In a pitch-perfect literary parody, Eckstut and Auburn claim to have stumbled upon lost manuscript pages from Jane Austen's novels, along with shocking letters to her sister and publisher. The "excerpts" take readers behind closed doors to behold some very naughty goings-on among the characters of "Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma", and all of Austen's novels.

For a generation of gay men who came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, becoming sexually active meant confronting the dangers of catching and transmitting HIV. In the 21st century, however, the development of viral suppression treatments and preventative pills such as PrEP and nPEP has massively reduced the risk of acquiring HIV. Yet some of the stigma around gay male promiscuity and bareback sex has remained, inhibiting open dialogues about sexual desire, risk, and pleasure. A Pill for Promiscuity brings together academics, artists, and activists—from different generations, countries, ethnic backgrounds, and HIV statuses—to reflect on how gay sex has changed in a post-PrEP era. Some offer personal perspectives on the value of promiscuity and the sexual communities it fosters, while others critique unequal access to PrEP and the increased role Big Pharma now plays in gay life. With a diverse group of contributors that includes novelist Andrew Holleran, trans scholar Lore/tta LeMaster, cartoonist Steve MacIsaac, and pornographic film director Mister Pam, this book asks provocative questions about how we might reimagine queer sex and sexuality in the 21st century.

As some activists have turned to regulation rather than education in the effort to curb the AIDS epidemic, the public culture at the foundation of queer culture has come under attack.

Liberated, licentious, or merely liberal, the sexual freedoms of Germany’s Weimar Republic have become legendary. The home of the world’s first gay rights movement, the republic embodied a progressive, secular vision of sexual liberation. Immortalized – however misleadingly – in Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories and the musical Cabaret, Weimar’s freedoms have become a touchstone for the politics of sexual emancipation. Yet, as Laurie Marhoefer shows in Sex and Weimar Republic, those sexual freedoms were only obtained at the expense of a minority who were deemed sexually disordered. In Weimar Germany, the citizen’s right to sexual freedom came with a duty to keep sexuality private, non-commercial, and respectable. Sex and the Weimar Republic examines the rise of sexual tolerance through the debates which surrounded “immoral” sexuality: obscenity, male homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender identity, heterosexual promiscuity, and prostitution. It follows the sexual politics of a swath of Weimar society ranging from sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld to Nazi stormtrooper Ernst Röhm. Tracing the connections between toleration and regulation, Marhoefer’s observations remain relevant to the politics of sexuality today.

Despite an abysmal "success rate," practitioners still use reparative therapy in an attempt to turn gays and lesbians straight. This text exposes the pitfalls that should be considered before gays embark on this journey that typically leads nowhere. Although homosexuality is becoming less stigmatized in American culture, gays and lesbians still face strong social, familial, financial, or career pressures to "convert" to being heterosexuals. In this groundbreaking book, longtime psychiatrist Martin Kantor, MD—himself homosexual and once immersed in therapy to become "straight"—explains why so-called "reparative therapy" is not only ineffective, but should not be practiced due its faulty theoretical bases and the deeper, lasting damage it can cause. This standout work delves into the history of reparative therapy, describes the findings of major research studies, and discusses outcome studies and ethical and moral considerations. Author Kantor identifies the serious harm that can result from reparative therapy, exposes the religious underpinnings of the process, and addresses the cognitive errors reparative therapy practitioners make while also recognizing some positive features of this mode of treatment. One section of the book is dedicated to discussing the therapeutic process itself, with a focus on therapeutic errors that are part of its fabric. Finally, the author identifies affirmative eclectic therapy—not reparative therapy—as an appropriate avenue for gays who feel they need help, with goals of resolving troubling aspects of their lives that may or may not be related to being homosexual, and of self-acceptance rather than self-mutation.

Following a decade in which the focus on HIV and AIDS has been on specific social groups, a shift in professional perceptions has resulted in a change in the images of women and HIV/AIDS. "Last Served?" recognizes and analyzes the trend toward more openly acknowledging and planning for women in the pandemic. Rather than enumerating the effects on women of confused or conflicting policies and representation, the book details why and how this situation occurred.; The author suggests that new visibility of women cannot in itself quickly or easily change the underlying assumptions which made women simultaneously radiant figures of sexual purity, and a magnet for blame during the pandemic's first decade.; "Last Served?" makes clear how the different ways of posing and answering questions about women and HIV are grounded in already existing ways of thinking about gender, and how these underlying preconceptions sometimes create situations whereby attempts to address the practical needs of women often result in reinforcement, or introduction of new forms of male domination.; Combining detailed analysis with practical suggestions, "Last Served?" provides insights into the current debates about women and AIDS and suggests future directions for work to overcome discrimination, faulty planning and misrepresentation.

