Journal of the History of Sexuality articles from April 2003

Journal of the History of Sexuality archives from April 2003

Editors' note: Barbara Loomis and William N. Bonds.
April 1, 2003... WHEN THE Journal of the History of Sexuality staff originally decided to publish a special issue on "Sexuality and Politics since 1945," political struggles related to sex were erupting across the United States, Western Europe, and the nations...

The B-girl evil: bureaucracy, sexuality, and the menace of barroom vice in postwar California.
April 1, 2003... "ONE SERVICEMAN FLEECED BY A B-girl said it was like having teeth extracted by novocaine." So San Francisco Examiner reporter Ernest Lenn described the experience of being "taken" by a "slick" San Francisco B-girl in January 1953. Posing as a...

The silence is broken: a history of the first lesbian, gay, and bisexual college student groups.
April 1, 2003... THE STORY SOUNDS FAMILIAR: following a 1969 confrontation in New York, a small group of self-identified lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and their supporters created a militant gay rights organization in the United States, one that would help...

"That's my place!": negotiating racial, sexual, and gender politics in San Francisco's Gay Latino Alliance, 1975-1983.
April 1, 2003... I didn't finish [school]. What happened is I came out of the closet and all hell broke. And I felt I had to leave [home]. In that time that I was in San Jose, I saw an article on gay Raza organizing in San Francisco. So that's how I ended up...

The Defense of Marriage Act and American exceptionalism: the "gay marriage" panic in the United States.
April 1, 2003... SINCE 1995, when Utah passed the first law of its kind, thirty-seven states and the federal government have moved rapidly to legislate bans against something that does not, in fact, exist in the United States, namely, "gay marriage." (1) Termed...

Competing claims for justice: sexuality and race at the Eighth Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, 1997.
April 1, 2003... THE EIGHTH ASSEMBLY of the Uniting Church in Australia, held in Western Australia in 1997, began propitiously. Perth's main street flutered with banners welcoming the participants. The opening of the assembly, at the Perth Concert Hall, was so...

Sexual Ambivalence: Androgyny and Hermaphroditism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity.
April 1, 2003... Sexual Ambivalence: Androgyny and Hermaphroditism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. By LUC BRISSON. Translated by JANET LLOYD. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 195. $45.00 (cloth); $16.95 (paper). In this concise but...

The Night Is Young: Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS.
April 1, 2003... The Night Is Young: Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS. By HECTOR CARRILLO. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 371. $58.00 (cloth); $20.00 (paper). As Hector Carrillo summarizes it, The Night Is Young "is a study...

Sex, Religion, Media.
April 1, 2003... Sex, Religion, Media. Edited by DANE S. CLAUSSEN. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. Pp. xviii + 295. $72.50 (cloth). Given the title, Sex, Religion, Media, one might expect this volume, edited by Dane Claussen, to bring together...

The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and Culture.
April 1, 2003... The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and Culture. By JOHN D'EMILIO. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 264. $54.95 (cloth); $18.95 (paper). The past five years or so have witnessed a spate of books...

The Reinvention of Obscenity: Sex, Lies, and Tabloids in Early Modern France.
April 1, 2003... The Reinvention of Obscenity: Sex, Lies, and Tabloids in Early Modern France. By JOAN DEJEAN. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xii + 204. $45.00 (cloth); $18.00 (paper). As she herself explains at the end of her critical...

A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis.
April 1, 2003... A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis. By DAVID M. FRIEDMAN. New York: Free Press, 2001. Pp. 358. $26.00 (cloth); $15.00 (paper). At least in print, the essential male organ seems finally to have achieved visibility in the...

Plato's Erotic Thought: The Tree of the Unknown.(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... Plato's Erotic Thought: The Tree of the Unknown. By ALFRED GEIER. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 237. $70.00 (cloth). This book is an attempt to discover the origin and object of Eros in Plato's Symposium,...

For Health and Beauty: Physical Culture for Frenchwomen, 1880s-1930s.(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... For Health and Beauty: Physical Culture for Frenchwomen, 1880s-1930s. BY MARY LYNN STEWART. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. xii + 274. $47.00 (cloth). The elegance of Parisian women is the stuff of legends: carefully...

Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada.(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada. By TOM WARNER. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 430. $95.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper) This is an important book. Despite the occasional slips into excess, Never...

