Customer Reviews

A Class Apart: The Private Pictures of Montague Glover

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The price is a bit dear but worth it for those interested in pre war gay Britain. Gives insights into a very Edwardian gay couple and as a bonus lots of info about gay men in Britain and where and how they connected in the years before World War 2. I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend it.

This is a fascinating book on several levels. The pictures document a classic gay aethestic that survives today, and the text douments what was really behind it.

"Rough Trade" is a gay term that dates back to the 19th Century, and was a term coined by artistocratic gay males whose sexual tastes were toward physically robust, crude working class men and boys. To the effete artistocrats with their soft bodies and socialization, the pure physical lust and crude masculinity of the simple farm boy or laborer was the ultimate sexual delight. The 'sin' of flouting class differences and having wild sex with your so-called 'inferiors' doubled the pleasure for these men.

None other than Oscar Wilde himself described this indulgence as 'feasting with panthers'. It is often forgotten that the public outrage to his sexual activities was as much about his flouting of class barriers as his homosexuality. Wilde's indiscretions on BOTH sides of the class barrier, constantly endulging himself with adolescent street boys, and flouting a Viscount who warned Wilde repeatedly to stop diddling his son.

This book definately provides a peak into the era before gay sexual liberation and gay identity politics. What is often misinterpreted as homophobia is in reality resentment of the masses toiling 12 hour a day for starvation wages so the sons of aristocrats could flit around and endulge the boredom of their idleness by seducing economically desperate working class males.