Event overview
Ben Mechen (King's College London) will speak at the IHR History of Sexuality Seminar co-convened by the Centre for Queer History
In January 1987, thirty-five Metropolitan Police officers in rubber gloves raided the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, one of the city鈥檚 most famous gay pubs, claiming it to be a den of drugs, drunkenness and prostitution. The pub鈥檚 landlord, suppliers and staff were soon charged, under an obscure clause of a Victorian law, with offences relating to the sale of poppers (amyl nitrate, 鈥淟iquid Gold鈥�), an inhalant popular in London鈥檚 gay subculture for its muscle relaxant properties and its instant rush of euphoria. With public anxieties about AIDS reaching fever pitch, the Met鈥檚 rubber-gloved raid on the RVT was quickly held up by gay activists as one of the most egregious examples yet of the institutional homophobia of the police and, through its harassment of queer nightlife, the force鈥檚 determination to quarantine the city from what The Sun had famously dubbed 鈥渢he gay plague鈥�. Utilising the gay press, ephemera and the records of the Gay and Lesbian Police Monitoring Group, this paper will examine the entangled history of drugs, policing, and sexual politics in modern London, arguing that the raid on the RVT confirmed the power of queer pleasures to unsettle heteronormative conceptualisations of sex and sociality, and in turn helped pave the way for the closure of countless gay venues during the city鈥檚 rapid gentrification from the 1990s.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Jan 2020 |
5:15pm - 7:15pm This event is on the second floor with no lift access. |
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