… The equestrian life brought Belle to Europe, where she socialized with aristocrats and the wealthy. The long trips abroad gave her the opportunity to respond to sexual awakenings that began with her love for her friend Evangeline Brewster Johnson. …

PLANTED MODESTLY in the middle of this new study is its pithiest assertion: “Simply put, in urban America, being gay comes with a gym membership.” Of course this is an overstatement, but it expresses the extent to which working out has become a significant part of everyday life for many gay men.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS after the death of Oscar Wilde in 1900, all of his known surviving letters-1,562 of them-were published, edited by his grandson, Merlin Holland (with the late Rupert Hart-Davis). Now Holland has edited a selection of those letters …

IN 1955, Rose Bamberger, a Filipina lesbian, brought together four couples to form a “secret society of lesbians” in San Francisco. She wanted to be able to dance, drink, and socialize without the fear of harassment or arrest that homosexuals risked at the bars. At the first meeting someone suggested that the group be called the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) (bil-EE-tis).

THE 1970’s was the golden age of gay bar guides, those little publications with pictures, personal ads, and, week after week, articles by local activists and commentators. Those articles, now mostly lost, helped form GLBT communities in towns all over America. Jack Nichols wrote hundreds of such pieces.

… This case sets the stage for Cristian Berco’s fine study of homosexual sodomy in Spain from the 1500’s to the 1700’s. Working from 500 Inquisition trial proceedings involving homosexual sodomy in Aragon, Spain, Berco situates these court cases within the complexities of the period’s social landscape.