•  Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement was reviewed by me in the January-February 2020 issue of G&LR.  To read it click here.

• Stonewall 50.  2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the Gay Liberation Front, and the Gay Activists Alliance.  My article, “The Rise and Fall of the GLF”, was published in the May-June 2019 issue of  G&LR.  To read it click here.

• In March 2018 I gave a talk at the "Outing the Past" conference in Liverpool, England: "Don Leon & Underground Gay Scholarship".   To read it click here.

•  NEW BOOK: Don Leon & Leon to Annabella.  The great gay epic, written in the early 19th century.  A forceful outcry against Britain's sodomy statute and a witty and moving defence of male love.  To read it click here.

•  NEW BOOK:  The Shelley-Byron Men: Lost angels of a ruined paradise.
For a description click here.

• The German Invention of Sexuality.  A long essay-review of Robert Deam Tobin's book, Peripheral Desires.  The early homosexual emancipation movement.  Paradigm clash between inversionists and masculinists.  First published in The Gay & Lesbian Review, July-August 2016.  To read it click here.

•  Down With LGBTQ!  John Lauritsen takes apart the politically correct alphabetisms, which are both ridiculous and pernicious.  To read it as a PDF publication, which can be downloaded and printed out, click here.  To read it in HTML click here.

• NO to the notion of transgender. Veteran activist Ronald Gold's thoughtful article has been censored and vilified.  To read it click here.

• Religious Roots of the Taboo on Homosexuality: A Materialist View. This 1974 pamphlet sold thousands of copies and was translated into German. Religious Roots helped bridge the new Gay Liberation movement and the older Freethought and Atheist movements. To read it as a PDF publication click here.

• Mr. Pudgy Roberts, a female impersonator, dishes amateur transvestites and transsexuals in a 1968 interview. His acerbically rational comments anticipate the current Bruce Jenner madness. Note that professional female impersonators use masculine pronouns and titles for themselves. To read it click here.

• “Back to Basics” was published as an Opinion piece in Gay Community News, August 23 & 30, 1980. It argues that the paramount goal of Gay Liberation — Males should be free to love each other — has been compromised by “standard liberal egalitarianism” and by harmful aspects of feminism. To read it click here.
 
   • The First Politician To Speak Out For Homosexual Rights is an 1898 speech by August Bebel, leader of the great German Social Democracy. To read it click here.

    • A 1928 Gay Rights Speech is a speech that Kurt Hiller delivered to the Second International Congress for Sexual Reform (Copenhagen 1928). To read it click here. 

    • Supervirile Men is a quotation from Dr. Jaeger's “Die Entdeckung der Seele”, translated by Edward Carpenter and included in his book, The Intermediate Sex (1912). To read it click here. 

    • Political-Economic Construction of Gay Male Identities is a talk I gave in 1987 to an international conference — Homosexuality, Which Homosexuality? — which was held at the Free University in Amsterdam. To read it click here. 

    • The Enigmatic Narrator: The Voicing of Same-Sex Love in the Poetry of John Donne is my essay-review of a book by George Klawitter. It appeared in the Fall 1995 issue of The James White Review: A Gay Men's Literary Quarterly. To read it click here. 

    • Gay Lieder is an article that appeared (under the title “The Lieder and Homoerotic Love”) in the September-October 2006 issue of the Gay & Lesbian Review. To read it click here. 

    • William A. Percy and I reviewed Magnus Hirschfeld's magnum opus, The Homosexuality of Men and Women (translated from the German by Michael A. Lombardi-Nash) in the November-December issue of Gay & Lesbian Review. To read the review click here. 

  • I reviewed Paul Robinson's book, Queer Wars, for H-Net. To read it click here.

  • The First Gay Liberation Front Demonstration is an article I wrote for the electronic publication, Gay Today, which was edited by the late Jack Nichols. I had known Jack from the earliest days of gay liberation in New York City. To read the article click here.

 • For years now Gay Marriage has been touted as the Number One issue of the gay and lesbian (or GLBT) movement. However, many gay scholars and activists are opposed to it, or at least to the priority it has been given.  David Thorstad, co-author with me of The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935), has written a spirited polemic against Gay Marriage, which was published in The Guide; to read it in HTML form click here; or, to read it in PDF form click here.

• Arthur Cyrus Warner, a friend and mentor of mine and a leader of the homophile movement, died on 22 July 2007 at the age of 89. To read his obituary click here.

• “Achilles & Patroklos”. Edward Carpenter's Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship (1902) is in many ways unsurpassed. To read this excerpt click here.

• “Achilles and Patroclus in Love”, a 1978 article by W.M. Clarke, argues that Achilles and Patroclus were not just good friends, but lovers in every sense of the word.  To read it click here.

