But one thing he never expected was his cellmate. Spy, rogue, thief, and noble, Seregil of Rhiminee is many things–none of them predictable. And when he offers to take on Alec as his apprentice, things may never be the same for either of them. Soon Alec is traveling roads he never knew existed, toward a war he never suspected was brewing. Before long he and Seregil are embroiled in a sinister plot that runs deeper than either can imagine, and that may cost them far more than their lives if they fail. But fortune is as unpredictable as Alec’s new mentor, and this time there just might be… Luck in the Shadows.

    But none of this has prepared us for Loren Cameron's amazing portraits of transsexuals. Beautifully reproduced and complemented with notes and short essays, these portraits of women who are now men may startle, but they will also make you marvel at the genuine complexities of life, sex, and desire. Body Alchemy might have been a curiosity, like Diane Arbus's photographs of those outside the physical and cultural mainstream, but Cameron's art is so empathetic, so precise, that we are left in awe and with a new understanding of the realities of being human.

    A New York Times Notable Book of the Year   When Marion Winik fell in love with Tony Heubach during a wild Mardi Gras in New Orleans, her friends shook their heads.  For starters, she was straight and he was gay.  But Marion and Tony's impossible love turned out to be true enough to produce a marriage and two beautiful sons, true enough to weather drug addiction, sexual betrayal, and the AIDS that would kill Tony at the age of thirty-seven, twelve years after they met.    In a memoir heartbreaking and hilarious by turns, Marion Winik tells a story that is all more powerful for the way in which it defies easy judgments.  As it charts the trajectory of a marriage so impossible that it became inevitable, First Comes Love reminds us—poignantly indelibly—that every story is a special case.

    He is called back to the world of the living by an unexpected, and unwelcome, visit from Harry Brofsky, his former boss. Brofsky wants Ben to do some background work (strictly off the record) with another reporter on the investigation of a seemingly motiveless killing outside a local gay bar.Sucked in for reasons even he doesn't quite understand, Justice finds himself back in the life of gay bars, spurned lovers, dysfunctional families, and tawdry secrets--all the things he had been trying to escape. While fending off passes from his sexy, young female partner, he finds himself falling hopelessly in love with the man he must ultimately nail for murder--a killing that turns out to have far more personal and political implications than a simple bias crime.Simple Justice is a subtly plotted mystery that takes a piercing look at not only violent crime but violations of the heart and soul in the sometimes glamorous, more often dark and dangerous gay life of West Hollywood.

    The gaucheness, the rush of excitement, and the inarticulate tenderness of young love are beautifully captured in writing of great truth and delicacy. Only the most irrational of homophobes could fail to be moved by it."—Daily Telegraph"Deliciously upbeat ... seldom has there been a play which so exquisitely and joyously depicts what it's like to be sixteen, in the first flush of love and full of optimism. Truly a most unusual and beautiful thing."—Guardian"An unfakeably truthful portrait of adolescent self-discovery, showing sensitivity and fun pushing up like wild flowers through the concrete crevices of a Thamesmead estate. This is the most heartening working-class comedy since A Taste of Honey."—Independent on Sunday

    Shortly after the filming began, Jarman also began work on this volume of his journals, which contains diary entries and interviews, notes on the script, stills from the filming, and photographs of Derek, his family and friends.

    Chronicling Isherwood's life from 1939, when he emigrated to the United States, until 1960, these entries cover some of the most turbulent years of his career and give readers unprecedented insight into the major turning points in his life. Here, Isherwood relates the spiritual crisis he went through as World War II began, his discipleship (along with Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard) with the Hindu monk Swami Prabhavananda and his decision to become a pacifist. Here also are his accounts of his intense social life in Hollywood, his career as a screenwriter and his many sexual affairs. Readers will be particularly fascinated by his revealing anecdotes and gossip about the literary greats (such as W. H. Auden, Thomas Mann, E. M. Forster, and Tennessee Williams) and movie stars (such as Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin and Sir Laurence Olivier) of the time.

