In 1432, the Office of the Night was created specifically to police sodomy in Florence. Seventy years of denunciations, accusations, interrogations, and sentencings left an extraordinarily detailed record, which Rocke uses to its fullest in this richly documented portrait. He uncovers a culture in which sexual roles were strictly defined by age, with boys under eighteen the 'passive' participants in sodomy, youths in their twenties the 'active' participant, and men in their thirties marrying women, their days of sexual frivolity over. This richly documented book paints a fascinating picture of a vibrant time and place and calls into question our modern conceptions of gender and sexual identity.

When Love Takes Over: A Celebration of SGL Couples of Color exclusively profile eighteen African- American gay couples who are in committed long term relationships. The couples detail how they met, their journey towards self-acceptance, liberation and ultimately how they fell in love and maintain their relationships. All the while defying the myth that two black men are incapable of loving each other for a lifetime.

In Sexual States Jyoti Puri tracks the efforts to decriminalize homosexuality in India to show how the regulation of sexuality is fundamentally tied to the creation and enduring existence of the state. Since 2001 activists have attempted to rewrite Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which in addition to outlawing homosexual behavior is often used to prosecute a range of activities and groups that are considered perverse. Having interviewed activists and NGO workers throughout five metropolitan centers, investigated crime statistics and case law, visited various state institutions, and met with the police, Puri found that Section 377 is but one element of how homosexuality is regulated in India. This statute works alongside the large and complex system of laws, practices, policies, and discourses intended to mitigate sexuality's threat to the social order while upholding the state as inevitable, legitimate, and indispensable. By highlighting the various means through which the regulation of sexuality constitutes India's heterogeneous and fragmented "sexual state," Puri provides a conceptual framework to understand the links between sexuality and the state more broadly.

While much attention has been paid in recent years to heterosexual prostitution and sex tourism in Brazil, gay sex tourism has been almost completely overlooked. In Tourist Attractions, Gregory C. Mitchell presents a pioneering ethnography that focuses on the personal lives and identities of male sex workers who occupy a variety of roles in Brazil's sexual economy. Mitchell takes us into the bath houses of Rio de Janeiro, where rent boys cruise for clients, and to the beaches of Salvador da Bahia, where African American gay men seek out hustlers while exploring cultural heritage tourist sites. His ethnography stretches into the Amazon, where indigenous fantasies are tinged with the erotic at eco-resorts, and into the homes of "kept men," who forge long-term, long-distance, transnational relationships that blur the boundaries of what counts as commercial sex. Mitchell asks how tourists perceive sex workers' performances of Brazilianness, race, and masculinity, and, in turn, how these two groups of men make sense of differing models of racial and sexual identity across cultural boundaries. He proposes that in order to better understand how people experience difference sexually, we reframe prostitution-which Marxist feminists have long conceptualized as sexual labor-as also being a form of performative labor. Tourist Attractions is an exceptional ethnography poised to make an indelible impact in the fields of anthropology, gender, and sexuality, and research on prostitution and tourism.

