Jack Fritscher#Homomasculinity

{{Infobox writer

| name = Jack Fritscher

| image = JFritscher_Professor.jpg

| caption = Fritscher in 1972

| birth_name = John Joseph Fritscher

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1939|6|20|mf=y}}

| birth_place = Jacksonville, Illinois, United States

| death_date =

| death_place =

| alma_mater = Pontifical College Josephinum
Loyola University Chicago

| occupation = {{hlist|Writer|historian|professor|social activist}}

| movement = New Journalism
American Transcendentalism
American drama
American film

| spouse = Mark Hemry

| partner = Robert Mapplethorpe
David Sparrow

| website = {{URL|jackfritscher.com}}

}}

John Joseph Fritscher (born June 20, 1939) is an American author,{{cite news|url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=CERB&p_theme=cerb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0FE10A9590E2BA74&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM|title=EBay halts gay-themed "Schwarzenegger Shrine" auction|last=Konrad|first=Rachel|date=October 4, 2003|work=Chico Enterprise-Record|access-date=24 February 2012}} university professor, historian, and social activist known internationally for his fiction, erotica, and nonfiction analyses of pop culture and gay male culture. An activist prior to the Stonewall riots, he was an out and founding member of the Journal of Popular Culture. Fritscher became highly influential as editor of Drummer magazine.{{Cite web|url=https://leatherati.com/interview-with-jack-fritscher-a30ac54b9caa|title=Interview with Jack Fritscher|date=2016-08-26|website=Medium|publisher=Leatherati|language=en|access-date=2020-01-04}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.sfstation.com/radicals-folsom-eve-reading-with-jack-fritscher-dossie-easton-janet-hardy-mike-miksche-olivia-summersweet-and-joe-gallagh-e2286158|title=Radicals, Folsom Eve Reading|date=September 26, 2015|website=SF Station|language=en|access-date=2020-01-04}}

Early life

Fritscher was born June 20, 1939, in Jacksonville and raised in Peoria, Illinois.{{Cite web|title=Jack Fritscher: Cover Story|url=https://aumag.org/2020/03/09/jack-fristcher-cover-story/|last=Needle|first=Chael|date=March 9, 2020|website=A&U Magazine|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-08}} His family was Catholic. Born during the Great Depression and growing up during World War II in rental housing, Fritscher was part of the gay generation who in their teens, during the 1950s, rebelled against conformity through the birth of pop culture and the Beats.{{Cite web|url=https://www.lambdaliterary.org/interviews/01/20/jack-fritscher-on-editing-drummer-magazine-in-the-1970s/|title=Jack Fritscher: On Editing 'Drummer' Magazine in the 1970s|last=Miksche|first=Mike|date=2016-01-20|website=Lambda Literary|access-date=2020-01-04}}

From a young age he was raised to believe he should be a priest. In 1953 at age 14, Fritscher attended the Pontifical College Josephinum, for both high school and college, studying Latin and Greek. He earned a degree in philosophy in 1961, followed by graduate work in theology and the Scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas (1961–1963).{{Citation needed|date=January 2020}} He was also schooled by Jesuits in the Humanism of Marsilio Ficino, Erasmus, and Jacques Maritain. While in school, Fritscher earned his first publication (1958) and the production of his first play (1959). He has said that while he was celibate at the seminary, "I probably became gay because of the Josephinum, although nothing happened (to me) there."{{Cite web|url=https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2002_08_21_Washington_ExClassmates_David_Heimann_1.htm|title=Ex-Classmates Contradict Cardinal Law's Deposition|last=Washington|first=Robin|date=August 21, 2002|publisher=Boston Herald}} In 1962 and 1963, inspired by French Worker-Priests and tutored by Saul Alinsky, Fritscher worked as a social activist on the South Side of Chicago. He was ordained by the Apostolic Delegate to the orders of porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte.

In 1964, he entered Loyola University Chicago and completed his master's and doctoral program, writing a dissertation on Tennessee Williams entitled Love and Death in Tennessee Williams (1968).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oWQ1Qe3g5hkC|title=Bears on Bears: Interviews and Discussions|last=Suresha|first=Ron|publisher=Lethe Press|year=2009|isbn=978-1590212448|pages=79}}{{Cite journal|url=https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/961|title=Dissertations - Love and Death in Tennessee Williams|date=1968|journal=Dissertations|last1=Fritscher|first1=Jack}}

Academic life and writing

In 1961 Fritscher arrived in San Francisco and established a base there. Beginning in 1965, he taught at Loyola University Chicago, received tenure at Western Michigan University, and was a regular visiting lecturer at Kalamazoo College.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} From 1968 to 1975, he served on the board of directors of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts where he founded and directed the museum film program.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} In 1969 he founded and taught the first film-as-literature courses at the Western Michigan University Department of English.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} In San Francisco in between academic posts, Fritscher used his academic credentials and publishing career in the Catholic press to find jobs as an editorial writer for KGO-ABC TV, as a technical writer for the San Francisco Muni Metro, and as manager of marketing at Kaiser Engineers, Inc. (1976–1982).{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

