1964: The Birth of Gay Theater
IF “GAY THEATER” is defined as being by, for, and about uncloseted gay people, then 2014 arguably marks the 50th anniversary of the genre’s existence. In 1964, despite a…More
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Fifty Years after City of Night
JOHN RECHY’S City of Night was published fifty years ago. The novel is a frank account of the adventures of a male hustler who wanders restlessly around the country in the late 1950s
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Tennessee and Sexual Exploitation
Williams extended to sexual behavior his own disgust with dishonesty, insisting that people have the courage to acknowledge the nature of their desires.
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The Radicalism of Harry Hay
The following is adapted from a keynote speech by the author titled “Radical Love, Visionary Politics: The Adventure of Harry Hay,” which was delivered at a conference called “Radically Gay: The Life and Visionary Legacy of Harry Hay,” held September 27–30, 2012, in New York City.
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The Very English Britten
Britten’s reputation today feels internationally secure, though both biographies sketch the extraordinary obstacles he faced
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America’s First Gay Town
ON JUNE 4, 2013 the National Parks Service officially designated the Cherry Grove Community House and Theatre on Fire Island, New York, for listing on its National Register of Historic Places.
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Ziggy Stardust Memories
WHETHER you’re a Bowie fan or not, chances are you’ve heard about the sudden return of the Thin White Duke in the form of an album, The Next Day.
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Keith Vaughan’s Art of the Male Form
Vaughan is known as much for his journals as for his paintings. The journals span nearly four decades from his experiences of World War II, to his successful career in the 1950s and 1960s, through to his bouts with colon cancer and ultimately suicide in 1977.
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Let’s Talk about Interracial Porn
HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL TENSIONS surrounding issues of masculinity, race, violence, sexuality, and miscegenation commingle in both all-black and interracial pornography. Black men in gay porn customarily inhabit a position of power that has roots in racialized fetishism.
MoreThe Philosophers’ Funnel of Love
Love, it seems, is for straight people.
Take two examples from books that came out in just the past year: Pascal Bruckner’s The Paradox of Love (2012) has many virtues, but they do not stretch to examining same-sex relationships. Turn to the copyright page and you find brutal confirmation. The anonymous provider of Library of Congress shelving data has decided that “the paradox of love” can safely be cataloged under “man-woman relationships.” Faramerz Dabhoiwala’s The Origins of Sex (2012) examines the sexual and sentimental revolutions of the Enlightenment, the period when the boundaries of modern love were staked out. This is territory well and often explored by gay and lesbian scholars, yet there’s barely a whiff of homosexuality in 452 pages.
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