Justin Bengry

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British Cultural History

Graduate Student
B.A., University of Lethbridge; M.A., University of British Columbia

Office: HSSB 3236 Hours:
Email: bengry@umail.ucsb.edu
Advisor: Erika Rappaport

My dissertation investigates understandings and experiences of homosexuals as consumers prior to 1967 when male homosexual acts were decriminalized in Britain. I am particularly interested in how businesspeople and marketers constituted a homosexual market and the processes by which they identified and sought out queer consumers. The “pink economy,” or the economic power of gay men and lesbians, has only been a matter of public discussion among advertisers and media since the 1990s. This study, however, asserts that homosexuals constituted an attractive and sought after market segment for advertisers and retailers throughout the twentieth century. Further, I argue, gay men and lesbians actively engaged in early mass consumerism, fashioning their identities and presenting themselves publicly with consumer products and services. The goal of this project is threefold. First, it explores how marketers, advertisers, and retailers publicly imagined and sought out queer consumers. Second, this study examines how homosexuals utilized everyday consumer products to publicly proclaim their sexuality and identify themselves to others during a period of legal prohibition and social opprobrium. And finally, it reconsiders the relationship between sexuality and consumerism to better understand how public engagement with issues of sex and sexuality fundamentally transformed consumerism, affording marketers and advertisers new ways to imagine and attract diverse consumer groups.