Wait, what’s so gay about witches, you ask?

First of all — sit down.

When I was a young f/hag in the late ’90s, Wicca was having a moment. The Halliwell sisters ruled the WB, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock were burying men in their back gardens, and I gobbled the GAGathon down with glee.

Only later did I realize what made these witchy bitchies so alluring: it wasn’t (just) that they were different — it was that they were powerful.

Outsiders who could fight back. Like the X-men...or democratic socialists.

But were they always outsiders? No! In the ancient world, everyone dabbled in magic. Pagans love a hag with a herb garden.

Then Christianity came along and ruined everything. AS ALWAYS.

By the 20th century, witchcraft was beginning to mean "freedom" to a lot of repressed Westerners. Which might explain why nearly half of Wiccans today identify as queer.

Join us for this Halloween special as we trace The Craft™ from ancient love spells to Victorian occultists, with brilliant guest Professor Marion Gibson.

Together we ask:

🧙‍♀️ When did “wise women” in the woods become “evil hags”?

🔥 Why did we burn so many witches?

🌍 How did colonialism export Europe’s hag-phobia worldwide?

💅 And how did queer people turn witchcraft into a symbol of defiance, glamour, and spiritual fulfilment?

So come on in, the cauldron-water is human temperature.

–

🎧 Listen now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you pod. Beard and severed thumb sold separately.

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Most importantly, if you like what you hear, please do leave us a ⭐ FIVE STAR ONLY ⭐ review.

Episode Credits

Written and hosted by Bash

Edited by Alex Toskas

Produced by Dani Henion

Guest: Professor Marion Gibson

Remember when you found out you were gay (iconic of you btw) and you thought:

"Oh this is fine – I'll just have a regular heterosexual wife, a couple of kids, and a very elaborate sex life on the side."

Just me? OK, fine.

But the question remains: why do little gay children like me grow up assuming a straight nuclear family is our only option?

Has family always been one man, one woman, and a couple of snot-nosed heirs to the milkman?

This week, we’re talking to writer and educator Kirsty Loehr, author of A Short History of Queer Parenting, as we uncover:

• What family looked like before “heterosexuality”
• Matriarchal hunter-gatherers for whom all holes were goals, plus Amazons and Jesus' 2 dads
• Victorian respectability politics vs. Oscar Wilde
• DIY lesbian turkey-baster chic
• And why men are obsessed with spreading their seed.

It’s a fluid-filled romp through the history of chosen families, accidental babies, and deliberate love.

JOIN THE CULT

🎧 Listen now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you pod. Turkey baster sold separately.
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Most importantly, if you like what you hear, please do leave us a ⭐ FIVE STAR ONLY ⭐ review.

Episode Credits
Written and hosted by Bash.Guest Kirsty Loehr.Edited by Alex Toskas.Produced by Dani Henion.

"Hollywood was swarming with gay people."

You know how Pedro Pascal hasn't come out yet? Well: this episode will explain why.

Between the 1930s and 1960s, the Hays Code banned “sexual perversion” of all kinds from the silver screen, which (spoiler alert) meant queers.

That has bequeathed us a predominantly homophobic industry in Hollywood, even if the stars and culture have always been decidedly – how do you say? – VERY GAY.

This week we dive into the queerness of Hollywood’s first Golden Age.

We cover:

• The pre-Code era archetypes of pansies, sissies, butches, and sapphics, oh my!
• The Code's first filmic victim: a 1936 adaptation of Lillian Hellman's thesbian stage classic The Children’s Hour
• Hitchcock’s Rope, featuring two fascist dandy murderers whose day jobs included playing the piano and being fantastically rich
• The legacy of homophobia and queer desire in post-Code films up to the present

This week, Bash is joined by film critic and filmmaker, Michael Koresky, who is the recent author of Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness — a love letter to the sly, coded, and deeply horny films that the uptight, antisemitic, racist, homophobic, Catholic censors forced out of the era's greatest artists.

Hollywood was always swarming with queers, as Michael puts it, but people weren't naïve or stupid. We saw the signs – and we shot each other furtive glances as we hid our brain-boners...

