Gay Monopoly
West Hollywood: Fire Island Games, Inc, 1983. Board game in box measuring 10 x 20 x 1 ½ in.; board measures 19 ⅜ x 19 ⅜ in. Complete with all pieces and cards. Edgewear at exterior of box with piece of scotch tape; instructions very good; all other elements of game near fine. Item #6047
Rare complete example of the rakish, hilarious, snazzy, and attractive, Gay Monopoly: A Celebration of Gay Life! Starring Ollie Gaytor and the Parker Sisters. An exceptional game overflowing with jokes, trivia, and a refined sensibility, accompanied by the illustrations of Tom of Finland.
All the mechanics of Monopoly, but gay. The properties have been replaced with famous gay locales, like Christopher Street, Fire Island, and Provincetown. The trivia cards, called “Family Pride,” are educational in nature and briefly sketch the lives of famous gay people throughout history--including unconfirmed homosexuals who nevertheless had a gay vibe--like John Maynard Keynes, Alexander the Great, Marcel Proust, George Washington Carver, Yukio Mishima, Leonardo DaVinci, and King David, among others.
The “Manipulation” cards provide a topology and key for the color coded bandanas of the cruising scene: black in the right pocket means “Beat Me, Whip Me, Make Me Write Bad Checks,” while gray signals that one “needs restraint.” The cards from Ollie’s Sleeze Bag are particularly sassy and well-illustrated: “Your Heart Belongs to Daddy <3 (Plus Anything Else He Wants)”; “Tops and Bottoms Ball: For Tickets Collect $20 From Each Top, $10 From Each Bottom.” Houses and hotels are now bars and bathhouses; jail is “straight city.”
With contributions from Tom of Finland, Gay Monopoly is a fantastically illustrated and cunningly written game that covers an exceptionally deep and wide cross-section of gay male life, culture, and history.
“Whether it is a toke or a Coke, SIZE queen or drag queen, be as crazy or as kinky as you like. There are no limits here.”.
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