Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures

by Adam Zmith

Miller knew and funded local Democratic politicians. If you search for it, you can find a photograph of him with Bill Clinton, the US president. He gave money to the Damien Center, which was founded in 1987 to care for people living with HIV and AIDS-related conditions in Indianapolis. Today it serves more than four thousand people, many of them through its Joseph F. Miller Testing Center. You might wonder if the board members, or even Clinton, knew how Miller made his money. Well, plenty of people did ask questions; Miller was frequently the subject of investigation and rumour. In the 1970s there was a paedophile case, later dropped, naming him as a person of interest. By the time of his suicide in 2010, he was a deeply controversial figure in Indianapolis. Blog posts reporting on his death, and the comments beneath them, range from tributes to his warmth, generosity and thoughtfulness to allegations of paedophilia and the manic statement “JOE MILLER WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST MEN WHO EVER LIVED”.