sequinedfist: mrpinky: Mansfield…

sequinedfist:

mrpinky:

Mansfield 1962

http://www.williamejones.com/

NSFW

This video was filmed over a period of two weeks in a tearoom in Mansfield, OH in the early 1960’s via a secret camera behind a two-way mirror. Although the video shows the men having a good sexual time, this footage was used to convict the men. Indeed, their mug shots are tacked on the end. We only see their pleasures, not the life-ruining exposure of their dalliances. There is something profoundly tragic about this movie: these guys having quick and victim-less fun were publicly outed in a hideous fashion by a clandestine cameraman hiding deep in a closet.

We should celebrate these and other men like them who were willing to find outlets for their desires in dark times. It is so very sad that these men were put on display and seen as a triumph of police departments attempting to punish “perverts.”

This is what hides beneath the breastplate of righteousness. A condemning eye watching with great interest in the proceedings.

cf Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places

In case you think this kind of behavior doesn’t go on today, consider the brilliant new film Bankers, which depicts bankers in London cruising in a financial district cottage. It was also filmed secretly over two weeks. It is equally voyeuristic, but with a sense of participation and lack of punishment. This camera was hidden under a generous coat, as it were, not a closet.