The Culture of Desire: Paradox and Perversity in Gay Lives Today
Is there such a thing as an American gay culture--a set of styles, values, and behaviors that arises not from ethnicity or religion but from sexual orientation? How is that culture transmitted? And how is it likely to survive the depradations of homophobia and AIDS? These questions are explored by Browning, a reporter for NPR.\ \ Is there such a thing as an American gay culture--a set of styles, values, and behaviors that arises not from ethnicity or religion but from...
Search in google:
Is there such a thing as an American gay culture--a set of styles, values, and behaviors that arises not from ethnicity or religion but from sexual orientation? How is that culture transmitted? And how is it likely to survive the depradations of homophobia and AIDS? These questions are explored by Browning, a reporter for NPR. Publishers Weekly In a meditative, journalistic odyssey through the gay male subculture, Browning, a former reporter for National Public Radio, probes the roots of gay rage as he joins Queer Nation protest rallies in suburban malls and talks with health-care activist Jim Corti, who makes unauthorized drugs available to people with AIDS. Browning interviews gay men in rural Kentucky, where he grew up, and in Miami's Cuban enclave. He tours the freewheeling, resuscitated gay sexual undergrounds of Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. He also visits safer-sex clubs, analyzes homoerotic images in the gay press and samples the ritualized gatherings of gays at Fire Island, N.Y., and at the twice-yearly ``Hollywood Boy Party'' in Palm Springs, Calif. Browning, who is gay himself, maintains that most homosexuals share a core belief: ``Our friends are our family.'' Yet he harbors doubts about whether the lifestyle of urban gays constitutes an actual culture comparable to black, Jewish or Asian-American communities. A sensitive, searching inquiry. (Mar.)
AcknowledgmentsPrologue: "Can I Meet People?...Is It Dying?"11Mystery, Plot, and Remembrance: A Boy on the Dock and Other Intimations of Desire112Queer Rage: "We're Here! We're Queer! Get Used to It!"263Celebutantes: Fabricating the Fabulous Man554Spirit and Transgression: Looking for Ecstasy in the Penetrated Man745From Front Lines to Home Front: Reclaiming the Queer Body1066Reconstructing the Extended Family: Personal Freedom and the Community Household1347Parties, Pageants, Parades: Rituals of Deliverance1608The Terror of Touching1859Paradox and Perversity: "What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion."204Bibliography231Index235
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ In a meditative, journalistic odyssey through the gay male subculture, Browning, a former reporter for National Public Radio, probes the roots of gay rage as he joins Queer Nation protest rallies in suburban malls and talks with health-care activist Jim Corti, who makes unauthorized drugs available to people with AIDS. Browning interviews gay men in rural Kentucky, where he grew up, and in Miami's Cuban enclave. He tours the freewheeling, resuscitated gay sexual undergrounds of Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. He also visits safer-sex clubs, analyzes homoerotic images in the gay press and samples the ritualized gatherings of gays at Fire Island, N.Y., and at the twice-yearly ``Hollywood Boy Party'' in Palm Springs, Calif. Browning, who is gay himself, maintains that most homosexuals share a core belief: ``Our friends are our family.'' Yet he harbors doubts about whether the lifestyle of urban gays constitutes an actual culture comparable to black, Jewish or Asian-American communities. A sensitive, searching inquiry. (Mar.)\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalA former National Public Radio reporter who covered the AIDS epidemic, Browning has produced a biting portrait of contemporary gay society. Writing as both observer and participant, he meticulously and perceptively probes issues of queer activism, sexuality, spirituality, family, and community. In contrast to Gilbert Herdt's Gay Culture in America ( LJ 12/91), this book openly questions the existence of a gay culture in the United States. Does the urban gay lifestyle constitute a culture comparable to those of such racial and ethnic minorities as African Americans, Hispanics, and Jews, asks the author, or is it a transitory phenomenon? Browning also examines the impact of the AIDS epidemic upon the survival of gay culture. His analysis of gay society will prove a definitive resource for future research on gay culture in America. A superlative addition to gay studies collections in academic and larger public libraries.-- Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., Ind.\ \
