One-Handed Reading

Abstract

Of the many changes in the British gay publishing scene in the 1980s, the most noticeable has been the toning down (almost to extinction) of the openly erotic/pornographic content that, for a short while, was freely available on newsagents’ top shelves around the country. The acceleration of raids and the regular seizing of gay material has made it imperative for gay publishers to avoid the danger of financially crippling prosecutions or loss of product; what little nude publishing there is in Britain steers well clear of showing anything (particularly erections) that could be construed as pornographic. Magazine fiction likewise has become tame, more concerned with writing about relationships and ‘real people’ than with the business of getting the reader aroused, erect and ultimately to orgasm. With the advent of more widely available books dealing with gay experience (particularly the sort of fiction published by the Gay Men’s Press and Third House), magazine stories are left in an unsatisfactory limbo, unable to provide the sexual content readers continue to demand, but unwilling to withdraw completely from the arena of erotic fiction. Added to the legal problems is a degree of self-censorship from within the gay press and the spokespersons of the gay community; explicit writing about experience that could encourage unsafe sex is regarded with chilly disapproval.