Lovers: Ten Years On

This project was started in early 1984 as a direct result of my own relationship going awry. I met my lover in the early 1970’s when the impact of the gay movement upon the consciousness of gay men was just gaining ground. Then, gay was good, and gay was proud. The laws against gay sex had been turned back. The definition of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder was successfully challenged. The commercial scene and the visibility of gay men expanded to unprecedented levels. Although, while all this change provided the individual with the means for unstigmatised sexual experimentation in relatively safe venues, simultaneously it hardly dented social attitudes and legal structures which oppressed gay relationships. The developing radical ideology was not very sympathetic either. The arrival of HIV/AIDS changed all that. Gay men came under attack, from the state and its various channels. The media mounted a vicious campaign to label gay men as sick and irresponsible. Gay men were almost exclusively represented as ill. Patients of some incurable disease that had been equated with their sexuality. On the strength of this fallacy once again there was talk of reinstating repressive laws. Once again “expert medical advisors” were in on the act with their labels and talk of “containment.” These photographs were made in London. The couples define themselves as such by various criteria; some live together, some don't, some have been together a short time, some a very long time, and so