A Queer Geography: Journeys Toward a Sexual Self

244 Pages·1998·25.436 MB·English

by  Frank Browning

Journeys
Toward
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Sexual
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other books by Frank Browning
The Culture of Desire
The American Way of Crime (coauthor)
The Land
VatiisJiiug
A
Geography
Journeys Toward
a Sexual Self
Revised Edition
Frank Browning
The Noonday Press
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
New York
—
The Noonday Press
ivision ofFarrar, Straus and Giroux
19 Union SquareWest, NewYork 10003
Copyright © 1996 by Frank Browning
Revised edition © 1998 by Frank Browning
All rights reserved
Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
Designed by Leonard Henderson
First Noonday paperback edition, 1998
Reprinted by arrangement with Crown Publishers, Inc.
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Browning, Frank.
A queer geography journeys toward a sexual sell / Frank
— :
Browning. Rev. ed.
cm.
p.
Originally published: NewYork Crown, ©1996.
;
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-374-52542-0 (alk. paper pbk.)
— —:
1. Gays Identity. 2. Gay men se.xual behavior. 3. Gay men
Psychology. 1. Title.
HQ76.B833 1998
306.76'62—dc21 97-36600
We are grateful for permission to reprint from the tollowing;
m
“Death A Fame,” by Allen Ginsberg. Originally published The NewYorker.
©
Copyright 1997 by Allen Ginsberg.
Reprinted by permission otTheWylie Agency.
For Gene
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2016 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/queergeographyjoOObrow_0
acknowledgments
Many friends, colleagues, companions, and interviewees have given
both their time and their imaginations to help me make this book.
It is not possible to specify exactly what each person contributed.
Often a twenty-minute conversation helped to redirect my imagi-
native curiosity as much as several months of reading and inter-
viewing. More than any project to date, this book has propelled me
into a series of evolving self-inquiries that have led me to reformu-
late my own understanding of the social meanings of sexuality. By
simply watching how succeeding generations of homosexual men
and women read the literature and culture ofsexuality that has gone
before them, have had firsthand instruction in the malleability of
I
sexual identities. My time spent with new friends in Naples has
made inescapably obvious how history and geography form
it
widely varying sexual meanings and aesthetics that do not easily
conform to any particular political program.
While none of the following people bears any responsibility for
my expressed ideas and arguments, all have contributed valuable in-
sights and criticisms: Kevin Ayyildiz, Adam Block, Sean Collins,
Francesco Durante, Steven Friedman, Peggy Chrshman, Fred Hertz,
Fenton Johnson,Judith Levine,Jean McGuire, Michael O’Laughlin,
Claudio Fellone, Marcello Bersico, Raul Ramirez, Scott Sherer,
Sharon Silva, Carl Strange, Nina Sutton, John Tambernino, Braden
Toan, Frank Viviano, Brenda Wilson, PatYollm, Steven Zeeland.
also owe particular thanks to Jeffrey Escoffier and Ciene Kahn,
1
who gave me detailed criticism as the manuscript grew, and to
)avid Groff, who pushed me to undertake the book and who of-
I
fered always valuable intellectual and editorial advice along the way.
Michael Denneny, my editor, is what any writer wants most, a
tough-minded ally who never relinquishes the push for clarity.