BTW
They’re Back! Over the years we’ve covered our share of anti-gay clergymen and politicians who were caught engaging in just the kind of activities that they habitually railed against in…More
Browsing: July-August 2016
July-August 2016
Blog Posts
The Fine Art of Writing and Waiting
Stars Seen in Person is a good start toward reviving Wieners. Another step in this direction was the publication last year of a collection titled Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners (Wave Books).
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The German Invention of Sexuality
Later in the 19th century, the first open polemics would be published, and in 1897 the first activist organization would be founded. This brings us to the recently published Peripheral Desires: The German Discovery of Sex, by Robert Deam Tobin, Professor of German at Clark University. This is by no means the first book to cover the early homosexual emancipation movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Indeed, I believe that honor falls to …
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Nietzsche’s Hidden Trail of Desire
AT THE PEAK of his vitality, age 38, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was sojourning in Genoa, Italy. He cruised the sandy shores in white slacks, a healthy tan, and a Panama hat. Back in his hotel, he wrote in his notebook: “[I am] experiencing a menacing, heart-rending attack of desire and savage, pent-up surges of emotion … moments of sudden madness when the lonely man embraces the first man to come his way and treat him as a precious gift from heaven.”
MoreHealing Stigma in the Age of Social Media
IN NOVEMBER 2011, an undercover news crew ambushed me and my wife outside an organic butcher’s shop where we were picking up our Thanksgiving turkey. At the time, I…More
How the Supreme Court Sanctified Gay Sex
FROM THE STONEWALL INN to the public restroom—what a long, strange trip it has been. It was only a year ago that the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges…More
John Boswell’s Religious Restoration
[Boswell] argued that the Bible is not hostile to modern understandings of homosexuality, having been misinterpreted by modern readings, and claimed that it wasn’t until the 12th or 13th century that any real hostility toward gay people emerged …
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The Accidental Activist: Pasolini’s Italy
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI (1922–1975) did not actively do much for gay rights in Italy, and yet he contributed to progress inadvertently by appearing in headlines over and over again…More
Readers’ Thoughts
Gay Trauma Is Real: A Rebuttal To the Editor: I was deeply disturbed by what I experienced as the anti-psychological attitude of Ty Geltmaker and James Rosen’s letter in the March-April…More
A Novelist at Odds with Circumstance
In Cursed Legacy, Spotts does an impressive job of capturing Klaus Mann’s legacy as a novelist, essayist, editor, playwright, journalist, political activist, gay rights activist, war correspondent, and American soldier. He also offers considerable insight into the emotions, the suffering, and the dreams of this multi-faceted individual. While he gained some renown for his accomplishments during his lifetime, most of this recognition came posthumously. Thus Klaus would never know that he had finally succeeded in stepping out from under his father’s shadow and into the light of day.
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