Homosexuality, now and then.

Homosexuality, now and then.
　
Then, there were beasts, being natural, being bestial, being beautiful.
Then, there was Rome and Greece, Bacchus and his delights, Platonic love, Sapphic love, orgy and sodomy… none with a bad name.

Later, much later, there came the Dark Ages of Disapproval, ambiguous
mores, sexual heresy, witches for ducking,incest amongst royalty.

Later still, in literary circles there was The Love That Dare Not Speak its
Name, the Well of Loneliness, inversion, perversion, forbidden love, infelicity, sodomy, some with a bad name.

In the Fifties, then the Sixties came the Wolfenden Report, justice acting to change the course of perversion, Gateways, Strangeways, a Prick Up Your Ears, Shut that Door, Sadie’s Bar, Kenneth Williams, April Ashley, Liberace, Duckies and Queens.

Jeremy Thorpe loitered, grey-jowled around Parliament. Then Queens became Queers and we all wore Gay Liberation badges and threw eggs at Cliff Richard. Sisters were Doing it for Themselves, laughter screamed at bigotry, Stonewalling it until Pride burst open the gay chest.

Soon there came Outrage, and outing was no longer a day trip, while Aids blossomed, soared monolithic, towering over us. Pride was sold by the eventful and the Red Ribbon Ritual rallied pink money, pricked conscience.

There was Queer as Folk and folk as queers, diversity Retrovir and the Gay
Villages, T-Cell counts and the pink pound were coming – we were not so much.
There followed more Red Ribbons and the tying of Pink Knots, gay counselling, gay insurance, gay holidays, gay parenting, Mutually Beneficient Arrangements, sperm donors in the wanted columns, diversity, no sentimentality, no love lost.
Now has come the age of selfishness, sex and shopping. Love lost, but no love lost.