ABSTRACT
As I sit down to elaborate the text of a paper I gave last fall at the Second Annual Conference of the Lesbian and Gay Studies Center at Yale for this collection of critical essays, I am confounded by how quickly things have changed so muchfor me as a gay man, for the profession of literary studies in America, for me as a professional academic, for gay professors, and especially for academics professing "gayness." Reflecting back on the months since that paper was first written, I am highly conscious that these personal and historical dynamics have become so thoroughly foregrounded in my own life that were I not a well-versed critical (though optimistic) "skeptic," I might be lulled into believing in "progress" again. During the last twelve months, I have turned thirty; moved from San Francisco to New York City; completed a highly enjoyable first year as a tenure-track assistant professor; managed to write a number of talks and articles, all well received if not (yet) published; been solicited to write this as well as several other new "gay studies" pieces; and garnered not one but three contracts for my first book. Furthermore, all this occurred in the shadow of the most emotionally demanding part of my life, where in therapy, body work, meditation, yoga, and especially among friends and colleagues, I am attempting to imagine and create for myself an urban male sexuality that affirms the desirability of my "gayness" in late twentieth-century, postmodern, "postfeminist," post-Reagan, post-AIDS America. But let's not talk only about me.
