Velvet Mafia

The Velvet Mafia, or Gay Mafia, is an imprecise term that refers to either a secret cadre of powerful gay elites believed to control the fashion and entertainment industries or the amorphous collection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights and advocacy groups that work to repeal discriminatory laws and change social attitudes toward LGBT people. No one claims to be a member of the social group Velvet Mafia or Gay Mafia; rather, the Velvet Mafia or Gay Mafia is largely a pejorative category invoked by people who have an anti-gay bias.

This aim of this entry is threefold: First, it outlines two key assumptions on which the concept of a Velvet or Gay Mafia rests. Second, it discusses the historical, social, and cultural conditions from which the term Velvet Mafia emerged. Third, the term's circulation and political relevance within the wider culture is tracked.

One cannot engage in a discussion of sex or gender nonconformity in Western culture without engaging with a wider debate about the etiology of LGBT identities, whether these identities are inborn or acquired. The search for the cause of homosexuality has dominated scholarly writing in [Page 857]the West since the coinage of the term in the early 19th century. Alongside this tendency is the notion that homosexuals have unique intrinsic aesthetic or artistic sensibilities, codified in the early writings of sexology and psychiatry in the 19th century. An in-depth recounting of this history is beyond the scope of this entry, so the reader is referred to Camille Paglia's recent reiteration of this long-standing cultural trope. Paglia argues that gay men are born with an artistic gene, which is the root cause of homosexuality. Within this logic, gay men would be both predisposed to aesthetic competency and, with this genetic advantage, dominate the field of aesthetic production.

Sometime in the 1990s, Gay Mafia replaced Velvet Mafia as a term of choice, but neither term is taken seriously in reputable scholarship, though it continues to have currency in the popular arena. The concept of a Gay Mafia is commonly mocked within LGBT circles, and at least one comedy troupe has adopted it as its stage name. A widely circulated quip begins by announcing the Gay Mafia broke into a home the previous evening. The punch line is that the Gay Mafia did not steal anything, but they had redecorated. This joke successfully exploits the contradictions in the term, juxtaposing the audience's conception of the “Mafia” and its implied violent behavior with common stereotypes of gay men who are often believed to be overly concerned with aesthetics and interests culturally defined as “feminine” and nonthreatening.

The term Velvet Mafia was coined by journalist and author Steven Gaines in a New York Daily News article in the 1970s, in reference to influential captains of the entertainment and fashion industries. This coincided with a more visible gay presence in U.S. cities, the result of the emergence of gay rights movement. Gaines also deployed the moniker in a thinly disguised novel called The Club about the infamous Studio 54 and the influential gay powerbrokers who routinely patronized that establishment. This “mafia” was more or less rumored to include fashion magnates, media moguls, artists, and playwrights.

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