Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking [Paperback]

Tim Dean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0226139395 | ISBN-13: 978-0226139395

Barebacking—when gay men deliberately abandon condoms and embrace unprotected sex—has incited a great deal of shock, outrage, anger, and even disgust, but very little contemplation. Purposely flying in the face of decades of safe-sex campaigning and HIV/AIDS awareness initiatives, barebacking is unquestionably radical behavior, behavior that most people would rather condemn than understand. Thus the time is ripe for Unlimited Intimacy, Tim Dean’s riveting investigation into barebacking and the distinctive subculture that has grown around it.

Audacious and undeniably provocative, Dean’s profoundly reflective account is neither a manifesto nor an apology; instead, it is a searching analysis that tests the very limits of the study of sex in the twenty-first century. Dean’s extensive research into the subculture provides a tour of the scene’s bars, sex clubs, and Web sites; offers an explicit but sophisticated analysis of its pornography; and documents his own personal experiences in the culture. But ultimately, it is HIV that animates the controversy around barebacking, and Unlimited Intimacy explores how barebackers think about transmitting the virus—especially the idea that deliberately sharing it establishes a new network of kinship among the infected. According to Dean, intimacy makes us vulnerable, exposes us to emotional risk, and forces us to drop our psychological barriers. As a committed experiment in intimacy without limits—one that makes those metaphors of intimacy quite literal—barebacking thus says a great deal about how intimacy works.

Written with a fierce intelligence and uncompromising nerve, Unlimited Intimacy will prove to be a milestone in our understanding of sexual behavior.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An academic but insightful look at the evolution and meaning of barebacking in gay culture. Dean . . . does not make any social arguments about barebacking but rather looks at the surrounding subculture from an anthropological standpoint, attempting to unravel the point of view, motivations, and interests of its inhabitants. A smart unbiased read for anyone seeking greater understanding of the phenomenon."—Advocate.com

(Advocate.com )

 “Unlimited Intimacy is novel, fascinating, insightful, and courageous. Tim Dean convincingly argues that confronting head-on a sexual subculture that is alien to most readers, and understanding the fantasies that propel it, is a very good way of stimulating thought—not only about that subculture, but about one’s own choices and behavior and about the general social process of demonizing and pathologizing certain sexual practices.”--Martha C. Nussbaum, University of Chicago

(Martha Nussbaum )

“This is a serious and intelligent study that aims to provoke, challenge, anger and stimulate debate. . . . There is much to fascinate and learn from this insider’s account of an outsider’s culture.”—Times Higher Education

(Times Higher Education )

"Dean eschews a soft-touch approach in favor of diving right into his subject matter without reservations. He rarely shies away from the controversial or the incendiary. . . . Definitely not for the squeamish, Dean''s non-judgmental analysis remains an important report on a risky yet seductive sex practice."—Jim Piechota, Bay Area Reporter

(Jim Piechota Bay Area Reporter )

"Dean provides fascinating insights about barebacking and its relation to kinship, marriage, cultural visibility, and fetishism. This academically courageous book offers an intellectual challenge to those interested in psychology, sociology, human sexuality, and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Studies."

(Choice )

About the Author

Tim Dean is professor of English and director of the Humanities Institute at the University at Buffalo. He is the author or editor of several books, including Beyond Sexuality, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (June 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226139395
• ISBN-13: 978-0226139395
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and well written, May 14, 2011

By 

Tim H (Melbourne) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking (Paperback)

This book is a (beautifully written) exploration of some of the meanings that characterize barebacking culture. I especially enjoyed the analysis of barebacking porn, where Dean manages to interpret and probe some of the more obscure representation and desires that animate this genre. Dean is largely non-judgemental of this subculture, which is so refreshing, and he manages to explore some things that empirical HIV social science generally won't go near or touch, just because people aren't quite as articulate in qualitative interviews as their unconscious is imaginative. At the same time, I feel like Dean is occasionally at risk of collapsing the meanings surrounding unprotected sex into a coherent, unitary set of meanings, when surely there are a whole range of reasons for the practice in different contexts, not all of them about building some sort of non-normative gay brotherhood! The latter interpretation sure is imaginative, but as much a fantasy sustained by the author's readings as anything actually 'there' in the subculture. I really enjoyed the read anyhow.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating, September 25, 2010

By 

ski bum "peekaboo" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking (Paperback)

Tim Dean's "Unlimited Intimacy" is a fascinating and provocative piece of work. It is disturbing but asks the reader to reflect on one's disturbance with a Foucaldian sensibility, i.e. to reflect on how regulatory systems create what disturbs us. Maintaining a balancing act between trying to look at barebacking from inside the subculture, without passing judgement either for or against, he challenges the reader to traverse both the unconscious and subversive thrusts of barebacking culture to create a sexual kinship system that takes back male homosexuality from the effects of AIDS, and the cultural imperative to avoid risk, especially health risks, despite the cost of sacrificing one's relationship to pleasure. It also is an encyclopedic reference book on multiple aspects of contemporary gay culture.

8 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Canonical, February 23, 2010

By 

Dan B. (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking (Paperback)

Unlimited Intimacy (UI) is entirely unprecedented in its courage and candor. Though provocative in so many ways, starting with its cover and title, UI is most provocative as a sharply and carefully reasoned discussion of many current topics that are clinically, theoretically, and politically charged, including issues of cruising, pornography, gay marriage, and community most broadly. Briskly written and stunningly smart and wide-ranging, UI embodies a resolutely analytic stance in its efforts to frankly say what people actually do, not just rush to interpret them, and to think out loud about difficult issues that cannot continue to be avoided. UI has immediately joined Dean's other 2 key texts, Beyond Sexuality, and, Homosexuality & Psychoanalysis, in the essential canon of queer theory. It is inconceivable that anyone could write again about psychoanalysis, gender, and sexuality without taking UI and Dean's other groundbreaking work into account.