This 1950s Home Office document lists ‘types of homosexuals’
By Ben Kelly
We’ve all heard of bears and twinks, but what about ‘The Religious Homosexual’ or ‘The Homosexual Virgin Chaser’? These were some of the many ‘types of homosexuals’ listed in a 1958 book on ‘the homosexual society’.
The book, by Richard Hauser, was prepared for the Home Office as “a new approach to the problem” of homosexuality – which was illegal in the UK until 1967.
Pages from the book were shared on social media today and quickly caught the attention of many.
It seems that gay society in the 1950s was just as varied – if not even more so – than the one we enjoy in 2016, with nearly 50 different types identified, including ‘Sugar Daddies’, ‘The War Queer’ and ‘The Self-Masturbator’.
We’re still not quite sure what ‘The Ship’s Queer’ or ‘The Toucher’ is all about, but we could certainly identify a few examples of ‘The Body-builder’ and ‘The Promiscuous Homosexual’.
Descriptions of these different types are just as in depth as the list is varied. One one page, ‘Sugar Daddies’ are described at length, with Hauser saying they are “possibly no longer attractive enough to find partners” and that they feel “safer with young boys.” He adds, “One theory is that the more oppressed the older person, the younger the victim desired.”
Pages from the book were shared on Twitter by user @hellothisisivan.
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