What was “flagging” or the handkerchief code?
Have you ever heard of the terms "Flagging" or the "Handkerchief Code"?
If you're below the age of forty you probably might not be too familiar with them, but they are an interesting aspect of gay history especially in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe.
Long before the convenience of dating apps led to cruising from the comfort of one’s sofa, men went out and roamed the streets and back alleys looking for sexual companionship. To help in finding a compatible partner, the gay community in the 1970s and 80s utilized a system of wearing bandanas to signify their availability and interests. This system, known as “flagging”, began with the BDSM / leather community, but soon spread to the gay mainstream.
The wearer’s sexual role was indicated by which back pocket the bandana was worn in (tops wore bandanas in their left pocket; bottoms wore bandanas in their right pocket), and the color of the bandana was associated with a specific sexual practice or fetish. It is believed that red bandanas were the first “flags,” used to indicate a desire for fisting, but soon a panoply of colors emerged to cover the gamut of sexual preferences and interests. Adult bookstores, gay clubs and bath houses carried large inventories of bandanas and published color guides to interpret them. Here’s a sampling:
As the practice of flagging grew, so did the use of various colors to indicate increasingly specific interests. An old Gay Desert Guide of Palm Springs lists 65 colors for activities ranging from nipple torture (dark pink) to foot fetish (coral) to rimming (beige) and beyond.
With the advent of AIDS in the early 90s, random sex practice waned and so did the use of flagging, which is basically now extinct. Some might argue, however, considering how impersonal many dating apps have become that it might be time for a flagging revival. What do you think?