Sexuality in the Music Industry

    The issue of sexual orientation is one that has been met with a lot of controversy for many years, and with the music industry being a very active part of modern culture some people are concerned by the exposure of sexuality on consumers.

    Up until the 60's homosexuality was considered a criminal offence in many countries, and it wasn't until Lord Arran's 1965 sexual offence bill where he drew upon the Wolfenden Report - the committee of which was set up to investigate homosexuality and prostitution in the mid 50's- recommending the decriminalisation of homosexual actions.  The Wolfenden committee concluded that the criminal law shouldn't be able to intervene in private sexual occurrences of consulting adults within their own home.  Homosexuality also used to be thought of as a mental illness, and was approached by trying to find a psychological cause.

Countries where Homosexual activity is illegal.

    Despite the fact that some of modern society have accepted an individual's sexuality, there are some people - and even countries, where it is still a criminal offence- that still do not accept homosexuality. People who are still embracing these outdated views may be against any exposure to sexual orientation in the media, and may believe it could influence the consumers of such media and cause them to take on such attitudes - therefore possibly raising issues with the expression of sexuality within the music industry.

    Queen were one of the most successful, influential rock bands of popular music - fronted by Freddie Mercury who was subjected to criticism about hiding his illness which lead to his death, despite being seen as open about his sexuality.

Freddie Mercury died of bronchopneumonia brought on by AIDS on 24th November 1991, only a day after publically acknowledging he had the disease.

     Within modern music today, many songs are ambiguous and use non-gender specific terms of endearment to address the subject of their creation. Although this doesn't necessarily mean that they are addressing someone of the same sex, it isn't that common to hear a track that directly addresses an individual of the same sex as the artist in a romantic or sexual tone.

      One example in modern music where we do see an explicit reference to a same-sex subject is in Kate Nash's 'Sister', which gives a great representation and doesn't try to hypersexualise same-sex attraction, especially between women - which some have used as a gimmick. Regarding her sexuality, Nash has said "I would never say ‘I’m straight, I’m bisexual, I’m gay.’ I feel like I will fall in love with a human being for who they are. I’m not afraid to say I’ve been attracted to a woman before and I’ve kissed girls before and been in love with them before. I’ve never really had a girlfriend or anything and I would never say I’m anything, really. I don’t have an identity in that way."

     Another example we see of an explicit reference to an individual of the same sex - although for comedic purposes- is in 'Flight of the Conchords', where Bret is suffering from low self-esteem, so Jemaine tries to help him by complimenting him, but writes a song that appears to reveal some homosexual tendencies. Despite this being a satire and mocking generic gender stereotypes, 'Bret you got it going on' is a very good example of free expression of sexuality, and how it can be a very fluid thing.