    In the seventy years from 1432 to 1502, some 17,000 men--in a city of only 40,000--were investigated for sodomy; 3,000 were convicted and thousands more confessed to gain amnesty. Michael Rocke vividly depicts this vibrant sexual culture in a world where these same-sex acts were not the deviant transgressions of a small minority, but an integral part of a normal masculine identity.In 1432 The Office of the Night was created specifically to police sodomy in Florence. Seventy years of denunciations, interrogations, and sentencings left an extraordinarily detailed record, which Rocke uses to its fullest in this richly documented portrait. He describes a wide range of sexual experiences between males, ranging from boys such as fourteen-year-old Morello di Taddeo, who prostituted himself to fifty-seven men, to the notorious Jacopo di Andrea, a young bachelor implicated with forty adolescents over a seventeen-year period and convicted thirteen times; same-sex "marriages" like that of Michele di Bruno and Carlo di Berardo, who were involved for several years and swore a binding oath to each other over an altar; and Bernardo Lorini, a former Night Officer himself with a wife and seven children, accused of sodomy at the age of sixty-five. (Mortified, he sent his son Taddeo to confess for him and plead for a discreet resolution of his case.) Indeed, nearly all Florentine males probably had some kind of same-sex experience as a part of their "normal" sexual life.Rocke uncovers a culture in which sexual roles were strictly defined by age, with boys under eighteen the "passive" participants in sodomy, youths in their twenties and older men the "active" participants, and most men at the age of thirty marrying women, their days of sexual frivolity with boys largely over. Such same sex activities were a normal phase in the transition to adulthood, and only a few pursued them much further. Rather than precluding heterosexual experiences, they were considered an extension of youthful and masculine lust and desire. As Niccolo Machiavelli quipped about a handsome man, "When young he lured husbands away from their wives, and now he lures wives away from their husbands." Florentines generally accepted sodomy as a common misdemeanor, to be punished with a fine, rather than as a deadly sin and a transgression against nature. There was no word, in the otherwise rich Florentine sexual lexicon, for "homosexual," nor was there a distinctive and well-developed homosexual "subculture." Rather, sexual acts between men and boys were an integral feature of the dominant culture.Rocke roots this sexual activity in the broader context of Renaissance Florence, with its social networks of families, juvenile gangs, neighbors, patronage, workshops, and confraternities, and its busy political life from the early years of the Republic through the period of Lorenzo de' Medici, Savonarola, and the beginning of Medici princely rule. His richly detailed book paints a fascinating picture of a vibrant time and place and calls into question our modern conceptions of gender and sexual identity.

    Lovely professor Faith Fitzgerald is a dedicated scholar and award-winning author. Engaged to Sydney's brother, Faith prays that this marriage will save her from the pain of the past. Thrown together by fate, these strong, independent women find themselves impassioned by a dangerous longing that threatens the very foundations of their carefully constructed lives.

    . . a near perfect tale, and a compelling alternative to the spate of gay epics that have lately inundated readers" ("Kirkus Review").

    Gillian is a loner, an eccentric poet in her thirties, who has a difficult relationship with her very different mother: a well-known and expert gardener. Into their strange and secluded world, described with beautifully observed detail, come strangers from London to disrupt life as Gillian knows it. But with the joy of the love that she is to discover, will also come the pain and suffering of experience and the stark realities of the adult world.

    Based on his understandings of habit, compulsion, and addiction he concludes that homosexuality, "is one of the many forms of soul sickness that is innate to our fallen nature.

    Since the word homosexual was coined in 1869, many scientists in a variety of fields have sought to understand same-sex intimacy. Drawing on recent insights in biology and genetics, psychiatrist Francis Mondimore set out to explore the complex landscape of sexual orientation.The result is A Natural History of Homosexuality, a generous work that synthesizes research in biology, history, psychology, and politics to explain how homosexuality has been understood and defined from ancient times until the present. Mondimore narrates tales of love and courage as well as discrimination and bigotry in settings as diverse as ancient Greece and Victorian England, early America and fin de siecle Vienna. He also tells fascinating stories about societies which accepted, incorporated, or institutionalized homosexuality into mainstream culture, stories illustrating that same-sex eroticism was often accepted as a normal aspect of human sexuality. In twentieth-century America, researchers first recognized that homosexuality might not be "pathological" when Alfred Kinsey and Evelyn Hooker conducted the first studies of sexuality not biased by preconceived notions of "normal" sexual behavior.After exploring sexual development in the human fetus, Mondimore reviews current biological research into the nature of sexual orientation and examines recent scientific findings on the role of heredity and hormones, as well as Simon LeVay's 1991 brain studies. He then turns to a very important focus: on people and their individual experiences. He explores "what happens between childhood and adulthood in an individual that makes him or her come to identify himself or herself as having a sexual orientation." He also explains our current understanding of bisexuality and the transgender phenomena of transsexualism and transvestism.Finally, Mondimore analyzes the circumstances of such prominent scandals as the anti-homosexual trials of Oscar Wilde and Philip von Eulenberg, and recounts the Nazi persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust. This far-reaching discussion includes a description of the ex-gay ministries and reparative therapy as well as the Stonewall riots and AIDS, ending with the emergence of gay pride and community."The preponderance of the scientific evidence is converging on a view which homosexual people have had of themselves for as long as any had the courage to record it," writes Mondimore. "Homosexuality is a natural, abiding, normal sexuality for some people. It is not a disease state, not simply a behavior, and not subject to change.""Thoughtful and readable. Dr. Mondimore tells us an enormous amount about homosexuality in a lively manner. This book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who wants to be informed about this important subject."—Richard A. Isay, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, and author of Becoming Gay: The Journey to Self-Acceptance

