‘To get freedom, one went abroad a lot’: British Homosexual Men and Continental Europe as a Site of Emancipation, 1950–75

Abstract

This article traces the leisure travel of British homosexual men in continental Europe between 1950 and 1975. The aim of this article is to challenge narratives of British post-war sexual rights discourses as isolated from continental Europe. Taking a transnational approach, which examines the ways in which Britain was embedded in processes of social and cultural change across Europe, it charts informal encounters and networks of cultural communication forged by homosexual men themselves during the post-war tourist boom. Using Oral Histories deposited at the British Library Sound Archive, I emphasize the role of homosocial spaces in the production and performance of the sexual self and establish how affluence provided access to spaces for sexual self-development during a period when homosexuality remained criminalized in Britain. It explores two distinct types of holidays taken by homosexual travellers, examined via a life writing approach—the Amsterdam city break and the southern European beach holiday—and shows how these experiences shaped their self-conception and hopes for a more tolerant society at home. In revealing how foreign forms of homosexual sociability influenced domestic politics, I argue for a stronger emphasis on British entanglements with continental Europe when tracing political and social transformations during the post-war period.