Browsing: November-December 2012
November-December 2012
Blog Posts
Out Comes Gospel
THERE ARE FANS, and then there are fanatics. … each with its own set of divas and devotional practices. Less well known are the many gay men who are devotees of gospel music. These so-called gospel sissies are no less committed to their music and no less central to its existence, but their relationship to their music has always been much more complicated. This fraught fandom is the organizing focus of Anthony Heilbut’s new book, The Fan Who Knew Too Much. …
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Irving Walks to the Wild Side
… In One Person is certainly as intelligent as Irving’s earlier work, and thematically as serious. …
MoreMy Harvard, Part 2: New York
… Andrew Holleran has been a regular writer for this magazine since this piece in the first issue, and his contribution to its survival and success are immeasurable. His novels include Dancer from the Dance, The Beauty of Men, and Grief.
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No Country for Gay Men
THE WRITINGS of Abdellah Taïa, who positions himself as the ‘first openly gay autobiographical writer”; published in Morocco, clearly transgress the religious customs of his native country. An Arab Melancholia forms part of this larger project as it traces several unrequited love affairs spanning three countries on two continents. …
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Birth of a Consciousness
Editor’s Note: One of this magazine’s stated missions is to preserve our history, especially the early history of the gay and lesbian movement. In this respect, the following piece has a double significance: first, because here Harry Hay is recounting the early years of the “homophile” movement and how the Mattachine Society got started; and second, because Harry Hay is himself a figure of historical importance, and this essay from one of our movement’s founders has, I think, acquired a significance of its own in the annals of GLBT letters. …
MoreA Pound of Care
PART POLEMIC, part personal narrative, and part pleading, Elton John’s Love is the Cure: On Life, Loss and the End of AIDS harks back to Randy Shilts’ landmark book And the Band Played On (1987) …
MoreLesbian Liberation Begins
… Del Martin (1921-2008) and Phyllis Lyon (b. 1924) were the first same-sex couple to be married in the state of California, the second time officially, on June 16 (Bloomsday), 2008, during the brief window of marriage equality there before the passage of Proposition 8.
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Sunshine State Blues
THIS FIRST NOVEL by Julian E. Farris captures the anti-homosexual hysteria of the 1950’s and early 60’s. The activities of the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (FLIC), whose mandate was to find “subversives,” including “homosexuals,” form the backdrop for this dramatic story about persecution. …
MoreDefending Pornography
Editor’s Note: A controversy that was raging in the 90’s came to be called the “lesbian sex wars,” and this piece is an entry into that debate. Two (non-gay) female writers, Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, had separately staked out a position that pornography was inherently exploitative of and even violent toward women, and they called for its censorship-allying themselves with leaders on the religious Right who were no friends of GLBT equality or, to say the least, sexual liberation. Here is Laura Anoniou’s response to these feminists, including her take on the newly published book by Nadine Strossen titled Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (1995). This piece was published in the Summer 1995 issue of The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review. …
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