome, if cautious, note of optimism in an otherwise pretty dismal and dour book. It seems contrary to their idea of history straitjacketing or pigeonholing the present that the authors quote a seminal text from 1977, a completely different world in gay years. This, of course, is ‘The Faggots and Their Friends between Revolutions’ by Larry Mitchell: “Since the men are always building as many empires as they can, there are always one or two falling and so one or two places for the faggots and their friends to go.”
  
• 
  Sunny

  sick ass radical queer examinations of complicated queer histories !!!
• 
  Jennifer L. Hess

  Although I enjoyed this book, I was left wishing more than just one woman was profiled. I know that lesbians aren't, perhaps, the primary academic subject for the authors. But I'd think they'd encounter a few more "bad gay" women or trans people over the course of their research. And, paradoxically, the book suffers from a lack of diverse, queer representation.
• 
  Meike

  Currently binge-listening
  the podcast - I mean, episode 1 already references
  Klaus Theweleit, and the show goes on citing tons of sources, so it's super scholarly, but also evidently relevant and damn interesting.
• 
  Emily Sarah

  Messy gays for days.
  
  Let’s start with the fact -if this had less graphic descriptions of sex- it would be so bloody perfect as material to be used and taught in schools. This book covers so much history, especially for Europeans and English folk, that our historians usually try to hide or barely mention beneath piles of text.
  
  Whilst I enjoyed the brief comedic moments, and queer humour we can all bask in, it was also surprisingly hard hitting.
  
  Though this book primarily focussed on the tales of white, queer males; it’s mostly from an aspect of looking at how their actions had severe consequences for others like the trans, BIPOC and other queer communities. Or how situations like the aids epidemic were catered to healing the rich white elite.
  
  Entries like those that discuss the English implemented, enslavement of people en masse in the Congo. History that is devoid of us in schools for fear of making us look barbaric that NEEDS to be taught. It was passages like this that had me incredibly thankful for this books existence. I will say it is fairly graphic, and incredibly shocking, and I am glad it’s being brought more so to light.
  
  It mentions the Pits and Perverts benefits, history I’m wildly intrigued by and aware of, but also more out there tales I had no idea of.
  
  There is also a lot of mentions how Jewish people were affected by the actions of certain queer men & how prevalent the antisemitism was within the queer community.
  
  Overall I was really taken aback by this in the best way, I was expecting something piled with humour and got something so entirely eye opening that really shines a light on how singular gay culture was in the light of acceptance. Whilst it also displayed struggles, as queer and trans people, it greatly demonstrated that being queer does not exempt you from harming others. Quite often in history it showed the willingness to throw other at risk groups under the bus for one’s acceptance or benefit.
  
  I would seriously recommend this.
  
  Thank you to verso for sending me a copy, this was a brilliant read.
  
  
  TW’s listed below, please skip if you want no spoilers/info.
  
  
  
  TW’s / CW’s I noted: Mentions of physical and mental abuse of children, SA, homophobia, colonisation, enslaved people, SA , torture and forced work of enslaved people, racism, antisemitism, holocaust mentions, corrective surgery and conversion therapy mentions of both gay and trans people, grooming mentions, mentions of hanging, beheading, scarifices, gore, amputation scenes, witchcraft, parental abuse, graphic sex, group sex mentions, bodily mutilation, starvation, Islamaphobia.
• 
  Jonathan

  welcome to 202-Queer 🌈✨, the year where i only read queer books and finally have fun 🌈✨
  
  
  i went an entire year without reading any nonfiction (unless you count the articles i have to read for work) but there's a lot of queer nonfic on my tbr this year which makes me nervous as, full disclosure, i am quite stupid 🥺
  
  
  i enjoyed the gay little history lesson. it wasn't really what i expected and i am unsure on how the decision on which gays are "bad" was made - some where like literal nazis while some didn't really... do much.
  i also sometimes felt like the structure of the history lesson was all over the place and we were jumping from a random point to another and it was hard to follow.
  
  but i still enjoyed listening to the audiobook and some of the quotes in this were wild!!
• 
  Christine

  I'm not sure what definition of bad is being used here. Legally bad at the time? Then Casement counts. In service to an Empire? Then yes to Lawrence. But it is very confusing. There is only one lesbian, and only one person who is not a white European or American. And must of the entries are well known.
  
