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Originally published in 1972 in France this book is a classic in gay theory. Integrating psychoanalytic and Marxist theory, it describes the social and psychic dynamics of what has come to be called homophobia.

Table of Contents

New Introduction / Michael Moon 9
Preface to the 1978 Edition / Jeffrey Weeks 23
1. Introduction 49
2. Anti-Homosexual Paranoia 55
"Unnatural acts": nature and the law 61
A myth: the progress of public morals 62
The strengthening of anti-homosexual paranoia 66
Homosexuality and crime 67
Homosexuality and disease 69
"Latent" and "patent" homosexuality 72
3. "Disgusting perverts" 73
The polymorphously perverse, bisexuality, and non-human sex 74
Hatred of woman 77
The Oedipalisation of homosexuality 79
Castration and narcissism 79
Oedipus or the chromosomes? 82
The homosexual judge 83
Cure: the infernal cycle 86
Homosexuality and shame 88
4. Capitalism, the Family, and the Anus 93
The phallic signifier and the sublimated anus 95
Homosexuality and the anus 97
Homosexuality and the loss of identity 100
The competitive society and the rule of the phallus 103
Oedipal reproduction and homosexuality 106
Homosexual grouping 110
5. Homosexual "object-choice" and Homosexual "Behaviour" 113
The "object-choice" 114
The "third sex" and "masculine-feminine" 121
Masochism and homosexuality 127
The pick-up machine 130
6. The Homosexual Struggle 133
The revolution of desire 133
Why homosexuality? 138
The perverse trap 142
Against the pyramid 145
7. Conclusion 148
Notes 151
Index 155

About the Author

Guy Hocquenghem (1944-1988) taught philosophy at the University of Vincennes, Paris. He was the author of numerous novels, works of theory, and was a staff writer for the French publication Libération. He was a founding member of le Front Homosexuel d'Action Révolutionnaire (F.H.A.R.). Hocquenghem died of an AIDS-related illness in 1988.

Reviews

"Written over two decades ago, in the aftermath of May '68 and Stonewall, Hocquenghem's Homosexual Desire may well be the first example of what we now call queer theory. But its significance is more than historical: it remains an indispensable analysis of, and polemic against, institutionalized homophobia." Douglas Crimp "Homosexual Desire represents the best of left social theory of sexual politics, a tradition that has never had an adequate reception in the United States. Reprinting this book now is a step toward recovering that tradition, and could therefore open debates about the significance of sexuality." Michael Warner "This remarkable essay was one of the first efforts to describe the psychological structure of homophobia into which we all were born and which still confine us. It examines, principally from the male perspective, the powerful and insidious ways the dominant heterosexual culture defines and marginalizes gay experience." Michael Roberts, Bay Windows (San Francisco)