A new term for me: “cottaging.” (Definition here.)
Speaking of gay pop (as the above linked article does), I remember in seventh grade reading, in my school library, a book on the history of rock and roll. (We’re talking 1987 or thereabouts.) The book had been published around 1984, and the author was British. In a section on “The Biggest Bands of All Time,” alongside The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the like was an extended paean to Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I was a dumb little shit at the time, but even I thought that seemed like a reach. But I guess if you were in London in 1984, it made a sort of sense.
Here’s the famously banned video for their biggest hit, “Relax”:
FGTH is apparently still around, although sans lead singer Holly Johnson.
Finally, while I’m linking to over-the-top gay videos of the mid-1980s, I present the Village People’s “Sex Over the Phone.” (I linked to it obliquely earlier.) The truly astounding thing about this one: No matter how stuffed with homoeroticism the video is — and despite the fact it was shot in 1985, many years after America figured out these Village gentlemen may not all be heterosexual — at the 2:25 mark it completely switches gears and pretends its subject is the glory of straight phone sex. I wonder what the marketing thought behind that one was.