The Queer Art of Failure


J. Jack Halberstam - 2011
    Judith Halberstam proposes “low theory” as a mode of thinking and writing that operates at many different levels at once. Low theory is derived from eccentric archives. It runs the risk of not being taken seriously. It entails a willingness to fail and to lose one’s way, to pursue difficult questions about complicity, and to find counterintuitive forms of resistance. Tacking back and forth between high theory and low theory, high culture and low culture, Halberstam looks for the unexpected and subversive in popular culture, avant-garde performance, and queer art. She pays particular attention to animated children’s films, revealing narratives filled with unexpected encounters between the childish, the transformative, and the queer. Failure sometimes offers more creative, cooperative, and surprising ways of being in the world, even as it forces us to face the dark side of life, love, and libido.

For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality (Revised and Updated)


Lonnie Garfield Barbach - 1975
    With an emphasis on clear, factual advice, simple, effective exercises, and a warm, reassuring tone, it helps women discover a new world of fulfillment - for themselves.Includes:- A detailed description of female sexual response- Step-by-step exercises that will help gradually awaken dormant sexuality- Explanations that dispel misunderstandings about sex and sexual response- Insights into the essential role of mental and emotional attitude toward sexual gratification- And more

The Inexplicable Survival of a Happily Fallible Child


Gary C. Mele, Jr. - 2018
    She is cunning and resilient, but hopelessly devoted to the same destructive family members responsible for the failure of her marriage. Husbandless and pregnant with her third child, Gary's mom manages to take her small stopgap family from living in a car in a beach parking lot to a boarding house where she meets the man who will be the father of her next two children. Evictions and cut utilities force move after move from neighboring towns to different states. As the growing family relocates, neglect and abuse from relatives and family friends shadow the children's lives. The chaotic existence, including the presence of an uncle and step-father in and out of prison and an alcoholic uncle who will not leave, awaken Gary to the realization that his family is not like other families. He begins to question his mother's decisions and disappointment transitions to anger, but a bond remains between Gary and his mom. Even during the worst times, she surprises with a fiercely protective love like when Gary is forced to come out as gay at the age of fourteen. In spite of the unhinged way of living, the family is close. Gary and his younger brothers and sisters have no real friends but each other, and, in spite of her faults, they know their mother loves them deeply. Nothing prepares them for the moment she is taken away.

Nina Here Nor There: My Journey Beyond Gender


Nick Krieger - 2011
    When she lands in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, her roommates introduce her to a whole new world, full of people who identify as queer, who modify their bodies and blur the line between woman and man, who defy everything Nina thought she knew about gender and identity. Despite herself, Nina is drawn to the people she once considered freaks, and before long, she is forging a path that is neither man nor woman, here nor there. This candid and humorous memoir of gender awakening brings readers into the world of the next generation of transgender warriors and tells a classic tale of first love and self-discovery.

Eland


Allyson James - 2009
    The planet publically shuns intercourse, branding women as wicked for even talking about sexual urges. Then a man unlike any she’s ever seen stumbles through her door—literally. Even his disheveled appearance doesn’t stop her from wanting to strip bare and place her body in his talented hands.Created solely for pleasure, Eland is a level-three Shareem. Rough, edgy, commanding. Oh, the things he could teach Jeanne…if he can stay alive long enough.

The Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica


Rose CarawayOlivia Archer - 2014
    In fact, this librarian will stop at nothing to service her readers. To that end, she has carefully collected a fantastic and fantasy-filled set of stories guaranteed to satisfy literary lusts in The Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica. This voracious volume is simply bursting at the binding with amorous archives and bibliophilic bliss; it is a veritable dictionary of desires, with stories by top eroticists Rachel Kramer Bussel, Tamsin Flowers, and Salome Wilde, as well as Rose Caraway, the sexy librarian herself.

Transgender History


Susan Stryker - 2008
    Chapters cover the transsexual and transvestite communities in the years following World War II; trans radicalism and social change, which spanned from 1966 with the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and lasted through the early 1970s; the mid-'70s to 1990-the era of identity politics and the changes witnessed in trans circles through these years; and the gender issues witnessed through the '90s and '00s. Transgender History includes informative sidebars highlighting quotes from major texts and speeches in transgender history and brief biographies of key players, plus excerpts from transgender memoirs and discussion of treatments of transgenderism in popular culture.

Hearts Under Fire


Kelly Wyre - 2011
    But his world turned into a nightmare when a suicide bomber destroyed Clark's career. It's been a long road to recovery, littered with surgery, alcohol, and secrets, but Clark finally has peace. His bar, Glow, is the place to be in the city of New Amsterdam, the son of the mayor employs Clark as a confidential information man, and Clark's side venture as part-owner of a BDSM club is quite the profitable release. Clark's life is a good one, so long as no one gets too close.Then a man walks into Glow who will forever change Clark's rules and reality. Thinking Professor Daniel Germain is just another handsome face ripe for Clark's kind of good time, Clark puts on his smoothest moves. When the professor turns him down, Clark goes on the hunt, and what he discovers shows him that even the deepest wounds can be healed by submitting to love.

Prayers for Bobby: A Mother's Coming to Terms with the Suicide of Her Gay Son


Leroy Aarons - 1995
    Faced with an irresolvable conflict-for both his family and his religion taught him that being gay was "wrong"-Bobby chose to take his own life. Prayers for Bobby, nominated for a 1996 Lambda Literary Award, is the story of the emotional journey that led Bobby to this tragic conclusion. But it is also the story of Bobby's mother, a fearful churchgoer who first prayed that her son would be "healed," then anguished over his suicide, and ultimately transformed herself into a national crusader for gay and lesbian youth.As told through Bobby's poignant journal entries and his mother's reminiscences, Prayers for Bobby is at once a moving personal story, a true profile in courage, and a call to arms to parents everywhere.

