Gay and After: Gender, Culture and Consumption Book

One of the paradoxical triumphs of the gay liberation movement is that it lead directly to a world in which the freedom to be "gay" allowed women and men to act and define themselves in ways that broke from traditional gay culture. In a culture where gay people are raising families and heterosexuals are seeking more and more freedom from sexual and gender restraints, what does "gay" mean? In Gay and After, British cultural commentator Alan Sinfield is interested in how gay identity is constructed--or even possible--in a time of extreme social and political contradiction. Gay people are reviled, yet perceived as a lucrative consumer market; they have more freedom than ever before, but are constantly told by the dominant culture to be "private." Sinfield shifts through a broad range of high and popular culture--from Stephen Spender and Jean Genet to the Pet Shop Boys and The Wedding Banquet; from ACT UP and S-M to Bruce Bawer's A Place at the Table and Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance--to try to discover patterns in the endless cracking and dissolution of a once seemingly cohesive culture and identity. Gay and After is tentative in the best sense of the word: Sinfield, with political insight and cultural acumen, is an intrepid adventurer in this new territory and he never tires of exploring new theories and explanations and seeing what makes sense. --Michael Bronski Read More