Gay Culture Research Articles

Lou Sullivan and the Future of Gay Sex

Abstract Editors of the recent publication We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan consider Sullivan's writing as an assertion of transmasculine embodiment and pleasure in gay sex culture via his “portal to historical thinking.” With intertextual appearances by Ann Cvetkovich, Elizabeth Freeman, John Giorno, Audre Lorde, José Esteban Muñoz, Liam O'Brien, @archivalrival, and a SCRUFF anon.

The Chav Youth Subculture and Its Representation in Academia as Anomalous Phenomenon

The Chav Youth Subculture and Its Representation in Academia as Anomalous Phenomenon

Experiences of and responses to disempowerment, violence, and injustice within the relational lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people

This article introduces a special edition of the Journal of Sociology that aims to interrogate the ongoing entrenchment of hetero- and cis-normative borders, and the consequential manifestations of power, violence and in/justice experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people in their relationships and family lives. The articles in this issue all explore different forms of violence, injustice, and persecution that continue to exist despite the success of many social justice campaigns in recent years for LGBTQ people. This article provides a synopsis of the research in this collection – research which demonstrates and expands our understandings of the complexities of LGBTQ lives around the globe negotiating empowerment, safety, and justice. We highlight the ongoing importance of this work as LGBTQ people around the world are experiencing the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Pursuit of Happiness: Gay Intimacy and Relationships in Peter Rehberg's “American” novels Play, Fag Love, and Boy Men

Peter Rehberg's novels Play (2002), Fag Love (2005), and Boy Men (2011) map out the fictional relationship history of a gay man from his late twenties to his fortieth birthday. There is no single main character, but the main characters at different points in their biographies follow each other chronologically and conceptually. Reading the books as a set also allows us to trace Rehberg's sustained engagement with US‐American gay culture from the 1990s onwards. This article combines close readings of the three novels with an exploration of the tension between the concept of Queer Time and patterns of gay men's lives approaching middle age. In Rehberg's fictional world gay characters approach their middle years in ways which differ significantly from straight men's life trajectories. His novels challenge heteronormative as well as emerging homonormative expectations towards aging, but they do not conceal the psychological burden of Queer Time.

A study of mental health and the role of mindfulness in promoting positive mental health for Hong Kong Chinese gay men

ABSTRACT In Hong Kong, the hostility, stigma and discrimination against sexual minorities is prevalent. HEvolution are a community initiative founded in 2017, aiming to promote physical, mental, social and spiritual health among gay men in Hong Kong. This study investigated the roles of social demographics, mindfulness and self-kindness, and gay life-related variables in predicting their overall well-being. T-tests, chi-square tests, correlation analyses and hierarchical multiple regression were conducted to investigate the relationships between variables of interest. Results found that close relationships existed between mindfulness, self-compassion, gay life identity and well-being in gay men. It suggests that the promotion of holistic health and mindfulness among Hong Kong gay men can be beneficial to their psychological and overall well-being.

Edmund White’s Post Gay Autobiographies

ABSTRACT This essay explores the achievement of the gay American author Edmund White’s numerous autobiographies and memoirs. After surveying the formal and thematic variety of White’s individual life writings, it then questions why nearly all of them were written after the explosion of gay life writing that took place in the United States beginning in the 1970s, that is, after the periods of greatest struggle for homosexual emancipation and the fight against AIDS. The essay argues that White’s non-fiction memoirs subtly re-configure the nature of the genre itself. Rather than explaining the narrator’s sexual difference to an audience not entirely aware of homosexuality (as did much early gay life writing) or struggling to find a voice in a homophobic society (one of the great themes of White’s autobiographical fictions), White’s non-fictional autobiographies establish a self-assured voice that presumes the world can be usefully examined and explained by the individual gay subject. They situate the gay speaker at the centre rather than on the margins of American and Western culture. Using the form to understand the world from a gay perspective, White merges sociological analysis with traditional forms of life writing to create something new in the American gay canon.

