David M. Halperin
â€œCompelling, timely, and provocative. The writing is sleek and exhilarating. It doesnâ€™t waste time telling us what it will do or what it has just doneâ€”it just does it.â€,â€”Don Kulick, Professor of Anthropology, New York University,How we can talk about sex and risk in the age of barebackingâ€”or condomless sexâ€”without invoking the usual bogus and punitive clichÃ©s about gay menâ€™s alleged low self-esteem, lack of self-control, and other psychological â€œdeficitsâ€? Are there queer alternatives to psychology for thinking about the inner life of homosexuality? What Do Gay Men Want? explores some of the possibilities.,Unlike most writers on the topic of gay men and risky sex, David Halperin liberates gay male subjectivity from psychology, demonstrating the insidious ways in which psychologyâ€™s defining opposition between the normal and the pathological subjects homosexuality to medical reasoning and revives a whole set ofÂ  unexamined moral assumptions about â€œgoodâ€ sex and â€œbadâ€ sex.,In particular, Halperin champions neglected traditions of queer thought, including both literary and popular discourses, by drawing on the work of well-known figures like Jean Genet and neglected ones like Marcel Jouhandeau. He shows how the long history of of gay menâ€™s uses of â€œabjectionâ€ can offer an alternative, nonmoralistic model for thinking about gay male subjectivity, something which is urgently needed in the age of barebacking.,Anyone searching for nondisciplinary ways to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS among gay menâ€”or interested in new modes of thinking about gay male subjectivityâ€”should read this book.,David M. Halperin is W. H. Auden Collegiate Professor of the History and Theory of Sexuality, Professor of English, Professor of Womenâ€™s Studies, Professor of Comparative Literature, and Adjunct Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan.
GLBT,Queer,LGBT,Nonfiction,Philosophy,Theory,GLBT,Queer Studies,LGBT,Gay
What Do Gay Men Want?: An Essay on Sex, Risk, and Subjectivity