Queer Externalities

Provocative take on the negative effects of increasing queer visibility and assimilation on the lives of queer people and politics in the U.S.

Provocative take on the negative effects of increasing queer visibility and assimilation on the lives of queer people and politics in the U.S.

The history of same-sex attraction and love is relevant to many aspects of history, including its social, religious, and political dimensions. The Historical Dictionary of Homosexuality provides a comprehensive survey of same-sex relations from ancient China and Greece to the contemporary world. The book covers religious traditions that have tolerated or had a role for same-sex relations, to those that have condemned it and called for punishment. The legal treatment of homosexuality, and the development in the modern world of a gay rights movements, are central areas of focus. In addition, there are a number of entries for specific countries and regions that provides concise summaries of how same-sex relations have been understood and treated around the globe. Court decisions and emerging norms in international law are also covered. Historical Dictionary of Homosexuality, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 200 cross-referenced entries on important historical figures, philosophic, artistic, and literary treatments of same-sex love, historical terms, and contemporary events. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about homosexuality.

This book explores representations of same-sex desire in Indian literature and film from the 1970s to the present. Through a detailed analysis of poetry and prose by authors like Vikram Seth, Kamala Das, and Neel Mukherjee, and films from Bollywood and beyond, including Onir's My Brother Nikhil and Deepa Mehta's Fire, Oliver Ross argues that an initially Euro-American "homosexuality" with its connotations of an essential psychosexual orientation, is reinvented as it overlaps with different elements of Indian culture. Dismantling the popular belief that vocal gay and lesbian politics exist in contradistinction to a sexually "conservative" India, this book locates numerous alternative practices and identities of same-sex desire in Indian history and modernity. Indeed, many of these survived British colonialism, with its importation of ideas of sexual pathology and perversity, in changed or codified forms, and they are often inflected by gay and lesbian identities in the present. In this account, Oliver Ross challenges the preconception that, in the contemporary world, a grand narrative of sexuality circulates globally and erases all pre-existing narratives and embodiments of sexual desire.

Sexual rhetoric is the self-conscious and critical engagement with discourses of sexuality that exposes both their naturalization and their queering, their torquing to create different or counter-discourses, giving voice and agency to multiple and complex sexual experiences. This volume explores the intersection of rhetoric and sexuality through the varieties of methods available in the fields of rhetoric and writing studies, including case studies, theoretical questioning, ethnographies, or close (and distant) readings of "texts" that help us think through the rhetorical force of sexuality and the sexual force of rhetoric.

Slouching towards Gaytheism brings together two intellectual traditions—the New Atheism and queer theory—and moves beyond them to offer a new voice for gay Americans and atheists alike. Examining the continued vehemence of homophobia in cultural and political debate regarding queer equality, this unabashed polemic insists that the needs met by religion might be met—more safely and less toxically—by forms of community that do not harass and malign gay and lesbian Americans or impede collective social progress. W. C. Harris argues that compromises with traditional religion, no matter how enlightened or well intentioned, will ultimately leave heteronormativity alive and well. He explores a range of recent movements, such as Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project, reparative "ex-gay" therapy, Christian purity culture, and attempts by liberal Christians to reconcile religion with homosexuality, and shows how these proposed solutions are either inadequate or positively dangerous. According to the author, the time has come for "gaytheism": leaving religion behind in order to preserve queer dignity, rights, and lives.

Gay pornography, online and onscreen, is a controversial and significantly under-researched area of cultural production. In the first book of its kind, Gay Pornography: Representations of Sexuality and Masculinity explores the iconography, themes and ideals that the genre presents. Indeed, John Mercer argues that gay pornography cannot be regarded as one-dimensional, but that it offers its audience a vision of plural masculinities that are more nuanced and ambiguous than they might seem. Mercer examines how the internet has generated an exponential growth in the sheer volume and variety of this material, and facilitated far greater access to it. He uses both professional and amateur examples to explore how gay pornography has become part of a wider cultural context in which modern masculinities have become 'saturated' by their constantly evolving status and function in popular culture.

The Anti-Homosexuality (dubbed “Kill the Gays”) Bill of 2009 propelled Uganda to the forefront of global media. In its initial manifestation, the Bill threatened to penalize “aggravated homosexuality” with the death penalty. The media attention earned by the proposed legislation opened avenues for transnational cooperation and communication between US-based Human and LGBTI Rights organizations and kuchu (or LGBTI) Ugandans. The Economies of Queer Inclusion focuses on this transnational relationship and the complications that arise when international currency and professionalization transform grassroots organizing. This book excavates how transnational advocacy, which aims to empower LGBTI rights activism, actually restructures and, in some cases, limits local movements. With interview and ethnographic data with activists in Kampala, Uganda and New York City, the research highlights how the introduction of international attention and funding causes organizations to restructure their movement goals and strategies in order to best attract desired partners. The funder-funded relationship causes both local discord and transnational divestment from alternative forms of organizing. The research presents a compelling, counter-narrative that exposes that the development of this economy did not occur because of the Anti-Homosexuality, but rather inspired the legislation and then peaked in the five years following. As an engaged, ethnographic look into a social justice movement, the text explores organizational structures and activist strategies in order to critique and strengthen future mobilization. Accordingly, the text applies various sociological and critical race theories to provide an incisive and in-depth exploration of a powerful political moment.