Showing titles in Gay Studies

Park Cruising takes a long look at the men who cruise for sex in urban parks. Human rights lawyer Marcus McCann uses park cruising as a point of departure for discussions of consent, empathy, public health, municipal planning, and our relationship to strangers. Prompted by his work opposing a police sting in a suburban park, McCann's ruminations go beyond targeted enforcement and police indifference to violence to examine cruising as a type of world-building.

What if you weren't sexually attracted to anyone? A growing number of people are identifying as asexual. They aren't sexually attracted to anyone, and they consider it a sexual orientation - like gay, straight, or bisexual. Asexuality is the invisible orientation. Most people believe that "everyone" wants sex, that "everyone" understands what it means to be attracted to other people, and that "everyone" wants to date and mate. But that's where asexual people are left out - they don't find other people sexually attractive, and if and when they say so, they are very rarely treated as though that's okay.

Greg Marshall's early years were pretty bizarre. Rewind the VHS tapes (this is the nineties) and you'll see a lopsided teenager limping across a high school stage, or in a wheelchair after leg surgeries, pondering why he's crushing on half of the Utah Jazz. Add to this home video footage a mom clacking away at her newspaper column between chemos, a dad with ALS, and a cast of foulmouthed siblings.

What is masculinity? Dominating the world around us, with deadly gun violence, male suicide rates and incels on Reddit, masculinity is perceived to be 'toxic', 'fragile' and 'in crisis'. In this audiobook, beautifully narrated by the author, JJ Bola exposes masculinity as a performance that men are socially conditioned into.

Dirty White Boy is a vivid mosaic of modern London, caught between the ghosts of the past and the uncertainties of the future. With an unforgettable cast of characters ranging from Chico the camp queen to Pam the Fag Lady (with guest spots by stars like Kathy Griffin and Graham Norton), these compulsively listenable true tales offer a wry panorama of Soho's rich and often raucous subcultures.

Tucked away amongst snow-covered mountains is a tiny Australian town with a dark secret. Journalist Patrick Abboud hears whispers that it was once home to the world’s only 'gay prison'. A prison that specifically incarcerated gay men. His investigation into what happened inside reveals the full story for the first time. This queer true-crime journey takes you from underground nightclubs to hidden sex haunts, to remote parts of New Zealand and England. You’ll find yourself entangled in a police cover up, a case of wrongful conviction and a human experiment that didn’t go to plan.

In a world where self-care is critical to survival, Gordon offers a revolutionary perspective that celebrates individuals' unique privileges, challenges, and desires. By defying the norms of multi-billion-dollar industries, Hood Wellness illuminates the possibilities that emerge when we prioritize well-being while divesting from harmful structures.

In 1930, William Haines was Hollywood's #1 box-office draw - a talented, handsome, and wisecracking romantic lead. Off screen, however, protected by a careful collaboration between studio and press, he was openly gay with reporters and studio chiefs alike. Here is Haines's virtually unknown story - rich with detail, revelations, and scandal - about silent movies and talkies; his lover Jimmie Shields, and their fifty-year relationship.

The Einstein Intersection won the Nebula Award for best science fiction novel of 1967. The surface story tells of the problems a member of an alien race, Lo Lobey, has assimilating the mythology of Earth, where his kind have settled among the leftover artifacts of humanity. The deeper tale concerns, however, the way those who are "different" must deal with the dominant cultural ideology. The tale follows Lobey's mythic quest for his lost love, Friza. In luminous and hallucinated language, it explores what new myths might emerge from the detritus of the human world....

On the night of October 6, 1998, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard left a bar with two alleged “strangers”, Aaron McKin­ney and Russell Henderson. Eighteen hours later, Matthew was found tied to a log fence on the outskirts of town, unconscious and barely alive. Overnight, a politically expedient myth took the place of important facts. By the time Matthew died a few days later, his name was synonymous with anti-gay hate. The Book of Matt, first published in 2013, demonstrated that the truth was in fact far more complicated - and daunting.

This is a story about living your truth, embracing who you are and living the life you were meant to live. Whether you're gay or straight, a Christian or a non believer, you'll find relevance in Anthony's tale.

This is the intriguing story of how poppers wafted out of the lab and into gay bars, corner shops, bedrooms, and porn super cuts. Blending historical research with wry observation, Adam Zmith explores the cultural forces and improbable connections behind the power of poppers. What emerges is not just a history of pub raids, viral panics, and pecs the size of dinner plates, it is a collection of fresh and provocative ideas about identity, sex, utopia, capitalism, law, freedom, and the bodies that we use to experience the world.

In Men at War, Turner looks beyond the increasingly retrogressive and jingoistic ideal of a Britain that never was to discover a much richer history. He goes inside the machines of war and strips away uniform cloth to discover the true depth and complexity of men of war as creatures of love, fear, hope and desire. From writers, filmmakers, artists and ordinary men - including those in his own family - Turner assembles a broad cast of characters to bring the war to life.

Imagine a pied piper singing in a dazzling falsetto, wearing glittering sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome—to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco sensation Sylvester was the piper. Joshua Gamson—a Yale-trained pop culture expert—uses him, a boy who would be fabulous, to lead us through the story of the '70s when a new era of change liberated us from conformity and boredom.

Winner of three book awards, The Lavender Scare masterfully traces the origins of contemporary sexual politics to Cold War hysteria over national security. Drawing on newly declassified documents and interviews with former government officials, historian David Johnson chronicles how the myth that homosexuals threatened national security determined government policy for decades, ruined thousands of lives, and pushed many to suicide. As Johnson shows, this myth not only outlived McCarthy but, by the 1960s, helped launch a new civil rights struggle.

What is Ballroom? Not a song, a documentary, a catchphrase, a TV show, or an individual pop star. It is an underground subculture founded over a century ago by LGBTQ African American and Latino men and women of Harlem. Arts-based and intersectional, it transcends identity, acting as a fearless response to the systemic marginalization of minority populations.

Hidden in the margins of history books, classical literature, and thousands of years of stories, myths and legends, through to contemporary literature, TV and film, there is a diverse and other-worldly super community of queer heroes to discover, learn from, and celebrate. Queer Heroes of Myth & Legend brings to life characters who are romantic, brave, mysterious, and always fantastical. It is a magnificent celebration of queerness through the ages in all its legendary glory.

This is a book about poverty and prejudice, online dating and eating disorders, and lies on the television. The backlash is on against sexual freedom for men and women and social justice. Penny speaks for a new feminism that is about justice and equality. It’s about the freedom to be who we are, to love who we choose, to invent new gender roles, and to speak out fiercely against those who would deny us those rights.

For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret “too loathsome to mention” held enormous, terrifying power.

In a hugely ambitious study that crosses continents, languages, and almost a century, Gregory Woods identifies the ways in which homosexuality has helped shape Western culture. Extending from the trials of Oscar Wilde to the gay liberation era, this book examines a period in which increased visibility made acceptance of homosexuality one of the measures of modernity.