I was recently sourcing an image from GettyOne for an article on home heating tips. This article contains info about increasing the efficiency of your furnace, making your home better insulated and lowering your thermostat -- all good advice if you're trying to lower your energy bill. I've been searching for specific images (e.g. a furnace, a thermostat), but the visual style requirements of the site require that people be included in the image.
After trying a variety of specific search terms, I decided to let Getty's "concept search" try to come up with a recommended photo. As a search, this got reworded as: "Home Interior (Building Structure)" and "Heat (Concepts)"
Browsing through the five pages of results, I saw a number of fireplaces, a couple of thermostats and several shots of a woman with a cold hugging a hot-water bottle. None of them really surprising (or what I was looking for). But interspersed though all of these were these pictures of this very happy, congenial, gay couple. Sitting on the couch with their dog, sitting on the porch, drinking coffee in the kitchen.
I was a bit surprised to see these nice men turn up in my search. After a bit of digging it turns out that they are filed under "Heat" as a concept.
Seriously?
Maybe two scantily clothed men making out in front of the fireplace. But two gay stockbrokers with their chihuahua? Hardly.
Again .. the politics of language and imagery. As I ranted about in a previous post about language, why is it that "gay" in all of its forms implies a licentiousness or luridness.
On the gay-positive side of things, the above image comes from a collection that Getty carries called Queerstock which is a collection of gay and lesbian stock photography. They have other great images like this one. How cute are these gals??