Characteristics of an Early Homosexual Subculture

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The article was first published on Skeivopedia on May 19, 2020.

We explore ten possible characteristics of a homosexual subculture and assess whether these criteria apply to Kristiania in the 1910s. This is the fourth part of a series on the pioneer Erling Næss and his era. The series is authored by activist and journalist Svein Skeid, and is based on a unique collection of interview material.

My gem of an informant, Erling Næss, whom I interviewed for the newspaper Fritt Fram in 1990, described Kristiania’s established homosexual network from the early 1910s—with its distinctive culture, gallows humor, and pride, as well as nicknames and signal codes used to connect with like-minded individuals without alerting the outside world.

Runar Jordåen writes in his 2003 master’s thesis in history that there were meeting places for same-sex sexuality in Kristiania/Oslo during the 1910s. However, it took time before the 19th-century terms 'sodomy' and 'pederasty' were replaced by the concept of 'homosexuality' in medicine, the press, literature, courtrooms, and public opinion.

Did such an early 'homosexual subculture' exist in Kristiania?

And what social traits, if any, characterize such an early environment?

The Danish sociologist Henning Bech lists various characteristics he believes must be present in a homosexual subculture of the 19th and much of the 20th century:

• Self-identified group
• Specific meeting places
• Specific times
• Forms of contact and interaction
• Casual encounters
• Blackmail and prostitution

On my own initiative, I have added: Resistance and pride, Friendship and love, as well as the 20th-century’s typical 'gender inversion' as one of several linguistic tools used to define a subculture (Johnsen, 2001).

Do these characteristics correspond with the conditions in Kristiania during the period 1913–1925, when Erling Næss arrived in the city and established himself?"

1. Self-Identified Group

The men-loving fellows in Erling Næss’s life were likely self-identified as homosexuals, as Næss described them in the 1930s. But what about in 1913, when he moved to Kristiania?

Erling began working early on at Hotel Westend at Karl Johans gate 45, where the Hard Rock Cafe is located today. According to a 1902 Kristiania guidebook, the German-inspired Groschgården on the corner of Universitetsgata had an elevator and 30 rooms, with prices ranging from NOK 1.50 to NOK 6 per night. This included “light, heating, and service.”

And “service” was clearly provided to the guests!

Erling recounts:

“I came to realize that people I looked up to were homosexual. Many of them were guests at the hotel. ‘They were much older than me, and they couldn’t understand how I could be so unaware,’ Næss told me when I interviewed him in 1990.”

“They would often start by talking about women, but would eventually steer the conversation toward their interest in men. At first, I misunderstood the situation. I thought they were trying to get money from me. But that was never the case. These were honest and good-natured people whom I came to trust. There were no finer folks than them. We would go to their hotel rooms, while I still had to keep up with my job.”

That Erling was so “unaware” suggests to me that there was a community here—a subculture—with established and unwritten “truths.”

When friends took young Erling to Ingierstrand beach or the Olympen restaurant in the 1910s and pointed out one homosexual after another, I interpret this as further evidence that they saw themselves as a distinct, self-defined group within society.

2. Specific Meeting Places

The emergence of a modern urban society—with so-called erotic oases such as parks, promenades, public urinals, baths, cinemas, transportation hubs, and friendship networks—is, according to Henning Bech, a prerequisite for the development of a male homosexual subculture and, eventually, an organized gay movement.

This early network is documented in the final article of this series.

3. Specific Times

I have several sources describing how homosexuals throughout history managed to remain anonymous in public spaces under the cover of night and in darkened public urinals, where light bulbs were smashed or unscrewed.

In NRK’s 2010 series Rødt, hvitt og skrått, Rolf Monsen and Ingebrigt Flønes emphasize that “at night, everything comes to light.”

“Gay life flourishes at night,” says Ingebrigt Flønes.
“Yes, we are children of the night,” adds Rolf Monsen.

My sources document how this darkness functioned, for example, at functionalist-style urinals like the one at Schous plass, the underground ones in Bygdøy Allé and Professor Dahls gate, and especially at the green building “Cheval” in Pipervika, which was a very popular cast-iron urinal during World War II.

Erling Næss confirms that this was also the case before World War I:

“Homosexuals usually went out after nightfall.”
Næss specifically mentions Karl Johans gate, Slottsparken, and Birkelunden as nighttime meeting spots.

4. Specific Forms of Contact and Interaction

At different times and in various Western countries, signal codes and silent language have characterized homosexual subcultures, according to Bech (1987) and Bjørnshagen (2015). And the long, intense gaze holds a special place:

“Boys are boys, and the initiated—and those who wish to be—exchange the same glances in Hong Kong and in Hamar, in New York and in Nesna. The same looks cross the air in this strange, year-round summer holiday paradise,” writes Hans P. in Letters from Sodom.

Or, to quote Heinrich Himmler (1937):

“These people can recognize each other by a glance, across an entire hall. If there are 500 men at a dance event, they will, within half an hour, figure out who shares their orientation. How this happens is something we normal people cannot understand at all” (Andersen, 1987, p. 75).