For Love and Money? Earnings and Marriage Among Same-Sex Couples

We investigate the earnings effects of marriage among same-sex couples in the United States. Gays and lesbians in the United States have only recently been allowed to enter into legally recognized marriages. As such, we know little about the impact of same-sex marriage on the economic lives of gays and lesbians. We use data from the 2013 to 2017 American Community Survey to show that married gay men experience a 3% marriage earnings premium and lesbian women experience a 6% marriage earnings premium relative to their unmarried cohabiting counterparts. The marriage premium for gay men is smaller than that of heterosexual married men, but the lesbian marriage premium is similar in size to the premium for heterosexual women. In both cases, we show that the marriage premium is larger relative to single gay men and lesbian women in the 2013 to 2017 National Health Interview Surveys. We also find that the marriage premium is more than two times larger among individuals who earn more than their partners, and marriage increases intrahousehold differences in labor market outcomes. This pattern is consistent with a common explanation of the earnings premium experienced by heterosexual men and women: marriage increases investments in relationships that affect patterns of household specialization. Therefore, our results suggest that the effect of marriage on how households organize their time is general and not unique to different-sex households.

Increasing Opportunities for Spiritual and Religious Supports to Improve HIV-Related Outcomes for Black Sexual Minority Men.

Given the importance of spirituality and religion in the lives of many Black gay, bisexual, and other Black sexual minority men (SMM) and the need for additional resources to improve HIV outcomes within this population, research on how spiritual and religious support can promote HIV prevention and treatment among Black SMM is greatly needed. We conducted nine focus groups with 52 spiritual and religious Black SMM in Baltimore, Maryland, to explore opportunities for HIV-related programming that incorporates spiritual and/or religious supports. Thematic analysis of the focus group transcripts was conducted using an iterative constant comparison coding process. Participants expressed a desire for more spiritual/religious support in non-church-based settings and identified the use of peer supports, inclusion of prayer and gospel music, and messaging related to the ideas that God is love, the Bible says to treat yourself preciously, and taking care of your health can strengthen your relationship with God as ways in which this could be incorporated into HIV-related programming. Participants living with HIV identified the message of "keeping the faith" as important for maintaining their HIV treatment plans. Participants also expressed a need for parental supports to improve HIV-related outcomes for Black SMM and potentially expand opportunities for spiritual and religious support to Black SMM within the church. Spirituality and religion can influence HIV outcomes for Black SMM, and the strategies identified by Black SMM in this study could aid in designing culturally congruent HIV prevention and treatment programs situated in the community.

Restricted to Adults Only: Homosexuality and Film Censorship Reform in 1970s Australia

:In the 1960s, Australia's film censorship system became the subject of heated debate, leading to significant legislative reforms in the early 1970s. Among the reforms was a new, legally enforceable R rating that banned entry to specific films for anyone under eighteen years of age. Assured that depictions of homosexuality would not be seen by children, Australian censors allowed a range of films that had previously been banned to appear at local cinemas, including The Boys in the Band (1970) and The Gay Deceivers (1969). Gay and lesbian activists had reason to celebrate increased access to homosexual stories on screen. The reforms equally conformed, however, to an argument often made by conservative commentators, that information about gay and lesbian life was inherently harmful to children.

‘Queering pornography’: situating lesbian identity and sexuality in the pornoscape and sexual-scape of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT This article intends to start a dialogue between the now globalized LGBT identity labels originated from Euro-American queer identity politics and the local experience of Hong Kong lesbians. In a three-year ethnographic research project conducted in Hong Kong, I found discrepancy between popular discourses on queer identity formation and the experience of Hong Kong consumers. Rather than relying on ‘queer pornography’ as the major point of reference and initiation, my lesbian-identified informants consumed mainstream pornographic videos depicting heterosexual intercourse presumably made for a predominately heterosexual male audience. This article examines what affects their choice(s) of pornography, to shed light on the complexity and agency of these porn-viewing lesbian subjects by not only situating them within the realm of ‘queer porn’ and globalized LGBT culture, but also teasing out the contextual limitations that gave birth to the specific form of lesbianism in the city. This enables insights into the ‘conditions of possibility for the appearance of these practices’ in the East Asian context – that is, how do these informants learn, understand, and interpret themselves as sexual beings, within the sexual culture of Hong Kong.