  But it is an entertaining read.
• 
  elin | winterrainreads

  1.5 stars.
  
  The only way I can explain this book is if you imagine your teacher taking about an upcoming subject that you find really interesting and actually look forward to. Then when the time comes the teacher takes that really interesting subject and makes it the most boring thing ever. You know the kind of lesson where you have to focus on wiggling your toes so you don't fall asleep and then you leave the class remembering nothing and feeling disappointed. Yeah, that's how I feel right now.
• 
  Zach

  1.5 stars rounded up. Where to begin? First, the good: some interesting profiles of gays who are notable that I had never heard of. That's about all the good I can say.
  
  For a book about "bad gays" (and there are no shortage of them around!) there sure were a lot of gays who are either ambiguously bad and only bad read in very modern light. The author basically suggests every queer in history who wasn't radically anti-capitalist, anti-imperial, and fully intersectional was "bad." I'm not sure I agree.
  
  A final point: there are ways to write books that are simultaneously academic AND readily accessible. Throwing in a bunch of fancy words and then adding "you go girl!" isn't one I support.
• 
  Elizabeth (Plant Based Bride)

  While I found the content of this book incredibly fascinating and very much enjoyed learning more about the historical figures profiled, I found myself getting a bit frustrated by the mismatch between the title, subtitle, and premise of the book and its actual content. Some of the historical figures were not particularly bad (or bad at all), or if they were, their badness was not actually explained in the chapter and was only discovered when I did further research on my own. There were also a few figures included, who were not, in fact, homosexual but bisexual, and the erasure of their bisexuality as they were folded into homosexuality for the purposes of simplicity in this book rubbed me the wrong way.
  
  Overall, I enjoyed learning about the selected figures and found the commentary on the development of both our understanding and societal treatment of members of the LGBQIA+ community quite interesting. I do, however, believe that this book didn't quite live up to the premise nor its potential.
  
  
  
  Trigger/Content Warnings: death, torture, homophobia, violence, anti-semitism
  
  You can watch me review this book & all of the other 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards Winners here:
  https://youtu.be/fFKXJ1gsZA8
  
  You can watch me talk about all the books I read in February as I set up my reading journal here:
  https://youtu.be/NY7bgSmoggM
  
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• 
  saïd

  Incredibly shoddy workmanship. I too would like to pay more attention to terrible people doing terrible things, but not like this.
• 
  Maria

  Okay… I am DNFing this primarily because I just know it’s not going to interest me. WHICH SUCKS! Because I love books about people in history, and I love gay bullshit, so this should have been everything I wanted but god damn I’m bored with it. How do you make this topic boring.
• 
  Danika at The Lesbrary

  While there are interesting elements, I found this a scattered, self-contradictory book where the contents didn't match the framing. The introduction claims that these "bad gays" prove the "failure of homosexuality," but also that there is no throughline of identity between time periods. And the people included range from literal Nazis to people whose main claim to "bad" is being lewd. Also, why is just one woman included? It just doesn't hang together for me, or prove the point they're claiming.
• 
  Daniel Carrol

  What can evil and complicated queer people from history teach us about shaping and understanding modern queer identity? Quite a lot it turns out! Meticulously researched, well written and fun to read it doesn't skimp on any of the salacious or rude bits either
• 
  Rach A.

  A fascinating look at some famous figures from history prone to a bit of a villainy alongside their queerness. It was eye-opening to get a much closer look at figures and events from history that I knew of.
  
