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J.R.R. TOLKIEN’S CLASSIC WORK of fantasy literature The Hobbit has been enjoyed by millions of readers as a definitive story of escape. The book is equally cherished for the introduction of hobbits, an endearing variation on humanity. But the novel is much more psychologically profound and redolent with sexual symbolism than has been acknowledged byMore
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Five days later, Russo entered NYU Medical Center for the last time. Five years later, Arnie Kantrowitz donated Russo’s papers to NYPL. Twenty-one years further on, I’m honored to study papers deemed too personal for immediate access. Scandalous they generally aren’t. But they do offer a richer portrait of this passionate, funny, sometimes difficult, alwaysMore
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Xena’s Quest for Transcendent Love
“WHAT WOULD XENA DO?” The question became a trademark of the syndicated TV series, Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001), highlighting the religious references that saturated Xena’s mystical universe.
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WAKEFIELD POOLE (b. 1936) is an artist and innovator whose work deserves to be taken seriously for its contribution to gay culture and to culture in general. Like many creative people, Poole did not stick to just one medium, but because he became known as a maker of gay adult movies, he has been foreverMore
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The Grindrization of Gay Identity
To move back to the “negative space” for GLBT identity, it is in the nature of the Internet to enable the closeted to operate in full stealth mode. The unprecedented success of a mobile geosocial networking application such as Grindr, created by Joel Simkhai in 2009, is testament to the fact that cyberspace has becomeMore
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Lewd
THINGS I WAS surprised to learn in William E. Jones’ biography of the legendary pornographer ... Boyd McDonald: first, that he got the idea for his magazine Straight to Hell after reading a passage in Myra Breckinridge lambasting circumcision; second ...
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The Shock of the New  Padlock Icon
It would be wrong to think that Homintern is a book exclusively devoted to theorizing about the status of homosexuals in Europe. In fact, it sometimes reads as a high-class gossipy travelogue ...
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Short Reviews
Reviews of Wilde Stories 2016: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction and DIG by Bryan Borland.
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It Don’t Come Easy  Padlock Icon
Conley writes of his childhood without overwhelming passion, as if composing a grocery list, though the reader can sense otherwise. At the time, Conley felt all the emotions that go with being shamed, belittled, and quietly bullied.
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Set in Reykjavik in 1918 as the large Katla volcano in southern Iceland is erupting, Moonstone unfolds against the backdrop of the island being ravaged by the Spanish influenza epidemic, which accompanied the troops home to Iceland after the close of World War I.
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Melville’s letter, in its entirety, forms the conclusion of The Whale, a novel based on the brief, intense relationship between the first truly great writers of fiction in America.
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Reassessing a 19th-century Novelist  Padlock Icon
IF WRITER Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894) is remembered today, it is usually for her close friendship and literary rivalry with Henry James. Both writers had made a pact early in their friendship to burn their correspondence, and much of their relationship remains wreathed in mystery.
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Eccentrics Abroad  Padlock Icon
The Glamour of Strangeness presents more-or-less chronological biographical sketches of six artists who attempted to leave behind both their homeland and their cultural identity in order to become part of a radically different culture, one that allowed them to rework their sense of self.
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The Definitive ‘Miss Bette Davis’  Padlock Icon
KIRK FREDERICK’S biography of “male actress” Charles Pierce (1926-1999), Write That Down, greets the eye with an iconic photograph of Pierce impersonating Bette Davis, his signature role.
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No Modifier Required
Although [Terrence] McNally’s gay bona fides are beyond question, he resists being labeled a “gay playwright.”
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Am Anfang*  Padlock Icon
As Whisnant points out, the identity and cultural politics he examines resonate with recent American queer history. Even without that relevance, his work is approachable and engaging.
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With the 2015 release of Blue Neighborhood, Sivan appears to be following his musical muse rather than the movies at present, and given his X-Men history and a certain savoir-faire for self-presentation, he may be crafting himself as the LGBT community’s very first action hero.
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A South African Justice Speaks Out  Padlock Icon
SOUTH AFRICAN Constitutional Court Justice Edwin Cameron is a leading activist on gay rights and HIV/AIDS whom the late Nelson Mandela called a “new hero for South Africa.”
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The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Bernard Perlin was born in 1918 in Richmond, Virginia. He was sent to art school in New York at age fifteen and had early success as a muralist for Depression-era public works projects.
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If Schubert was the musical center of this mostly male cultural group, the literary center was his best friend Franz Schooner, ...
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Carl’s models for the Manifesto were Marx’s Communist Manifesto and the SDS Port Huron Statement. Consequently, it was written in the style of a left-wing screed.
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B.T.W.  Padlock Icon
Follow-up on the Zombie News Three Photo Ops from the 2016 Rio Olympics Handwriting on the Wall Check In!
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Readers’ Thoughts
More Antecedents to John Boswell To the Editor: As the survivor of an ex-gay Christian ministry, I read with great interest Brian Bromberger’s essay titled “John Boswell’s Religious Restoration” in the July-August 2016 issue. And while I resist Boswell’s sympathetic attitude toward the Catholic Church, I do agree with Bromberger’s assertion that “Boswell paved theMore
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The Plight of GLBT Sex-Trafficking Survivors  Padlock Icon
In my work as a human trafficking expert witness and researcher, I have become acutely aware of internationally acclaimed organizations that restrict resources based on a victim’s sexuality.
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