Historical Homos

Welcome to The Hanky Code, aka Grindr for Boomers.

Following on from our cruise through history last week, we've delved deeper into the notorious handkerchief code.

The code was a form of flagging, which used different coloured bandanas to signal sexual / kink preferences.

In this bonus Quickie episode, Bash unpacks the extremely colourful history of flagging—from gay Gold Rush cowboys to scrappy leather entrepreneurs in San Franc...

You know the feeling: when you lock eyes and the look lingers just a little too long. His hand brushes over his fly. And boom! A small smile confirms it:

You're about to be cruising, my king!

And all it took was a public park, centuries of sexual shame, and a little bit of courage to get you there...

Now it's no surprise that the elegant and much-envied act of Fucking in Public has been around for thousands of years.

But how did the "...

He fiddled while Rome burned. He married two men. He may even have kicked his pregnant wife to death.

But he ALSO  invented animal pelt kink, so could he have been THAT BAD?!

This week, Bash is joined by classicist and queer historian, Professor Andrew Lear, to discuss the scandalous, salacious, and slanderous life of Emperor Nero — Ancient Rome’s most notorious bisexual bad boy.

From castrating (and marrying) his wife’s male doppelgä...

🏴‍☠️ Before there was BRAT, there were Butt Pirates. 🏴‍☠️

This week we're hoisting our slutty sails – that's what I call my underpants – to plunder the treacherous homosexual deep, with pirate historian and author Dr. Rebecca Simon (Pirate Queens; The Pirate’s Code) to answer the age-old question:

Why are men on a ship always kinda gay?

First of all, when we say "pirate," we mean the real 17th- and 18th-century sw...

Leonardo da Vinci? More like Leonardo da Fist Me.

We've all heard of the man behind the Mona Lisa. But did you know he was also one of Florence's sodomitical sweethearts?

In this episode, we pull back the vajazzled curtain on Leonardo da Vinci to reveal a homo neither tormented nor repressed, suffering dramatically for his art, but a messy, charismatic, and brilliant dilettante obsessed with the world.

More than anything, Leonardo car...

Hot, rich, European, emotionally unavailable... sound familiar?

It's your Hinge profile all over again.

No, silly, it's vampires!

We are thrilled to welcome back folklorist and queer historian, Sacha Coward (author of Queer as Folklore) this week, as we trace the gloriously queer history of vampires—from ancient blood-sucking demons to modern brooding bisexuals.

Drape your capes and get ready to dive into:

• Lilith, the origin...

Heads up! This is the episode where we solve gender.

Famously a "construct," it turns out Mx. Gender has been around for hundreds of thousands of years.

This podcast is only 70 minutes long so we're sticking to the last 5,000... but still. Not bad.

Join Bash and his honoured guests this week – Kit Heyam and Marty Davies – as they delve into the deep-cut history of gender, long before we had words like cis, trans, or nonb...

She was young, she was hot, and she was hated. But did she eat pu$$y?

Marie Antoinette was many things: a teen bride, a fashion icon, and according to Sofia Coppola, a big fan of The Strokes (I knew I liked this bitch!)

She's famous nowadays for losing her head, but did she also give it? And to whom / with what degree of relish?

In this week’s episode, Bash is joined by bestselling author and royal dirt-digger Eleanor Herman (Sex ...

Once upon a time—aka the 90s, when I bravely decided to be born—gay marriage was the only thing we queers could talk about.

But why? Why were we so hell-bent on getting married? And how did the fight for marriage equality impact real people on the ground?

In this episode, Bash is joined by writer and memoirist Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told, to explore the long, messy, and horny history of...

Imagine a world where you're Russian, gay, and happy about it.

No this is not propaganda from the ultra-secret "Pinko" department of the Kremlin (they def have one of those).

This is the very real story of the magnificent Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the world's greatest composers and a big old homosexual.

He wrote the 1812 Overture, The Nutcracker, and the world’s gayest violin concerto (because it's "e...

What's so gay about food? (Besides the fact that you use your mouth for it.)

The answer, OF COURSE, lies in 18th century France.

In fact, food's sexy origins go even further back, all the way to the ancients: from Eve's naughty apple to Ancient Roman oysters (they made their orgasms more intense!).

But it was the invention of the restaurant in 18th century Paris that made food sexy, dangerous, and ultimately, gay.

By the 20...

Why do bottoms always die in Greek mythology?

If you're a fan of Greek myth, you know the gods love to act like humans: they love, they fuck, they fight...they throw dinner parties.

But they also love to kill us. When gods show up on Earth, it typically means someone's about to get pregnant or dead, real quick. (Or both.)

And the pattern holds for the gay Greek myths. (With admittedly fewer pregnancies carried to term.)

Zeus an...

The year is 1395. The city: London. The crime: an "unmentionable, ignominious vice" commonly known as sodomy.

And the perp? A rascally, resourceful enigma named John Rykener, who enters the court records "calling herself Eleanor," wearing women's clothes, and defying gravity / everything we know about medieval gender.

But John/Eleanor Rykener – or Jeleanor, as they shall henceforth be known to scholars – doesn't map easily onto our m...

What comes after the collapse of capitalism? Mass famine? Global war? Environmental destruction? Oh wait, all of that's already happening!

It seems like, as a species, we're at a bit of a breaking point. Which means revolution is afoot, and we have to wonder: what the hell happens when it gets here?

For most of us, though, it's not easy to project what life looks like after the next economic revolution.

It's even more...

What if it's actually your butthole that will lead the revolution?

This week, we're getting penetratingly political with writer and podcaster Josh Rivers (⁠Busy Being Black⁠), as we explore the radical legacy of Mario Mieli's ⁠Towards a Gay Communism⁠.

Here's the thing: Capitalism doesn't just steal your time and money—it also reinforces the gender binary, nuclear families, and heterosexual urges (which are total...

We're back my little Hormones! Join Bash and his heavy flow of genius guests this season for another no-fucks-given romp through humanity's Big Gay Past. (We all have one!)

Come for the history, stay for the laughs, and if you're lucky, leave with a boner.

Please note: Erectile Gift With Purchase (EGWP) not guaranteed. First cum, first served.

We'll be penetrating your tight little earholes – with consent – on May 29...

Happy Hole-idays, my little Hormones!

For our last episode of the year, we welcome Coco, the Time Traveling Slut, into your tight little earholes to answer some eternally pressing questions:

• Where do sluts come from?
• Have gay men always been promiscuous?
• Have lesbians not?
• Who were the greatest skanks in history?
• And why can't women f*ck in peace, for once, generally speaking, like ever?

From the original Bibl...

“Being transgender is the least important thing about me. I’m a person. I’m just a person”

– Conner, 18, college student from Ohio

Ever wondered what it’s like to be a trans kid in America today?

(Hint: it f*cking sucks.)

Groups on the right and their politicians use trans kids as pawns in the political game of vote and media attention. 

And they love to act like trans kids are an anomaly of modern woke leftists.

But actually ...

Quit playing with your Lincoln log and listen up, because President Abraham Lincoln is here, he's queer, and we all better get used to it!

Lincoln is commonly called the greatest president in American history: but what if he was also frequently in love with men?

What if he slept with them in bed for years of his life?

What if he had moved to Fire Island, fallen in love with Bowen Yang, and roamed the beaches like a giant gay gir...