Showing titles in LGBTQ+ Studies

What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through life not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about gender roles, about romance and consent, and the pressures of society? This accessible examination of asexuality shows that the issues that aces face - confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships - are the same conflicts that nearly all of us will experience.

A celebrated food writer's expansive, audacious excavation of the development of modern queer identity and food culture.

In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration - and long-overdue reassessment - of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture.

Global networks have formed "anti-gender ideology movements" dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous threat to families, local cultures, civilization -- and even "man" himself. But what, exactly, is so scary about gender? In this vital, courageous book, Judith Butler, the ground-breaking philosopher whose influential work has redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, carefully examines how "gender" has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations, and transexclusionary feminists.

A.J. Bond ne vorbește din proprie experiență despre drumul pe care l-am putea parcurge alături de rușine fără să o lăsăm să ne domine, să ne închidă în prejudecăți sau să ne mintă că nu suntem integri ori demni de iubire și prețuire. Cu umor, căldură și exemple personale, Bond ne îndrumă pe drumul de la „Mai bine mor decât să fiu gay" la asumare și acceptare.

Told at a cracking pace and based on many of the extensive letters Scott wrote from his death cell, Moonlite is set amid the violent and sexually repressed era of Australia in the second half of the 19th century. With a cast of remarkable characters, it weaves together the extraordinary lives of our bushrangers and the desperation of a young nation eager to remove the stains of its convict past. But most of all, Moonlite is a tragic love story.

Part-autobiography, part frontline reportage and part cultural commentary, Julie Bindel examines what defines lesbian culture, love, friendship and happiness today. She distinguishes the particular challenges facing lesbians from the very different experiences of gay men, and asks: why do lesbians so often seem to face particular hostility? Comparing past attitudes to today, she argues that lesbians continue to suffer from bigotry and discrimination because sexism and enforced gendered roles are still left unchallenged.

Living an Orgasmic Life is written for anyone who finds sex challenging or feels uncomfortable with their sex life. Women who are alienated from their erotic side due to sexual abuse or trauma will find a healing balm here. Women who can't surrender into pleasure, can't sustain intimacy, or want to reclaim and feel empowered in their sexuality will greatly benefit from this book. Living an Orgasmic Life explores the many reasons that cause women to disconnect from their sexuality.

In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaetan Dugas, a gay man whose skin cancer diagnosis in 1980 took on very different meanings as the HIV/AIDS epidemic developed - and who received widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as patient zero of the North American outbreak.

Compiled by celebrated author and journalist Benjamin Law, Growing Up Queer in Australia assembles voices from across the spectrum of LGBTIQA+ identity. Spanning diverse places, eras, genders, ethnicities and experiences, these are the stories of growing up queer in Australia. For better or worse, sooner or later, life conspires to reveal you to yourself, and this is growing up.

Pleasure should be a simple thing, but straight women are at the statistical bottom of the pile when it comes to finding a happy ending. There's a name for this phenomenon: it's called the pleasure gap. And when tracked against other gains in women's freedom, like pay or education, it is still alarmingly wide. All Women Want is about that gap, the methods women use to try to solve it (spoiler: they don't always want to do it solo), and why physical pleasure might be a final frontier for gender equality.

Embarking on a non-monogamous relationship can be a daunting experience, opening old wounds that cause anxiety, fear and confusion, something Lola Phoenix knows about all too well. In this all-you-need-to-know guide to exploring non-monogamy, polyamory and open relationships, Lola draws upon their years of experience in giving advice and being non-monogamous to provide guidance for every stage of your journey, helping you to prioritise your mental health and well being along the way.

This is how Danielle felt for most of her life. For the best part of five decades, within a hyper-masculine sporting environment, Danielle Laidley harboured a secret. As a boy growing up in the backblocks of Perth, as a teenager and young man playing AFL, as a married father of three, she knew she was female, regardless of the gender she was assigned at birth.

The Non-Monogamy Playbook is the handbook for anyone curious about consensual non-monogamy: polyamory and open relationships. The Non-Monogamy Playbook shows us that there's joy in having multiple people in your life (platonic, sexy, romantic), but with each connection there is added vulnerability. This is the ultimate modern guide to non-monogamy, helping you create confident, healthy relationships.

With warmth and humour, Elizabeth Lovatt reimagines the women who both called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line in the 1990s, whilst also tracing her own journey from accidentally coming out to disastrous dates to finding her chosen family. With callers and agents alike dealing with first crushes and break-ups, sex and marriage, loneliness and illness (or simply the need to know the name of a gay bar on a night out), this is a celebration of the ordinary lives of queer women.

In this groundbreaking work, Sara Ahmed demonstrates how queer studies can put phenomenology to productive use. Focusing on the “orientation” aspect of “sexual orientation” and the “orient” in “orientalism,” Ahmed examines what it means for bodies to be situated in space and time. Bodies take shape as they move through the world directing themselves toward or away from objects and others. Being “orientated” means feeling at home, knowing where one stands, or having certain objects within reach. Orientations affect what is proximate to the body or what can be reached.

The most important issue in a gay man’s life is not “coming out”, but coming to terms with the invalidating past. Despite the progress made in recent years, many gay men still wonder, “Are we better off?” The byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, rejection, and anger - a toxic cocktail that can lead to drug abuse, promiscuity, alcoholism, depression, and suicide.

Join any Pride march and you are likely to see a glorious display of papier-mâché unicorn heads trailing sequins, drag queens wearing mermaid tails and more fairy wings than you can shake a trident at. But these are not just accessories: they are queer symbols with historic roots. Queer as Folklore is an exhilarating journey across centuries and continents which reveals the unsung heroes and villains of storytelling, magic and fantasy.

How much do you know about the lives of bisexual men who are married to women? Bisexual people make up a majority of the LGBT+ community, but they are still relatively hidden and misunderstood. Robert Brooks Cohen aims to address this invisibility by sharing a collection of interviews with Bi+ men who are or were married to women, helping listeners find connection, understanding, and community.

For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret “too loathsome to mention” held enormous, terrifying power.