Lengthy earlier than the queer group had apps like Grindr and Sniffies to facilitate low-key hookups, homosexual males have been protecting monitor of eligible companions the analog manner. In unmarked bars, beneath the glow of swag lamps and the fixed smog of cigarette smoke, they traded numbers contained in the covers of collectible matchbooks—the identical matchbooks that doubled as a type of social lubricant as {couples} danced, swayed, and lit up into the wee hours of the night time.
These matchbooks, which have been a function of homosexual bars all through the mid-Twentieth century, are actually the topic of two devoted books by the designer and editor Darian Newman. The primary version, titled Cruising: Homosexual Matchbooks, debuted in spring 2025 and offered out a number of instances. Its success drove Newman to create a second book of the identical title, this time that includes 200 new matchbook designs and 12 curated essays.
Newman says the matchbooks replicate a time when queer areas had their very own distinct visible identities designed with their native communities in thoughts. They’re additionally a type of ephemera that provides a uncommon window into moments of queer pleasure in an period that’s most frequently documented via tales of wrestle and grief.
“Design for marginalized communities is so typically centered on protest,” Newman writes within the e book’s introduction, “however the matchbooks exude pleasure. The pleasure of being out and going out, the pleasure of lighting a cigarette, the pleasure of getting a stranger’s quantity with the promise of enjoyable.”
Earlier than Grindr and Sniffies, there was the matchbook
“Manhole.” “Dude Metropolis.” “Mom Lode.” “The Thoughts Shaft.”
Every of those are names of golf equipment that Newman discovered embossed on classic matchbooks, typically in customized typography and accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations and images. In an period when homosexual bars have been typically focused by the police and patrons regularly relied on a stage of discretion to go about their private lives safely, matchbooks served as a type of queer bar and membership promoting for these within the know. Their designs have been a perfected artwork; every matchbook, regardless of its diminutive dimension, wanted to clue potential patrons into the institution’s distinctive vibe and environment.
“Many bars lacked signage on their exteriors for discretion,” writes Lucas Hilderbrand, a professor of movie and media research at College of California, Irvine, in his contributed essay. As a substitute, he continues, they “fabulated vivid queer worlds” with double-entendre names, phallic logos, and graphics on matchbooks and occasion flyers. “Matchbooks and advertisements hardly ever visually represented the reality of brick-and-mortar venues; as an alternative, they produced an thought of every,” he writes. “The design of some matchbooks could also be extra putting, retrospectively, than their venues, which can be all however forgotten.”
To trace down the paper ephemera from these forgotten brick-and-mortars, Newman scoured eBay and different secondhand websites, searched via hashtags on Instagram, and struck up a rapport with collectors within the San Francisco space. He’d typically ask to buy one matchbook, solely to be provided 30 extra, a field of DVDs, and a group of posters.
“It was so cool, as an outsider to that time period, to see these individuals who have archives of their very own lived expertise that individuals aren’t essentially attending to see,” Newman says.
One of many matchbooks featured on this second assortment is completely lined in silver foil (Circle J, San Francisco); one other exhibits a full-frontal nude on the within cowl (The Zone, Hollywood); and a 3rd highlights an illustration of a ripped swimmer hoisting an enormous swordfish above his head (Marlin Seashore Resort, Fort Lauderdale, Florida). Every aimed to entice curious onlookers to be taught extra in an period when the one manner to take action was to indicate up and discover out.
For older members of the homosexual group, Newman says, seeing these matchbooks typically sparks reminiscences that haven’t been revisited in years. And for these in youthful generations, like himself, these tokens supply a bodily window right into a bygone period when, because the essayist David Kennerly places it, “you needed to get your ass off the sofa to exit to hunt companionship.”
