Wow. I’m surprised that the music video for Dead or Alive’s My Heart Goes Bang Bang includes a blue handkerchief pinned to the right rear of Pete Burns’ jeans, and, as far as I can tell, no one made a stink about it.

Maybe very few people knew about the hanky code in 1985? Anyway, the hanky code, an innovation associated with gay dudes in the 1970s, developed as a way to signify predilection for certain erotic activities. The color of the hanky denoted the category of activity, and the side on which someone wore their hanky indicated what role they preferred in the activity.

To use the example of Pete Burns’ hanky in this video, dark blue refers to anal sex. Right side says that the wearer prefers the submissive/penetrated position. So, as far as I can tell, this is as obviously homoerotic as the Verlaine/Rimbaud Sonnet to the Asshole [which is exactly about what the title says, as you can tell from this very well done English translation], but I guess either people missed it and/or no one watched the video. I thought that, for sure, in the age of the AIDS panic and the Moral Majority, something like this would would cause strenuous objection.