Departments

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sexuality

  • SOURCE: Harper's Bazaar
    3/28/2023

    Gladys Bentley: Gender Outlaw

    by Cookie Woolner

    Gladys Bentley was one of the most popular speakeasy performers in prohibition-era New York, and used the performance category of "drag king" – women playing on stereotypes of masculinity – to be herself. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    8/16/2022

    Feminism Can't Ignore the Power of Sexual Freedom

    by Nona Willis Aronowitz

    A half century later, the "sex wars" that split second-wave feminists remain resonant in a society where the display of sexuality sits uneasily with women's ability to pursue desire on their own terms. 

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    4/5/2022

    "Father Knows Best": Anti-LGBTQ Legislation and the Patriarchy

    by Judith Levine

    The elision of children’s interests and parents’ rights is not just bad grammar, however. It is an expression of conservative “pro-family” ideology, which posits the family as an indivisible unit where everyone’s interests are unanimous.

  • SOURCE: Military Times
    1/25/2022

    Susan Carruthers on The Myths and History of the "Dear John" Letter

    The "Dear John" letter represents a convergence of the social history of the military and the culture of family, love and relationships. Historian Susan L. Carruthers explains how the term was coined and what she learned about romantic breakups in military history.

  • SOURCE: Perspectives on History
    9/29/2021

    Muscle Motion:

    by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

    A 1983 home workout video featuring the Chippendales dancers reflected the convergence of multiple cultural changes in home video, fitness culture, pornography, and the mainstreaming of female desire. Everything has a history!

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    9/6/2021

    Who Lost the Feminist Movement's "Sex Wars"?

    by Amia Srinivasan

    As a new book reconsiders the debates among feminists over sexuality and pornography by emphasizing the role of liberalism in reducing the radical demands both sides made for the remaking of relations between men and women to narrow issues of law and civil liberties, that history resonates with current controversies about the place of trans women in the feminist movement.

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    4/26/2021

    The Tyranny of the Female-Orgasm Industrial Complex

    The writer's personal experiences, in light of a historical review of ideas about female sexuality, suggests that more knowledge has reinforced the social control of women by making pleasure obligatory rather than prohibited (Note: contains frank, explicit and extensive discussions of sexual activity).

  • SOURCE: YouTube
    9/29/2020

    Bawdy Civil War Letters, In the Style of Ken Burns

    by Katie Hemphill

    Historian Katie Hemphill's recent crash course in video editing for Zoom teaching let her fulfill a longtime goal: set the bawdiest Civil War letters she found in her research to the stirring sounds of documentary music. Content Warning: Cuss Words.

  • SOURCE: The Baffler
    9/22/2020

    Desiring Machines

    In 1993, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, consensual same-sex relationships were decriminalized in Russia as the economy underwent a wrenching transition away from central planning. Documentarian William E. Jones documents this moment by splicing together the non-sexual scenes from gay pornography shot in the former Soviet bloc. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
    9/14/2020

    The Long History Behind Donald Trump’s Outreach To LGBTQ Voters

    by Neil J. Young

    Gay Republicans emerged as a political force in response to both radical leadership in the gay liberation movement and the rise of evangelicals as a force in the Republican party. Today they may have to decide which fight is more important. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
    8/27/2020

    Qanon Misdirects Our Attention Away From The Real Threats To Children

    by Paul M. Renfro

    "Moral panics like QAnon work to distract from less outrageous, far more insidious sources of harm. Even worse, they contribute to punitive policies that separate and hurt families, perpetuate mass incarceration and keep people in a state of fear."