Books of critical interest.
April 1, 2003... Armstrong, Elizabeth D. Forging Gay Identities: Organizing Sexuality in San Francisco, 1950-1994. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. 280. Paper, $22.50. Bitel, Lisa M. Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400-1100. Cambridge...

Editors' note: Barbara Loomis and William N. Bonds.
April 1, 2003... WHEN THE Journal of the History of Sexuality staff originally decided to publish a special issue on "Sexuality and Politics since 1945," political struggles related to sex were erupting across the United States, Western Europe, and the nations...

The B-girl evil: bureaucracy, sexuality, and the menace of barroom vice in postwar California.
April 1, 2003... "ONE SERVICEMAN FLEECED BY A B-girl said it was like having teeth extracted by novocaine." So San Francisco Examiner reporter Ernest Lenn described the experience of being "taken" by a "slick" San Francisco B-girl in January 1953. Posing as a...

"That's My place!": negotiating racial, sexual, and gender politics in San Francisco's Gay Latino Alliance, 1975-1983.
April 1, 2003... I didn't finish [school]. What happened is I came out of the closet and all hell broke. And I felt I had to leave [home]. In that time that I was in San Jose, I saw an article on gay Raza organizing in San Francisco. So that's...

The defense of marriage act and American exceptionalism: the "gay marriage" panic in the United States.
April 1, 2003... SINCE 1995, when Utah passed the first law of its kind, thirty-seven states and the federal government have moved rapidly to legislate bans against something that does not, in fact, exist in the United States, namely, "gay marriage." (1)Termed...

Competing claims for justice: sexuality and race at the eighth assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, 1997.
April 1, 2003... THE EIGHTH ASSEMBLY of the Uniting Church in Australia, held in Western Australia in 1997, began propitiously. Perth's main street fluttered with banners welcoming the participants. The opening of the assembly, at the Perth Concert Hall, was so...

Sexual Ambivalence: Androgyny and Hermaphroditism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity.
April 1, 2003... By LUC BRISSON. Translated by JANET LLOYD. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 195. $45.00 (cloth); $16.95 (paper). In this concise but stimulating work, Luc Brisson gathers together and translates a number of passages...

The Night Is Young: Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS.
April 1, 2003... By HECTOR CARRILLO. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 371. $58.00 (cloth); $20.00 (paper). As Hector Carrillo summarizes it, The Night Is Young "is a study of the reciprocal relationships between Mexican sexual...

Sex, Religion, Media.
April 1, 2003... Edited by DANE S. CLAUSSEN. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Litdefield, 2002. Pp. xviii + 295. $72.50 (cloth). Given the tide, Sex, Religion, Media, one might expect this volume, edited by Dane Claussen, to bring together scholars from sexuality...

The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and Culture.
April 1, 2003... By John D'EMILIO. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 264. $54.95 (cloth); $18.95 (paper). The past five years or so have witnessed a spate of books assessing the state of the lesbian and gay movement since the 1969...

The Reinvention of Obscenity: Sex, Lies, and Tabloids in Early Modern France.
April 1, 2003... By JOAN DE JEAN. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xii + 204. $45.00 (cloth); $18.00 (paper). As she herself explains at the end of her critical introduction, Joan De Jean tells us "three stories" about crucial moments in the...

A Mind of Its Own: a Cultural History of the Penis.
April 1, 2003... By DAVID M. FRIEDMAN. New York: Free Press, 2001. Pp. 358. $26.00 (cloth); $15.00 (paper). At least in print, the essential male organ seems finally to have achieved visibility in the United States, although mainstream Hollywood still...

Plato's Erotic Thought: the Tree of the Unknown.
April 1, 2003... By ALFRED GEIER. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 237. $70.00 (cloth). This book is an attempt to discover the origin and object of Eros in Plato's Symposium, Lysis, and Phaedrus. It contains no bibliography...

For Health and Beauty: Physical Culture for Frenchwomen, 1880s-1930s.
April 1, 2003... By MARY LYNN STEWART. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. xii + 274. $47.00 (cloth). The elegance of Parisian women is the stuff of legends: carefully coiffed, delicately scented, exquisitely attired, they evoke the...

Never Going Back: a History of Queer Activism in Canada.
April 1, 2003... By TOM WARNER. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 430. $95.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper). This is an important book. Despite the occasional slips into excess, Never Going Back provides a fair-minded, comprehensive, and often...