An Advocate.com exclusive posted August 19, 2003 

ca. 600 B.C.
Muse of lesbians, painters, and Erica Jong, Greek poet Sappho develops a sensual, first-person style of poetry. 

ca. 61 A.D.
Petronius writes The Satyricon, a homoerotic tour de force that sets the standard for hedonistic excess. 

ca. 14th century
Persian Poet Hafiz writes his ghazals, or sonnet-like poems, to which he lent a mystical homoeroticism crystallizing the conflicted sexuality of the Middle East. 

1504
Michelangelo completes his sculpture David, raising the bar for mesomorphic beauty, now known as “gym clones.” 

1886
Ludwig II of Bavaria (history’s most famous opera queen, by the way) completes the neo-Gothic Neuschwanstein castle, featured in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Disney theme parks. 

1895
Jailed for “gross indecency,” Oscar Wilde writes “De Profundis,” a valiant defense of his own homosexuality. His outrageous sense of style needed no defense. 

1900
Modern-dance maven Isadora Duncan begins her illustrious career in Europe. The tutu is soon passé. 

1909
Expatriate American socialite and unapologetic lesbian Natalie Barney establishes her Paris salon. In the next 50 years she hosts queer trendsetters from Gertrude Stein to Truman Capote. 

1909
Protean genius Sergei Diaghilev premieres his Ballets Russes, featuring erotic scenarios, avant-garde choreography, and preternaturally gorgeous men. 

1923
“Empress of the Blues” Bessie Smith begins her recording career. 

1930
Pansexual Marlene Dietrich plays a tuxedo-clad nightclub singer in Morocco, locking lips with a woman in the audience and unlocking the gender-bending power of cinema. 

1943
Aaron Copland, the gay man who essentially invented American orchestral music, debuts his “Fanfare for the Common Man.” He was anything but. 

1947
Couturier Christian Dior unveils his New Look in direct opposition to the drab styles of World War II. 

1959
Hollywood costume king Orry-Kelly designs Marilyn Monroe’s gowns in the classic film Some Like It Hot. 

1964
Rudi Gernreich unveils the topless bathing suit. 

1966
Andy Warhol’s high-camp pop art is criticized by Time magazine as threatening to “normal” masculinity. 

1972
Halston scores success with his Ultrasuede shirtwaist dress. 

1980
Interior designer to the stars Jed Johnson sets up shop and garners haute clientele, including Richard Gere, Mick Jagger, and Barbra Streisand. 

1994
Perhaps the first makeup superstar, Kevyn Aucoin publishes the first of three books on makeup. Katharine Hepburn and Cher are among his clients. 

1996
Much-imitated photographer Herb Ritts publishes his collection Work. Critics laud Ritts’s work as “a world without barriers of race or barriers of sexuality.”

—Andrew Harmon

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