When Queer As Folk was first broadcast on Channel 4, 25 years ago this week, I knew immediately that I was witnessing something momentous. The first episode famously featured graphic images of rimming. Sexy and shameless, the series went on to show drug use, pornography and endless “copping off”. This was accompanied by a jolly theme tune, an uplifting soundtrack and a lot of humour – much of it directed at straight people. It was clearly unlike anything I’d seen on TV before. What I couldn’t have realised is that it would change everything for gay men in the UK.
Queer As Folk, written by Russell T Davies, told the story of two gay best friends and their wider circle – including families and found families, boyfriends and casual sexual partners – as they romped through a series of adventures on and around Manchester’s Canal Street. As this had been the setting for my own sexual awakening just a few years earlier – like the character Nathan, as a schoolboy travelling in from the suburbs – for me it carried an extra charge.
