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	The Body Politic and Visions of Community
	Page 7 of 14 / Appx 1,070 words

Business, reluctant and otherwise
Advertising and budding gay capitalism

The Body Politic's critique of bars, baths and clubs -- when it was smart enough not to make it an attack on their patrons -- was part of a broader radical agenda. Various groups on the left (vulgar Marxists, one friend called them, a comment on their political, not social, sophistication) were fervent players in the gay movement, and even many people who couldn't tell a Maoist from a Trot saw capitalism as the enemy.

But The Body Politic had a problem: unlike many other parts of the movement, its medium was a product, bought and sold in the capitalist marketplace.

Sales alone could not finance it unless it stayed low-circulation, infrequent and became high-priced -- hardly a recipe for mass agitprop. It had no start-up capital (the printing bill for the first issue, $255, was paid out-of-pocket by members of the collective), no rich angels (though over the years hundreds of people made donations, most modest), and no prospect of government support (it got a few small arts grants and some summer employment money in the late '70s -- and even that pittance threw Claire Hoy into a tantrum in the Toronto Sun).

Most publications depend on advertising, and so would The Body Politic -- reluctantly. A long editorial in Issue 4, May / June 1972, ended with this:

Our readers will note that for the first time, this issue contains advertisements from commercial enterprises. After much discussion, the collective has decided to accept ads, exercising control over them by using the same procedures as in considering other submissions. We shall not accept ads we consider representative of businesses which promote sexism, or whose ads are exploitative in appearance. It is hoped that with the funds available through advertising, The Body Politic may soon be able to publish on a more frequent schedule.

The ads were few at first and mostly not the kind we now expect in gay magazines. The commercial scene was small, mostly straight-owned and, reasonably enough, unsympathetic to this little gay-lib rag (vendors like Hugh Brewster often got tossed out of bars). Once there were gay-owned gay establishments they began to advertise more, but even by 1981 the ghetto and its associated businesses had only begun to show up in any strength in TBP's ad pages. And all along the way there were fights over imagery considered sexy by some and sexist by others.

Business was a major force in many American gay communities, with tavern guilds and merchants associations wielding a lot of political clout. But at any sign of that in Toronto, The Body Politic was quick to stand on guard. When Art Whitaker and Peter Bochove of the Richmond Street Health Emporium (a bath) showed up on a 1976 mass-market magazine cover, cast as moguls of "The Rise of Gay Capitalism," TBP's Michael Lynch dipped his pen in bile:

Toronto Life, a local glossy for the metro chic, revealed in its September issue three Discoveries: a gay ghetto (at "the Yonge-Carlton crossroads"), a gay billfold ("these men are consumers"), and "a new class" of entrepreneurs who -- wondrous euphemism! -- "service" the "booming gay market."

The article, Michael noted, had nothing to say about lesbians. It featured "'flamboyant, ash-blond' George Hislop with his Esprit ('sort of an Ebony for gays'), initial investment $75,000," and "'media-oriented' Peter Maloney, 'guru' of Toronto's gay marketplace, in a 'rags-to-riches' journey from bankruptcy after a political non-career to a bath empire than may make him 'Canada's first acknowledged gay millionaire.'"

Peter Maloney's journey, and George's, too, would lead instead to the bath raids, the first of note (there had always been bath raids) December 9, 1978, on the Barracks. Twenty-three men were charged as found-ins, five others as keepers of a common bawdy house, one of them Mr Hislop, owner of a 10-percent share.

The Right to Privacy Committee (RTPC, initially the December 9th Defence Fund) was born out of that, and though TBP played midwife to its birth there was some unease at this alliance meant to defend not just bath patrons but bath owners. In the May 1979 issue, Ken Popert smelled a rat:

A group of small businessmen has apparently established itself as the visible leadership of gay business in Toronto. And, with the Right to Privacy Committee as its vehicle, gay business stands ready to promote itself as the leadership of the whole gay population. ... As gay businessmen see it, the alternative to gay oppression is the commercialization of gay life: the destiny of gay people is to become a profitable market, particularly for gay businesses.

Ken's target had been Peter Maloney trying, Ken said, to ride the RTPC to power. And maybe it was working: on page 8 of the same issue in which Ken wrote was a picture, captioned by TBP itself: "Community spokesperson Peter Maloney addresses police commission." But it was MCC Pastor and RTPC steering committee member Brent Hawkes who responded in the next issue, at the collective's request:

... one would expect that if gay business was attempting to use the Right to Privacy Committee as a vehicle to take over the leadership of the gay movement, gay business would then participate actively and regularly in the meetings of the committee. But the fact is that the Lambda Business Council member (of the committee) missed a substantial number of meetings -- not exactly a "take-it-over" strategy.

So much for solidarity on that front. I remember getting Brent Hawkes very upset with me when, at a dance at the 519 Church Street Community Centre around that time, I casually conflated the Toronto Lambda Business Council and the RTPC.

Ken had conceded that gay businesses have legitimate interests, simply saying "that they have to be recognized for what they are: special interests which sometimes coincide with the interests of ordinary gays and sometimes do not." That would remain true, even as businesses became integral and largely uncontested players in gay community life.

But gay business, as such, would never become a major political force in Toronto. As with Esprit, it would sometimes back competition for TBP -- slicker, sexier, less political; easier and more fun. They should have creamed us commercially. But over the years all of them -- Circuit, Directions, Standout and others now forgotten -- came and went while The Body Politic went on and on.

I suspect because the Beep had something money couldn't buy.

Next: From gay paper to community cause: The Body Politic's trials