For gay men, the demands of the AIDS epidemic are enormous and unrelenting. Regardless of HIV status, all are called on to maintain vigilant safety with sex, to face down a cultural stigma greater even than homophobia, and to somehow find a way to go forward in a world heavy with loss. As exhaustion and grief threaten to overwhelm the activism and optimism of earlier years, and with new infections on the rise among young gay men, the challenge of finding meaning in a world turned upside down is more than an idle philosophical exercise. It is a matter of psychological and perhaps even physical survival.
In this poignant and uncompromising new book, Dr. Steven Schwartzberg offers a ground-breaking perspective on how gay men (and particularly HIV-positive gay men) find ways to rebuild a world of meaning amid the trauma and uncertainty of the AIDS crisis. Eschewing both glib prescriptions for turning tragedy into triumph, and theoretical abstractions, Schwartzberg grounds his insights in his own experiences as a gay man and as a practicing psychotherapist, and in in-depth interviews with nineteen men living with HIV. Ranging in age from twenty-seven to fifty, the men include a construction foreman, a physician, an art historian, a waiter, a librarian, and a licensed massage therapist. With candor, insight, eagerness, and a remarkable ability to share of themselves, they speak eloquently about how HIV has affected their views of the world, their senses of themselves, and how they live their lives. Interweaving the men's stories with observations from his research and clinical practice, Schwartzberg bears witness to the remarkable transformations some men have accomplished, and the anguish of meaninglessness that weighs others down. He strives to uncover why some view HIV as a catalyst for change or growth, while others see it only as punishment. And though he passes no judgment on the coping strategies he describes, Schwartzberg does insist on the vital necessity of balancing somber reality with healing, life-sustaining hope. He argues that men who opt for too much illusion and too little reality risk shoddy self-care and inadequate preparation for the future, while those who find no escape from reality may teeter into rage or suicidal despair.
Beautifully written, with piercing awareness of the enormity of the challenges confronting individuals with HIV, this book celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. It is both a keen psychological guide and an elegiac chronicle of what life for many has become. Gently pointing the way to an oasis of growth, strength, and love that exists amid the epidemic's bleak terrain of loss, it is essential reading for people living with HIV, for their friends, families, and the mental health professionals who care for them, and for all gay men grappling with the enormous changes AIDS has brought to a community under siege.

Breaking Bounds invigorates the study of Whitman and American culture by presenting essays that demonstrate Whitman's centrality to the widest range of social, political, literary, sexual, and cultural discourses of his time and ours. Bringing together a distinguished group of cultural critics working in the fields of literature, American studies, Latin American studies, European studies, art history, and gay/lesbian/queer studies, the volume persistently opens new vistas in the ways we see Whitman and provides a model for the newest and brightest intellectual efforts associated with "cultural studies." Central to the volume is a set of provocative essays in queer studies that break the bounds of decorum that have too long separated Whitman's sexuality from his politics, and his poetry from both. The Whitman that emerges from these collected essays is renewed for a new generation of literary scholars working to define the places and the functions of his poetic words in the world. Taken as a whole, the volume points to the interdisciplinary future of American literary and cultural studies. Breaking Bounds is essential reading for anyone interested in Whitman both inside and outside the academy.

"Temperamental" was code for "homosexual" in the early 1950s, part of a secret language gay men used to communicate. The Temperamentals, Jon Marans' hit off-Broadway play, tells the story of two men--the communist Harry Hay and the Viennese refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich--as they fall in love while building the Mattachine Society, the first gay rights organization in the pre-Stonewall United States. This special edition includes Marans' script and production photos from the off-Broadway production of the play, along with a foreword by actor Michael Urie; an introduction by activist David Mixner; a look at Gernreich's fashion career by journalist Joel Nikolaou; and an afterword on Harry Hay by journalist Michael Bronski.

A joyful celebration of the LGBTQ+ community's development, history, and culture, packed with facts, trivia, timelines, and charts, and featuring 100 full-color illustrations. Compiled and designed by queer power couple and illustrators extraordinaire, Ashley Molesso and Chess Needham, founders of the popular stationery company Ash + Chess, The Gay Agenda is an inviting and entertaining guide that pays tribute to the LGBTQ+ community. Filled with engaging descriptions, interesting facts, helpful features-such as historical queer icons and events and LGBTQ+ acronym definitions-this fabulous compendium illuminates the transformation of the community, highlighting its struggles, achievements, landmarks, and contributions. It also salutes iconic members of the LGBTQ+ community-the celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens who have made a notable impact on gay life and society itself. The Gay Agenda is a nostalgic look back for older generations, an archive for younger people, and a helpful introduction for those interested in learning more about the community and its contributions. From James Baldwin and Emma Goldman to Marsha P. Johnson and Jodie Foster; the Pink Triangle and the Rainbow Flag to Stonewall and the AIDS crisis; Matthew Shepard and Pulse Nightclub to Sodomy Laws and Obergefell; Drag and Transitioning to The L Word and The Kinsey Scale, Freddie Mercury and Ellen Degeneres to Laverne Cox and David Bowie, this magnificent digest is a keepsake honoring all LGBTQ+, and the ongoing fight to gain-and maintain-equality for all.

