Lemme just start out by saying this isn't a historical piece. Like much of gay social history, it's basically anecdotal. Kinda fitting that much of our traditions are oral...
For guys of a certain generation who didn't grow up with media representation or gay GPS (The Apps), we had gaydar and hankies. The former was like Extra Sensory Perception for who was a 'mo, and the latter told you just what kinda 'mo he was looking for.
Now to be clear, the hanky code, as it came to be called, went a little deeper--it wasn't for everyone. This was a fetish thing. For the vanilla gays who wanted picket fences and baby carriages, the only kerchief you saw was tied around their neck and probably silk, not a cotton bandana (even if it was technically a paisley print). Like the colors of the original pride flag, hankies hues also had meaning -- even which pocket you wore it in told your truth. Do you enjoy human puppeteering, human urinals, human toilets? There was a color for each. Are you a giver or a taker? Depends on what side of the fence you stake your flag (hint: everybody loves a top but bottoms are always right).
One of the great things about the code was how efficient it was--one glance at a guy's back pocket and you knew if he was pass or smash. No wasted time buying a beer and chatting him up--if you were down to beat him senseless and there was no black fabric in his right pocket, you simply moved on to the next.
So where did it begin? Its origins are unclear, at best subject to POV. Did it start in New York or San Francisco? The answer depends on which coast you ask the question. Some sources claim it originated in NY via an article in the Village Voice. Others claim it was SF's gift to gay history but even then, there's no definitive answer with not one, but three origin stories. Just as unclear is the answer to the question "what came before hankies?" Personally I never thought about it. Turns out not even Google can answer that and anyone who could is long gone. But then that's also the rub about BDSM culture, especially amongst gay men-- it was notoriously private. You had to be in the know to know -- nothing was made for public knowledge or consumption for fear of safety--personal, bodily, or otherwise.
That clandestineness was another great thing about the code, how it organically built a network. Codes exist in every community or subculture -- an insider language, if you will. Again, because all this was during a time when 'out and proud' almost always meant 'targeted and persecuted', coded outward expressions--like a single earring in your right ear, for example--let those who knew know who you were. It also created instant connection--community--with those you saw doing the same.
Often an unintended byproduct of acceptance is assimilation. The need for gay ghettos, the need to be our own separate community, faded as gays began getting married --the picket fences and baby carriages had won out. Behind us were the days of needing to go out to eat meat -- now we can just DoorDash the dick. For the most part the code is basically obsolete in relation to dating apps. Hankies were how you spotted someone from a distance to gauge what they were into -- now a geopositioning app does exactly that with profiles. I've literally seen guys in the bar, given away by the glowing telltale grid of faces and torsos, eyes plastered to their phones instead of looking up and around. True, both hankies and apps can take away the guesswork and minimize the hunt to some extent--definitely true of the latter. But it goes back to that point about fostering community -- sadly apps tend to do anything but. Hooking up isn't the same as *connecting*. As a result hankies not only failed to return to their former importance, they all but fell away. The original purpose lost, they've kinda become something nostalgic or even kitschy. Guys love what they used to be about, but don't *actually* use it.
There's still one area however that apps don't hold great sway: the world of BDSM. Primarily because it's the birthplace and first home of the code, flagging has become a de rigeur part of gearing up (putting on whatever uniform belongs to your particular tribe--leather, rubber, skin, pup, etc.). And like the gear itself, even within that scene it lets guys know what fetish subsect you're down with and even what team you play for. Leather fisting top (chaps, red hanky, left pocket). Submissive watersports pup (pup tail, yellow on the right). Gay skin looking to eat ass and get railed by an 8"+ dick (beige in the left pocket of his bleachers, mustard on the right). Beyond the hankies themselves, the color code in time expanded into general flagging. By that I mean the colors in your gear and accessories had meaning. The hunter green piping on your shirt lets me know you're just a boy who wants his daddy (or vice versa); the purple wristband on your left says you wanna pierce someone and not just with your eyes. Silver harness? You only fuck the famous.
Myself, I've been wearing hankies for as long as I've been gearing up. When I started learning about Leather culture, I was taught there were certain things leathermen always wore and hankies were a main one. I don't even think twice about it now, save to rep whatever I'm feeling that day (I'm a man of many colors--forest green, red, yellow, navy...there's a lot). For the most part they're not really that noticeable to people around me in my everyday. Granted, I work for a men's fetish magazine and produce events geared toward that audience for a living. I did for a while work amongst vanilla folk and occasionally the sassier ones (who already knew what it was about but just wanted to hear what the colors meant) would ask. Red and yellow were always the most shocking of course (though it's funny that nowadays those two are practically the BDSM version of missionary). It's just so common within our world, a hanky in your back might as well be a pocket square in your breast--nobody blinks twice. Hankies simply are BDSM native tongue. Maybe if I was sporting a kewpie doll, teddy bear or a doily I might get a strange look. Notsomuch for what they signal--fetish shaming is a hard pass--but more so for the fact that I'm a grown man with something like a doily hanging out of his butt (you rarely see the more obscure markers). Regardless of what I'm flagging, at the end of the day, the act itself is mostly about pride. Time was, that didn't come easily--it was hard-fought but once gained, you wore it proudly. As a "certain generation gay" I know this all too well and not just the significance, but also importance of preserving culture. Forgetting our ways is to lose ourselves. God forbid I ever get lost though, just look in my back pockets and you'll know how (or where) to find me.
--Darkqwolf for DRUMMER Magazine.
DRUMMER is a men's quarterly available online and limited print run for guys into other guys and the fetishes that get them off. Founded in 1975, DRUMMER returned from hiatus in 2019 under publisher and owner Sir Jack MacCullum, to continue its tradition of uplifting, preserving and educating men's fetish via art, culture and history.
