Bad Gays Quotes

“The anecdote is surely recognisable
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.”
― Huw Lemmey , Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“The past is still with us; the revolutions of the queer future beckon.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“It resulted in a death toll of holocaust proportions.’12 In 1880, between 20 and 30 million people lived in the Congo; by 1911, 8.5 million did. The survivors were, to quote Nzongola-Ntalaja, ‘enslaved subjects of a sovereign they never saw’.13”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“praying God that I may have a joyful and comfortable meeting with you and that we may make at this Christmas a new marriage ever to be kept hereafter; for, God so love me, as I desire only to live in this world for your sake, and that I had rather live banished in any part of the earth with you than live a sorrowful widow’s life without you. And so God bless you, my sweet child and wife, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear dad and husband. James R.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“There is power in being the king who sits upon the throne, but sometimes there is more power in being the throne on whom the king sits.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“To be the receptive partner in anal sex was regarded as being kinaidos, or effeminate: there’s no escaping it, bottom-shaming is as old as European civilization itself, baked into the deep misogyny of patriarchal societies.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“Form of xenophobia perfect for a nation whose nationalism is based on tolerance: they can't be here because they are intolerant, and we are tolerant.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“In Genet, this willingness to affirm an reimagine the dignity of the abject of society as not merely equal to, but superior to, their oppressors, would lead him into a radical anti-imperialism.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“According to Genet's biographer, Edmund White, Genet turns to the main character of his 1948 novel Funeral Rites, a traitor and collaborator, into someone to love partly because of his dissolute social status, and 'partly because anyone who betrayed France would always be [Genet's] friend'.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“John Dillinger, the handsome and charismatic bank robber who achieved some popular support after destroying mortgage records during his raids”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“[J. Edgar Hoover] was a born cop - as a child, he kept a dossier on himself”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“We can find something to celebrate and ally with, but maybe it's better, in the long term, to look for the things that are hidden, that cause discomfort or pain, the ghosts of a past that refuses to be past.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“Several, thirsting to punish appetites they could not wholly prevent, took a savage pride in degrading the body, and offered themselves fiercely in any habit which promised physical pain or filth. Ah, yes. We've all been there, haven't we, girls?”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“Even if there was a default racism cutting across society at the time, it was possible to take a stand against racism, imperialism and colonialism. <...> Casement was writing in a letter home: 'What has civilisation itself been to them? ... A thing of horror - of smoking rifles and pillaged homes - of murdered fathers, violated mothers and enslaved children.'
(quote from 'The Queer and Unusual Life of Roger Casement' by Noel Halifax)”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“It is interesting here to think about homosexuality as a path towards anti-colonial alliance.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

“In 1876, at a conference ostensibly about humanitarian projects, King Leopold II of Belgium formed the 'Internetional Association for the Exploration and Civilization of Central Africa', a front organization for violent colonization with members from many European nations. The fact that Central Africa was neither unexplored nor uncivilized — millions of the people lived in the areas around the Congo river, and many kingdoms and states there had signed treaties with European nations — did not slow down these wide-eyed, genocidal ideologues one bit.”
― Huw Lemmey, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History