Bad Gays cover art

Bad Gays

A Homosexual History

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Bad Gays

By: Ben Miller, Huw Lemmey
Narrated by: Ben Allen
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About this listen

Too many popular histories seek to establish heroes, pioneers and martyrs but as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and/or dastardly deeds have been overlooked. We all remember Oscar Wilde, but who speaks for Bosie? What about those 'bad gays' whose un-exemplary lives reveals more than we might expect?

Part-revisionist history, part-historical biography and based on the hugely popular podcast series, Bad Gays subverts the notion of gay icons and queer heroes and asks what we can learn about LGBTQ history, sexuality and identity through its villains and baddies.

From the Emperor Hadrian to notorious gangster Ronnie Kray, the authors excavate the buried history of queer lives. This includes fascist thugs, famous artists, austere puritans and debauched bon viveurs, Imperialists, G-men and architects. Together these amazing life stories expand and challenge the mainstream assumptions of sexual identity.

Amusing, disturbing and fascinating, Bad Gays puts centre stage the queers villains and evil twinks in history.

©2022 Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller (P)2022 W F Howes Human Sexuality LGBTQ+ Studies Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Sciences Queer Socialism

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Most relevant  
Essential Heritage treasured here presented on a silver platter: a counterbalance to the current culture of ‘presentism’ …and on another level helps us understand ourselves and educate others about the complex conditions we navigate as gays. Thanks for this beautifully presented audio too, ideal production values and style.

MAGNIFICENT

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unlike the awful podcast collection one called CONSPIRITUALITY this one whilst also a podcast collection at least expands on the explored themes and makes it easier to follow. well narrated and written especially big fan of the chapter on hadrian

sensational unless you already listen to the podcast

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The work itself is important and timely, though sometimes a little meandering and dense. If you like history texts, give it a go, but if you are looking for a light easy read, this might not be for you.

The narration is good, but the book hasn't been properly audio-edited, with numerous re-takes left in.

Important material but poor audio editing

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in this book you can find that some of the important gays in history are not good, we are not this unequivocal perfect creatures, there's lots of us that are bad

not all gays are good

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This is quite an academic style book so was harder for me to focus on but was interesting nonetheless. I learned a lot.

Sadly the narration has been poorly edited and you will often hear the same sentence repeated multiple times or with alternatives offered. A shame as the narrator does a good job.

Interesting, academic but poorly edited

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I found the focus on lesser known characters to be highly interesting as it opened up a desire to learn more about them. I was slightly put off by the clearly biased writing that tended to sneer at the right of politics, certainly in later chapters. But overall a nice change from the stories of historical heroes to one focused on the less savoury individuals.

A very interesting look at homosexual history and the less virtuous figures within in.

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A fascinating look at queer history, that taught me a lot about different areas of the world and different people. It definitely makes me interested to listen to their podcast as well.

While the content was great the audio cohesion was not. At several points there are bits repeated, at one point more than 3 times for the same four or five words. At other points there are 'alternative' wordings put after one wording. This is jarring and I wish there had been some form of editing the audio before it went public.

Please edit audio before publishing

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Not a bad listen if you’re clueless about the history of prominent same sex attracted people but the wholesale revision of history is laughable.

Revising history

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I knew some of this history but even that which was well known to me, I had to look at afresh as Miller and Lemmey presented their take on it. Fascinating stuff. And it was terrific to have so much big-brained academic queer theory predigested for me and presented to me in bite such chunks.
Narrator was really good, handling with equal panache both the more complex academic language and the camp, witty asides that would occasionally pepper the text. A few edits were a bit fumbled but those glitches passed quickly by.
Great stuff!

Brilliant book

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I love histories like this, something to get your teeth into that teaches you something about the world and your place in it that you never knew before. All the chapters are properly researched and well presented.

Unfortunately the recording stuttered in various places. I thought it was my device to a rewound the recording to discover that it’s the recording itself. Shame, but a good listen nonetheless.

Great book, recording a bit glitchy

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