Why do the earliest representations of cowboy-figures symbolizing the highest ideals of manhood in American culture exclude male-female desire while promoting homosocial and homoerotic bonds? Evidence from the best-known Western writers and artists of the post-Civil War period - Owen Wister, Mark Twain, Frederic Remington, George Catlin - as well as now-forgotten writers, illustrators, and photographers, suggest that in the period before the word 'homosexual' and its synonyms were invented, same-sex intimacy and erotic admiration were key aspects of a masculine code. These males-only clubs of journalists, cowboys, miners, Indian vaqueros defined themselves by excluding femininity and the cloying ills of domesticity, while embracing what Roosevelt called 'strenuous living' with other bachelors in the relative 'purity' of wilderness conditions. Queer Cowboys recovers this forgotten culture of exclusively masculine, sometimes erotic, and often intimate camaraderie in fiction, photographs, illustrations, song lyrics, historical ephemera, and theatrical performances.

About Say It Like It Is. Over the course of the past fifty years, Political Correctness has morphed from a social nicety to a national enforcement of stupidity. Due to political correctness, common sense has become less important in our society than the need to be hypersensitive to each and every group of minorities within our borders. Liberals have worked slowly but steadily to promote and further the asinine concept of political correctness and have been successful in implementing it. We are so sensitive these days that the mere mention of a nationality or a particular behavior has people gasping and whispering words like bigot, hateful and intolerant. As a society, weve forgotten how to speak to one another in a truthful and direct manner. As a result, we have countless Interpretational breakdowns or Misunderstandings on a personal, professional and political basis every day. These Misunderstandings, as Liberals call them, are the result of our inability to actually convey our thoughts and intentions in a direct and non-politically correct manner. Sensitivity to the most mundane and insignificant aspects of life has turned Americans into a weak and litigious people who are neither respected nor respectable. Few people in our country actually have the inner fortitude to ignore the Liberals rules regarding speech and Appropriate topics, and actually, Say it like it is. I hope to point out how accustomed weve become to political correctness and how completely asinine the whole thing really is. Political correctness is the best example of what happens when Liberals work to gradually normalize and institute a concept that has had nothing but detrimental affects on our country. Where has political correctness led us? Its no longer acceptable to call the Chinese, Chinese. We cant refer to a Black man as a Black man. The word criminal should no longer be used to describe an individual who breaks the law. Pride in America is far less PC than an animosity toward it. No blame can be put on those who choose to act in an unacceptable manner. Weve been trained to think of wealthy people as bad individuals and poor people as victims. Armed conflict is no longer seen as the protection of our way of life as much as it is seen as an attempt on the part of our evil leaders to conquer and occupy foreign lands. Political correctness teaches us Tolerance and Diversity, and we can see where that has led us. The teaching of manners and discipline to our children are foreign concepts to todays parents. What used to be black and white is now a fuzzy shade of gray. Obvious facts are now extensively debated. And common sensejust take a look around. Our society is inundated with news stories of atrocious behavior. Rapes and murders and school shootings, molestation, terrorism and hatred toward our country by its own citizens are all crops were currently reaping. Its to be expected after sowing the seeds of political correctness for half a century. Take some time to think about what weve been conditioned to think and how weve been trained to talk. This is a perfect example of the implementation of liberalism on American society. Its not good. Its destroying our strength and our unity. Its very likely to destroy more than that. Its time to ignore political correctness and just say it like it is.

Studies the role popular literature in the systematic racism present in easy-going activities, ordinary feelings, and casual interactions. The volume uncovers this history of 'racial ordinariness' through various genres such as campus novels, Civil War elegies, regionalist sketches, and gospel sermon.

This groundbreaking work draws on a vast range of research into human sexuality to demonstrate that homosexuality is not a phenomenon limited to a small minority of society, but is an aspect of a complex sexual harmony that the human race inherited from its animal ancestors. Through a survey of the patterns of sexual expression found among animals and among societies around the world, and an examination of the functional role homosexual behavior has played among animal species and human societies alike, the author arrives at some provocative conclusions: that a homosexual or bisexual phase is a normal part of sexual development, that same-sex relations play an important balancing role in regulating human reproduction, that many societies have institutionalized homosexual traditions in the past, and that the harsh condemnation of homosexuality in Western society is a relatively recent phenomenon, unique among world societies throughout history. This well researched and meticulously documented book is the first that integrates into a coherent picture the startling revelations about human sexuality coming from the recent work of sexual researchers, psychologists, anthropologists and historians. The view that emerges, of an ambisexual human species whose complex sexual harmony is being thwarted by the imposition of an artificial understanding of nature, represents a new way of thinking about sex.

