Time Line 1930
- 1930's
Anthropologists report among the Nuer tribe in the Sudan there exist unions in which a woman marries another woman and counts as the father of her children.
- 1930
Denmark repeals its sodomy laws. It is the first European nation to respond to the early homophile movement. Poland, Switzerland, and Sweden all follow suit within fifteen years. [AA]
- 1930
Marlene Dietrich, in the film Morocco, makes the first of her many male impersonations.
- 1930
Publication of The Story of Punishment, Man's Inhumanity to Man by Harry Elmer Barnes. Revised edition 1972.
- 1931
The Chinese Nationalist Party forbids arranged marriages.
- 1931, Feb. 8
The birth, in Marion, Indiana, of James Dean. The mysterious masochist and cultural icon did nothing in his life to dispel the rumors of his masochism (preferring, it is said, to be burned with cigarettes and to be kicked and stepped on) and the rumors became legends after his death in a car crash on Sept. 30, 1955. [JWB]
- 1931, June 3rd
John Norman was born in Chicago, Illinois. John authored more than two dozen books (known collectively as the Gorean Chronicles) about a planet in Earth orbit, but in it always behind the sun. The series is best known for portrayal of a feudal society in which slavery is common place.
- 1931. Nov 28
The graphic artist, Jean Thomas Ungerer, better known as Tomi Ungerer, is born in Strasbourg. Ungerer’s works for adults include a large number of S&M drawings. In 1986, he writes and illustrates a book about dominatrices
- 1932
The Zenith of gay activity in Berlin which then had over 300 homosexual bars and cafes, of which a tenth were lesbian. Between 1933 and 1945 virtually all homosexual activity was driven underground by the Nazis.
- 1932
First publication in Zurich of Der Kreis one of the longest running European gay magazines, it ceased publication in 1967. Articles were in German, English and French. It frequently published material by American writers, artists, and photographers, including the first fiction from Phil Andros, and nude male studies by George Platt Lynes under the pseudonym Robert Rolf.
- 1932
John Coutts entered the fetish network when he wanders into the MacNaught Shoe Store in Sydney, Australia. MacNaught was a producer of fetishistic high heeled shoes that contributed photographs and advertised in London Life Magazine.
Coutts was shown copies of London Life for the first time. Mr. W. of MacNaught placed Coutts in contact with a retired mariner in Sydney who sold high heeled shoes using the trade name and pseudonym of “Achilles". Achilles was a seller of High heel shoes who regularly corresponded and advertised in London Life magazine. Coutts visited Achilles and the two became friends.
Achilles placed Coutts in contact with the American Social Circle surrounding Charles Guyette. Achilles gave Coutts the name and address of John Bringman, Guyette’s Photographer. (Robert Bienvenu)
- 1932, Dec 28
Birth of Manuel Puig, Argentinian novelist whose work includes "The Kiss of the Spider Woman".
- 1933
Birth of artist Nigel Kent in New South Wales, Australia. When he started drawing and painting male SM imagery he signed his work "James D." but later began using his real name. He has lived in the Netherlands since 1973.
- 1933
Noel Ersine's Dictionary of Underworld Slang lists "gay cat" as meaning "a homosexual boy", this is the earliest know PRINTED equation of the words "gay" and "homosexual".
- 1933
In Germany Hitler rises to power. Within two years a license of "genetic cleanliness" is necessary for marriage: a German cannot marry a Jew.
- 1933
Department II of the German Gestapo is created for the express purpose of hunting down and imprisoning homosexuals.
- 1933
Publication of: The Strap Returns, New Notes on Flagellation privately printed by Gargoyle
- 1933, Jan. 30
Hitler bans all gay publishing in Germany.
- 1933, May 6
Nazis ransack Magnus Hierschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin, Germany and, on May 11, burn his library and museum collection which, Christopher Isherwood reported, included many SM implements.
- 1933, July 1
Birth of Domingo "Dom" Orejudos, better known as the erotic artists Etienne and Stephen, and as partner with Chuck Renslow in operation of Kris Studio, the Publication of Mars and Rawhide magazines, the Gold Coast leather bar and Man's Country baths in Chicago, and the founding of the International Mr. Leather contest.
