American Homo: Community and Perversity, Paperback

A sweeping account of the way lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have challenged and changed society

In this provocative book, Jeffrey Escoffier tracks LGBT movements across the contested terrain of American political life, where they have endured the historical tension between the homoeroticism coursing through American culture and the virulent periodic outbreaks of homophobic populism. Escoffier explores how every new success enables a new disciplinary and normalizing form of domination; only the active exercise of democratic rights and participation in radical coalitions allows LGBT people to sustain the benefits of community and the freedom of sexual perversity.

Jeffrey Escoffier is a Research Associate at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and the former Director of Public Health Media at the New York City Department of Health. He was the Executive Editor of Socialist Review (Berkeley) and one of the founders of OUT/ LOOK. He is also the author of a short biography of John Maynard Keynes and of Bigger than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema from Beefcake to Hardcore.