Time Line 1950

Time Line 1950 (Time Line 1940) -- (Main Index) -- (Time Line 1960)

Time Line of Alternative Sexuality

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1950

• 1950 - Mississippi makes publication of "general information, arguments, or suggestions in favor of social equality or intermarriage between whites and Negros" a crime.
• 1950 - After a year of revolution in China a marriage law sets new age limits and allows widows to remarry. Prospective marriage partners must be checked for "correct" thinking with the party.
• 1950 - Publication of The Invisible Glass by Loren Wahl
• 1950 - Publication of Quatrefoil by James Barr
• June 15 1950 - Chuck Renslow and Dom Orejudos start Kris Studios to publish male physique photography. Orejudos begins sketching some of the models.
• Nov 1950 - The first issue of AMG's Physique Pictorial is issued. Cover "Havasu Creek" by Quaintance. No copies of this issue are known to exist. [Hooven 95]
• Dec 1950 - Mattachine Society founded in Los Angeles. [JR]

1951

• 1951 (or maybe 1953) Shaw's, New York City's first Leather Bar opens. [R]
• 1951 - Rene Guyon criticizes the United Nations for not including sexual rights as a basic human right. [wd]
• 1951 - Clellan S. Ford and Frank A. Beach publish their study "Patterns of Sexual Behaviour", a comparison of the sexual preferences of 200 cultures. The study shows how relative Western sexual traditions are. [wd]
• April 1951 - Harry Hay (born Apr. 7, 1912), Rudi Gernreich, Chuck Rowland, Bob Hull and Dale Jennings start Mattachine Society in Los Angeles.
• May 26 - British Foreign Office officials Donald Mclean and his cruel "master" Guy Burgess defect to the USSR. [Greif 82]
• Nov 1951 - The cover date of the oldest known extant copy of Physique Pictorial Vol.1, No. 2. Cover painting of a nude man riding a white horse through the surf: "Dashing" by Quaintance. [Hooven 95]

1952

• 1952 (or maybe 1954) - The Lodge, New York City's second leather bar opens. [R]
• 1952 Jack's on the Waterfront opens at 111 Embarcadero in San Francisco. The bar particularly attracts longshoremen, motorcycle men other butch types. Gradually evolves from a straight bar with "homo space" to a gay bar with a maritime flavor. Closed in 1962 as part of the "Gayola Scandals". [R]
• 1952 - Joe Wieder, a championship competitive bodybuilder who had started a series of body building magazines converts his American Manhood to compete with the "informal" poses and slimmer "natural" physiques of magazines like Physique Pictorial and Vim. [Hooven 95]
• 1952 = First publication of Tomorrow's Man. A tiny physique magazine Published by Irv Johnson in Chicago, which combined the look of Physique Pictorial with articles on body building and staying in shape. It quickly became the #1 physique publication. [Hooven 95]
• 1952 - Alan Turing, mathematical genius, breaker of Nazi codes, acclaimed as "the man who saved England" reports the theft of his property by a hustler, when the police realize why the thief was there Turing himself is arrested and prosecuted. He is chemically castrated by the authorities and hounded by the press. He committes suicide in 1954. [Hooven 95]
• April 1952 - Dale Jennings, a member of the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles is arrested by the police. Mattachine organizes The Committee to Outlaw Entrapment.
• May 27 ✦ Birth of Sasha Alyson, founder of Alyson Publications, a gay press that gave presence to a broad range of gay and lesbian works, including Coming to Power, the writings of John Preston, and many other leather/SM works considered "marginal" at the time, by other publishers.
• 1952, August - Cover date of Physique Pictorial issue bearing a cover painting by Quaintance, "Sacrifice," depicting a nearly naked man chained in spreadeagle suspension to a vertical sun disk. In the foreground two virtually naked warriors lie bleeding (dying) from arrows penetrating their backs. This cover resulted in censorship in Los Angeles county. No one objected to the bondage, blood, or violent theme. They wanted the lushly rounded asses of the dying warriors covered! [Hooven 95]
• 1952 - College English professor Sam Steward begins a sideline business as Phil Sparrow, tattoo artist. [JR]

1953

• 1953 - Alfred C. Kinsey publishes the second part of his study on human sexual Behaviour, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female. [wd]
• 1953 - The German physician Harry Benjamin coins the term "transsexuals" and is the first to distinguish them from transvestites. [wd]
• April 23 - US President Eisenhower issues orders prohibiting employment of gays in government agencies. [JR]
• 1953 Forbidden Colors, Yukio Mishima's novel with SM overtones is first published in Japan. First English edition in 1968.
• Aug 1953 - "Tomorrow's Man" #8 contains the first published art by Dom Orejudos and the pseudonym Etienne is created.

