Queer Beats: How the Beats Turned America On to Sex
Blasting through the crew-cuts and conformism of their day, the Beat writers were queer in the fullest sense of the word: their fluid sexuality challenged all sexual and romantic conventions. Most shocking of their unconventional attitudes was their embrace of same-sex eroticism. At a time when gay people were considered mentally ill or criminal, the Beats celebrated spontaneity and freedom in thought, word, and action. Their highest value was nakedness -- even before Allen Ginsberg stripped...
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Among the unconventional attitudes of the Beat writers as they rebelled against the conformism of the late 1940s and 1950s was their relaxed stance on sexuality. At a time when gay people were considered mentally ill or criminal, the Beats celebrated spontaneity and freedom in thought, word, and action. They were queer in the fullest sense of the word: their fluid sexuality challenged all sexual and romantic conventions. Combining fiction, letters, and poetry, Queer Beats explores the sexual pulse that throbbed throughout the Beats' writings - from the perverse "cut-up" prose of William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch and the homoerotic poetry of Allen Ginsberg to Jack Kerouac's letter to Neal Cassady in which he declares (despite sexual encounters with Ginsberg and Gore Vidal): "Posterity will laugh at me if it thinks I was queer." This collection also includes writings by Diane di Prima, Frank O'Hara, Herbert Huncke, Elise Cowen, Robert Duncan, and others.
IntroductionxvI.The Road of Excess (Or, Saintly Sinners)1In Society9On Meeting Kinsey11"Nobler, I thought, to die a man than live on, a sex monster..."15Dead Drunk21Youth25"I don't mind being called queer..."31"Burroughs may be gay, but he's a man..."33"We owed it to literary history..."35"Norman wanted to know what had really happened..."39"Something strange has happened..."41"I sit naked in my room remembering..."43"It was a strange, nondescript kind of orgy..."47II.Male Muses (Or, Sex without Borders)53"Oh, I love, love, love women!"63"I'm on a spree tonight..."65"Love is not controllable..."67Bradley the Buyer71"Posterity will laugh at me..."75Love Poem on Theme by Whitman77Teacher--Your Body My Kabbalah79"Accept my soul with all its throbbings and sweetness..."83"If like me you renounce love and the world..."87Malest Cornifici Tuo Catullo89from Howl91"I find myself getting jealous of Kiki..."95The Newport News has arrived in Venice for a week's stay...97A. J.'s Annual Party99from Cut-ups: A Project for Disastrous Success103"I Met Jack Kerouac in 1958 for One Glorious Moment..."107A Poem for Cocksuckers113from Memoirs of a Bastard Angel115III.Queer Shoulder to the Wheel117Me & Allen129Peter Jerking Allen Off (First Sex Experiment)131Why Is God Love, Jack?135Sexual Conditioning137Sweet Boy, Gimme Yr Ass141Going to Massachusetts143Horns155from The Place of Dead Roads159Pages from Cold Point161Green Ballet185Hi Risque187On Neal's Ashes191"Sex as a biological weapon"193Rain-Wet Asphalt Heat, Garbage Curbed Cans Overflowing195Now France197"Drag up your soul to its proper bliss..."199"The gay state"201Permissions203About the Author209