Fryer Award Winner Speaks on What It Means to Be Gay and Black

Fryer Award Winner Speaks on What It Means to Be Gay and Black

The gay scientist: Kane Race on the unexpected possibilities of experimental intimacies

In this interview with Jamie Hakim, Kane Race talks about his most recent monograph The Gay Science: Intimate Experiments With the Problem of HIV (2018). In The Gay Science, he explores how practices of sex and intimacy between gay men are shifting amidst what he calls the changing infrastructures of gay life – digital, chemical and communal. As such the book is empirically oriented and looks at a wide range of topics from hook-up apps, to PreP to chemsex/party ‘n’ play, to the history and politics of Sydney’s Mardi Gras as they take place on the ground. Theoretically he blends the thought of philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Friedrich Nietzche with critical perspectives such as actor-network theory and Science and Technology Studies to argue that as scholars of sexual practice we need to pay more attention to what emerges within the contingencies of the assemblages and infrastructures that make sex between gay men possible. In so doing, the book is far more optimistic about gay sex and digital media then either popular media or influential strands of queer theory, offering path-breaking insight into the major concerns of this special issue on Chemsex Cultures.

The Representation of Hybrid Identity through Performance and Symbol of Transgender Santri Resistance at Al-Fatah Islamic Boarding School of Yogyakarta, Indonesia

This research aims to analyze the process of constructing hybrid identity and symbol as the form of resistance to show off new identity as a transgender santri (student) at Al-Fatah Islamic Boarding School of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. This research was qualitative. The units of analysis and data sources used were santri, religious teachers (Ustaz), the staff of the Regional Office of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Special Region of Yogyakarta, representatives of religious organizations, and the community around the Al-Fatah Islamic Boarding School of Yogyakarta. Data collection techniques, which were used in this research, consisted of observation, in-depth interviews, and documentation. The triangulation method was used to validate data and then analyzed using the hybrid identity theory of Keri Lyall Smith with an interactive analysis model. The results showed that transgender santri changing their identity through the hybridity process. Mimicry process occurs in 'the third space' of Al-Fatah Islamic Boarding School, as negotiation space where the fight occurs between culture and identity; thus new identity is created without abandoning their genuine identity. Hybridity occurs in the presence of cultural identity resulting from the relationship between Islam culture, in this case, Islamic Boarding School and transgender culture. The presence of the transgender santri is the symbol of resistance against the dominant culture of Islam with various performances or symbols, which are used daily to show off new identity.

‘Assume the position: two queens stand before me’: RuPaul as ultimate queen

ABSTRACT Season 10 marked a decade of RPDR, with RuPaul and other celebrities framing the show as a worldwide phenomenon promoting love, inclusivity, acceptance and Drag. This aspect of RPDR is foregrounded in much existing scholarship on the reality show which considers the inclusivity and visibility that it offers. Although RPDR brings an area of gay culture and history into the mainstream, we argue that the Queen and Herstory that is promoted and validated is RuPaul Herself. Within the show, contestants often refer to RuPaul as ‘Mama Ru’, in reference to historical drag family relationships. In this article, we argue that RuPaul is positioned as the Ultimate Queen rather than Drag Mother, reflecting the more transactional relationship between head judge and contestants that we argue is constructed in the show. RuPaul as Ultimate Queen is achieved through using the themes of history and authenticity to support a commodification of RuPaul which reinforces celebrity, cultural capital and authority. From Queens lip-syncing to RuPaul’s back catalogue to the central place RuPaul places herself as drag pioneer; we explore ‘RuPaul as commodity’ and the possible implications on the presentation and marketability of gay/drag culture through the format of Drag Race and RuPaul as ultimate Queen.

