November-December 2009
WHEN Lisa Diamond’s book Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire (Harvard University Press, 2008) was published last year, it was poised to become a fresh, new psychological study about women’s sexuality today. But Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, didn’t expect it to become a controversial catalyst for mainstream discussions about same-sex desire on a national scale.
MoreONE of the freshest documentaries of 2009 was Kirby Dick’s Outrage, which brings to light how some of the most homophobic politicians in the U.S. are themselves deeply closeted gay men. Politicians such as Idaho senator Larry Craig, Florida governor Charlie Crist, former New York mayor Ed Koch, and others have done their damnedest to block GLBT equality while engaging in same-sex activities on the sly.
It is Dick’s contention that these politicians are able to remain in the closet thanks to the unwillingness of the mainstream media to talk about their sexuality.
MoreTHE DAY AFTER the first night of rioting at the Stonewall Inn in late June, 1969, the police barricades were taken away from the city streets. But the intensity of the previous night’s disturbance-where about 500 had gathered in protest outside the Inn, some shoving or throwing bottles, others lighting small fires-was still palpable. Ellen Shumsky walked through the streets of her neighborhood where trash cans that had been set ablaze emitted still-smoldering ashes. The aftershock of rebellion, rage, and frustration that burst forth onto Sheridan Square was recognizable to her.
More… White’s diligent research reveals that, in addition to publishing a magazine, ONE, Inc. also held an annual institute for 25 years in which volunteer faculty taught courses, sometimes to only three or four students, that were the precursors of queer studies. …
MoreWHAT HAPPENS when a seventeen-year-old gay boy from Missouri, high on Proust, arrives at Harvard, in 1941, on a quest for love, sex, and greatness? One man’s answer is revealed in rich, exasperating, and touching detail in The Journal of Claude Fredericks.
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Bigger than Life reads like a work of journalism about the rise and development of a hugely successful industry that feeds the fantasies of gay men, whose growth spurts and mutations over time have aligned with social and technological forces.
More… the ever adventurous Field put his fears aside and embarked on a trip that produced Kabuli Days: Travels in Old Afghanistan, one of the most interesting travel diaries I’ve read.
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