George Marshall — The Beginner’s Guide to Cruising  Poster

Published in 1964, The Beginner’s Guide to Cruising was one of those wonderful little relics from pre-Stonewall gay life: part survival guide, part wink-and-nod instruction manual, and part deliciously sleazy cultural artifact.

At a time when homosexuality was still criminalized in much of the United States, and a man could lose his job, his apartment, or a few teeth for being too obvious, books like this circulated in the shadows, offering gay men information the straight world certainly wasn’t volunteering.

Where to go. How to look. What to say. And, just as importantly, what not to say if you didn’t want to end the evening in handcuffs.

Written under the name George Marshall, the book belonged to a whole underground world of mid-century gay paperbacks, physique publications, and mail-order ephemera that gave homosexual men a sense that they were not, in fact, the only one in town having these thoughts.

Long before dating apps, long before pride merch, and long before corporations figured out there was money to be made off the gays every June, there were slim little books like this one quietly helping men find one another in a world that preferred they remain invisible.

That history matters.