The Guardian
As the shimmering, lube-smeared bottom descended over my face while the cameras rolled, one question ran through my mind. Not, “Have I taken this music video too far?” but instead, “Have I taken this far enough?”
Over the past three days, my explicit music video House of Air has been viewed more than 400,000 times. It has resulted in 3,500 comments, five email hacks, two death threats and one online protest video from Brazil (and a counter-protest video). The film clip, which was released on 30 January, is a light-hearted, extremely explicit look at the world of gay semiotics. You can watch it right nowif you like – but if you’re at work, or a child, or just not in the mood to look directly at some sex, you shouldn’t.
The genesis for the clip came last year, when I found myself in a library hidden in an iconic London sex shop that was being knocked down to make room for another Pret A Manger. There, snuggly positioned between various musings on queer culture and biographies of Harvey Milk, I spotted a very plain, very thin grey book: Gay Semiotics by Hal Fischer. Vaguely familiar with the handkerchief codes of the early 70s, I found myself unable to part with its scholarly yet delightfully witty take on the movement. I devoured the essay and its awkwardly shot collection of kink photography in a park opposite the doomed store, and quickly scrawled down the note: “Gay semiotics music video.”
Gay semiotics are described by Fischer as a series of “signifiers of accessibility”, one that gained notable popularity in the sadomasochism (S&M) community of San Francisco. The code was designed to surreptitiously let prospective sexual partners know what you’re into. “Traditionally western societies have utilised signifiers for non-accessibility,” Hal muses. “The wedding ring, engagement ring, lovelier or pin are signifiers for non-availability which are always attached to women.
“Gay men needed a method to communicate sexual preferences, [and] a sexual semiotic was developed.”
Under the handkerchief code, a dark blue hanky in the pocket is a sign the wearer is seeking anal sex. How they want to have it depends on the pocket: the left pocket, for example, indicates a desire to play the dominant role, and right the passive. A yellow hanky suggests watersports, red is for fisting, and brown – well, do I really need to spell it out?
It’s a concept my generation of emoji-sending meme traders should feel quite at home with; a language of winks and nudges that not only bond a community, but protect them from outsiders who would wish to intrude.
Fast-forward two weeks, and I received a text from one of the directors: “The porn stars have been booked and the studio is all set for next week.”
Porn stars? Yes, I was surprised. I’d assumed we’d simply be faking the action, a few camera tricks and innuendo, but I see now this would have made our clip redundant: if you are going to make a film about the outrageous truth, there is no room for fakes. And so there we were: two porn stars, one with his arm elbow-deep in the other, while the owner of the studio sat on set behind a large box to avoid seeing it happen.
So why do it at all? Why make something very few people would seemingly want to watch, that next to no media outlets will run, which would see all my social media accounts banned upon release, and my email hacked, and that I’d have to warn my parents against watching? (Mum, seriously.)
The first thing to keep in mind is this: nothing we show in this video is new. Fischer’s essay from 40 years before had laid our script out for us so clearly I was worried we’d be sued for plagiarism. (Fischer has since given us his blessing.)
Add to this the accompanying photos, which provided a perfect framework for our stylist to draw from, and you’re left with a video truly rooted in its original era. The pastel blue backdrop and high school-style pop-up facts provides guidance and a frankness to what would otherwise be a shocking flash in the pan, and as we walk you through the various handkerchiefs and what they mean, the viewer learns to anticipate the rising stakes – there is no “gotcha” moment. We don’t want you to look away; we want you to watch everything, even if you are watching through your fingers covering your eyes.
To answer the question “why?” – well … why not? Are we not collectively over artists who make “edgy” work that is secretly designed to appease the masses? The kind of touching or extreme viral videos, which so often turn out to be a commercial for jeans? And while I am obviously amused at the pearl clutchers – like the guy from the global imaging company who refused to print the footage, or half the crew who asked for their names to be redacted from the credits just days before the release – we didn’t design it for any reason but to explore a culture that is already decades old.
Do critics asking me to release a censored version understand why I made the clip at all? Take out the extreme images and you’d be left with a bundle of gay models walking around London – to which I’m certain I’d receive the comment, “Why do the models have to be gay?” You can’t win, so I won’t try.
Tell me what’s really more upsetting, my film clip or the fact Donald Trump is the president of the United States? George Michael didn’t soften his videos to make people feel comfortable, and in his wake I am given so much hope from groundbreaking queer artists – rapper HTML Flowers, songwriter Kira Puru, journalist and photographer Jonno Révanche – and their common value: fearless truth-telling.
There are some queer artists who would find it easier to shave off the rough corners of our history, to wave our flag but leave out some of the colours that don’t sell to a straight crowd. But frankly, anything beyond the whole truth sanitises our history, and makes it boring. And if there’s one thing queer historyisn’t, it’s boring.