Roommates Can't Always Be Lovers; an Intimate Guide to Male-Male Relationships

by Lige Clarke, Jack Nichols

Authors of I have More Fun with You than Anybody. In Roommates..., Liege and Jack present a representative sampling of letters sent to them in the capacities as columnists for SCREW and editors of GAY and their answers. Readers will find counsel that goes beyond traditional labels like male and female, old and young, beautiful and ugly. They will also find a warm appreciation of community that transcends sexuality itself.

194 pages, Hardcover

Reviews

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Look past the sleazy title - this is a really fascinating mid-70s collection of letters written to Gay magazine by a whole range of readers, accompanied by the responses from pioneering activists and authors Clarke and Nichols. This a wide panorama offering insights into the experiences 0f gay men in the first few years post-Stonewall, and the letters feel like what Reddit would have looked like at the time had it existed. You've got men pining for love, asking where best to meet people and reminiscing about early love affairs. The letters are everything from flippant to profound - two particularly moving ones were one from a man in his 70s recalling his experiences of gay activism in 1920s journalism, and another from a middle-aged mother sharing her experiences of participating in a Gay Pride parade in support of her son.

A lot of the letters express hope for the future and optimism about the extent to which conditions had improved in recent years, even as many others describe the rampant homophobia so dominant in society at the time. I really hope some of the letter writers in this book (almost all anonymous, for obvious reasons) are still alive, and live long enough to continue to see things get better - if this book proves anything, it proves that LGBT+ rights are fragile, further improvement always possible.