1954

• 1954 - Satyrs MC founded in Los Angeles, the first gay motorcycle club.
• 1954 - Historie d'O by Pauline Reage (real name, Anne Desclos) first published in France. In 1955 it won the Deux-Magots prize, an important French literary award. In 1965 Grove Press publishes the first English language edition as The Story of O.
• 1954 ✦ Birth of Bob Flannigan, SM performance artist and ASupermasochist@ [wd]
• 1954 - The San Francisco police stage a crackdown on "Sex Deviates" hitting particularly the area of Market and Embarcadero streets.
• 1954 - Joe Wiedner begins publication of "Body Beautiful" and "Adonis", big budget, color cover, physique magazines which alternate publication in succeeding months. The rise of physique magazines threw the body building publishing world into a homophobic panic, except for Wiedner who jumped in and competed. [Hooven 95]
• 1954 - On the urging of Jim Kepner and Ann Carrl Reid, Chuck Rowland starts the "Church of One Brotherhood" to minister to the religious needs of gays and lesbians. It prospers for about a year, then folds.
• 1954 - The movie "The Wild One" Starring Marlon Brando as a leather jacketed motorcycle gang member is released, creating a sensation and giving seed to an image.
• Feb 1954 - "One" magazine includes its first article about a women's issue. Lesbians continued to be included in the content, and on the staff, until 1959.
• Jun 1954 † Suicide of Alan Turing in England, after being outed as a homosexual when he reported the theft of some items by a young man he had invited into his home. Turning had been instrumental in breaking Nazi codes during the war, and is considered the father of the computer.

1955

• 1955 - "Two" by Eric Jourdan first published in France. This novel of male love with definite SM elements was published in English in 1963.
• 1955 = Publication of "Cool Hand Luke" by Donn Pearce, the novel which inspired Paul Neuman's superb movie performance as a member of a southern prison camp chain gang.
• Sep 1955 - The Daughters of Bilitis, the first Lesbian organization in America, is formed in San Francisco.
• Sep 30 - James Dean is killed in a car crash in California. The actor's smoldering sexuality and young death (at 24) elevated him to legendary status. The persistent rumors that he enjoyed being burned with cigarettes and kicked and trampled under men's feet provided hours of pleasant fantasy for many Tops.
• Nov 1 - An anti-homosexual witch hunt begins in Boise, ID, later documented by John Gerassi in "The Boys of Boise".

1056

• 1956 - The last of the US laws making epilepsy a disqualification for marriage are removed.
• 1956 - Publication of "The Street of the Sun" by Lance Horner, the most homoerotic and SM, of the Mandango family of novels.
• 1956 - Publication of "Sex Magick" by Ian Young. Poetry from one of Canada's best known leathermen. (born Jan 5, 1945).
• Sep 1956 = Jim Kepner and Dorr started America's first gay studies classes. In Jan 1957 they started the first 36 week course in World History from the gay perspective. Kepner conceived and edited Americas first gay scholarly-style journal: ONE Institute Quarterly of Homophile Studies for three years.

1957

• 1957 - The German physician Hans Lehfeldt founds the "Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality" (SSSS) in New York. [wd]
• 1957 {o}} The Argos, Amsterdam's first leather bar and hotel opens. It is still in business! ( Website )
• 1957 - The Spring issue of "Physique Pictorial" magazine includes the first published erotic art of Tom of Finland, and marks the first time that name is used.
• 1957 † Erotic artist George Quaintance dies.
• 1957 - Publication of "Color of Darkness", a novel by James Purdy (born July 14, 1923).
• 1957 - Publication of "The Last Exit to Brooklyn", a novel by Hubert Selby Jr. (✦ July 23, 1928)
• 1957 - In the Crittenden Report, the US Navy concludes that homosexuals serving in the military do not create a security risk. The Pentagon denies the existence of this report for twenty years.
• Sep 4 1957 - In London the Wolfenden Report recommends decriminalization of "private homosexual acts between consenting adults".

1958

• 1958 - Both Federal and Chicago authorities charge Kris studios with censorship violations. [Chuck Renslow]] fights back, surprising the prosecution. His defense uses the simple stand that nudity is not obscene. In support his attorney shows photos of nude male sculpture in the courthouse where the case is being held. Kris was found not guilty, prosecution appealed and eventually the same decision came from the US Supreme court. [Hooven 95]
• 1958 - "Confessions of a Mask", an autobiographical novel by Yukio Mishima first published in English.
• 1958 - "The Balcony", Jean Genet's play which accommodates every sexual desire, is published in French and English.
• 1958 - The gay SM novel, "Muscle Boy", by Bud Clifton is published [wd]
• 1958 - Publication of "The Question" by Henri Alleg, an account of the French Algerian newspaper man's torture at the hands of French paratroopers.
• 1958 - Publication of "Those about to Die" , a history of the Roman games and arena shows by Daniel P. Manix.
• 1958 - Oedipus MC founded in Los Angeles, the second gay motorcycle club.
• May 12 - The Homosexual Law Reform Society is founded in London.
• June 1958 - Chuck Renslow becomes manager of The Gold Coast in Chicago and creates the first Leather Bar. [JR]

1959

• 1959 "The Big Dollar" at 34th & 3rd in New York City opens, A VERY leather bar. [R]
• 1959 "The Spur Club" a leather friendly bar at 126 Turk in San Francisco's tenderloin is raided and closed. [R]
• 1959 - In the San Francisco mayoral election homosexuality becomes a political issue. The incumbent clamps down on "queers". [R]
• 1959 - Publication of "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs. (born ✦ Feb. 5, 1914)
• 1959 - US Supreme Court rules in favor of allowing distribution of D. H. Lawrence's novel, "Lady Chatterley's Lover". [Hooven 95]
• 1959 Kellers (bar) opens in New York City and becomes a gathering place for gay motorcycle riders.

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