  I also very much appreciated the emphasis and exploration of how our understanding and the concept of homosexuality and queerness has adapted and changed over the years, but how it can still be linked back to the understandings of the Greeks and Romans, the Weimar Republic, the colonial anthropologists et al. It was so interesting to see our current understanding of queerness directly linked back to these individuals and periods.
  
  Most importantly, I thought it excellent the way the authors chose to directly address the historic suffering caused by white (usually male) queers against more marginalised queer people in society. I won’t lie, I find it a bit odd so many reviews have complained about the lack of diversity in the 14 chosen individuals to discuss when the entire thesis of the book is basically to examine and critique the white male model of homosexuality. And I think they do this very well - from the AIDS crisis to racist anthropology to the Congo to far right politics, the authors raise again and again the awful harm white queerness has caused, and it’s legacy continues to cause, across the world.
  
  I thought this was a fascinating read, it showed such a different side to queer culture and a side that I think it is vitally important we remember now as we draw ever closer to fascism.
  
  Content warnings: pedastry, racism, homophobia and homophobic violence, conversion therapy, colonisation, slavery, fascism, anti-semitism, Nazism, Islamophobia, sex
• 
  Alvin

  Bad Gays is a welcome corrective to the shallow version of gay history as an uncomplicated narrative of heroic struggles by heroic gays. Not only is their subject matter fascinating, but Lemmey and Miller write with erudition, lucidity, and delightful splashes of wit. They meticulously describe the social, political, and economic milieu in which each of the "bad" gays lived, so readers are treated to a series of concise little history lessons as well as intriguing biographies. My only quibble is that the authors' intersectional leftwing politics are globbed in throughout the book in a manner that will convince nobody on the right of anything (as it presumes they are malevolent rather than misguided) and even comes across as tedious cant to leftists (like me) who largely agree with them. That, however, is only a small flaw in an enlightening and entertaining read.
• 
  Brandon Scott

  From the cover alone, I was excited to read this book. I've read quite a bit of queer nonfiction; however, most of them have centered queer people in the United States of America. I was glad to see that this book took a more global approach to its subject matter.
  
  I will say that we lacked a bit of diversity both in race AND gender identities (out of fourteen "Bad Gays," only one is a lesbian, and only one isn't white); however, I think that the authors did do a great job at critiquing these white, gay men and the disgusting actions they took against more marginalized people within the queer community. Though this is evident throughout the book, I think it still would've benefited from the inclusion of more diverse, "gay" voices because there were a few of these people that I was quite familiar with. I would've enjoyed learning a bit more about the "gays" that aren't so commonly discussed; shining the spotlight on more marginalized queers would've allowed for a more in-depth discussion of the varying approaches to "gay" identities and the different societal structures that labeled them "bad."
  
  Now, you may be wondering why I've been putting "gay" in quotation marks. The reason for that is explained within the book, but it's because the authors are speculating about the sexual identities of the people on whom the chapters focus because many of them, at the time that they were alive, didn't have the cultural or societal understanding of what homosexuality is today. Therefore, these men had sexual relations with men (or, in the case of Margaret Mead, women), and the authors are considering them "bad gays" based off of that fact. Is this the perfect answer? No, but they address the complexities within the first chapter quite well.
  
  Overall, this was a very insightful book, and I'm glad to say that I left it with a greater knowledge about queer history than I went into the book with; that's all I could've hoped for. I will say that the book does get a bit repetitive in the commentaries on these queers in history, and that's why I deducted a star. There were some parts that seemed like a bit of a slog, but I really did enjoy the book as a whole.
• 
  Marko Theodore Mravunac

  Cool concept, easy to read. The first half of the book was better than the second one, and I enjoyed some chapters way more than others. I’m still not sure what makes these people “bad” per se, all I know is that we were lacking diversity! But now I’ll definitely check out the authors’ podcast!
• 
  Lexi

  dropped because my attention span sucks but i hear there's a podcast so ill be all over that
• 
  Mirjam

