| The Comfort of Their Own Sex |
Chris Brickell Mates & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand Lavishly illustrated. (pp 432), deluxe, large-format paperback with dust wrapper, € 47.50 |
Dear George Since you and Bert left things are pretty quiet. I wish you would come up every Sunday - what a time we would have. Send along a whisky I am nearly dead with the cold George. Remember me to darling Bert. How I love him and he doesn’t know it. What do you think of him for a bed mate. Hope you are well, From Fred |
Prising open 1860s court records and leafing through 1880s albums showing photos of men posing languorously with their male companions confirmed historian Dr Chris Brickell’s view that same-sex desires and intimacies have pretty much been written out of New Zealand’s national story and important questions about New Zealand masculinity have remained unanswered. In his fascinating landmark book, Mates & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand Brickell tells the compelling story of gay liberation: from Otago’s muddy streets and goldfields during the middle of the nineteenth century to the inner-city bars a hundred years later. It’s an important and complex story that needed to be told says Brickell. He says researching and writing the book has been sobering at times, moving at others, but always immensely interesting and rewarding. |
|
| “There is quite a lot of tragic stuff in there, particularly
around the use of the law and later on medicine and psychiatry in the ’50s
and ’60s. You see some lives that have been quite badly ruined, but you also
see close groups, close bonds, close friendships.” |
|
His reading of the early records confirmed his impression of nineteenth century New Zealand: Kiwis were surprisingly relaxed about sexuality. Especially in the first 125 pages there is also a lot about intergenerational love and lust, as in the case of missionary William Yate, who had a more than paedagogical interest in his Maori pupils in the 1820s and 1830s. A colleague and friend of Yate’s developed special friendships with some of the sons of the other missionaries. Although Yate created a scandal, he wasn’t persecuted because the authorities couldn’t prove sodomy, and same-sex activities such as masturbation and oral sex weren’t prohibited. Furthermore, a legal age-of-consent didn’t exist. Attitudes shifted considerably following Oscar Wilde’s high-profile sodomy case at the turn of the twentieth century, and the moral tide has ebbed and flowed ever since. |
|
Before that, men happily “lay together” in hotel and hostel beds - and it wasn’t considered a big deal. “It was actually only sodomy that was illegal until 1893, so most sexual activities between men weren’t illegal for most of that century,” says Brickell. He also suggests that some of this male closeness was the result of the population gender imbalance in rural areas. There were fewer women, and so men sought the comfort of their own sex. He also discusses this in relation to all-male institutions like the navy, army, and male only bath houses. Brickell tells the evolving story of New Zealand gay men through the lives of clerks, labourers, shop assistants, soldiers, actors, writers of all classes, and shows that our erotic past was vibrant, complex and often surprising. |
|
He brings his extensive research to life with around 300 photographs, sketches,
pamphlets, posters and paintings. “In many ways the history of homosexuality
is a hidden one, ” says Brickell. “People have assumed that sources of information
are hard to come by, and this is sometimes true, especially for the early
years. This made it even more exciting when I did find snippets of the erotic
past. I could barely contain my enthusiasm when I looked through early court
files, albums, letters and postcards revealing intimate male relationships.”
|
|
| “Men also told of their hopes, fears and erotic adventures
to their diaries and in letters to their closest friends. What had been hidden
for so long began to filter to the surface, and I could start to flesh out
the picture. Fascinating stories have remained untold and lives overlooked:
What divided friends from lovers, what sorts of relationships were considered
sexual and which weren’t, and how did a sexual minority emerge; what changed,
and what stayed the same?” |
|
| “When we look at homosexual lives we necessarily
dip into the history of many other things as well - entertainment, transport,
housing, hotels, public and private places, work, love, friendship, family
- and much more besides.” Mates and Lovers explores sex and friendship between New Zealand men from the early nineteenth century to the modern era and is an important event in ours published social history. |