Reclaiming the Lost Spaces: A Reassertion of the Transgender Culture in India through Hinduism and Visual Arts

Reclaiming the Lost Spaces: A Reassertion of the Transgender Culture in India through Hinduism and Visual Arts

Gaining Ground: An Exploration into the Lives of Missouri's Lesbian Farmers

Formerly “invisible,” lesbian farmers have received increased attention recently, within both sociological scholarship and the popular media. Despite this attention, preconceptions about their lives persist. Assumptions of gay culture existing exclusively in metropolitan areas and of rural culture remaining organized by blood linkage and land ownership, combined with the continued predominance of men in agriculture, make this evolving realm of inquiry relevant to social scientists, agriculturalists, and extension professionals. In light of these intersections of identities and assumptions, and the remaining gaps in scholarship concerning this population, I conducted a case study, which was situated within a framework of ecogender studies. As such, the research focused on gendered relationships with nature and the emancipatory potential of women reclaiming their connections to nature through agriculture. The experiences of this population provide transferable lessons about humans as food system participants and present opportunities for rural development through sustainable agriculture. See the press release for this article.&nbsp

Black Femme Menace

Research Article| April 01 2020 Black Femme Menace: How Queer Battle Fatigue Intersects with Blackness and Gender Kaila Adia Story Kaila Adia Story Kaila Adia Story is an associate professor in the Departments of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Pan-African Studies, as well as the Audre Lorde Endowed Chair at the University of Louisville. She is also the co-creator, copro-ducer, and cohost of WFPL’s “Strange Fruit: Musings on Politics, Pop Culture, and Black Gay Life”, a popular award-winning weekly podcast. Her research examines the intersections of race and sexuality, with special attention to Black Feminism, Black Lesbians, and Black Queer identity. In 2017, Dr. Story was named an LGBTQ+ community leader and change maker as a part of NBC’s inaugural #Pride30. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google GLQ (2020) 26 (2): 233–236. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-8141788 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Kaila Adia Story; Black Femme Menace: How Queer Battle Fatigue Intersects with Blackness and Gender. GLQ 1 April 2020; 26 (2): 233–236. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-8141788 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsGLQ Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2020 Duke University Press2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: ARTICLE You do not currently have access to this content.

GLOBAL GAY: HOW GAY CULTURE IS CHANGING THE WORLD. By FrédéricMartel. Translated by PatsyBaudoin. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018 (Originally Published in Paris, France: Flammarion, 2013 and 2017). Pp. xxx + 262. Cloth, $27.95; paper, $16.95.

GLOBAL GAY: HOW GAY CULTURE IS CHANGING THE WORLD. By FrédéricMartel. Translated by PatsyBaudoin. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018 (Originally Published in Paris, France: Flammarion, 2013 and 2017). Pp. xxx + 262. Cloth, $27.95; paper, $16.95.

Queer Girls and Intergenerational Lesbian Sexuality in the 1970s

Drawing on letters and writings by teenage girls and oral history interviews, this article aims to open a scholarly conversation about the existence and significance of intergenerational sexual relationships between minor girls and adult women in the years leading up to and encompassing the lesbian feminist movement of the 1970s. Lesbian history and culture say very little about sexual connections between youth and adults, sweeping them under the rug in gender-inflected ways that differ from the suppression of speech in gay male history and culture about intergenerational sex between boys and men. Nonetheless, my research suggests that, despite lesbian feminists’ caution and even negativity toward teen girls, erotic and sexual relationships with adult women provided girls access to support, pleasure, mentorship, and community.

Religion, Hate, Love, and Advocacy for LGBT Human Rights in Saint Lucia

This article explores how religion and religious institutions affect the lives of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people living in Saint Lucia. Drawing on thirty-three interviews conducted as part of an international human rights project, we explore the role that religion can play in both reinforcing marginalization and promoting human rights for sexual minority people. Thematic analysis of interview data reveals ways in which religion is the foundation for life in Saint Lucia and both marginalizes and sustains sexual minority lives. Although churches are often viewed as major opponents to LGBT human rights, participants discussed hopes and strategies for churches to become allies in advocating for inclusion. We conclude that Saint Lucia is a context in which work toward human rights for sexual minority people must include attention to religion as a powerful and meaningful component of peoples’ lives.