A detailed description of sexual practices and bonds among Latino males in Guadalajara, Mexico using a combination of ethnographic techniques and participant observations.

In this provocative new book, Michael Lucey examines the unstable convergence of sexual, political, and literary commitments in Andre Gide's writing of the 1920s and 1930s--the years in which Gide wrote most openly about his homosexuality and participated most actively in left-wing politics. Through close readings of his memoirs, novels, and political tracts, Gide's Bent interrogates both the political content of Gide's ways of reflecting on his homosexuality and the ways his sexuality inflected his political interests.
One of the first modern writers to be "out," Gide used his writings during this period to do more than simply publicize his homosexuality. He also wrote in a way that reveals sexuality itself as an arena that challenges easy distinctions between public and private. His writing thus addresses not only the psychoanalytic, but also the social and even political foundations to the formation of any private sexual subjectivity; it further considers the ways personal, private struggles might be implicated in or lead on to larger public engagements. Gide's Bent follows this complicated writing practice in Gide's psychoanalytically complex novel The Counterfeiters and in his attempt at a feminist narrative, The School for Wives; in his explicit memoir of his early life, If It Dies; in Corydon, his idiosyncratic investigation of pederasty; in his anti-colonialist travel journal, Travels in the Congo; and in his disillusioned Return from the U.S.S.R..

The Pop-Up Book of Death is a collection of vivid and startling poems from Chad Helder. These poems navigate a humorous and unsettling landscape where horror movies transgress the boundaries of the screen, sinister words strike out from books like trapdoor spiders, and true love extinguishes every apocalyptic flare-up. In this bizarre terrain haunted by the white dog, Helder offers a pastiche of childhood memory, dream journal, and surrealist fantasy, confronting the horrors of The Closet and the anxieties of The Apocalypse.

In the three decades since New York City's Stonewall rebellion, gay literature has exploded as a distinctive form of cultural expression. In a variety of styles and genres, gay men have increasingly begun to articulate their sexual identities. At the same time, gay writers and scholars have begun in earnest the search for a literary history long denied by the refusal to recognize homosexual love as an integral part of Western literature. Yet to date, no single volume has brought together the full range of poetry, fiction, essays, and autobiography that portray love between men.

From the "Epic of Gilgamesh" to the poems of Allen Ginsberg and gay literature of the 1980s and '90s, "The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature" draws together hundreds of texts from Western literary history that describe experiences of love, friendship, intimacy, desire, and sex among men. While other anthologies have focused primarily on poetry, drama, or fiction, this volume is the first to include a full range of genres. Spanning more than two millennia, from ancient Mesopotamia to the late twentieth century, this anthology brings together the best-known texts of gay male writing such as the poetry of Martial and Walt Whitman, and excerpts from E. M. Forster's Maurice, as well as from lesser known works such as nineteenth-century English homoerotic poetry and selections from two early American novels of homosexual love -- "Joseph and His Friend and Imre."

In "The Columbia Anthology" readers become acquainted with the early bonds of male companionship found in Homer's writings on Zeus and Ganymede, and with the homoerotic poetry of Catullus and Juvenal. From Shakespeare's "Sonnets" to the philosophy of de Sade, to the political writings of Edmund White, this masterful anthology traces a multifaceted tradition.

Arranged chronologically, sections are supplemented by illuminating introductory essays; many individual pieces include background commentary on the writer and the work.

As a landmark to the enduring spirit of gay writers, this collection is an essential addition to the library of anyone searching for the historical foundations of gay identities. With its excellent annotations and suggestions for further reading, "The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature" will also serve as an invaluable resource to students and scholars in need of a guide to a massive body of literature that has long been hidden, ignored, or misrepresented.

After half a century of metropolitan infamy, Quentin Crisp graduated to international fame when his widely acclaimed autobiography The Naked Civil Servant made him a household name, even in respectable households. In this second volume of autobiography, Quentin Crisp describes the wider horizons of his years as a celebrity at home and aborad, and explains his personal philosophy of inaction, as well as his love affair with North America. How to Become a Virgin is a witty, acute and perceptive as its inimitable author.