An American Western made by a Taiwanese director and filmed in Canada, Brokeback Mountain was a global cultural phenomenon even before it became the highest grossing gay-themed drama in film history.øFew films have inspired as much passion and debate, or produced as many contradictory responses, from online homage to late-night parody. In this wide-ranging and incisive collection, writers, journalists, scholars, and ordinary viewers explore the film and Annie Proulx?s original story as well asøtheir ongoing cultural and political significance. The contributors situate Brokeback Mountain in relation to gay civil rights, the cinematic and literary Western, the Chinese value of forbearance, male melodrama, and urban and rural working lives across generations and genders. ø The Brokeback Book builds on earlier debates by novelist David Leavitt, critic Daniel Mendelsohn, producer James Schamus, and film reviewer Kenneth Turan with new and noteworthy interpretations of the Brokeback phenomenon, the film, and its legacy. Also appearing in print for the first time is Michael Silverblatt?s interview with Annie Proulx about the story she wrote and the film it became.

The Vietnam War was over and America seemed in the midst of a nationwide party. The self-proclaimed Me generation was flocking to discotheques, recreational drug use was high, and sexual taboos were being shattered nationwide. Then The Village People appeared on the music scene. Never before had gay sexuality been as up-front and in the face of America. The Village People struck a cultural nerve and fueled a craze that had them playing to sold-out crowds at Madison Square Garden. Even today, few adults could not at least hum the tunes to Y.M.C.A. and Macho Man. Because of the unique role they played in the United States of the late 1970s, The Village People are able to provide a powerful lens through which to view the emergence and development of gay culture in America. In Macho Man, readers can travel back with one of the first gay icons in popular music, and a top pop culture biographer, as they describe this complicated process of change. In these pages, Randy Jones, the original cowboy in the band, takes us inside the time period, the discos, and the new musical style that was in many ways unprecedented in giving a voice to a previously closeted gay culture. Assisted by Mark Bego, one of the most popular and prolific pop culture authors working today, Jones shows how the fast-lane rise, fall, and rebirth of this novel band paralleled activities across the last 40 years within the gay culture and gay rights movement. The work concludes with a gayography — a listing of openly gay musicians and performers in the United States before and since The Village People - along with a discography and filmography. This work will interest pop culture and music enthusiasts, in addition to scholars in gay studies.

This collection explores the history and development of the anglophone short story since the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Midnight Cowboy – the story of a small-town stud’s attempt to make it big as a hustler on the streets of 1960s New York – is an indisputably iconic film. Though recognized in terms of its early adoption of Nouvelle Vague cinematography and editing techniques, and renowned for an Oscar win in spite of controversy over its X-rating, Midnight Cowboy has yet to be understood as a classic of queer cinema. Jon Towlson reclaims Midnight Cowboy as a queer text by addressing John Schlesinger as a gay author and filmmaker and providing a fresh perspective on the film’s relationship to the 1965 James Leo Herlihy novel from which it was adapted. Offering a nuanced and personal view of the film’s relevance to queer experience and queer friendship, Towlson also considers Midnight Cowboy’s production and reception and its place in Schlesinger’s filmography. Depictions of sixties New York counterculture and 42nd Street hustlers offer an opportunity for reassessment, particularly in the film's relationship to male prostitution, male relationships, and sexual identity. By shifting the perspective away from previous interpretations of Midnight Cowboy as homophobic and problematic, Towlson argues for a new interpretation of the film as a proto-queer buddy movie and a critical forerunner to films such as My Own Private Idaho and Brokeback Mountain.

This is the first concise handbook on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) health in the past few years. It breaks the myths, breaks the silence, and breaks new ground on this subject. This resource offers a multidimensional picture of LGBT health across clinical and social disciplines to give readers a full and nuanced understanding of these diverse populations. It contains real-world matters of definition and self-definition, meticulous analyses of stressor and health outcomes, a extensive coverage of research methodology concerns, and critical insights into the sociopolitical context of LGBT individuals’ health and lives.

Cal Hoke, an onsite pretty boy veterinarian at Riding Ranch in Stockton County, Oklahoma, has a secret he will never share with his ranch hand coworkers: he happens to be in love with the ranch owner, Pax Raulton. Straight and sexy Pax is a chiseled, handsome, aggressive businessman at Riding Ranch. For years he has raised and sold thoroughbred Palominos. Pax is a private man who minds his own business on the ranch. When he suffers a head injury caused by one of his prized horses, he spends days in recovery due to amnesia. Pax cannot remember a single detail from his past. Under Cal’s personal care and tender touch, Pax is provided with the help he needs to overcome his amnesia. As this healing process takes place, Cal learns Pax has a secret of his own, a secret that will change the two men forever. But something lurks in Pax’s history that he has forgotten, a dangerous and charmless someone with the potential to shred Pax’s world with ease. Is the bond between Pax and Cal strong enough to keep them together when the dark secret is exposed? Or will the two cowboys be forced to end their romantic ride together?