ABSTRACT

For around a hundred years up to the Stonewall riots, the word used for gay men was 'queers'. In The Culture of Queers, Richard Dyer traces the contours of queer culture, examining the differences and continuities with the gay culture which succeeded it.

Opening with a discussion of the very concept of 'queers', Dyer asks what it means to speak of a sexual grouping having a culture, and addresses issues such as gay attitudes to women and the notion of camp. From screaming queens to sensitive vampires and sad young men, and from pulp novels to pornography to the films of Fassbinder, The Culture of Queers explores the history of queer arts and media.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|16 pages

The Politics of Gay Culture

(co-written with Derek Cohen)

chapter 2|15 pages

Believing in Fairies

The author and the homosexual

chapter 3|3 pages

Gay Misogyny

chapter 4|14 pages

It's Being so Camp as Keeps us Going

chapter 5|7 pages

Dressing the Part

chapter 6|20 pages

It's in His Kiss!

Vampirism as homosexuality, homosexuality as vampirism

chapter 7|26 pages

Queer Noir

chapter 8|21 pages

Coming Out as Going in

The image of the homosexual as a sad young man

chapter 9|15 pages

L'air De Paris

No place for homosexuality

chapter 10|7 pages

Charles Hawtrey

Carrying on regardless

chapter 11|16 pages

Rock

The last guy you'd have figured?

chapter 12|12 pages

Reading Fassbinder's Sexual Politics

chapter 13|17 pages

Idol Thoughts

Orgasm and self-reflexivity in gay pornography

chapter 14|25 pages

Homosexuality and Heritage