For the project ‘The Europe that Gay Porn Built, 1945-2000’, volunteers are sought to participate in oral history interviews.
Purpose of the research
This project analyses the images and texts in gay erotica and porn magazines published between 1945 and 2000 and collected in archives in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and the UK.
In addition, the project will also conduct oral history interviews with different generations of gay, bisexual and trans men or women, in which they will be invited to talk about the gay male magazines they used to read/buy/contribute to.
The researchers aim to investigate the ways in which these magazines contributed to – or did not contribute to – the development of a sense of common European identity and belonging among queer men living in European countries; and how masculinity, race, ethnicity and class were understood through the magazines.
What would taking part involve?
Participants will be interviewed to talk about their memories of the gay erotica and porn magazines they used to purchase and/or read. Questions will be asked about titles of magazines, countries in which they were published, language in which they were written, the way in which participants accessed them, the reasons why they read or didn’t read specific magazines, the ways in which magazines helped shaped or hindered the ways in which participants imagined other gay men living in different European and non-European countries, their memories of personal classifieds and holiday guides published in the magazines.
Interviews will last between 60 and 120 minutes and will be semi-structured. Participants will be incentivised to use their own words and to let their memories shape their answers. The interviews are about the participants’ personal narratives and memories and the researcher will be present simply to guide the conversation and to record the interviews without interrupting, correcting, commenting or stereotyping the participants.
Contact details
If you are interested in taking part in this project or have any questions about the interview or project, please send an email to Isabell Dahms (interviewer for Germany and the Netherlands): i.dahms@exeter.ac.uk
To find out more about the project principal investigators:
- Professor John Mercer (Birmingham City University): John.Mercer@bcu.ac.uk
- Professor João Florêncio (Linköping University): Joao.Florencio@liu.se
