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.
-
9/25/2022
Does Marital Status Discrimination Hold the Key to Protecting Sexual Freedoms from SCOTUS?
by Marc Stein
As concern rises that the court might revoke the rights to same-sex marriage and contraception while reinstating the criminalization of gay sex, advocates for reproductive and sexual freedom need to consider how to make the equal protection argument that rights individuals enjoy in marriage can't be denied to individuals outside of them.
-
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: OutHistory
4/13/2021
"Where Perversion is Taught": The Untold History of a Gay Rights Demonstration at Bucks County Community College in 1968
by Marc Stein
A student protest at Bucks County (PA) Community College in 1968, sparked by the college's decision to block a speech by gay rights advocate Richard Leitsch, should be recognized as a key event in the growing movement for gay liberation.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
4/6/2021
Retro Report Presents: How an Abstinence Pledge in the ’90s Shamed a Generation of Evangelicals
Retro Report's latest collaboration with the New York Times examines the roots and social impact of Evangelical purity culture, both for individuals and American society's approach to sexuality.
-
SOURCE: New York Daily News
10/21/2020
Jeffrey Toobin and the M-Word: Let’s be Honest about what Makes this Scandal so Scandalous
by Jonathan Zimmerman
Jeffrey Toobin's scandal reflects the weight of the idea of the enlightenment individual and the fear that individuals freed from constraint would fall into corruption.
-
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: Black Perspectives
9/9/2020
Black Women in Nineteenth-Century France: An Interview with Historian Robin Mitchell
Robin Mitchell's book "Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France" examines how sexualized descriptions of Black women contributed to French racism.
-
SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
8/31/2020
Alexandra Finley on Her New Book, An Intimate Economy
Historian Jacob Remes discusses the new book "An Intimate Economy" with author Alexandra Finley.
-
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."
-
SOURCE: Nursing Clio
8/11/2020
“The Sex Lady Talks”: Disability Rights and the Normalization of Sex in a 1980s Institution
by Elizabeth A. Nelson, Emily S. Beckman, and Modupe Labode
Therapist Lisa Freeman bucked the authorities of an Indiana psychiatric hospital to advocate for the right of residents to have consensual sex and sex education. Her work shows the ways that paternalistic values are embedded in state treatment of people with disabilities.
-
SOURCE: Washington Post
8/5/2020
The Revealing and Disturbing Story of America, Told Through 20 Years of Reality Dating Shows
Reality dating shows, for better or worse, have focused a lens on the state of love, sex and relationships in American society. Here is a list of shows that define each of the 20 years of the genre (and might be historical documents someday?)
-
5/31/2020
Little Richard: Bold, Pioneering, Complex, and Unapologetic
by Elwood Watson
Little Richard left a lasting musical and cultural legacy because of his talent and his willingness to be more boldly black and sexual than other artists dared.
News
- The Debt Ceiling Law is now a Tool of Partisan Political Power; Abolish It
- Amitai Etzioni, Theorist of Communitarianism, Dies at 94
- Kagan, Sotomayor Join SCOTUS Cons in Sticking it to Unions
- New Evidence: Rehnquist Pretty Much OK with Plessy v. Ferguson
- Ohio Unions Link Academic Freedom and the Freedom to Strike
- First Round of Obama Administration Oral Histories Focus on Political Fault Lines and Policy Tradeoffs
- The Tulsa Race Massacre was an Attack on Black People; Rebuilding Policies were an Attack on Black Wealth
- British Universities are Researching Ties to Slavery. Conservative Alumni Say "Enough"
- Martha Hodes Reconstructs Her Memory of a 1970 Hijacking
- Jeremi Suri: Texas Higher Ed Conflict "Doesn't Have to Be This Way"