🎧 Listen now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you pod. Wigs and cigarettes sold separately.

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Most importantly, if you like what you hear, please leave us a ⭐ FIVE STAR ONLY ⭐ review on Apple or Spotify.

Episode Credits

Written and hosted by Bash.

Edited by Alex Toskas.

Produced by Dani Henion.

Guest host: Michael Koresky.

"An important precedent was set: fascist groups will always use you until you're no longer useful to them."

Welcome to one of history’s darkest (and dumbest) closets: fascists who are also, annoyingly, gay.

From Hitler’s Brownshirt boy toy, Ernst Röhm, to closeted McCarthyists like Roy Cohn, to lesbian “nationalist” hypocrites like Alice Weidel — it seems that the 20th and 21st centuries gave rise not only to modern fascism, but to a couple of queer rightwing nutjobs as well.

Join Bash and his gorgeous guest this week, Alexis Sakellaris, as they wade into the icy swamp water of gay fascism to ask: why do some of our siblings keep ending up on the wrong side of history?

Along the way we discover:

• Ernst Röhm's gay Nazi clique that met in Berlin drag bars
• The Lavender Scare, a lesser known gay witch hunt that issued from the communist-targeting "Red Scare"
• The queer fascination with skinhead aesthetics that no one asked for
• And Alice Weidel, the blonde, blue-eyed German lesbian who hates… well....everyone who isn't that

It’s an episode full of hypocrisy, homophobia, and hidocious messes — proof that queerness doesn’t automatically make you good. Just really, really organized.

🎧 Listen now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you pod. Hordes of idiotic followers sold separately.

📱 Follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people, like, at all.

Most importantly, if you like what you hear, please leave us a ⭐ FIVE STAR ONLY ⭐ review.

Episode Credits: Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Produced by Dani Henion.

What happens when a teen prodigy meets a drunk poet with a pistol in his pocket (the gun kind, not the fun kind)?

Answer: extremely gay chaos.

This week on Historical Homos, we’re diving into the doomed romance of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine—the most sensationally toxic boyfriends in the history of French poetry.

With our guest this week, Robert St. Clair, we’ll unpack:

• The social revolution of the 19th century: just a fun little reminder of where class warfare was born!
• Rimbaud and Verlaine’s poetry: because toxic people can be great artists too
• The couple’s love letters, extortion notes, and pornographic sonnets: including a gorgeous reading of 1872’s “To the Butthole”
• The Brussels Incident™: in which our drunken hero pulls a gun, fires wildly with his eyes covered, and somehow manages to shoot his boyfriend in the wrist
• Courtroom dick reports. in which forensic "doctors" examine the hero’s hole and pole to “prove” he was gay, because it turns out science is just as toxic as poetry
• Their legacy. Rimbaud stopped writing at 20, Verlaine went to prison for love and revolution – and both still managed to change poetry forever.

It’s toxic. It’s fascinating. It’s, how you say, very fucking French

🎧 Listen now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you pod. Pipe and syphilis sold separately.

📱 Follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and do ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people, like, at all.

Most importantly, if you like what you hear, please do leave us a ⭐ FIVE STAR ONLY ⭐ review.

Episode Credits

Written and hosted by Bash

Edited by Alex Toskas

Produced by Dani Henion

Guest host: Robert St. Clair, Associate Professor of French, Dartmouth College

We all know James Baldwin the high priest of Civil Rights, but what about Jimmy B, the extremely horny homosexual?

JB was a chain-smoking, vodka-swilling romantic who fell hard and often—usually for straight men he could never have.

This week, Bash and his bestie guestie, Clark Moore, crack open Baldwin’s chaos: from his Harlem childhood all the way to his retirement villa in the South of France.

Along the way we meet the English teachers who found him a pleasure to have in class, revisit the first gay nights in Greenwich Village, and soak in the winter sun at his Swiss twink's chalet.

This is a tour of Baldwin's life through his greatest loves.

