Landmark book on lives of young gay men in NZ

The 27 young gay men in Mark Beehre’s square-format photographs look out upon us from a position of almost preternatural stillness.

They might be the objects of our gaze as we examine them, but they also scrutinise us and our own assumptions.

What do we bring to the encounter?

Massey University has produced a landmark book, A Queer Existence: The lives of young gay men in Aotearoa New Zealand. It aims to document, in images and interviews, the experiences of a group of gay men who were born after the passage of the 1986 Homosexual Law Reform Act, which decriminalised sex between men.

This was the end of a long process, painfully drawn out. Sexual expression between men had been illegal in New Zealand since 1893. England’s similar Sexual Offences Act had been repealed in 1967.

More than 800,000 New Zealanders allegedly signed a petition opposing legal changes but this was rejected by Parliament because of irregularities including forged signatures.

It was an era which is familiar to me. I am 66 years old and have lived with my male partner for 45 years. My headmaster attempted to expel me in 1973 for my sexual orientation and I had to fight to remain in secondary school. All of Beehre’s sitters have had similar experiences.

Each of the images is accompanied by an edited firstperson interview. They are stories of discovery, of exploration and largely of acceptance.

Geraint, for instance, could go through his all-boys high school with an awareness of his difference but no real confirmation until he explored his needs through the internet.

Tongaporutu is part-Ma¯ ori and proud of his heritage. Wellliked, a basketball player and an academic high achiever, he too had to discover himself. For Tongaporutu, being Ma¯ ori has provided an easier context in which to be queer than Pa¯ keha¯ .

A talented and experienced photographer, Beehre’s images

A valuable and alluring record of a moment in time.

are a rich resource. Some are obviously obtained in the sitter’s home. Others are taken in a more neutral environment; a stairwell or a library. They are beautifully composed and shot on a medium-format twin-lens Rolleiflex camera.

The interviews, too, have many surprises. In a time when the words ‘‘gay’’ and ‘‘lesbian’’ do not occur on the website of RainbowYOUTH, Beehre’s sitters nearly always describe themselves as being ‘‘gay’’, while acknowledging other words that could be used, like queer or takata¯ pui.

Beehre’s introduction, sketching recent gay history, is useful. But one could quarrel with the fact that A Queer Existence generally omits references to the recent ‘‘culture wars’’ that have been so destructive of organisations such as Auckland Pride, for example.

A Queer Existence will remain a valuable and alluring record of a moment in time. Most obviously, it will provide a resource for young men seeking experiences of comparison but it is also a fine historical record of the individual and social attitudes of the early 21st century.

A Queer Existence: The lives of young gay men in Aotearoa New Zealand by Mark Beehre (Massey University Press, $45).