• Gay Liberation Front. This section has material on the New York Gay Liberation Front, including a reproduction of the first issue of ComeOut! (14 November 1969), the first publication of the post-Stonewall gay liberation movement. To visit the GLF section click here.

• Gay Activists Alliance. This section has material on the New York Gay Activists Alliance (1969-1981), including two GAA pamphlets: 20 Questions and Repeal the New York Consensual Sodomy Statute. Also, a few photographs of GAA demonstrations. To visit the GAA section click here.

• QUEER: the most hateful word in the American language — or has it been “reclaimed”? What about “queer studies”? To read critiques of queer click here.

• My book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein (2007), argues that the most famous work of English Romanticism is also a great work of literature — that it was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the greatest poets in the English language — and that male love, especially as romantic friendship, is a central theme. For a description and reviews of the book click here.

• Sir Richard Francis Burton: Explorer of the Sotadic Zone. The Burton pages include the complete and unexpurgated text of his 1886 essay on pederasty, with footnote annotation.  Also, an Introduction to his essay, Henry Fowler's entry on Irony, and pictures of Burton. To visit the Burton pages click here.

• Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was the most prominent pioneer of gay liberation — an advocate of socialism, women's emancipation, vegetarianism, animal rights, nudism, sunbathing, Eastern mysticism, the simple life, and sexual freedom. My review of Sheila Rowbotham's new biography, Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love, was published in the May-June issue of The Gay & Lesbian Review. To read it click here.

• Male Love Among The Romantics: Exploring the lives and works of a circle of gay men centered around the famous poets, Shelley and Byron. To visit these pages click here.

• Jeremy Bentham: Essay on Paederasty. The earliest known plea for reform of England's sodomy statute, written in the late 18th century but only published in the late 20th century. Commentary by Louis Crompton and John Lauritsen.
        Introduction to Bentham's Essay on Paederasty. Click here.
        Bentham's essay: “Offenses Against One's Self: Paederasty”. Click here.

• The Gay Brain. This section contains three debunkings of the pseudo-scientific notion that “homosexuality” is an abnormal condition which needs to be explained. John Lauritsen's 2011 Internet article, “The Gay Brain and other such nonsense”. Alfred Kinsey's 1941 article, “Criteria for a hormonal explanation of the homosexual”. C.V. Tripp's 1982 review of Sexual Preference: Its Development in Man and Women. To visit the Gay Brain section click here.

• Warren Johansson may have been the most learned gay scholar of the second half of the 20th century. In a short position paper he argues: “From its very first day the debate over homosexuality in modern society has been a struggle between the homophile movement and the religious establishment.” To read Our Struggle click here.

• Arthur Evans, one of the main founders of the Gay Activists Alliance — an important gay activist, theoretician and scholar —  died on 11 September 2011. To visit the Arthur Evans pages click here.

  • I reviewed Axel Nissen's book, Manly Love: Romantic Friendship in American Fiction, in the March-April issue of Gay & Lesbian Review. Nissen's fine book drives home the point that love and friendship between males, with or without sex, is a crucial component of the human experience. To read the review click here.

• Benedict Friedlaender was an important theorist of the early homosexual emancipation movement. He was a “masculinist”, who opposed the “third sex” theories of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Magnus Hirschfeld. For gay scholars who can read German, here is a PDF file of his book, Die Liebe Platons Im Lichte Der Modernen Biologie (1909). (Platonic Love In Light Of Modern Biology) This is a large file (30 mb).  To read it click here.

• Also, for those who read German: the finest history ever done of penal codes puhishing homosexual acts.  Written by "Numa Praetorius" (pseudonym for Eugen Wilhelm), it is entitled. Die strafrechtlichen Bestimmungen gegen der gleichgeschlechtlichen Verkehr.  It was published in the first volume of the Yearbook of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, Leipzig 1899.  To read it as a PDF file (this will be a large file) click here.

• In 1963 Quakers in England published a pamphlet, “Towards a Quaker view of sex: An essay by a group of Friends”.  Six years before Stonewall, the Friends' acceptance of same-sex love was far in advance of its time.  I've made a PDF pamphlet from my 54-year-old copy.  Sorry for my underlinings and markings.  To read it click here.

• My book, A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love, gives the history of the taboo against male love and the ramifications of that taboo.   Gay Liberation argued from a secular humanist standpoint.  For a description click here.




NOTE
* The young man in the tree is “Jackie Hormona” (a street name). He played a leading role in the Stonewall Uprising.

I write books and am proprietor of Pagan Press, a small book publisher.  Each of our books is unique and well produced.  Please check out the Pagan Press BOOKLIST.