Fritscher has published both fiction and nonfiction. His first novel was What They Did to the Kid: Confessions of an Altar Boy (1965), and his first gay novel was I Am Curious (Leather) aka Leather Blues (1969). He authored the first book to investigate gay Wicca and witchcraft, Popular Witchcraft Straight from the Witch's Mouth (1972).{{Cite web|url=https://www.jackfritscher.com/Fritscher_Author_Biography.html|title = Jack Fritscher: Author Biography}} His short-story collection Corporal in Charge of Taking Care of Captain O'Malley (Gay Sunshine Press, 1984) was the first collection of leather fiction, and the first collection of fiction from Drummer magazine. The title entry Corporal in Charge was the only play published by editor Winston Leyland in the Lambda Literary Award Winner Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine - An Anthology of Gay History, Sex, Politics & Culture (1991).

Fritscher's academic writing has been published in the Bucknell Review, Modern Drama, Journal of Popular Culture, Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, and Playbill.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} His photographs have been published by Taschen, Rizzoli, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Saint Martin's Press, Gay Men's Press London, as well as by dozens of magazines, newspapers, and book publishers including his cover for James Purdy's Narrow Rooms (1996).{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} His videos and photographs are in the permanent collections of the Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris; the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction; and the Leather Archives and Museum.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and on BBC Channel 4 with Camille Paglia.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

''Drummer'' magazine<span class="anchor" id="Homomasculinity"></span>

Fritscher entered post-Stonewall gay publishing as founding San Francisco editor-in-chief of Drummer (March 1977{{snd}}December 1979), San Francisco's longest-running magazine (1975–1999).{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} He was one of only two editors-in-chief in Drummer history.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} Fritscher was the magazine's most frequent contributor as editor, writer, and photographer through all three publishers, emerging as historian of the institutional memory of Drummer.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} While at Drummer, Fritscher introduced into gay media such artists as Robert Mapplethorpe and David Hurles (Old Reliable), and showcased talents such as Robert Opel, Arthur Tress, Samuel Steward (Phil Andros), Larry Townsend, John Preston, Wakefield Poole, Rex, and A. Jay.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

As an analyst and framer of gay linguistics in the first post-Stonewall decade when gay journalists were inventing new words for the emerging gay culture, Fritscher coined the gay-identity word homomasculinity, as well as redefining S&M as "Sensuality and Mutuality" (1974).Stephen K. Stein (2021). Sadomasochism and the BDSM Community in the United States: Kinky People Unite. p. 99. As such, he self-described as homomasculinist, which falls within the larger group of masculinist men.Jack Fritscher, "[https://jackfritscher.com/PDF/Drummer/Cal%20Action%20Guide%20Homomasculinity%2003.pdf Homomasculinity: Why We're Not Gay Anymore...]", California Action Guide No 1 , July 1982, at www.JackFritscher.com Documenting on page and on screen the dawn of the "Daddy" and "Bear" movements, Fritscher was the first writer and editor to feature "older men" (Drummer 24, September 1978) in the gay press.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

Fritscher's eyewitness recollections and interviews of Drummer history was published in 2007 as GAY PIONEERS How Drummer Magazine Shaped Gay Popular Culture 1965–1999.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

A selection of Fritscher's writing in Drummer was published in 2008 as Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

Genre publishing

After leaving Drummer, Fritscher published eight quarterly issues of the raunchy gay zine Man2Man between 1980 and 1981. Primarily created on typewriter, under the slogans "What You're Looking For Is Looking for You" and "The Mag You Can Stick Your Nose In," issues ranged from 44 to 60 pages. Contents included uncensored and sometimes bizarre personal ads, readers' letters, artwork from Old Reliable, Rex, and others, interviews, pornographic fiction by Fritscher, ads by purveyors of erotic merchandise, and articles on such topics as "Clothes Harvesting" (stealing athletes' clothes from locker rooms), jockstraps, cigars, and other extreme fetishes. Mark Hemry is credited as publisher and graphic designer.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

With California Action Guide, Fritscher became the first editor to refer to the gay "Bear" subculture on a magazine cover in November 1982.{{cite web |last1=Bernadicou |first1=August |title=Jack Fritscher |url=https://www.augustnation.com/jack-fritscher |website=August Nation |publisher=The LGBTQ History Project |access-date=14 July 2019 |archive-date=14 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190714222227/https://www.augustnation.com/jack-fritscher |url-status=dead }}

Fritscher contributed to the start-up of dozens of other emerging gay magazines as well as booking anthologies for new publishers such as Gay Sunshine Press and Bowling Green University Press.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

Palm Drive Video

Together with producer Mark Hemry, Fritscher co-founded the pioneering Palm Drive Video in 1984, dedicated to homomasculine entertainment. Fritscher wrote, cast, and directed more than 150 fetish features for Palm Drive Video. The studio also produced documentary content of a wide range of street festivals and competitive events, including the first "Bear" contest (Pilsner Inn, February 1987).

