The most destructive and enduring slander against gay men is that they prey on children. Boys Beware, a 1961 educational film distributed to schools across the country, offers a glimpse of the menacing place which the homosexual occupied in the postwar American public imagination. The film follows a young boy named “Jimmy,” who after a baseball game with his friends hitchhikes a ride home from “Ralph,” a friendly, mustached man in sunglasses. The next day, Ralph waits for Jimmy in the same spot, and buys him a Coke. A week later, Ralph takes Jimmy fishing and shows him a few dirty pictures,...…The most destructive and enduring slander against gay men is that they prey on children. Boys Beware, a 1961 educational film distributed to schools across the country, offers a glimpse of the menacing place which the homosexual occupied in the postwar American public imagination. The film follows a young boy named “Jimmy,” who after a baseball game with his friends hitchhikes a ride home from “Ralph,” a friendly, mustached man in sunglasses. The next day, Ralph waits for Jimmy in the same spot, and buys him a Coke. A week later, Ralph takes Jimmy fishing and shows him a few dirty pictures,...WW…
Objections to “cancel culture” and “wokeness” often underline apparent similarities between the ideas and tactics of 20th-century communism and today’s anti-racism. Both movements seem to deny the possibility of neutrality. From either perspective, all of us appear to be caught up in a long-running historical conflict, and our slightest acts, even of speech and thought, strengthen one side against the other. In the midst of a mortal struggle that divides the world, it hardly seems possible to insist on one’s right to the enjoyments of private life, in which pleasures do not have to justify...…Objections to “cancel culture” and “wokeness” often underline apparent similarities between the ideas and tactics of 20th-century communism and today’s anti-racism. Both movements seem to deny the possibility of neutrality. From either perspective, all of us appear to be caught up in a long-running historical conflict, and our slightest acts, even of speech and thought, strengthen one side against the other. In the midst of a mortal struggle that divides the world, it hardly seems possible to insist on one’s right to the enjoyments of private life, in which pleasures do not have to justify...WW…
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