Age of Consent (1981-1985), from Los Angeles, is the world’s first polysexual and gay rap group. Info about their retrospective CD is available below.

WHAT’S NEW

LESSON PLAN

JD Doyle, indefatigable collector and broadcaster at Houston’s KPFT-FM, has developed Queer Music History 101: A Special Project of Queer Music Heritage, A Lesson For Use By University LGBT Studies Courses.

Since 2000, Doyle has produced his monthly radio show, Queer Music Heritage, on which Age of Consent has appeared from time to time. Queer Music History 101 is a more-or-less chronological romp through sixty years of “records” (remember those?) from the time their electronic players began to be marketed in the mid-1920s through the year of the first compact disc to sell a million copies.*

How many blueswomen have a U.S. postage stamp to commemorate their life, in part for singing, as did Ma Rainey, “I went out last night with a gang of my friends, they must have been women, cause I don’t like no men.” Who recalls the tradition of “cross-vocals” that allowed Bing Crosby to sing “Ain't No Sweet Man Worth the Salt of My Tears”? You may recognize Lisa Ben for her groundbreaking work with the Daughters of Bilitis, but have you heard her parody of “Frankie & Johnny”? All that and more are in store in Queer Music History 101.

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* And just what would that be, students? While this is not in the lesson plan, it is Dire Straits’ Brother in Arms, containing the Grammy-winning “Money for Nothing,” banned from airplay in Canada in January 2011 for containing the word faggot.

OLDER THAN OLD SCHOOL

Age of Consent’s David Hughes has published biographical profiles of two pioneers in the area of gay civil rights. Bob Hull and Chuck Rowland co-founded the Mattachine Society with Harry Hay, Rudi Gernreich, and Dale Jennings sixty years ago. The Mattachine set the stage for the gay liberation activism of the 1960s and 1970s. The profiles are posted at OutHistory.org: Bob Hull … Chuck Rowland.

Chuck Rowland (l) and Bob Hull (r) with two early Mattachine members, Konrad Stevens (t) and Jim Gruber (b).

David has enough material for a book-length biography of Hull and Rowland, and plans to add a third, largely overlooked Mattachine member to the project.

“GAY TEENS ON TV”

—that’s the headline on the cover of the January 28, 2011 issue of Entertainment Weekly.

A little different from “The Battle Over Gay Teens,” when Time magazine covered the subject in October 2005 after the publication of The New Gay Teenager by Ritch C. Savin-Williams (Harvard University Press). Time claimed that, according to the book, gays are disclosing their sexual nature at about the time they graduate from high school. At that time, gay–straight alliances were being formed in U.S. schools at the rate of three a day, Time reported, according to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

Per the Time article, it is gay teens wagging the dog; as teens identify openly as being gay, institutions will be forced to come to terms with it rather than dismiss it as the hot potato it has been. As the article points out, the prigs always warned it would happen in the schools.

» OLDER WHAT’S NEW ITEMS ARE ARCHIVED HERE

ORDER THE AGE OF CONSENT CD

ORDER ONLINE

Age of Consent’s retrospective CD, Old School on the Down Low, is available online through CD Baby or by mailorder (see below).

ORDER BY MAIL

To order directly from Age of Consent, send check or money order, $11.00 postpaid for one (1) CD or $16.50 for two (2), to:

Age of Consent
PO Box 39538
Los Angeles, CA 90039

Make check/money order payable to: John Callahan. For price breaks on quantities of 3 or more, please contact Age of Consent.

CD TRACK LIST

Visit CD Baby for samples.

Fight Back (Remix)
Missionary Position (Live)
History Rap (Live)
Diddle Rap (Live)
Dickie’s Dead
Schizo Rap (Live)
Performance Pressure (Live)
God Sez (Live)
Twist and Shout (Live)
Age of Consent