Bella Somoza, Class of 2022, Biological Sciences and History

The Popstitutes was a three-member band that played at queer punk rock clubs in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood from 1986 to 1994. The members are depicted in the image above from left to right: Bradd Kellogg, Alvin Orloff, and Michael Collins.

Pictured to the right (click on the image to zoom in) is a lyric book for the song “Play it safe,” written by Collins. Pasted onto a gay porn magazine, the lyrics reflect the disheartening experience of trying to fit into mainstream pop culture, which leaves some people feeling empty with a “war hole” in their heart. The Popstitutes were especially concerned with counteracting mainstream heteronormative ideals and culture; Orloff described the band’s motivation for starting the Popstitutes as “jolting their fellow homos out of their status crazed, Dynasty-watching, conformist stupor.” The lyric’s background – a homoerotic pornographic scene of two men engaging in oral sex – suggests a deliberate decision to associate the band with the taboo sexualized subculture of San Francisco’s gay nightlife.

Perhaps the band’s presentation was a direct response to an increasingly homonormative standard of respectability in the Castro neighborhood, which rejected the non-conformist, public sexual subculture as sleazy. This cultural shift was in part due to the ongoing AIDS crisis, which contributed to a fear that discouraged sexual exploration. The Popstitutes kept the sexually radical spirit of the 70s alive with their carnivalesque performances, which often included multiple costume changes, elaborate props, and sexually explicit songs. The Popstitutes certainly did not want to, nor did they try to, fit into mainstream “respectable” homonormative culture.

Source

Popstitutes ‘Play it Safe’ Lyrics Book, Michael Collins, 1986-1994. Alvin Orloff and Michael Collins papers, #7789, Box 1, Folder 32, Division of Rare Manuscripts Collections, Cornell University Library.

Photograph of the Popstitutes, 1986-1994. Alvin Orloff and Michael Collins papers, #7789, Box 1, Folder 31, Division of Rare Manuscripts Collections, Cornell University Library.

https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM07789.html

Bibliography

Collection Guide to the Popstitutes. Alvin Orloff and Michael Collins papers, #7789, Box 1, Folder 30, Division of Rare Manuscripts Collections, Cornell University Library.

Orloff, Alvin. “Michael Collins: aka Diet Popstitute.” Webstitute. http://www.alvinorloff.com/webstitute.html.

O’Loughlin, Michael. “Ghetto Blasting.” IMAGE (October 9, 1988): 18-21. Series IV.D Bathhouse, Bars, Tourism, and Sex Laws: AIDS and Gay “Lifestyle”, Box 131, Folder 2, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Historical Society, Gale Primary Sources.

Mattson, Greggor. “Style and the Value of Gay Nightlife: Homonormative Placemaking in San Francisco.” Sage 52, no. 16 (October 16, 2014): 3144-59.