Gay Readers, Consumers, and a Dominant Gay Habitus: 25 Years of the Advocate Magazine

Abstract

This essay extends Bourdieu's analysis of taste, cultural capital, and habitus to address the identification of and appeal to gay consumers in the Advocate magazine between 1967 and 1992. From its humble beginnings as a local activist newspaper to its incarnation as a gay and lesbian, glossy, lifestyle magazine in the early 1990s, the Advocate consolidated the image of the ideal gay consumer, his (occasionally her) tastes, pleasures, and concerns, for readers and advertisers alike. The magazine thus helped to construct a dominant gay habitus that would increasingly characterize an openly gay, professional-managerial class. This process provides both opportunities and costs for a diverse gay citizenship and for a lively, heterogeneous, sex-positive gay politics.