Use of the hanky code spread throughout the mid 1970s. The origin of the hanky code exists like myth or urban legend, with two or three main stories surrounded by a variety of altered details, depending on the source. Erotica shops, bookstores, and catalogs provided decoder lists with the purchase of bandanas, while gay bars printed the lists with location information as a form of marketing. (In many early hanky codes, red typically appears as the first color.) Queer businesses printed the hanky code decoder lists for distribution. A decoder list was created as other color/fetish associations were added. The hanky code initially began with the use of red bandanas to discreetly identify practitioners of fisting. The color of the bandana was associated with a specific sexual practice or fetish, and the wearer’s sexual role was indicated by which back pocket the bandana resided in (tops wore bandanas in their left pocket bottoms wore bandanas in their right pocket). Simply put, a bandana is worn in one’s back pocket for the purposes of sexual signaling. The hanky code was a covert sartorial code used predominately by queer men in the 1970s and into the 1980s.
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