Before the late 19th Century, when purple dye was more accessible and the colour became a trend, it was common for ladies to gift each other violets as a subtle expression of love. Ancient Greek poet Sappho mentioned “violet crowns”, lavenders and the colour purple frequently in her poems about women and so violets became synonymous with desire. Similarly, violets were a popular symbol of love between women up until the early 1900s.
#GAY FLAG COLOR CODE CODE#
It then became a light-hearted code for men who were attracted to other men. Gay writer and poet Oscar Wilde popularised the symbol when he asked his friends to wear them on their lapels to a showing of his play Lady Windermere’s Fan in 1892. Many flowers have been associated with LGBTQ+ movements, but most famously is the green carnation. Depending on where you’re from, a bouquet arrangement could express anything from friendship to romantic love to detailed declarations of dislike! The handkerchief code (also known as the hanky code, the bandana code, and flagging ) is a system of color-coded cloth handkerchief or bandanas for non-verbally communicating one's interests in sexual activities and fetishes.Floriography is a fancy term for the coded language of flowers, and has been used for thousands of years in Europe, Asia and Africa. The color of the handkerchief identifies a particular activity, and the pocket it is worn in (left or right) identifies the wearer's preferred role in that activity. Wearing a handkerchief on the left side of the body typically indicates one is a "top" (considered active in the act/fetish indicated by the color of the handkerchief), while wearing it on the right side of the body would indicate one is a "bottom" (considered passive in it). For example, a dark blue handkerchief indicates an interest in anal sex, and wearing it in the left pocket indicates a preference for being the insertive partner. The code was most widely used in the 1970s in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, by gay and bisexual men seeking casual sex, or BDSM practitioners. The wearing of colored bandanas around the neck as a practical accessory was common in the mid- and late-nineteenth century among cowboys, steam railroad engineers, and miners in the Western United States. It is thought that the wearing of bandanas by gay men originated in San Francisco after the Gold Rush, when, because of a shortage of women, men dancing with each other in square dances developed a code wherein the man wearing the blue bandana took the male part in the square dance, and the man wearing the red bandana took the female part (these bandanas were usually worn around the arm or hanging from the belt or in the back pocket of one's jeans). The modern hanky code is often reported to have started in New York City around 1970, when a journalist for the Village Voice joked that instead of simply wearing a set of keys on one side or the other (then a common code to indicate whether someone was a "top" or a "bottom"), it would be more efficient to subtly announce their particular sexual focus by wearing different colored handkerchiefs. Other sources attribute the expansion of the original red–blue system into today's code to marketing efforts around 1971 by The Trading Post, a San Francisco department store for erotic merchandise, promoting handkerchiefs by printing cards listing the meanings of various colors. S Leather in San Francisco, claimed that he created the first hanky code with his business partners at Leather 'n' Things in 1972, when their bandana supplier inadvertently doubled their order and the expanded code would help them sell the extra colors they had received. Ĭolor Codes from Bob Damron's Address Book (1980) Examples Īround 1980, Bob Damron's Address Book published a yearly chart for the meaning of each colored handkerchief.
There was no single authoritative standard for the code. This table is drawn from Larry Townsend's The Leatherman's Handbook II (the 1983 second edition the 1972 first edition did not include this list) and is generally considered authoritative. Implicit in this list is the concept of left/right polarity, left as usual indicating the top, dominant, or active partner right the bottom, submissive, or passive partner. Townsend noted that discussion with a prospective partner was still important because, people may wear a given color "only because the idea of the hankie turns them on" or "may not even know what it means".