- 1933, July 15
The Italian architect and comic artist Guido Crepax is born in Milan. Influenced by John Willie, he later adopts “Justine" and in several parts, “The Story of O" as comic.
- 1934
Publication in England of The History of Torture in England by L. A. Parry.
- 1934, March 7
Stalin restores criminal sanctions against homosexuality to the Soviet Union.
- 1934, March 10
The birth of author John Rechy (in El Paso, Texas), whose writing skirted the edges of leather sexuality, and about which he had strong opinions.
- 1934, June 30
Gay SS Chief Ernst Rohm, and many of his "Brown Shirts" were assassinated by rival Nazis with the approval of Hitler in the "Night of the Long Knives."
- 1935, April 9
In a letter of this date Sigmund Freud wrote, "homosexuals must not be treated as sick people..."
- 1935, May 13
T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia" fatally injured in a mysterious motorcycle "accident" in England. Dies May 19, 1935. [JWB]
- 1935, August
Guyette’s business activities come to an abrupt halt when he was indicted and plead guilty to two charges of depositing in the mail, “certain non-mailable matter, to wit, certain obscene and lewd pictures". Sentenced to one year and one day in the federal penitentiary in Lewisburgh, Pennsylvania, where he was delivered on September 6, 1935.
He returned to his business after his release in August 1936, but evidently quite sensitive to publicity and changed his mode of operation and went underground instead of mail order and over the counter sales
- 1936
The American housewife Dorothy Spencer publishes a scheme to improve marriage by mutual domestic spanking. [wd]
- 1936
Leftist German director Gustav von Wangenheim (1895-1975) produces the film "Bortsy" (The Fighters) which depicts the Nazis as homosexuals. In reaction the Hitler regime enacts a new and more stringent version of the notorious Paragraph 175, and increase convictions for homosexual activity in Germany.
- 1936
The suicide of Robert Ervin Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian. Exceptionally close to his mother as a boy, and bullied by older boys he turned to exercise and developed the body he admired in other men. When his mother lapsed into a coma he blew out his own brains with a borrowed pistol and Cross Plains, Texas, had a double funeral. He was 30 years old and had written 21 Conan stories in which images of muscular men suffering under the domination of others was prominent. 1937 The first use of the pink triangle for gay men in Nazi concentration camps
- 1938
The American zoologist Alfred C. Kinsey begins his studies on human sexual behavior, using empirical data from over 12,000 interviews. [wd]
- 1938
Fourteen US states introduce bills to impose restrictions on marriage to persons with syphilis and other venereal diseases in a "social hygiene" panic.
- 1938, March 17
Birth of Rudolf Nureyev, Russian, then American, Ballet dancer. Renowned for his love of rough trade a friend advised: "I once told Rudi, he can be as naughty as he likes, but if he isn't more careful, they're going to find him...some morning in an alley in Soho, his head laid open with a lorry driver's spanner." He died of AIDS in 1993.
- 1939
Albert Moll dies of natural causes in Berlin before the Nazis can transport him to a Death Camp. [wd]
- 1939
In the film Bringing up Baby, Cary Grant, appearing in a dress, exclaims that he has Agone gay@. Historian John Boswell credits this as the first public use of the term in the US, outside of pornograph and the homosexual community. But it isn't until the 1970's that "gay" is widely accepted as the standard, nonslang synonym for homosexual, and not until 1987 that it is accepted by the New York Times.
- 1939, Jan. 10
Birth of actor Sal Mineo. He wore the leather jacket in "Rebel Without a Cause" even though he was the obvious and willing bottom to James Dean's reluctant Top. His gristly 1976 murder has never been solved.
- 1939, Feb 24
Birth of American playwright Doric Wilson.
- 1939, Sept. 22
Sigmund Freud, suffering from cancer in an advanced stage, dies in London by morphine overdose through physician assisted suicide. [wd]
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