To read this book is to glimpse gay culture in its first morning. . . . It offers a comprehensive and poignant overview of a very special moment in gay culture. Read it, and if you're still too macho to weep, or too insufficiently radical/feminist to scream, at least shed a tear for lost innocence."
--"The Advocate"

The influence of gays and lesbians on language, literature, theater, poetry, dance, music, and the arts is unmeasurable. In the era before AIDS, gay and lesbian culture had a defining, if unrecognized, influence on American life, an influence that is only now being acknowledged.

This reissue of the classic anthology, "Lavender Culture," serves as a provocative, dynamic, and wide-ranging reminder of American gay and lesbian culture in the days before the status of gay people received widespread attention in the media, religion, and politics, before Newsweek saw it fit to feature a cover story on LESBIANS, and before gays and lesbians took center stage in America's cultural landscape.

Here we find the young, assertive voices of such activists, authors, and artists as Rita Mae Brown, Barbara Grier, John Stoltenberg, Julia Penelope, Andrea Dworkin, Andrew Kopkind, Jane Rule, Arthur Bell, Charlotte Bunche, and dozens more. Including essays on such diverse subjects as gay bath houses, the gay male image in classical ballet, images of gays in rock music, Judy Garland, lesbian humor, sports and machismo, the growing business of women's music, and the Cleveland bar scene in the 1940s, Lavender Culture, with new introductory essays by the editors and Cindy Patton, offers a panoply of gay and lesbian life, tracing the current influence and visibility of gay and lesbianculture back to its origins.

To read this book is to glimpse gay culture in its first morning. . . . It offers a comprehensive and poignant overview of a very special moment in gay culture. Read it, and if you're still too macho to weep, or too insufficiently radical/feminist to scream, at least shed a tear for lost innocence."
--"The Advocate"

The influence of gays and lesbians on language, literature, theater, poetry, dance, music, and the arts is unmeasurable. In the era before AIDS, gay and lesbian culture had a defining, if unrecognized, influence on American life, an influence that is only now being acknowledged.

This reissue of the classic anthology, "Lavender Culture," serves as a provocative, dynamic, and wide-ranging reminder of American gay and lesbian culture in the days before the status of gay people received widespread attention in the media, religion, and politics, before Newsweek saw it fit to feature a cover story on LESBIANS, and before gays and lesbians took center stage in America's cultural landscape.

Here we find the young, assertive voices of such activists, authors, and artists as Rita Mae Brown, Barbara Grier, John Stoltenberg, Julia Penelope, Andrea Dworkin, Andrew Kopkind, Jane Rule, Arthur Bell, Charlotte Bunche, and dozens more. Including essays on such diverse subjects as gay bath houses, the gay male image in classical ballet, images of gays in rock music, Judy Garland, lesbian humor, sports and machismo, the growing business of women's music, and the Cleveland bar scene in the 1940s, Lavender Culture, with new introductory essays by the editors and Cindy Patton, offers a panoply of gay and lesbian life, tracing the current influence and visibility of gay and lesbianculture back to its origins.

Filled with Joyous self-affirmation, angry manifestos, and searching personal reflections, this classic work provides a close look at the individuals and ideologies of this important social movement. In the tradition of Sisterhood is Powerful, "Out of the Closets" presents, in their own words, the views, values attitudes, aspirations, and circumstances of the early generation of gay and lesbian liberationists. Highlighting both how much and how little has changed since Stonewall, this work is essential reading for anyone concerned with the history of sexuality and the legal and social status of lesbians and gays in contemporary America.

Lesbian writers include some of the most innovative and adventurous writers of this century, but only recently have they been given their due attention in terms of critical study. This book is the first anthology to discuss the subject of lesbianism as it relates to the critical interaction among readers, writers, and literary critics. It explores lesbian texts in terms of identification, meaning, and interpretation, and examines the complex entanglements of identity, voice, intersubjectivity, textualities, and sexualities.

"A wonderful exploration of the varieties of life choices lesbians can and do make. This book once again proves that telling the truth aboutyourself is a revolutionary act."
--"Rita Mae Brown"

"They will probably drum Karla Jay and Joanne Glasgow out of the academy for this one...A college text that is witty, literate, interesting, and can be read for fun. What's the world coming to? "Lesbian Texts and Contexts" dry title, wonderful book."
--"Barbara Grier, Editor Naiad Press"

"To call this collection much-needed or eagerly awaited would be the understatement of the year. It's thrilling ot think of the new readings of classic texts, the new directions for theory, and--maybe best of all--the new range of literary encounters in the classroom, that will be enabled by this radical intervention on the critical scene."
--"Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Duke University"

"Excellent, ...challenging, sexy, ...never boring."
--"Outweek."

"A very great gift: compelling, complex, courageous, and stunning. Everyone interested in love and lust, passion and power, history and literature, will want to read Karla Jay's timely, arousing, important anthology."
--Blanche Wiesen Cook Author of "Eleanor Roosevelt, vol. I"

"Karla Jay is one of the authentic pioneers of lesbian studies. Here she brings together 16 essays on the once-taboo, now gloriously speakable' subject of lesbian sexuality. Illuminating, often funny, full of thought and emotion and a continuous, speculative intellectual energy, the essays tell a fascinating collective story about lesbian desires, past and present, and the controversial places of female homosexuality in modern society."
--Terry Castle, Author of "The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture"

The question of whether lesbians have sex, how they have sex, and when they began having sex has long obsessively preoccupied the heterosexual imagination. Today, discussions of lesbian sex abound with such terms as romantic friendships, stealth lesbians, and genitally sexual. As we approach the end of the twentieth century, lesbian sexuality remains hotly contested ground. What exactly qualifies as lesbian sex? What is the relationship, if any, between lesbian erotica and heterosexual pornography? How did the issue of sex in lesbian communities come to be such a fiercely debated subject?

"Lesbian Erotics" is the first anthology to investigate the cultural production of sexually charged images of lesbians in film, law, literature, and popular culture in general. The contributors address an enormous range of sexualities and fora in which these sexualities flourish. In herchapter, "Not Tonight, Dear, I'm Deconstructing a Headache: Confessions of a Lesbian Sex Therapist," Marny Hall illustrates how difficult some women find it to maintain erotic tension in lesbian relationships. Elizabeth Meese grapples with increasingly complex sexual identities in cyperspace. Kitty Tsui, cover model for "On Our Backs," relays how she developed her own body into an art form in order to combat stereotypes of passive and invisible Asian women.

This work, as Karla Jay writes in the introduction, invites readers to consider the implications, variations, and complexities of lesbian erotics. In the end, it is our sexual lives that mark us as outlaws. Therefore, we need to investigate and engage representations of our sexuality to define for ourselves, if we so choose, the scope, shape, and permutations of lesbian erotics.

Written by lesbians of different ages, races and religions,and compiled by one of the gay movement's best-known writers and activists,these original essays give vibrant voice to the diversity of the lesbian experience. Celebrating the many ways in which the lesbian experience is unique from all others, many of these pieces focus on specific lesbian concerns such as sexual practices, raising children and higher incidence of certain illnesses.Beyond pointing out these differences, the essays also provide a comprehensive view of the many phases of lesbian life by covering diverse topics like body piercing, coming out and work. Short narratives, To Mother or Not to Mother," Confessions of a Lesbian Vampire," About Being an Old Lesbian in Love," and more,complement and enrich the main essays, adding a unique personal tone to the collection. A mix of the serious and the irreverent, Dyke Life is an important contribution to gay and lesbian literature.