  So by "gays" they mean "queer men" (iirc there is one single queer woman) and by "bad" they mean... "not as widely known," I guess? Because, if you're comparing Oscar and Bosie, for example, I think most people would agree that the former was more morally questionable than the latter, or at least the surviving documentation certainly suggests that. By "history" they really mean "Western and/or European history," because it's basically allllll white people all the way down, which, I'm not complaining per se, I'm just saying the advertising is a bit off. But what should I expect from a couple of, well, Westerners? (One of them is from Germany and the other is from Spain, but they're both speaking and writing in English, so, hey.)
• 
  Steven

  I definitely learned some things! I’m not a history buff at all, but found most chapters pretty fascinating.
• 
  Marcela (marcereads)

  [PR product: review copy sent by the publisher]
  
  In this book, the authors (and hosts of the Bad Gays podcast) present a brief biography of several historical figures who are considered from morally complex to plain evil.
  
  They aim to shed light on the fact that we usually remember the gay icons and heroes of LGBTQ+ history, but overlook the queer villains who may also have something to offer or reveal. It mainly focuses on white gay men, proving how they have also harmed other marginalised groups, often for their own benefit. As they write, “‘Gay is good,’ went the old slogan, but it’s no good at all on its own”.
  
  This book was fascinating, eye-opening and even funny. It sheds a light on how the concept of homosexuality has evolved through time and will keep evolving, inevitably influenced by history.
  
  I didn’t expect to be so into a book with so many historical facts, but this has proven to be a really easy read, since you can jump in and out, the chapters are short and the stories were captivating. It is definitely a book I will revisit, as I found it so informative and thought-provoking.
• 
  Mandy

  Here's the deal -
  
  Overall, it's very fine. Complete lack of regard for anyone not European or American in terms of the people being spoken about - minus one feature.
  
  It also tends to read as more of a series of mini-history lessons about America and various European countries as opposed to being about the actual persons covered in each chapter.
  
  I'm not mad I read it and I did learn a lot but I was expecting more and it feels like I could have gotten some of this information from Wikipedia for all the lack of detail there was on some of these historical figures.
  
  Despite what the introduction stated bad is being used very loosely at times and I think this book suffered from some bad marketing attempts which set up readers with different expectations.
  
  Anyways -it was at times funny, made some good points but also missed the mark for me.
• 
  Julia

  There is no way I can finish this book. I didn't even make it past the first chapter. If anyone would like to summarize in 10-15 pages I could maybe read that. Thanks in advance.
• 
  Jesse

  4.5 ⭐️
  
  “It is not always easy, especially when subjects are marked by whiteness and other forms of power and privilege, to neatly separate the good from the bad, the right from the wrong. The answer, though, is not to simply stan our heroes and shush up about their flaws and faults; rather, it’s to understand how people have made and been made by history, how and why they have failed, and how and why we might succeed.”
  
  Did not expect this to be so radical and so laugh-out-loud funny! A fascinating and refreshing antidote to reductive Instagram infographics about queer histories and identities, and to the liberal obsession with undiscerning “representation” without any call for structural change.
• 
  Jim

  “The history of homosexuality is a long history of failure.” In the conclusion, the authors called for greater solidarity among oppressed people to liberate all people. The bad gays they profiled misunderstood, or chose not to understand, the failures of racism and exclusion.
  
  one real line: “The anecdote is surely recognizable to all of us who, as a joyful child, unknowingly overstepped the barriers of gender presentation and were greeted without mercy by the regime that enforces them with its most potent weapon: shame.”
  
  one cheeky line: “There is power in being the king who sits upon the throne, but sometimes there’s more power in being the throne on whom the king sits.”
  
  also interesting to learn about the social construct of “gay” changing over the centuries
• 
  Aurora Pio

  I have a degree in history and still found this so dry and boring that i gave up a quarter of the way through.