5. Casual Encounters

Although friendship networks and lasting relationships were formed in these erotic oases, the choreography of silence and desire also facilitated anonymous encounters—where bodily fluids were exchanged rather than personal details—at Østbanestasjonen (the East Railway Station), in public baths, and in Frogner Park.

 

6. Blackmail

Blackmail has also characterized earlier homosexual subcultures—perhaps as far back as the late 1880s—and can be documented well into the 1960s.

For example, Professor Ebbe Hertzberg was blackmailed in 1885, and a young telegraphist ultimately drowned himself after being extorted for significant sums in 1895.

Assault and blackmail of homosexuals were persistent features of gay life. For Kim Friele, it became a key argument for the repeal of Section 213 of the Penal Code in 1972.

7. Prostitution

“I’m not cheap—I’m free,” I once overheard a flamboyant queen shout in a high-pitched voice at London Pub in 1997. Prostitution and consensual homosexual activity are two different phenomena. Nevertheless, male prostitution has taken place in homosexual spaces since the late 19th century and can be considered a characteristic of homosexual subculture.

Martin Halsos writes in his master’s thesis in history (1999/2001):

“How long young boys have sold themselves to other men in Kristiania/Oslo is unknown. The trade was likely established before the turn of the century.”

While working on the book They Just Disappeared…, Kim Friele was struck by how many cases from 1880 to 1925 involved payment for sexual services between wealthy men and young boys.

A 35-year-old actor and a 15-year-old boy were convicted of sex for payment after meeting at Samlaget’s restaurant in Akersgaten in 1889 (Jordåen, 2003). Martin Halsos found similar cases from 1911, 1921, and 1930

 

8. Resistance and Pride

I would argue that gallows humor and emerging pride were also hallmarks of early homosexual subcultures.

Art historian Anna Nafstad, who has studied the American painter Charles Demuth in the early 1900s, notes—citing history professor George Chauncey—that there was often a strong sense of solidarity among homosexual men. They gathered in bars and restaurants and mocked the world that mocked them.

Hans W. Kristiansen writes in Masks and Resistance (2008) that older gay men in public toilets engaged in their own form of resistance, which became an important precursor to the liberation movement after 1970.

My own material also shows that, despite legal prohibitions, blackmailers, and police harassment, there was humor, pride, and resilience in the stories of older gay men dating back to World War I.

In drafty and foul-smelling cast-iron urinals, steadfast gay men braved biting cold and icy floors under the motto:

“Fight for all that you hold dear” (Skeid 1990, pp. 30–31).

Gay meeting spots were given ironic or romantic names like Circus Sjumann, Bel Ami, and Lyckliga gatan (Happy Street) as early as the Kristiania era. And funeral processions or wreath-laying ceremonies were not uncommon when the authorities shut down the cathedrals of the gay community.

9. Friendship and Love

Researcher Wilhelm von Rosen also emphasized the role of homosexual subculture in fostering friendships and romantic relationships between men.

Art historian Anna Nafstad notes that “doctors were often shocked to discover that homosexuals could fall in love, experience mutual affection, and live happy and healthy lives.”

In his study of morality-related court cases from 1905 to 1950, Martin Halsos found that it was common for convicted homosexuals in the 1910s and 1920s to meet each other multiple times, and that some lived in emotional relationships.

This pattern aligns with Hans W. Kristiansen’s research on same-sex relationships in the Innlandet region dating back to 1910.

I have no indication that Erling Næss ever lived in a same-sex relationship. But his story about Lassemaia shows that the lives of gay people in earlier times could also be about more than a quick encounter in a public toilet.

“Lassemaia” and “Olava Dampbåt” were lovers for many years. Olava was to inherit from Lassemaia. At the funeral, he sat waving the papers to provoke the immediate family. The priest noticed and asked Olava, “Are you the deceased’s brother?” “No,” Olava replied, “I’m an heir.” The family received nothing. Olava inherited everything.

10. Gender Inversion

As seen in the previous story, I would argue that “gender inversion”—or the use of feminine nicknames for gay men, such as “Mother in Distress”—was for decades a defining feature of early 20th-century gay culture. I will explore this topic further in a later article.
Based on the ten characteristics above, I consider it highly likely that a homosexual subculture—with various arenas and an extensive network of meeting places—existed in Kristiania during the 1910s. This is significantly earlier than what has previously been possible to document (Rian 2001, p. 43; Friele 2000; Halsos 2001, p. 140).

The final article in this series outlines the network of “erotic oases” that greeted young Erling Næss when he arrived in Kristiania in 1913.

Apropos:

The term erotic oases originates from Edward Delph’s Silent Community (“Erotic oases,” 1978), used to describe gay meeting places in public spaces. Bjørge Andersen introduced the term erotiske oaser in Norwegian in his 1987 master’s thesis in social anthropology. Andersen’s description of the rules of silent communication became an important source of inspiration when I wrote about the topic in Fritt Fram three years later (Skeid, 1990, pp. 30–33).