Honestly, what are we like? Because we’re gay we’re only interested in going out and having sex with multiple partners in sleazy basements and darkrooms — or, in American parlance, backrooms Well, actually that’s not strictly true. Most of us prefer to stay home with our partners and watch Netflix. You know, like ‘normal’ people. But for a very long time, a sizeable number of us – the minority that has always fascinated, titillated and enraged self-appointed moralists – has enjoyed indulging our basest desires. Naturally, it’s not only gay men that behave like beasts of the field. But only those who identified as male and gay or bisexual sometimes felt obliged to flout unreasonable laws. Until relatively recently, homosexuality was prohibited virtually throughout the world. No doubt this homophobia goaded us to behave in a more flagrant manner. From the 19th century, we risked arrest in Turkish baths and public toilets and, in even earlier times, places where men “passed water”. There are court records to prove it.