    Three young men who know one another and have learnt to love. Howard Roffman photographed the story of this menage a trois with a loving eye over a long period. Fantasy and reality coalesce and a romantic collage full of sensually erotic pictures is the result.

    Premiered at the Bush theatre in 1993 Beautiful Thing was released as a feature film by Channel Four films in 1996 directed by Hettie Macdonald and featuring Meera SyalBeautiful Thing explores pre-teenage homo-erotic sensuality and the frictions and intimacies of living cheek by jowl on a Thamesmead housing estate.

    A gritty, enormously readable novel of contemporary lesbigay life which raises real questions about the meaning of family and community, and about the walls we construct. A celebration of the healing powers of love.

    Exploring the themes begun in his first book, The Other Man Was Me, Campo extends the search for identity into new realms of fantasy and physicality. He travels inwardly to the most intimate spaces of the imagination where sexuality and gender collide and where life crosses into death. Whether facing a frenetic hospital emergency room to assess a patient critically ill with AIDS, or breathing in the quiet of his mother’s closet, Campo proposes with these poems an alternative means of healing and exposes the extent to which words themselves may be the most vital working parts of our bodies. The secret truths in What the Body Told, as the title implies, are already within each of us; in these vivid and provocative poems, Rafael Campo gives them a voice.Lost in the Hospital It’s not that I don’t like the hospital.Those small bouquets of flowers, pert and brave.The smell of antiseptic cleansers.The ill, so wistful in their rooms, so true.My friend, the one who’s dying, took me outTo where the patients go to smoke, IV’sAnd oxygen tanks attached to them—A tiny patio for skeletons. We sharedA cigaratte, which was delicious butToo brief. I held his hand; it feltLike someone’s keys. How beautiful it was,The sunlight pointing down at us, as ifWe were important, full of life, unbound.I wandered for a moment where his ribsHad made a space for me, and there, besideThe thundering waterfall of is heart,I rubbed my eyes and thought “I’m lost.”

    Seven-year-old Lindsey learns to cope with her father living with HIV.

    Thirty-two stories examine African American lesbian and gay identity.

    It includes stories such as "The Tale of Genmu" and "The Story of Kannon's Manifestation as a Youth"---how a Buddhist Bodhisattva gives his blessing to a gay relationship. The renowned 17th century writer Ihara Saikaku is well represented with his stories of samurai and actors and their boyloves. The amazing 17th century collection Wild Azaleas (the world's premier gay anthology of stories and poems) is presented here for the first time within the pages of a book. There is an indepth section of 20th century writers, including Mishima Yukio's story "Onnagata," and the erotic stories/poems of Takahashi Mutsuo. His massive poem of gay sex, "ODE," is consider by publisher Winston Leyland as "the single great gay poem of the 20th century." Masterfully rendered into English by twelve translators---all scholars of Japanese literature---this pioneering anthology deserves a wide readership.

    He recounts the schoolboy crushes, the family strife, and the ebb and flow of youthful desire, all with a "humor that animates just about every sentence" (New York Times Book Review).

    

    It raises issues about civil rights and individual freedoms, and considers how these impact on current debates on gender studies, sexual/political and cultural studies.

    Photos.

    We journey with James through Italy and France, witness his first love affair in Paris, and settle with him in London at the height of Empire in the Victorian Age. We scale the heights of London society with him, and as the world opens to James we share with him the experience of writing a series of celebrated and successful novels, culminating with Washington Square (on which the play The Heiress is based) and his masterpiece The Portrait of a Lady. The Washington Post Book World notes: “It is no small ambition to write a biography of James that is commensurate with that master, and Sheldon Novick has done it.”“Splendidly written . . . Novick has aimed to bring James back to life and he has succeeded brilliantly.”–The Washington Post Book World“Like a movie of James’s life, as it unfold moment to moment.”–The New York Times“Masterful in bringing James and his world to life.”–San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle“Beautifully written, with a grace that enables [Sheldon Novick] to weave his subject’s words in and out of his own with a properly Jamesian suavity . . . Novick’s account gives one a profound respect for James’s persistence and power of will.”–The New Republic

