A Queer Geography: Journeys Toward a Sexual Self [Paperback]

Frank Browning (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1998

This is the provocative question posed by Frank Browning in a A Queer Geography. In this contemporary classic of gay literature, now with a revised first chapter, Browning shows us that gay culture is more a fabrication of American identity politics than of actual sexual desire. He explores the gay psyche as he travels from the streets of Brooklyn to the hill of Kentucky, from France to the Bay of Naples. As he does so, he argues that roots of gay identity by showing how the Puritan compact led to the backroom bawdy house, how being "born again" is reenacted as "coming out," and how gay men's search for their own identity profoundly echoes American's relentless quest for a national identity of its own. In the end, he demonstrates that while homosexuality may be universal, "gay identity" is a twentieth-century creation already being challenged.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In an often provocative personal exploration of homosexual identity, National Public Radio reporter Browning (The Culture of Desire) argues that gay activism in the U.S. has taken on a communitarian, almost religious character, shaped by a Protestant belief in spiritual rebirth that is central to American culture. In transforming subterranean desire into a political movement, gay and lesbian activists have made coming out a ritual akin to being "born-again," he contends. By contrast, the gay-straight divide is much more fluid and bridgeable in Naples, Italy, where Browning's encounters with a gay doctor and transvestites lead him to situate homosexual identity in a web of family relations and social codes. To buttress his thesis that experiencing being gay is shaped by one's culture, Browning looks at the ritualized gay sex of Sambia tribesmen of New Guinea and at homosexuality among middle-class Brazilians and Filipinos. The search for a responsible, liberated sexuality, he insists, can serve as a model for political activists working to achieve an inclusive, pluralistic, democratic society. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Browning's Culture of Desire (1993) regarded modern gay American culture as having evolved out of sexual desire. His new book goes beyond sexual desire to answer the question, Does a specifically gay identity exist? He begins with the premise that general society's depiction of gays is based on the mores and archetypes of the predominantly young inhabitants of urban gay neighborhoods. He leads us beyond this rather narrow sampling of all gays to see whether Stonewall veterans (the now middle-aged generation of 1970s gay activists) have anything in common with today's teen and twenty-something queers and, if so, whether that common something is shared by gays in Nepal, New Guinea, and Kentucky, or in different ethnic groups. Browning importantly contributes to gay studies by moving beyond sexual politics to look at other forces--economic, aesthetic, historical, etc.--that drive gay "outness" (his term). Not as tightly focused as Culture, Queer Geography in many ways mirrors what some may consider the present state of gay culture in the more developed parts of the globe. Charles Harmon --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Revised edition (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374525420
• ISBN-13: 978-0374525422
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,862,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An example of self-hatred and internalized homophobia, March 3, 1999

By 

Bill Hampl ([e-mail]) (Providence, RI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Queer Geography: Journeys Toward a Sexual Self (Paperback)

This book should insult any gay man who considers himself to be an intellectual. Full of faulty logic, purple prose, gross generalizations, and accounts of Browning's crusing experiences, the textoffers a disturbing, degrading picture of homosexuality. Despite a section on the works of Michel Foucault, the text demonstrates no knowledge of political ontology; also, the text avoids mentioning the works of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and David Halperin, but it posits Camille Paglia as an intellectual diety--look out! The correlation between coming out and becoming "born again" just doesn't work: the former is an outward, social/public event, and the latter is an inward, spiritual one. Nonetheless, the cover of the book reproduces a beautifu, homoeroticl print by Paul Cadmus.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A major disappointment, May 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: A Queer Geography: Journeys Toward a Sexual Self (Paperback)

I'm not sure what happened to Frank Browning. His first book, The Culture of Desire, was interesting and provocative. It got me thinking and it was, above all, generous. It was inclusive and it was respectful of so many kinds of gay people. This book is the complete opposite. Browning comes off like a closed-minded old man--and I don't mean that in an ageist way. A young person could sound like an old fool, so it's not about age. It's about style and openess and thinking. It's about personal attacks and ugliness. And it's about sticking to a post-structuralist, Foucauldian agenda, even when it doesn't intrique or make sense. I read both Michaelangelo Signorielli's book Life Outside and Gabriel Rotello's book Sexual Ecology. Rotello I found to be a bit dull and unwilling to entertain the thoughts of those who might disagree, though I still found him enlightening and interesting, and I thought the book was major piece of scientific work. Signorile I found to be thoughtful overall, far from dull, and quite perceptive. The book was also well-written. But all that Browning has to say about these two is that they're "policing" desire. He has nothing good to say about them and their work, and seems instead to be hellbent on attacking them. It so much deviates from his usual thoughtful style, and it's a real embarrassment. I can only imagine that he's jealous of them for taking the spotlight while he's been nowhere to be found. He reduces and simplifies their work in ways that I think is dishonest, as I cannot believe he actually thinks these things to be true. Furthermore, his use of postmodern theory is just hackneyed and pitiful. In his first book it was an interesting aside, something we should consider. In this book, it has become the religion by which he judges everything. He's turned me off. I think this book is a total mess--and boring.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Gay Beyond Castro Street! Gadzooks, Let's Write a Book!, July 22, 2001

By 

Nysocboy (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Queer Geography: Journeys Toward a Sexual Self (Paperback)

Same-sex desire can cohere into many different identities -- we've known that since Foucault. Same-sex behavior often does not cohere into an identity at all -- we've known that at least since "Tea Room Trade." So why does Browning present it as a remarkable revelation that he has just now thought of, and that will come to the reader as a shocking revelation? This is a well written book, but interesting accounts of pansexual Arcadias are unfortunately interspliced with annoyingly self-absorbed tales of his tricks -- Browning believes that he is hot enough to attract every guy in the world, straight, gay, or whatever, and that the reader is desperately interested in hearing the details. I can buy better porn elsewhere -- but my problem with this book is not that there are many ways to express same-sex desire, not that there is gay life beyond the Castro Street clones with gym memberships and charge accounts at Ikea -- who'd want a world where everybody is the same? But Browning continuously states that those clones have no right to exist, that they are inauthentic, self-absorbed, sex-obsessed closet bisexuals. Gay life should should not ever include muscles, circuit parties, and political activism. In fact, there should be no gay people, anywhere, ever, just promiscuous pansexuals going with the flow. In a less enlightened age, we would call such rantings homophobic.