This is an interesting read. Notice how gay men were called
inverts back then.
“The Great Prevalence of Sexual Inversion”: Havelock Ellis on Gay Life in the American City
In an excerpt from his 1915 book, British physician and psychologist Havelock Ellis, a pioneer in the emerging field of human sexuality, mapped out for his readers the culture of “sexual inversion” in American cities, reflecting how practices that had long been common, or at least tolerated, were suddenly viewed as problematic.
"It is notable that of recent years there has been a fashion for a red tie to be adopted by inverts as their badge. This is especially marked among the “fairies” (as a fellator isthere termed ) in New York. “It is red,” writes an American correspondent, himself inverted, "that has become almost a synonym for sexual inversion, not only in the minds of inverts themselves, but in the popular mind. To wear a red necktie on the street is to invite remarks from newsboys and others—remarks that have the practices of inverts for their theme. A friend told me once that when a group of street-boys caught sight of the red necktie he was wearing they sucked their fingers in imitation of fellatio. Male prostitutes who walk the streets of Philadelphia and New York almost invariably wear red neckties. It is the badge of all their tribe. The rooms of many of my inverted friends have red as the prevailing color in decorations. Among my classmates, at the medical school, few ever had the courage to wear a red tie; those who did never repeated the experiment."
Source: Havelock Ellis, Sexual Inversion, 3d ed. (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis 1915), 350–351.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5114/