    But the pool is more than a mere backdrop, for as Bianchi says, "We have made 'art,' we have memorialized the handsomeness of our friends, and we have enjoyed the camaraderie of one another. In this place we have realized a potential of our tribe today, making the story of our world as we like it." This extraordinary volume is a record of that story

    By adolescence, such negative attitudes have produced and reinforced a single, powerful emotion: shame, the feeling that you're inferior and judged as "bad," for what you are--gay.In Coming out of Shame Gershen Kaufman and Lev Raphael expose the role shame has come to play in gay and lesbian lives. Rarely discussed but vastly important, shame powerfully shapes each individual's development of self-esteem, identity, and intimacy--three areas in which gay men and lesbians have been extremely vulnerable to the crippling effects of shame. Tracing the historical and cultural sources of gay shame, Kaufman and Raphael reveal how gay men and lesbians have internalized shame, resulting in self-loathing and destructive behaviors.The hallmark of shame is silence, and by breaking the silence around the dynamics of gay shame, Kaufman and Raphael offer a way to "come out" of shame and begin the journey toward wholeness and self-acceptance. Filled with the experiences of those struggling to overcome shame, Coming Out of Shame includes strategies for:- Storing self-esteem- Creating a positive gay identity- Healing scenes of shame- Developing partnerships in intimacySelf-affirming and inspirational, Coming Out of Shame guides the transformation of gay shame into gay pride and empowers gay men and lesbians as no other book has done.

    The 1995 production at the Royal National Theatre starred Judi Dench and was directed by Anthony Page.

    Through a brightly lit underworld of caf?s and bars, he chased the soldiers, sailors and airmen looking for love and a bed for the night. He befriended, seduced, and photographed them. Over the following decades John S. Barrington established himself as a pioneer of physique photography - the genteel foreplay to the porn explosion of the '70s. But John was uneasy with his sexuality, and, after a succession of unrequited love affairs with straight models, he married. A depiction of bohemian life in London, New York, and Paris, the outlandish schemes that often ended in prison, and a series of strange friendships with celebrities from Coward and Cocteau to Lennon and Bob Marley.

    As some activists have turned to regulation rather than education in the effort to curb the AIDS epidemic, the public culture at the foundation of queer culture has come under attack.

    Completed shortly before his death from AIDS- related illness in 1994, the book is a courageous confrontation with death and the particular questions it raises at the end of the 20th century -how we define humanity and our own humanness. It is equally about the various ways in which desire, social or private, is grown in us. The book displays Dickey's extraordinary range from experimental monologues to blues chants. It embraces a lively array of symbolic figures, drawing as readily from Judeo-Christian theology, the "natural" world, and classical myths as from postmodern technologies and popular culture. Readers encounter Little Red Riding Hood, Ken and Barbie, David and Saul, a bungee cord salesman, God, the holy grail, the Virgin Mary, the Titanic, Tiresias, an avid member of the National Rifle Association, and many others. As W. D. Snodgrass says in his foreword, the poems are filled with a "wild prankiness, a giddy whirl of idea and vision, . . . [yet] love is the central theme of all the poems in this book and of all their problems of boundaries, of memory, of suffering."

    The church, however, often lives out this covenant selectively, forcing its gay and lesbian members into silence, alienation, and doubt. We Were Baptized Too challenges the church to take seriously its understanding of baptism and communion as a means of grace, justice, and liberation.

    His photorealist pencil renders everything in sexy, sordid style; from construction workers to satyrs, cowboys to devils. Athletes and demons. A full range of Olafs work is represtented from the late 70's through the early 90's! With 4 pages in full color.

    In this collection of poems, Beown's prose moves from stark realism to the wavering surrealism of fairy tales or dreams as she tells of a woman who is transformed from being a creator of paintings to a creation of her paintings; the effect of a forgotten past on a pair of lovers; or the effort to repair the physical damage of a faded relationship.

    As much a book about the personal lives of these lesbian writers as it is a collection of well-loved recipes and opinions on matters of food.

    Massengill's work combines the very best qualities of classic male nude photography with a keen and often sublime artistic insight. 49 black and white photos.

    Brief profiles offer examples of men and women who have successfully incorporated their gay identities into their personal and professional lives.Ideal for the thousands of young men and women who migrate to urban gay communities every year, The World Out There is also for the thousands of others isolated in less receptive settings for whom this book will open up a whole wonderful and reassuring universe of possibilities.

    Gifford is remarkably well read. He has a grasp not only of canonical works, but also of the most esoteric works in American literature". -- David Bergman