#15: Freddie Mercury
The moralising myth of a sexuality (and illness) lurking in the shadows.
Freddie Mercury died a week after I was born, which means it has recently been 30 years since his death.
I’m resting today, following a positive lateral flow result and some symptoms*. My fault, for tempting the fates with yesterday’s post, no doubt! I am kidding: if I have energy later on in the month, I’ll talk a bit about the moralising of infection, contagion, seroconversion and how disgusting it can seem to our collective ethics that physical symptoms might not have one solo cause - vs Callum’s story in It’s A Sin. But for now, I’ll leave you with the strong recommendation to read Huw Lemmey’s recent post on Freddie Mercury and how he isn’t seen as a gay icon within the gay community. Despite, as the photo above shows, he actually wasn’t ‘hiding’ his sexuality all that hard. As Lemmey writes:
Can you really call someone wearing a Tom of Finland t-shirt beneath his braces and leather pants “in the closet” in any meaningful sense?
You don’t have to be much fussed by Queen to get something out of it.
*a light cough, a bit of muscle feverishness (I nearly called today’s edition Shiver, Baybee, because I like the film Shiva, Baby and I am shivering but not am not a baby) but curiously, it feels like the tip/front of my tongue has been scalded by a hot drink? and that maybe my mouth has been affected too. all mild so far, praise-god barebones.