Hard to imagine
Subtitle: gay male eroticism in photography and film from their beginnings to Stonewall
By: Thomas Waugh.
Series: Between men--between women
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 470
Subjects: Gay men -- Portraits; Gay erotic photography -- History; Homosexuality in motion pictures -- History; Gay erotica -- History
Genres: Portraits.
Description: Hard to Imagine is the first work to chronicle in detail the evolution of gay male erotic image culture, from the canonical works of "art" cinema and photography to the private and often highly explicit productions of amateurs. In this visual history of homoerotic image-making in its first century, Thomas Waugh brings together nearly four hundred photographs and film stills, from archives and personal collections in Europe and North America.

Waugh identifies four primary aspects of homoerotic photography and film - the artistic, the commercial, the illicit, and the politico-scientific - tracing their development against a background of advances in visual technology. This comprehensive work explores a vast, eclectic tradition in its totality, analyzing the visual imagery in addition to its production, circulation, and consumption.

A pathbreaking examination of the interplay between gay film and photography, gay life, and the larger social and political world, Hard to Imagine is a model for social and cultural historians. Interweaving an analysis of these images in their gay cultural context with the broader social and legal implications, Thomas Waugh offers a pioneering chapter in both gay and visual history.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [445]-454) and index.