Valentine's Day

Kissing on TV

For Valentine's Day, here's a brief history of male-to-male kissing on TV.

An episode of Dawson's Creek when Jack (Kerr Smith) kissed Ethan (Adam Kaukfman), above, in May, 2000, is often cited as the first male-to-male kiss on TV.  That's only off by 49 years.

As far as I can tell, the first male-to-male kiss on TV actually happened on the Colgate Comedy Hour on Feb. 4, 1951, when Jerry Lewis unexpectedly kissed Dean Martin (above).

But that wasn't a romantic kiss.  The first romantic male-to-male kiss on TV was in a 1960 BBC play called Colombe, featuring Sean Connery, of all people, (at left) and Richard Pasco.  The plot had a rather unbelievable excuse for the kiss, to get around the problem that gay sex was still illegal in England.  In the plot, they are brothers, and Pasco is having an affair with Connery’s wife.  Connery decides to find out firsthand what makes Pasco’s kisses so successful.

The first gay kiss on Dutch TV was in the 1970 documentary Portret van een homofiel (Portrait of a Homosexual).  The kiss occurs at the very end, among the end titles (above).

A 1970 BBC TV production of the play Edward II by Christopher Marlowe starred a young Ian McKellen as King Edward and James Laurenson as his lover Gaveston.

If you thought anti-gay hate crimes are a recent development, consider this historical fact: King Edward II, a gay King of England who lived in the 14th century, was murdered by his wife’s lover by having a red-hot poker stuck up his ass.

Here’s Ian McKellen again (above, right) as King Edward II.  It’s hard to believe that this cute guy would become Gandalf.

This clip is from the 1972 West German TV series Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt (It Is not the homosexual who Is perverse, but the society in which he lives), a.k.a. Being Gay part 9.  The scene is in a gay club, and this may be the steamiest male-to-male TV kiss ever.  Eat your heart out, Dawson’s Creek!