Indecent Advances
A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall
Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2019.
Format: Book
Edition: First hardcover edition.
Description: 244 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Edgar Award finalist, Best Fact Crime
American Masters (PBS), "1 of 5 Essential Culture Reads"
One of CrimeReads ' "Best True Crime Books of the Year"
"A fast-paced, meticulously researched, thoroughly engaging (and often infuriating) look-see into the systematic criminalization of gay men and widespread condemnation of homosexuality post-World War I." --Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle
Stories of murder have never been just about killers and victims. Instead, crime stories take the shape of their times and reflect cultural notions and prejudices. In this Edgar Award-finalist for Best Fact Crime, James Polchin recovers and recounts queer stories from the crime pages―often lurid and euphemistic―that reveal the hidden history of violence against gay men. But what was left unsaid in these crime pages provides insight into the figure of the queer man as both criminal and victim, offering readers tales of vice and violence that aligned gender and sexual deviance with tragic, gruesome endings. Victims were often reported as having made "indecent advances," forcing the accused's hands in self-defense and reducing murder charges to manslaughter.
As noted by Caleb Cain in The New Yorker review of Indecent Advances , "it's impossible to understand gay life in twentieth-century America without reckoning with the dark stories. Gay men were unable to shake free of them until they figured out how to tell the stories themselves, in a new way." Indecent Advances is the first book to fully investigate these stories of how queer men navigated a society that criminalized them and displayed little compassion for the violence they endured. Polchin shows, with masterful insight, how this discrimination was ultimately transformed by activists to help shape the burgeoning gay rights movement in the years leading up to Stonewall.
American Masters (PBS), "1 of 5 Essential Culture Reads"
One of CrimeReads ' "Best True Crime Books of the Year"
"A fast-paced, meticulously researched, thoroughly engaging (and often infuriating) look-see into the systematic criminalization of gay men and widespread condemnation of homosexuality post-World War I." --Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle
Stories of murder have never been just about killers and victims. Instead, crime stories take the shape of their times and reflect cultural notions and prejudices. In this Edgar Award-finalist for Best Fact Crime, James Polchin recovers and recounts queer stories from the crime pages―often lurid and euphemistic―that reveal the hidden history of violence against gay men. But what was left unsaid in these crime pages provides insight into the figure of the queer man as both criminal and victim, offering readers tales of vice and violence that aligned gender and sexual deviance with tragic, gruesome endings. Victims were often reported as having made "indecent advances," forcing the accused's hands in self-defense and reducing murder charges to manslaughter.
As noted by Caleb Cain in The New Yorker review of Indecent Advances , "it's impossible to understand gay life in twentieth-century America without reckoning with the dark stories. Gay men were unable to shake free of them until they figured out how to tell the stories themselves, in a new way." Indecent Advances is the first book to fully investigate these stories of how queer men navigated a society that criminalized them and displayed little compassion for the violence they endured. Polchin shows, with masterful insight, how this discrimination was ultimately transformed by activists to help shape the burgeoning gay rights movement in the years leading up to Stonewall.
Contents:
When the men came home: sailors, scandals, and mysteries in the 1920s -- War on the sex criminal: defining psychopaths and sex deviants in the 1930s -- Behind the headlines: homosexual hoodlums, working-class criminality, and queer victims in the 1930s and 1940s -- Terror in the streets: indecent advances, homosexual panic, and the threat of queer men in post-World War II America -- The homosexual next roor: Kinsey and the private life of sex in the Cold War -- Stories of prejudice and suffering: pervert colonies, homosexual worlds, and the birth of a new minority.
Subjects:
Crime and the press -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Gays -- Press coverage -- United States.
Criminals -- Press coverage -- United States.
Crime and the press -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Gays -- Press coverage -- United States.
Criminals -- Press coverage -- United States.
ISBN:
9781640091894
Availability | |||
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Call Number | Location | Shelf Location | Status |
SOCIAL SCI Communicate Pol | Eastover | Nonfiction | In |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-244).