Watching Men Kissing Men: The Gay Male Screen Kiss and its Historical Reception by Cinema Audiences

Abstract

This paper examines the historical reception of the same-sex male kiss on cinema screens, arguing that such kisses have most frequently been presented and understood as sexual foreplay. Specifically looking at the reception of these kisses in the context of cinema going in Sydney, Australia, the paper argues that, while heterosexual kisses have been allowed multiple meanings across a variety of spaces, the gay male kiss has almost always indicated sex and has been contained within sexualised spaces. In the paper, the history of sex on screen is viewed as an ongoing process of developing sexual maturity, through which heterosexual cinematic lovers progressed from chaste adolescent affection to unsimulated adult intercourse. Gay men on screen, however, have only recently experienced an adolescence. Their first on screen kisses were only ever seen in the context of sex.