Still, they never forget that they’re talking about conquerors and colonialists, racists and antisemites, criminals and conspirators, from Hadrian to Ronnie Kray to Roy Cohn. same-sex marriage and love concept - close up of happy male gay couple.

The authors express an acute understanding that people have always lived in a stew of history, and they situate each of their subjects not just within the ideas and attitudes of their day, but within the legal and religious constraints that defined them as outcasts and abominations. Search from 1163 Gay Men In Suits stock photos, pictures and royalty-free images. This approach is especially helpful in framing the lives and choices of people like Frederick the Great or notorious Italian Renaissance satirist and blackmailer Pietro Aretino, well before the idea of gayness as an identity existed. These are the stories of gays and queers who did terrible things and held terrible views, but the bulk of these histories are less about “evil” gays and more about gays who reacted to the world around them, sometimes in shocking ways, sometimes in destructive ways, but quite often in ways that made the only sense to them given the times. The title “Bad Gays” is a bit of a misnomer, however.