The 2021 documentary film Raw! Uncut! Video! examines the output and influence of Fritscher and Hemry.{{Cite web |title=Raw! Uncut! Video! |url=https://www.rawuncutvideo.com/ |access-date=2023-12-31 |website=Raw! Uncut! Video! |language=en-US}}

Gay historian and cultural participant

As an eyewitness participant, Fritcher contributed an article on Chuck Arnett ("Artist Chuck Arnett: His Life/Our Times”), to editor Mark Thompson’s Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} He was a frequent historical journalist for the Bay Area Reporter and Leather Times. In 1972, he was the first gay writer to unearth and interview Samuel Steward (Phil Andros); his Steward audiotapes were referenced in Justin Spring's biography of Steward, Secret Historian (2010). As a gay popular culture critic, Fritscher began collecting his extensive gay history archive in 1965.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

Chris Nelson photographed Fritscher for Richard Bulger's original Bear magazine as well as for the photography book The Bear Cult, selected and introduced by Edward Lucie-Smith. As a writer and photographer, he contributed fiction and photographs for covers and interior layouts for Bear magazine and other Brush Creek Media magazines. He wrote the introduction to Les Wright's Bear Book II and contributed to Ron Suresha's Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions as well as to editor Mark Hemry's fiction anthology Tales of the Bear Cult. In addition to Chris Nelson, Fritscher has been photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe, Daniel Nicoletta, Arthur Tress, David Hurles, David Sparrow, Robert Opel and his nephew Robert Oppel, and Jim Tushinski.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

Personal life

Fritscher is married to Mark Hemry, founding owner of Palm Drive Publishing.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theleatherjournal.com/news/conversations-jaco-lorens/item/1618-conversations-with-leather-jack-fritscher|title=Conversations With Leather: Jack Fritscher|website=The Leather Journal|access-date=2020-01-04}} The couple met May 22, 1979, the night after the White Night riots under the marquee of the Castro Theatre. Following a civil union in Vermont (July 12, 2000) and a Canadian marriage (August 19, 2003), they were married in California (June 20, 2008).{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

Fritscher's previous significant partners were David Sparrow and Robert Mapplethorpe.{{Cite web|url=http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Keehnen/Mapplethrp.html|title=Talking with Robert Mapplethorpe Biographer and Lover Jack Fritscher|last=Keehnen|first=Owen|date=1995|website=QueerCulturalCenter.org|access-date=2020-01-04|archive-date=2020-01-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200126104020/http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Keehnen/Mapplethrp.html|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.queerty.com/disabled-actor-anthony-michael-lopez-talks-new-film-mapplethorpe-gay-leading-man-20190308|title=Disabled actor Anthony Michael Lopez talks new film 'Mapplethorpe' and being an out gay leading man|last=Gremore|first=Graham|date=2019-03-08|website=Queerty|access-date=2020-01-04}}

Fritscher was portrayed by actor Anthony Michael Lopez in the 2018 biopic Mapplethorpe.

Bibliography

=Novels=

{{Cite book|title=Some Dance To Remember: A Memoir-novel Of San Francisco, 1970-1982|last=Fritscher|first=Jack|publisher=Harrington Park Press|year=2005|isbn=1560233273|location=New York City, New York}}
{{Cite book|title=What They Did to the Kid: Confessions of an Altar Boy, A Tale of Priest Abuse|last=Fritscher|first=Jack|publisher=Palm Drive Publishing|year=2002|isbn=1890834378|location=San Francisco, California}}
{{Cite book|title=Leather Blues: The Adventures of Denny Sargent, a Novel|last=Fritscher|first=Jack|publisher=Gay Sunshine Press|year=1984|isbn=0917342496|location=San Francisco, California}}
{{Cite book|title=The Geography of Women: A Romantic Comedy|last=Fritscher|first=Jack|publisher=Palm Drive Publishing|year=1998|isbn=1890834254|location=San Francisco, California}}
{{Cite book|title=Titanic: The Untold Tale of Gay Passengers and Crew|last=Fritscher|first=Jack|publisher=Palm Drive Publishing|year=2012|isbn=978-1890834081|location=San Francisco, California}}

