In the WWII novel *From Here to Eternity*, several of the U.S. soldiers in Hawaii openly discuss "rolling queers", i.e. prostituting themselves for money to local homosexuals. How realistic/common was this?

by [deleted]

[deleted]

Marvelsnevercease

I just want to make sure that "rolling queers" means what you think it means. "Rolling" someone is currently slang for assaulting and then stealing from someone who is drunk. Or, if they're passed out drunk, just stealing from them. Basically, in the context of the book, then, "rolling queers" could mean gay-bashing followed by theft. And that would be something that would be more socially acceptable than prostituting yourself to gay men for money at that time. I've found a couple of roughly contemporary usage of "rolling queers" to refer to assault and battery of gay men, followed by theft of items from them, by straight men (in the first example, the assailants are in the navy): https://books.google.com/books?id=0mQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=%22rolling+queers%22&source=bl&ots=_ZCqnuzM8v&sig=NVZJSi9FTRRiHn5phsbUTqC8Uwc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivgIPdnbTJAhWVLIgKHQh_CfgQ6AEIRzAJ#v=onepage&q=%22rolling%20queers%22&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=BtmuP47cLNAC&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=%22rolling+queers%22&source=bl&ots=6-3qxZPxTJ&sig=NbV0BQRe3wDO4_PN8l-Bkm3ahC4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivgIPdnbTJAhWVLIgKHQh_CfgQ6AEIRDAI#v=onepage&q=%22rolling%20queers%22&f=false

I've also found a lot of more recent usages of "rolling queers" to mean gay-bashing and theft, but I won't include them here--just google the phrase, using quotation marks, and you'll find plenty of examples. The reason I provide the two examples above is to show that the phrase was already in usage at the time the novel was written.

So unless the author is specifically describing what he means by "rolling queers", I'd say he likely meant assault, battery, and theft, not sex, and that if it's ambiguous, then gay-bashing would be the more likely scenario due to established slang usage.

On the other hand, I've also read about a case of straight World War II era Marines having sex with men for money. But the source is questionable. This was in the book Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars by Scotty Bowers. This book, categorized as non-fiction, is by a guy who was a marine in World War II. After the war, he moved to Hollywood and opened a business as a bartender for parties, primarily for gay clients, with the side business of providing prostitutes--male and female--to stars. This in general terms has been confirmed by some credible people. That is, he was known for many years for having the bartending business and doing sexual things to entertain gay men. What has not been confirmed (the book was published without fact-checking) are the details--is it true of persons X,Y, and Z? Are all the details true? Is he greatly exaggerating? But the relevance here is that this guy was a World War II marine, and he does claim in the book that he had a bunch of ex-marine buddies who were straight and who were at loose ends in the LA area after they were discharged at the end of the war. And so he asked them to join him in this business of providing sexual services to men for money, and they did. The service they provided, according to him, was limited--it was getting blown, and they didn't mind doing that for pay.

Goodmorningdave

Unlike many pundits today who claim homosexuality is a recent phenomena, there were vibrant homosexual communities in many urban centers throughout the United States. Back in the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's, homosexual culture thrived but was a bit different from today. According to Chaucer's book Queer Nation, homosexuals could be both gay and straight, for instance, one could have sexual relations with man and it would not be considered gay if one did not commit certain sex acts. Additionally, there were rigid social constructs in which their were definitive differences between gay men and men who slept with other men. In the New York gay communities, many of queers were known to sleep with both men and women. In a way, these men were prized for their "manliness" by other queers or pansies (accepted gay terms of the time).

Along with these interesting homosexual societal constructs, Chaucer theorizes that practicing homosexuals saw an explosion in population due to the globalizing effects of WWII. He argues that many homosexuals came from the United States Navy mainly due to the close quarters and large male population who would be introduced to such sexual behavior. In short, it is plausible that there were indeed gay men in such military bases like Pearl Harbor because of homosexual culture found in the Navy. Also, these men may not have been seen as gay since they did not commit certain acts which qualified as homosexuality even if they spent a few nights with "queers".