What is the Hanky Code?
The hanky code is a signaling system used by gay men and members of the fetish and BDSM communities to indicate sexual preference. Signals in the hanky code are conveyed by wearing a handkerchief of a specific color or pattern in either the right or left back pocket, conveying preference to anyone in the vicinity who is familiar with the concept of the hanky code. While wearing a hanky, someone is said to be “flagging,” and the hanky code is known as flagging, the bandanna code, or the handkerchief code. Some people have suggested that the basics of the hanky code may go as far back to the 1800s, when men in isolated regions of the American West would wear red handkerchiefs to indicate that they were willing to take a woman’s role in a dance. However, this is probably apocryphal, and has never been verified. More solidly, the seeds for the hanky code appear to have been sown in the 1970s, when gay men first started wearing handkerchiefs according to guidelines published in The Village
The Hanky Code is a traditional form of signaling to others what your sexual preferences and interests are. For decades, gay men have used this code to communicate with each other in the noisy and distracting environment of gay bars, out on the streets, in pickup places, shopping malls and cruising spots. Its origins may have derived from the 19th Century practice of wearing colored carnations to subtly announce one’s homosexuality, just as today’s society wears AIDS ribbons and rainbow flag items. It is believed by some that the term “GAY” as pertains to homosexuals was coined from the acronym for Green And Yellow… the colors of the carnations gay men wore as a covert signal in less permissive times. Although not as widely used these days, the hanky code is enjoying a renaissance in the leather community and has grown from a handful of colored hankies and scraps of cloth to a myriad of colors, materials and objects. The Hanky Code is still a worthwhile resource and is, among those w
