David M. Halperin

Within this admittedly over-long book is a slim but forceful gym-bunny of a tract against both essentialism and identity politics; there is, alongside it, a gossipy ageing queen of a treatise about Hollywood melodrama; and there is a wider exploration - inoffensive, so it seemed to me - of the rather queer nature of gay femininity, or 'femininity', and, indeed, of what those inverted commas themselves might denote. Not - [silent screams] - that David Halperin thinks any of his readers might show more themselves be 'inverted': no, no, NO!!!
Let me at this juncture avow my own machismo: I only ever once watched 'Mildred Pierce', and loathed it. I understand why so many middle class and middle-aged gays, in their country sitting rooms, and in (sometimes very shrill) asides across the weekend newspapers to their husbands, have protested - as if all homophobia is past - that NONE of what David Halperin describes in this book relates to them. So let me say it: much of this made me cringe too.
It is that process itself - that instinct to cringe - which seems to me to be the focus of quite a lot of what this book is all about. Some of us, clearly, have a sense of having grown out of the stereotypes which the book describes; but there are still young men who use them as a means to grow into their own gayness now. That's what struck me most: I was reminded - rather fondly, in fact - of younger gay men among my friends who, with the piercing bitchiness through which affection sometimes becomes more real, continue to adore Bette Davis (yes: they do!) and those films which we all know to be absurd. That made me laugh: the French ( - and David Halperin occasionally remembers a world beyond the USA - ) might even have spoken of 'jouissance'....
But I would have laughed more had the book been only half the length; and I would have been persuaded more completely had the slightly overwrought final chapters been omitted altogether.

[I think it right to add, as I write this on World AIDS Day, that I am moved not least by the eloquence of David Halperin's reflections on the impact of HIV and AIDS on the issues which his book describes.] show less

In One Hundred Years of Homosexuality (1990), David Halperin argues that modern interpretations that read back identities of "gay" on Greek society are anachronistic and inappropriate to understanding Greek life; his analysis shows that the heterosexual/homosexual binary (and sexual identity) is a very recent way of conceptualizing and experiencing sexual desire (9). Halperin argues that sexuality is a modern invention (24) and argues that the ancient Greeks didn't understand sex in terms of show more sexuality. He contrasts today and ancient Greece: "Instead of viewing public and political life as a dramatization of individual sexual psychology, as we often tend to do, they see sexual behavior as an expression of political and social relations" (37). Halperin reads backward in the vein of Foucault, to understand better what we know now, and to be "more aware of the enigma we present to ourselves" and "discovering, and changing, who we are" (71). show less

Highly illuminating volume by scholars concerned with increasing sexual repression in the US.

This comprehensive reader is a thorough introduction into the field of lesbian and gay studies. It comprises many texts that have become classics by important theorists, e.g. by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick , Judith Butler or Monique Wittig, and touches on a wide range of topics in relation to sexual expression: representation, identity politics, race, literature etc.. This compilation can be recommended to anyone wishing to gain an overview of this field of study and it certainly provides an show more impulse to delve into gay and lesbian/queer studies. With its multitude of reference points it's a great start for further reading in the field and a lot of food for thought. The texts are the theoretical basis on which further writing/thinking can draw. show less