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 new landmark book, Mates & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand, Otago University lecturer 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. But 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.
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.
“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.”
A landmark publication, this first-ever New Zealand gay male history combines lively, engaging scholarship with a remarkable collection of just under 300 images, spanning the book's period: 1830 to 1980. Written for an intelligent general, rather than an academic audience, Mates and Lovers aims to tell interesting stories along the way.The 130-odd images are integral to the stories of the text, and include several major collections: those of a homosexual Wairarapa photographer dating from c1888-1910, including pictures of his friends and lovers; a set which portrays the beachside social life of gay Christchurch men during the 1940s; an extensive collection of photos depicting the female impersonators (many of them gay) in the Kiwi Concert Party during and after WW2, and numerous images from Wellington (and some Auckland) gay social circles during the 1960s. Three of these sets are in private collections, and none have been previously published.
Accolades
Winner Montana Best First Book Award - Non-Fiction, 2009
Author Biography
Dr Chris Brickell is a senior lecturer in gender studies at the University of Otago.
