We read Michael Musto’s 1978 Christopher Street cover story “Every Night Fever,” about the gays who go to the disco every night of the week, an example of a journalism genre that fascinates us—cultural trend stories that simultaneously report and constitute a social phenomenon. We discuss the pleasures of displaying oneself in the gay social world, the way gays moralize about and evaluate each other based on how much they go out, clubbing as bookish people, divorces during COVID, why incels should go out, why we hate Hinge, whether Gen Z is bad at going out, and more.

Sources

Michael Musto, “Every Night Fever,” Christopher Street, May 1978.

Nik Cohn, “Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night,” New York, June 7, 1976.

Stephen Phillips-Horst, “Have We Reached Peak Gay Sluttiness?” New York, August 29, 2025.

Kyle Munzenrieder, “Michael Musto Shares His Life in Parties,” W, May 12, 2023.

Leo Bersani and Adam Phillips, Intimacies (2008)

Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance (1978)

We read George Stambolian's "Interview With a Hot Man" from the February 1983 issue of Christopher Street and talk about the central, yet perennially controversial, role that physical beauty plays in gay culture. We compare notes on our own experiences of feeling hot and wanting hot people, and about the competing – but perhaps not ultimately opposed – tendencies in gay life toward competitive elitism and democratic collectivity. 

Follow us

Christopher Street on Substack
Christopher Street website
Blake on Substack
David on Substack

Sources

• Joe Bernstein, “Handsome at Any Cost,” New York Times, February 13, 2026.
• Jordan Castro, “Getting the Pump,” Harper’s, February 2024.
• Blake's Substack posts about George Stambolian's interviews and his archival diary
• George Stambolian, “Interview With a Hot and Handsome Man,” Christopher Street, 1983.
• George Stambolian, Gay Fantasies / Male Realities (1984).
• David's Substack post about looksmaxxing and contemporary anti-beauty discourse.