Bad Gays

This month on our subscriber-only show, we discuss the supposed A-Gays of Trump's Washington. Will the people working for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party get their faces eaten, or is their work paradoxically evidence that LGBT liberalism, now in its flop era, actually did deliver something on its own terrible terms? Then, we take on a Gaggony Guncles question from a listener curious how to navigate coming out to a friend who has learned to use their pronouns correctly but seems to take them as an individual exception to broader enby- and transphobia. Join our subscriber community to support our work and hear the full episode.

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Today, we welcome music writer Hannah Pezzack to talk about the experimental electronica band Coil – namely, its two frontmen and only consistent members: vocalist Geoff Rushton, who performed under the stage name John Balance, and Peter Christopherson, nicknamed “Sleazy." At the heart of it all was an intense interest in the occult: in magic, alchemy, and esoteric symbolism. But just as central was their homosexuality: a queerness expressed through sexualised violence, the taboo, bodily fluids — blood, sweat, and scat — and an obsession with self-annihilation. Subscribe to EXTRA BAD GAYS on Patreon or Apple Podcasts to join the community of subscribing members who make episodes like this possible, and get our monthly chat show about gay culture and politics! ----more---- SOURCES:   Hayes Hampton. The Invocation of the Black Sun: Alchemy and Sexuality in the Work of Coil, in Folk Horror Revival: Harvest Hymns Volume I – Twisted Roots (Durham, UK: Wyrd Harvest Press, 2018)   David Keenan. England's Hidden Reverse: A Secret History of the Esoteric Underground, Revised and Expanded Edition (London: Strange Attractor Press, 2023; originally published 2003)   Cormac Pentecost. Man is the Animal, zine issues 1–4, (Temporal Boundary Press)   Genesis P‑Orridge. Nonbinary (New York: Abrams Press, 2022)   Nick Soulsby. Everything Keeps Dissolving: Conversations with Coil (London: Strange Attractor Press, 2023)   Spencer Sunshine. Neo-Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fascism: The Origins and Afterlife of James Mason’s Siege (London: Routledge, 2024)   Cosey Fanni Tutti. Art Sex Music (London: Faber and Faber, 2017)   “AN INTERVIEW WITH COIL (Harvest History Month Pt. I),” conducted by Malahki Thorn, Heathen Harvest (originally published 1 April 2004), https://4ibrecords.com/2014/03/05/an-interview-with-coil-harvest-history-month-pt-i/   Hannah Pezzack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hanapezzack/?hl=en  Hannah Pezzack on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/hannah-pezzack  Many thanks to Alina Valentina and Ruben Verkuylen for their invaluable technical assistance. Gratitude to Elina Tapio (who first introduced me to Coil!) and Marco Segato – both part of eoobe – for keeping the spirit of John and Sleazy alive through their music: https://eoobe.bandcamp.com/  Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.

A preview of our conversation about Mayor Pete this week. For more, subscribe at Patreon or Apple Podcasts.

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Join our community of Extra Bad Gays on Patreon or Apple Podcasts for special episodes and more!   Have you ever wondered who the sexual link between Edward Carpenter and Allen Ginsburg was? Wonder no more, and meet Gavin Arthur: grandson of US President Chester Allan Arthur, astrologer, sexologist, Irish Republican, sometime Communist, sometime Democrat, Haight-Ashbury hippie rabble-rouser, and chaotic bisexual. Our guide to his life is longtime friend of the show Maurice J. Casey, historian and author of Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals.  This episode is based on research carried out as part of the Queer Norther Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation project at Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University. If you have a moment, do fill out their survey.   ----more----   SOURCES:   Maurice J. Casey, ‘”I want to be to Ireland what Walt Whitman was to America”: Esotericism and Queer Sexuality in an Irish Social Circle, 1890s-1920s’, History Workshop Journal: https://academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/hwj/dbaf004/8096618?searchresult=1 Lisa Cohen, All We Know: Three Lives, New York, 2012 Philip Longo, ‘Between the Sheets: Gavin Arthur’s Sexual Circulation’, in The Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetoric, ed. Jacqueline Rhodes and Jonathan Alexander, London, 2022, pp. 140–7 Martin Murray, ‘Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, Gavin Arthur and the Circle of Sex’, Walt Whitman Quarterly 22: 3, 2005, pp. 194–8: https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/wwqr/pdf/anc.00943.pdf The 1930 film starring Gavin Arthur and Charlotte Arthur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_(1930_film)   Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.  

This is just a trailer! For the full episode, join our community of Extra Bad Gays on Patreon or Apple Podcasts.  Weird Vibes Pride Month, nefarious nellies! What is this Pride Month's vibe? Who is its target audience? We're confused. How do we build power as queer movements hollowed out by corporate sponsorship appear to crumble? Then, we mourn the late, great Edmund White before turning to our now-standard Gaggony Guncles segment, in which a listener writes in with an exciting bisexual dilemma.  

We're coming to a city near you! Berlin on June 7, Sheffield June 20, and Bath June 22!  Tickets and info: badgayspod.com/live

This month, it's all about a fantastic reader question about the sex we cannot have. What do we learn from it? How do we think about it? What can it teach us? Please keep sending your Gaggony Guncles questions to us: emailbadgays[at]gmail[dot]com.  And for the full segment, and to support the show, subscribe to Extra Bad Gays on Patreon or Apple Podcasts.  

In this discussion, Michael Huldt, host of Worm From Home, dives into the life of Alexander von Humboldt, a pioneering naturalist known for his revolutionary ideas on ecology. They explore Humboldt's tension between intellectual curiosity and colonial ties, as well as his vocal opposition to slavery, despite benefiting from colonialism. The conversation also touches on his complex personal relationships, particularly with his companion Bonpland, and how his insights are crucial for understanding the contemporary moral implications of nature and inequality.