To be sure, different types of residential space afforded varying levels of privacy: the self-contained apartments of the most affluent almost guaranteed freedom from surveillance in cheaper accommodation – such as a single furnished room in a subdivided house – attracting unwanted attention was a more likely occurrence (114-18).
It was not, however, a resource that was distributed evenly or experienced uniformly. Although relatively difficult for the historian to account for, domestic privacy nonetheless provided a crucial resource for queer men in an often-hostile city. As well as the numerous public spaces that many such men frequented, and which provided the bases for a visible queer subculture, Houlbrook’s study also attends to the private, domestic environments provided by the metropolitan housing market.
In his ground-breaking and wide-ranging study, Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1917-1957, historian Matt Houlbrook maps the diverse spaces in the capital in which queer men sought sexual encounters and affective relations with other men. The Literary London Journal, Volume 10 Number 2 (Autumn 2013)
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