Gay New York: gender, urban culture, and the makings of the gay male world, 1890-1940

Description

Cover; Title Page; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I: Male (Homo)sexual Practices and Identities in the Early Twentieth Century; Chapter 1. The Bowery as Haven and Spectacle; Chapter 2. The Fairy as an Intermediate Sex; Chapter 3. Trade, Wolves, and the Boundaries of Normal Manhood; Chapter 4. The Forging of Queer Identities and the Emergence of Heterosexuality in Middle-Class Culture; Part II: The Making of the Gay Male World; Chapter 5. Urban Culture and the Policing of the "City of Bachelors.";"Above all, Gay New York shows that our most intimate sexual identities are stunningly recent creations. It depicts a complex prewar sexual culture in which men were not divided into homosexuals and heterosexuals but into fairies, wolves, queers, and "normal" men. Many of those "normal" men frequently engaged in sexual relations with other men, because sexual normality was not defined by exclusive heterosexuality." "This book will change forever the way we think about the gay past - and the American past."--Jacket. Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Male (Homo)sexual Practices and Identities in the Early Twentieth Century Chapter 1. The Bowery as Haven and Spectacle Chapter 2. The Fairy as an Intermediate Sex Chapter 3. Trade, Wolves, and the Boundaries of Normal Manhood Chapter 4. The Forging of Queer Identities and the Emergence of Heterosexuality in Middle-Class Culture Part II: The Making of the Gay Male World Chapter 5. Urban Culture and the Policing of the "City of Bachelors." Chapter 6. Lots of Friends at the YMCA: Rooming Houses, Cafeterias, and Other Gay Social CentersChapter 7. "Privacy Could Only Be Had in Public": Forging a Gay World in the Streets Chapter 8. The Social World of the Baths Chapter 9. Building Gay Neighborhood Enclaves: The Village and Harlem Part III: The Politics of Gay Culture Chapter 10. The Double Life, Camp Culture, and the Making of a Collective Identity Chapter 11. "Pansies on Parade": Prohibition and the Spectacle of the Pansy Chapter 12. The Exclusion of Homosexuality from the Public Sphere in the 1930s. Epilogue: The Strange Career of the ClosetNote on Sources Notes Index.