Examines the evolution of an undervalued urban space and how conflicts over competing uses—from the right to sit to the right to parade—have been negotiated. Urban sidewalks, critical but undervalued public spaces, have been sites for political demonstrations and urban greening, promenades for the wealthy and the well-dressed, and shelterless shelters for the homeless. On sidewalks, decade after decade, urbanites have socialized, paraded, and played, sold their wares, and observed city life. These many uses often overlap and conflict, and urban residents and planners try to include some and exclude others. In this first book-length analysis of the sidewalk as a distinct public space, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Renia Ehrenfeucht examine the evolution of the American urban sidewalk and trace conflicts that have arisen over its competing uses. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples as well as case study research and archival data from five cities—Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Seattle—they discuss the characteristics of sidewalks as small urban public spaces, and such related issues as the ambiguous boundaries of their “public” status, contestation over specific uses, control and regulations, and the implications for First Amendment speech and assembly rights.

Music, Sexuality and the Enlightenment explains how Mozart's music for Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte 'sounds' the intentions of Da Ponte's characters and their relationships with one another. Mozart, by way of the infinitely generative and beautiful logic of the sonata principle, did not merely interpret Da Ponte's characterizations but lent them temporal, musical forms. Charles Ford's analytic interpretation of these musical forms concerns processes and structures in detail and at medium- to long-term levels. He addresses the music of a wide range of arias and ensembles, and develops original ways to interpret the two largely overlooked operatic genres of secco recitative and finales. Moreover, Ford presents a new method by which to relate musical details directly to philosophical concepts, and thereby, the music of the operas to the inwardly contradictory thinking of the European Enlightenment. This involves close readings of late eighteenth-century understandings of 'man' and nature, self and other, morality and transgression, and gendered identities and sexuality, with particular reference to contemporary writers, especially Goethe, Kant, Laclos, Rousseau, Sade, Schiller, Sterne and Wollstonecraft. The concluding discussion of the implied futures of the operas argues that their divided sexualities, which are those of the Enlightenment as a whole, have come to form our own unquestioned assumptions about gender differences and sexuality. This, along with the elegant and eloquent precision of Mozart's music, is why Figaro, Giovanni and Così still maintain their vital immediacy for audiences today.

The binary model of sexuality can be devastating and even fatal for people left outside the category of heterosexuality. Essentialist categories of sexuality and gender are often enforced by harassment and violence, as is clear in the case of violence directed against sexual minorities such as homosexual men. This book investigates why men launch assaults on sexual minorities, why these attacks are so vicious and frequently irrational, the identities of perpetrators and their victims, and why such violence seems to have some acceptance in fields such as law, psychiatry, the media and popular opinion. Tomsen discusses the theoretical and research literatures on models of understanding human sexuality and gender and the nature of hate violence and prejudice in contemporary societies, and also provides an analysis from his own original research to draw out the contradictory nature of both sexual identity and violence and the significance of viewing both fields as linked domains. This text makes an important contribution to current and future discussions of the nature of social prejudice and its ties to legal rulings, collective beliefs and mainstream culture.

Since the 1990s, gay and lesbian civil rights organizations have increasingly focused on the right of same-sex couples to marry, which represents a major change from earlier activists’ rejection of the institution. Centering on the everyday struggles, feelings, and thought of marriage equality activists, The Nuptial Deal explores this shift and its connections to the transformation of the United States from a welfare state to a neo-liberal one in which families carry the burden of facing social problems. Governance and marriage are now firmly entwined. Fighting for access to marriage means fighting for specific legal benefits, which include everything from medical decision-making and spousal immigration to lower insurance rates and taxes. As Jaye Cee Whitehead makes plain, debates over the definition and purpose of marriage indicate how thoroughly neo-liberalism has pervaded American culture. Indeed, Whitehead concludes, the federal government’s resistance to same-sex marriage stems not from “traditional values” but from fear of exposing marriage as a form of governance rather than a natural expression of human intimacy. A fresh take on the terms and stakes of the debate over same-sex marriage, The Nuptial Deal is also a probing look at the difficult choices and compromises faced by activists.