Fascinating. The story of Laud Humphreys is almost more interesting that this book. He studies washroom sex between men as a sociologist and then comes out. He’s accused of improper methods in conducting his study. Google him.
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Really interesting book. Crompton’s thesis is that Byron’s self-imposed exile from England was due to his fear of scandal emerging about his homosexual life (Crompton says he was bisexual), and subsequent legal action against him (homosexuality was illegal in England at the time and the punishments were execution, or being put in pillory, during which many died at the hands of the public). A definitive answer as to Byron’s sexual orientation is impossible because so many of the original documents have been destroyed (letters, Byron’s autobiography, etc.). But Crompton makes a convincing case from the evidence available that Byron’s already scandal-filled life (including an incestuous relationship with his half-sister) may have included a hidden gay component. Fascinating also as a social history of the period of Byron’s life and attitudes towards sexuality.
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3 years ago
Green I own, blue I’ve read, red I’ve read since posting the list.
1. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the 14th Century by John Boswell
2. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin
3. Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA—A Documentary by Jonathan Ned Katz
4. The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault
5. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970 by John D’Emilio
6. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua
7. Symposium by Plato
8. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
9. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Judith Butler
10. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
11. Surpassing the Love of Men by Lillian Faderman
12. Christopher and His Kind, 1929-1939 by Christopher Isherwood
13. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies by Vito Russo
14. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
15. The Homosexuality of Men and Women by Magnus Hirschfeld
16. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts
17. Lesbian/Woman by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon
18. Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds
19. Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
20. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality by Sigmund Freud
21. Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary in which is contained, in chronological order, evidence of the true and fantastical history of those persons now called lesbians and gay men by Jonathan Ned Katz
22. Borderlands = La Frontera by Gloria E. Anzaldua
23. The Wolfenden Report: Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution
24. Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist by Larry Kramer
25. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey
26. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell
27. Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two by Allan Berube
28. Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, edited by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey
29. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female by Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin, and Paul Gebhard
30. Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story by Paul Monette
31. De Profundis [Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis] by Oscar Wilde
32. The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women by Edward Carpenter
33. Sex-Variant Women in Literature by Jeannette H. Foster
34. The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach by Donald Webster Cory
35. Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation by Dennis Altman
36. Sexual Politics by Kate Millett
37. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
38. Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein
39. Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir by Paul Monette
40. The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts
41. Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain by Jeffrey Weeks
42. A Restricted Country by Joan Nestle
43. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
44. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, edited by Henry Abelove, Michele Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin
45. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel R. Delany
46. The Straight Mind and Other Essays by Monique Wittig
47. Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution by Jill Johnston
48. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis
49. The Construction of Homosexuality by David F. Greenberg
50. Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America by John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman
51. Sapphistry: The Book of Lesbian Sexuality by Pat Califia
52. Loving in the War Years: Lo Que Nunca Pas� sus Labios by Cherrie Moraga
53. Phaedrus by Plato
54. The Joy of Gay Sex: An Intimate Guide for Gay Men to the Pleasures of a Gay Lifestyle by Charles Silverstein and Edmund White
55. Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America by Esther Newton
56. Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China by Bret Hinsch
57. The Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany by James D. Steakley
58. Being Homosexual: Gay Men and Their Development by Richard A. Isay
59. In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences by Truman Capote
60. This Sex Which Is Not One by Luce Irigaray
61. The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart by Peter J. Gomes
62. The First and Second Books of Samuel (David and Jonathan)
63. My Father and Myself by J. R. Ackerley
64. Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men by Gabriel Rotello
65. Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence by Michael Rocke
66. Male Colors: The Construction of Male Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan by Gary P. Leupp
67. Positively Gay: New Approaches to Gay and Lesbian Life, edited by Betty Berzon
68. What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality by Daniel Helminiak
69. Studies in the History of the Renaissance by Walter Pater
70. The History of Ancient Art by Johann Joachim Winckelmann
71. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in 20th-Century America by Lillian Faderman
72. Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation, edited by Karla Jay and Allen Young
73. The Sexual Outlaw: A Documentary—A Non-fiction Account, with Commentaries, of 3 Days and Nights in the Sexual Underground by John Rechy
74. Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas
75. The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp
76. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places by Laud Humphreys
77. Genet: A Biography by Edmund White
78. Cherry Grove, Fire Island: 60 Years in America’s First Gay and Lesbian Town by Esther Newton
79. Cures: A Gay Man�s Odyssey by Martin Duberman
80. Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective
81. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
82. Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the Words of Its Founder by Harry Hay
83. A Problem in Greek Ethics by John Addington Symonds
84. The Lesbian Body by Monique Wittig
85. Corydon by Andre Gide
86. Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature by Dorothy Allison
87. Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul by Leslie Feinberg
88. Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds by Judy Grahn
89. Inventing AIDS by Cindy Patton
90. The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom by Barbara Smith
91. Homosexuality and Civilization by Louis Crompton
92. Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory edited by Michael Warner
93. Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism by Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith
94. Men like That: A Southern Queer History by John Howard
95. Byron and Greek Love: Homophobia in 19th-Century England by Louis Crompton
96. The Pursuit of Sodomy: Male Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe edited by Kent Gerard and Gert Hekma
97. Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power by Michelangelo Signorile
98. United States: Essays, 1952-1992 by Gore Vidal
99. The Leatherman’s Handbook by Larry Townsend
100. Asian American Sexualities: Dimensions of the Gay and Lesbian Experience edited by Russell Leong
