Amazon.com: The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture: Daniel Harris: Books

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Daniel Harris comes on strong: "For far too long, the book trade has provided gay readers with nothing more than the literary equivalent of a warm glow, a soothing linguistic salve for the walking wounded, as if we were all still 13 and were all still mustering the courage to come out, as if, after 25 years of gay liberation, we all still needed to be scolded and cajoled into self-acceptance.... Homosexuals are not permanent intellectual convalescents. They are thriving, mentally, if not physically, and it is time that they remove their bandages, raise themselves off of the soft, snug, and commodious bed of uplifting ideology in which they have slept for decades, and face some important truths about a culture desperately in need of being shaken out of its complacency."

Harris musters an impressive body of evidence to show how many of the elements of gay culture are rooted not in a "psychological fetish" for, say, Bette Davis movies or shiny leather boots, but in a "social fetish"; gay men, in other words, bonded together over Hollywood divas and kinky sex because it's something they could do together that set them apart from their heterosexual peers. But as society becomes increasingly more tolerant of queerness, Harris argues, gay men feel less need to be culturally unique. And their culture slowly disappears into the mainstream. With its analyses of the deterioration of camp's hold over the gay community, the evolution of drag queens and leathermen, and the kitschy commodification of AIDS, The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture quickly became one of the most controversial gay-themed nonfiction works of the '90s when it was first published. It remains as provocative today. --Ron Hogan

From Library Journal
Defining gay sensibility "strictly as a political response to oppression, and not as an innate characterological predisposition for the arts and aestheticism," Harris measures the effects of assimilation on the white, middle-class, male homosexual community. Characterizing the propaganda of gay liberation as a unique juxtaposition of political statements and psychological self-acceptance bromides, he posits that "the economic exploitation of homosexuals has involved a painfully protracted courtship," during which they have become victims of cultural erosion. Harris compares various aspects of the pre- and post-Stonewall subculture, ranging over topics such as underwear ads from Ah Men and International Male catalogs; pornographic literature and film; After Dark and Out magazines; the transformations of hypermasculine S/M leather culture and hyperfeminine drag; and, finally, "The Kitschification of AIDS." Harris's astute observations, though often undermined by overbroad generalizations and his own self-acknowledged ambivilence, make this provocative cultural criticism and fascinating reading.?James Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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