= Nonfiction =

{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q8v8Vt1onY0C|title=Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer - A Memoir of the Sex, Art, Salon, Pop Culture War, and Gay History of Drummer Magazine - The Titanic 1970s to 1999|last=Fritscher|first=Jack|publisher=Palm Drive Publishing|others=Mark Hemry (Editor)|year=2010|isbn=9781890834395|volume=1|location=San Francisco, California}}
{{Cite book|title=Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera: A Pop Culture Memoir-An Outlaw Reminiscence|last=Fritscher|first=Jack|publisher=Hastings House Publishers|year=1994|isbn=0803893620|location=New York City, New York|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/mapplethorpeassa00frit}}
{{Cite book|title=Popular Witchcraft: Straight from the Witch's Mouth|last=Fritscher|first=Jack|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press/Popular Press|year=2004|isbn=0299203042|edition=2}}
{{Cite book|title=Television Today|last=Fritscher|first=Jack|publisher=Claretian Fathers/Claretian Press|others=Mark J. Brummel, C.M.F., R.J. Liskowski, Tom Hogan|year=1971|location=Chicago, IL}}
{{Cite journal|url=https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/961/|title=Love and Death in Tennessee Williams|last=Fritscher|first=John|journal=Dissertations|publisher=Loyola University Library|year=1968|location=Chicago, IL|type=Dissertation}}
{{Cite book|title=When Malory Met Arthur: Love and Death in Camelot|last=Fritscher|first=John|publisher=Loyola University Library|year=1967|location=Chicago, IL|type=Doctoral Textual Qualification}}

= Anthology contributions =

{{Cite book|title=Muscle Men: Rock Hard Gay Erotica|last=Labonte|first=Richard|publisher=Cleis Press|year=2010|isbn=978157344392-0|type=short story collection}}
{{Cite book|title=Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine, An Anthology of Gay History, Sex, Politics, and Culture|last=Leyland|first=Winston|publisher=Gay Sunshine Press|year=1991|isbn=978-0940567122|location=San Francisco, California}}

Awards

2020 - National Leather Association International: Samois Anthology Award for Mapplethorpe Movie{{Cite web|url=http://www.livinginleather.net/list-of-winners-6.html|title=List of winners - Living In Leather|website=www.livinginleather.net}}
2020 – National Leather Association International: Cynthia Slater Non-Fiction Article Award for "Thom Gunn (1929-2004)"{{Cite web|url=http://www.livinginleather.net/list-of-winners-5.html|title=List of winners - Living In Leather|website=www.livinginleather.net}}
2020 – National Leather Association International: Lifetime Achievement Award{{Cite web|url=http://www.livinginleather.net/list-of-winners-1.html|title=List of winners - Living In Leather|website=www.livinginleather.net}}
2018 - National Leather Association International: Geoff Mains Nonfiction Book Award for Gay Pioneers: How Drummer Magazine Shaped Gay Popular Culture 1965-1999{{Cite web|url=http://www.livinginleather.net/list-of-winners-8.html|title=List of winners - Living In Leather|website=www.livinginleather.net}}
2016 - National Leather Association International: Cynthia Slater Non-Fiction Article Award (award shared with Jaco Lourens) for “Conversations With Leather”{{cite web|url=http://nla-international.com/list-of-winners-5.html|title=List of winners - Cynthia Slayter Non-Fiction Article Award|date=2007-01-28|publisher=NLA International|access-date=2020-01-04|archive-date=2020-01-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200103034928/http://nla-international.com/list-of-winners-5.html|url-status=dead}}
2014 - Pantheon of Leather Awards: Mr. Marcus Hernandez Lifetime Achievement Award (Man)🖉{{Cite web|url=https://www.theleatherjournal.com/pantheon-awards/recipients|title=Pantheon of Leather Awards All Time Recipients - The Leather Journal|website=www.theleatherjournal.com|access-date=2020-12-21|archive-date=2015-03-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150325083826/https://www.theleatherjournal.com/pantheon-awards/recipients|url-status=dead}}
2010 - Pantheon of Leather Awards: Northern California Regional Award{{Cite web|url=https://www.theleatherjournal.com/pantheon-awards/recipients|title=Pantheon of Leather Awards All Time Recipients - The Leather Journal|website=www.theleatherjournal.com|access-date=2020-12-21|archive-date=2015-03-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150325083826/https://www.theleatherjournal.com/pantheon-awards/recipients|url-status=dead}}
2009 – National Leather Association International: Geoff Mains Non-Fiction Best Book Award for Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer Vol. 1{{Cite web|url=http://nla-international.com/list-of-winners-8.html|title=List of Awards - Geoff Mains Non-Fiction Book Award|website=NLA International|access-date=2020-01-04|archive-date=2020-01-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200103035024/http://nla-international.com/list-of-winners-8.html|url-status=dead}}
2009 – National Leather Association International: Cynthia Slater Non-Fiction Feature Article Award for "Spill a Drop for Lost Brothers: An Obituary for Larry Townsend"