***2020 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST*** DISASTERAMA: Adventures in the Queer Underground 1977 to 1997, is the true story of Alvin Orloff who, as a shy kid from the suburbs of San Francisco, stumbled into the wild, eclectic crowd of Crazy Club Kids, Punk Rock Nutters, Goofy Goofballs, Fashion Victims, Disco Dollies, Happy Hustlers, and Dizzy Twinks of post-Stonewall American queer culture of the late 1970s, only to see the "subterranean lavender twilit shadow world of the gay ghetto" ravished by AIDS in the 1980s. Includes an introduction by Alexander Chee (How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. In Disasterama, Orloff recalls the delirious adventures of his youth-from San Francisco to Los Angeles to New York-where insane nights, deep friendships with the creatives of the underground, and thrilling bi-coastal living led to a free-spirited life of art, manic performance, high camp antics, and exotic sexual encounters, until AIDS threatened to destroy everything he lived for. In his introduction, award-winning essayist and novelist Alexander Chee notes, "There's a strange love I have for these times that can be hard to explain. How can I love what I lived through from a time that was as 'bad' as that? But as I read this, and those days came into view again, what I think of that love now is that there was a beauty to the beauty you found then that was made the more fierce by the horror of what was happening. If you could still find the worth of your life, still find sex, love, friendship, your own self-worth amid these attempts by the state at erasure and the ravages of the AIDS epidemic, then it had the strength of something forged in fire." Orloff looks past the politics of AIDS to the people on the ground, friends of his who did not survive AIDS' wrath-the boys in black leather jackets and cackling queens in tacky frocks-remembering them not as victims, but as people who loved life, loved fun, and who were a part of the insane jigsaw of Orloff's friends. Disasterama showcases Orloff's wit and poignancy as he relays the true tale of how a bunch of pathologically flippant kids floundered through a deadly disaster, and, struggled to keep the spirit of camp and radicalism alive, even as their friends lost their lives to the plague.

Drawing on recent developments in gay studies and queer theory, Pink Snow: Homotextual Possibilities in Canadian Fiction offers new interpretations that focus on homoerotic resonances in literature. Goldie brings an original, engaging, and sometimes provocative critical perspective to bear on both Canadian classics and less mainstream works.

In the mid-twentieth century, gay life flourished in American cities even as the state repression of queer communities reached its peak. Liquor investigators infiltrated and shut down gay-friendly bars. Plainclothes decoys enticed men in parks and clubs. Vice officers surveilled public bathrooms through peepholes and two-way mirrors. In Vice Patrol, Anna Lvovsky chronicles this painful story, tracing the tactics used to criminalize, profile, and suppress gay life from the 1930s through the 1960s, and the surprising controversies those tactics often inspired in court. Lvovsky shows that the vice squads' campaigns stood at the center of live debates about not only the law's treatment of queer people, but also the limits of ethical policing, the authority of experts, and the nature of sexual difference itself-debates that had often unexpected effects on the gay community's rights and freedoms. Examining those battles, Vice Patrol enriches understandings of the regulation of queer life in the twentieth century and disputes about police power that continue today.

We are all caught up in one another, Scott Lauria Morgensen asserts, we who live in settler societies, and our interrelationships inform all that these societies touch. Native people live in relation to all non-Natives amid the ongoing power relations of settler colonialism, despite never losing inherent claims to sovereignty as indigenous peoples. Explaining how relational distinctions of "Native" and "settler" define the status of being "queer," "Spaces between Us "argues that modern queer subjects emerged among Natives and non-Natives by engaging the meaningful difference indigeneity makes within a settler society.

Morgensen's analysis exposes white settler colonialism as a primary condition for the development of modern queer politics in the United States. Bringing together historical and ethnographic cases, he shows how U.S. queer projects became non-Native and normatively white by comparatively examining the historical activism and critical theory of Native queer and Two-Spirit people.

Presenting a "biopolitics of settler colonialism"--in which the imagined disappearance of indigeneity and sustained subjugation of all racialized peoples ensures a progressive future for white settlers--"Spaces between Us" newly demonstrates the interdependence of nation, race, gender, and sexuality and offers opportunities for resistance in the United States.