Homoerotic Photography and the White Gay Imaginary in Apartheid South Africa.

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  • Author(s): Sonnekus T;Sonnekus T
  • Source:
    Journal of homosexuality [J Homosex] 2024 Jul 28; Vol. 71 (9), pp. 2116-2141. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jun 09.
  • Publication Type:
    Journal Article; Historical Article
  • Language:
    English
  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Routledge Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 7502386 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1540-3602 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00918369 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Homosex Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Publication: Philadelphia : Routledge
      Original Publication: New York, Haworth Press.
    • Subject Terms:
      Apartheid* ; Homosexuality, Male* ; Photography* ; Racism* ; Erotica*; Humans ; Male ; History, 20th Century ; South Africa ; White People ; Racial Groups
    • Abstract:
      In this article, I consider a selection of photographs of a man of color from a luxury book of male nudes, Images (1982), aimed at white gay men and published in South Africa by Alternative Books (AB) in the late apartheid period. Given the exclusive association of assimilable homosexuality with whiteness in the national gay press and other homoerotic commodities available in South Africa at the same historical juncture, I propose that these photographs, which interrupted longstanding, racist homoerotic iconographies, elicited experiences of ambivalence (and thus critical reflection) amongst their historical audiences. To this end, I analyze the editorial and commercial content of the newspapers Link/Skakel and Exit for the period that AB was active (1981-1991), anticipating an overlap of readership between these papers and the publisher's titles. More precisely, I discuss the prevalence of the figure of the "good homosexual" and representations of classical (that is, white) male beauty in these papers to plot how apartheid logic was broadly reproduced (and same-sex desire disciplined according to such dictates) in mainstream South African gay movements, institutions, and print cultures during this time, but, notably, not in Images .
    • Contributed Indexing:
      Keywords: Apartheid; South Africa; assimilation; classicism; gay press; homoerotic photography; whiteness
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20230609 Date Completed: 20240529 Latest Revision: 20240910
    • Publication Date:
      20240911
    • Accession Number:
      10.1080/00918369.2023.2221761
    • Accession Number:
      37294092