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What Do Gay Men Want?: An Essay on Sex, Risk, and Subjectivity

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Synopsis

Are homosexuals sick? Since gay liberation, the enlightened answer to that question has been a resounding no. But times have changed. Recent efforts to analyze gay men's motives for sexual risk-taking in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic have led to a revival of medical thinking about homosexuality and breathed new life into punitive clichés about gay men's alleged low self-esteem, lack of self-control, and various psychological "deficits." What Do Gay Men Want? offers a different language for describing gay men's inner lives.

Unlike most writers on the topic of barebacking (condomless sex), David Halperin rejects psychology's claim to hold the keys to human subjectivity. He argues that psychology, which is grounded in a highly prejudicial opposition between the normal and the pathological, between healthy and unhealthy behavior, masks a set of dubious moral assumptions about "good" and "bad" sex.

Against these insidious forms of sexual discipline, Halperin champions neglected traditions of queer thought, both literary and popular, that afford fascinating possibilities for addressing the vexed question of what gay men want. In a series of provocative and often moving readings of authors as obscure as Marcel Jouhandeau and as well known as Jean Genet, he shows how the long history of gay men's uses of "abjection" can yield alternative, non-moralistic models for thinking about gay male subjectivity.

The reverberations of this original and bold contribution to queer studies will be felt for years to come. Anyone searching for creative and non-judgmental ways to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS among gay men—or interested in new modes of thinking about gay male subjectivity—should read this book.

Keywords

BDSM, Book, Gay Male, Gay/Lesbian, HIV/AIDS, Homosexuality, Sexuality: Gay Male

Genres

Books, Non-Fiction/Reference, Sexuality

Customer Reviews

Provocative Thoughts

Amos Lassen wrote on 02/28/2011:

Halperin, David. “What Do Gay Men Want?: An Essay on Sex, Risk and Subjectivity”, The University of Michigan Pres, 2007.
Provocative Thoughts
Amos Lassen
Many think of homosexuals as being sick and this has been the predominant answer since gay liberation has come to fore. Times, like everything else, change and doctors are again looking at the nature of gay men especially as regards their motives in taking risks while the AIDS epidemic is still ongoing.. Suddenly a rethinking about the issues of self esteem, “lack of self-control” and “various other psychological “deficits” has become popular. In his essay, Professor David Halperin gives a new approach to describing the lives of gay men.
Halperin looks at the limits of desire and shows that they cannot be explained through the analysis of each individual psyche and instead proposes a “poetical-philosophical-political exegesis in smooth and sleek language which makes the book a small treasure in the field of gay studies. He looks at the idea of bare backing or unprotected sex and shows that the key to understanding is not in the realm of psychology because it attempts to hide moral assumptions on the nature of sex/ Instead he looks to the various disciplines of queer thought which provide extremely interesting possibilities for the exploration of what gay men really want and uses readings by both obscure and well known queer theorists. In this theory which he provides he shows that gay men use abjection to formulate alternative and non-moralistic models to think about the subjectivity of the modern gay male. What we get are creative and non-judgmental ways to hinder the spread of the AIDS virus as well as news to consider our lives.
I am sure that this sounds like heady stuff but Halperin writes in a way that everything is totally comprehensible and understandable. It’s good to have a voice like this to weigh in with a new opinion.