Shoes: A Celebration of Pumps, Sandals, Slippers More


Linda O'Keeffe - 1996
    The Chanel toe. Jackie O's pump. Marilyn's stiletto. And lotus shoes and fetish shoes, shoes made for coronations and inaugurations, Cinderella's slipper, shoes of tulle, brocade, rhinestone, python, fish scales, and feathers, and much, much, more, including the two-foot-high wooden chopines of the 16th century and their resurgence as the platform shoes of the 1960s and 1970s.Shoes, now with over 357,000 copies in print, is an obsessive, over-the-top extravaganza-chunky, full-color, and irresistible, it contains page after page of seductive photographs and information about women's shoes.Created for the woman who's a passionate shoe lover-and what woman isn't?--Shoes features over 1,000 glorious photographs, most of them taken for the book. Includes Footnotes (fascinating facts about shoes); Foot Soldiers (profiles of master shoemakers from David Little to Andrea Pfister); and The Shoe that Left an Imprint, focusing on one shoe that changed history-remember Courrage's futuristic go-go boot? Shoes is, as they say, to die for.

Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue


Leslie Feinberg - 1998
    In Trans Liberation, Feinberg has gathered a collection of hir speeches on trans liberation and its essential connection to the liberation of all people. This wonderfully immediate, impassioned, and stirring book is for anyone who cares about civil rights and creating a just and equitable society.

Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women


Sally Miller Gearhart - 1978
    Women gain telepathic abilities, unique flying and healing techniques, and go on duty to assist women in the cities still struggling for enlightenment.

Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade


Justin Spring - 2010
    Steward, The Secret Historian is a sensational reconstruction of one of the more extraordinary hidden lives of the twentieth century. An intimate friend of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder, Steward maintained a secret sex life from childhood on, and documented these experiences in brilliantly vivid (and often very funny) detail.After leaving the world of academe to become Phil Sparrow, a tattoo artist on Chicago’s notorious South State Street, Steward worked closely with Alfred Kinsey on his landmark sex research. During the early 1960s, Steward changed his name and identity once again, this time to write exceptionally literate, upbeat pro-homosexual pornography under the name of Phil Andros.Until today he has been known only as Phil Sparrow—but an extraordinary archive of his papers, lost since his death in 1983, has provided Justin Spring with the material for an exceptionally compassionate and brilliantly illuminating life-and-times biography. More than merely the story of one remarkable man, The Secret Historian is a moving portrait of homosexual life long before Stonewall and gay liberation.

Vixen


Felicia Fox - 2015
    I saw her almost every day and, God, she made my lady parts sing. But it wasn’t just what she did to me physically. Whenever I looked at her, my imagination ran away with me and I couldn’t help but picture her hands on me. I couldn’t help but wonder what her skin tasted like. I would imagine the heat of her body against mine. Feel the crush of her lips. She became the star of every one of my fantasies. And when we finally spoke, I was entranced by her voice, spurred to near climax by a wild encounter. It was then she began to unravel me and held me tight as everything in my world turned upside down. My Vixen.

Flesh and the Word: An Anthology of Erotic Writing


John PrestonLarry Townsend - 1992
    While providing a fascinating look at the course of gay consciousness over the past fifty years, it also, most enthrallingly, offers the best sexually arousing fiction centering on gay men.Featuring two original tales by Anne Rice, this elegantly written collection also includes such literary luminaries as Edmund White and Alan Hollinghurst, and such legendary cult figures as Larry Townsend and Pat Califia. The stories here range from the nonphysical but highly charged "Brian's Bedroom" by Leigh Rutledge, to the famous, boundary pushing story "Blue Light" by Aaron Travis - a fantasic, haunting piece that explores reversal, compulsion, domination, and otherness in a Texas boarding house. But whether an understated gem or an unforgettable, flamboyant display of sexuality, each of these works has a power of its own, while editor John Preston's commentary places them all in context. This collection of short fiction and nonfiction is for both gay and straight readers who enjoy masterully written erotica. It is at once a cross-section of fine erotic writing, a chronical of gay male sexuality and its growing influence on the culture at large, and an imporatnt addiction to gay literature.Contents:Correspondence with George Platt Lynes by Samuel M. StewardThe sergeant with the rose tattoo by Samuel M. Steward writing as Phil AndrosFrom 'Cruising horny corners' by "Clay Caldwell" writing as Lance LesterWorkout by Roy F. WoodPeekers by T.R. Witomski writing as Ray WaldheimThey call me "Horsemeat" by D.V. Sadero writing as Rick LaneA cowboy Christmas by Lars EighnerThe shirt by Robin MetcalfeNegative image by Michael Lassell writing as Michael LewisBrian's bedroom by Leigh RutledgeBlue light by Steven Saylor writing as Aaron TravisGetting Timchenko by Steven Saylor writing as Aaron TravisBelonging by Pat CalifiaElliott : the garden and the bar by Anne RiceElliott : below stairs by Anne RiceFrom 'Run little leather boy' by Larry Townsend"Malory's big brother" from 'The green hotel stories by Gordon HobanFrom 'A boy's own story' by Edmund WhiteFrom 'The beautiful room is empty' by Edmund White"The Brutus cinema" from 'The swimming pool-library' by Alan Hollinghurst"Mmmmpfgh" by Andrew HolleranThinking off by Scott O'Hara writing as SpunkSafe sex without condoms by John WagenhauserSoggy Biscuit by Barry LoweThe reality of a dream by W. Delon StrodeThe group by John Wagenhauser writing as WolfgangGood with words by Stephen Greco