Get ready to talk about:

• Love with a capital L, and how it was the key to Baldwin's ideas on race, sex, and revolution
• The contradictions of Baldwin's genius—he was a brilliant debater who lived on a bottle a day and a prophet of love, who struggled to love himself

• Giovanni’s Room, the gay novel he swore wasn’t about being gay
• And why his words still influence us today, from antiracists "doing the work" to an almost annual New Yorker article summing up his life, work, or legacy

🎧 Listen now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you pod. Vodka and cigarettes sold separately.

📱 Follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and do ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people, like, at all.

Most importantly, if you like what you hear, please do leave us a ⭐ FIVE STAR ONLY ⭐ review.

Episode Credits

Written and hosted by Bash.

Produced by Dani Henion.

Edited by Alex Toskas.

© Sebastian Hendra 2025

"Make love, take a bath, make love again."

That was Frida Kahlo’s motto—and sweetie, she LIVED by it.

We all know about Frida’s messy, horny marriage to Diego “Toad Face” Rivera and her revenge fling with Leon Trotsky.

But what about the women? The affairs, the crushes, the rumors, the gossip that turned her into Mexico’s most iconic bisexual?

This week, we’re serving you a slutty portrait of the artist as she truly was: a fearless, flirtatious rake who let the gossip mills churn while she tallied up an ever-increasing body count.

We discuss:

✨ Georgia O’Keeffe NOT making love to Frida while hospitalized (Frida's response: "Too bad.")

✨ Hitting it off with the Real Housewife of Parisian Surrealism, Jacqueline Lamba, who kept Frida entertained at her first expo in Paris

✨ A tasty rumour that Josephine Baker, the Beyoncé of 1930s Europe, reportedly got it on with the newly divorced Frida on the eve of WWII

✨ Hollywood starlets and Mexican divas—like Dolores del Río and Paulette Goddard—getting plowed and painted by the Rivera-Kahlos back at the Casa Azul

✨ Chavela Vargas, a ranchera rebel who moved in with Frida on the first date, serenading Frida while she painted

✨ Why Frida’s bisexuality mattered—it's not just gossip, but a core part of her art, politics, and legend

So grab your tequila and maybe pack an extra toothbrush—you never know where a night with Frida might end up.

🎧 Listen now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you pod. Lesbian manicure sold separately.

📱 Follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and do ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people, like, at all.

Most importantly, if you like what you hear, please do leave us a ⭐ FIVE STAR ONLY ⭐ review.

Episode Credits

Written and hosted by Bash.

Edited by Alex Toskas.

Produced by Dani Henion.

"Love was the foundation of everything for Frida. This bisexuality, this eroticism was fundamental to her character."

She’s on your ex-girlfriend’s tote bag, your niece’s notebook, and probably a few questionable dorm-room tapestries.

But behind the unibrow is a Frida Kahlo you don’t know: a bisexual, communist, pain-embracing rascal who painted from her gut and fucked whomstsoever she pleased.

This week, we’re peeling back the kitsch to get at the real Frida, with filmmaker Carla Gutierrez, director of the fabulous new documentary, Frida (now streaming on Prime).

We discuss:

• Little Frida the rascal—from classroom pranks and her muchacho wardrobe, to falling in love with everything that moved.
• The bus crash that made her body a battlefield and her art a visceral diary of pain
• Her toxic, electric, and surprisingly horny marriage to the muralist Diego Rivera (aka "Toad Face), until he went one boink too far...
• Frida's bisexual chaos: her lovers of all genders, from Chavela Vargas to Leon Trotsky, plus the lady lovers she painted boldly onto the canvas for all to see
• How Frida became less “artist” and more “branded merch” — and why she still matters as a queer revolutionary

So: grab your eyeliner and fill in that unibrow you've been growing out, because it's time to get freaky with Frida.

🎧 Listen now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you pod. Pet monkey and traditional garb sold separately.

📱 Follow Historical Homos on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and do ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you care about gay people, like, at all.

Most importantly, if you like what you hear, please do leave us a ⭐ FIVE STAR ONLY ⭐ review.

Episode Credits

Written and hosted by Bash.

Edited by Alex Toskas.

Produced by Dani Henion.