American Gay (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture) (Paperback)

by Stephen O. Murray (Author) "In all societies, individuals have some ideas about what they have in common with those nearest them, and know that others differ from them..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews
In this intermittently interesting study, Murray (Latin American Male Homosexualities, not reviewed) analyzes the roots of gay identity in America, focusing on various racial and ethnic differences within the gay community. In its mission to foster heterosexuality, contends Murray, society has misrepresented gay life in the media, identifying it almost exclusively with loneliness and death. Enduring same-sex couples are almost invisible, while ``representations of gay men with AIDS in the news media perpetuate the image of gay men necessarily cut off from humanity, dying alone and miserable.'' Relationships between gays are continually devalued and undermined. The care--both financial and emotional--that gay men have shown one another, particularly during the past decade, has largely been overlooked. Therefore, the author concludes, gays must demand acceptance and forge their own institutions. Citing sociological data, Murray draws a well-defined distinction between the terms ``homosexual'' and ``gay.'' Engaging in homosexual acts does not make one ``gay.'' To be part of the gay community involves a consciously chosen acceptance of a certain lifestyle and identity. Whereas all gays find themselves cut off from the mainstream, members of certain ethnic groups are doubly disenfranchised. Among African-Americans, for example, even the most progressive leaders, such as Jesse Jackson, have sought to keep the existence of gays ``invisible,'' while black studies departments have ignored ``African and African American homosexualities.'' Murray draws on sociological research to provide hypotheses about various racial and ethnic groups within the gay community. Asian gays, for example, are more likely to ``keep their gay world separate from their family/community world.'' Unfortunately, Murray's contribution to the field is marred by too many lapses into sociological jargon. (e.g. ``Homosexuality is more polyvalent than either realists or nominalists [particularly special creationists] suppose.'') But despite its ploddingly painful prose, this volume deepens our understanding of gay Americans and their particular challenges. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description
Drawing on two decades of research into gay life in North America, Stephen O. Murray examines the emergence of gay and lesbian social life, the creation of lisbigay communities, and the political and social forces of resistance that have mobilized and nurtured a group identity. Murray also considers the extent to which there is a single "modern" homosexuality, the enormous range of gay behaviors, and more.

Product Details

• Paperback: 345 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (June 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226551938
• ISBN-13: 978-0226551937
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,719,732 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An informed and critical look at lesbigay America, December 22, 1998

By A Customer

Pulling together living in and writing about gay communities in Toronto and San Francisco, this book takes up many topics. Indeed, there are sentences that take up many topics!

The first part criticizes social theories while presenting an account of the de-assimilation of lesbigays and the misuse of AIDS to regain medical supervision of gay men's lives. The second part addresses social roles, same-sex couples, and "community" as that term is used by sociologists and by gay men. The third part looks at the unsatisfactory research on African-, Mexican-, and Asian-Pacific- American lesbians and gay men, relying heavily on memoirs and prose fiction.

Although not providing a unifed narrative -- Murray is perhaps overeager to embrace the fragmentatary quality of postmodern life -- this book provides much food for thought about minorities (sexual and other kinds) in North America, a mordantly critical sensibility, and a sometimes daunting command of the social science literature on lesbians and gay men (here, there, and elsewhere).

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Overflowing with ideas, December 28, 1999

By A Customer

Somewhere between a collection of essays on various topics relating to gay and lesbian experiences in 20th century North America and a developing narrative, it has a lot of ideas and citations, and many sentences as long as this one! The author is critical of much that has been written about lesbian and gay Americans and particularly contemptuous of those who think that enforcing respectability on wayward brothers and sisters will bring acceptance.

The last four chapters consider what has been written about Americans of African, Mexican, and Asian/Pacific descent. The Mexican-American chapter is very brief (there's more in his earlier book, Latin American Homosexualities), the two African American chapters extensive and provocative. Well, the whole book is provocative. Sometimes overeagerly?