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The practice of men meeting for a bath in a designated public space to enjoy each other’s company, perhaps even intimacy, has roots in ancient times.

One of the earliest known London cruising grounds was referred to as “the Sodomite’s Walk” in the 18th century.

            By the end of the month, fifteen men had been corralled. By mid-October, the count stood at 26. All were identified by name in the L.A. newspapers; in some cases even their home addresses were listed. They ranged in age from eighteen to 67. Several local businessmen were snared, as well as members ofMore

WOMEN-LOVING WOMEN have been around at least since Sappho put stylus to papyrus in the 6th century BCE, but it took until the early 21st century CE for a seminal work on lesbian cruising to be published. Researcher Denise Bullock based her 2004 article in the Journal of Homosexuality, “Lesbian Cruising: An Examination of theMore

Sondheim did not seem interested in the hummable tune. He felt that a song should reveal a character and move the plot along and be close to speaking.

IN RECENT DECADES, the freedom to inquire into the dark corners of Oscar Wilde’s downfall has allowed serious scholars and literate Wilde fans to question much of the previous literature that both mythologized the man and, in some cases, traded in misinformation. Two new books about Wilde are sure to keep the conversation—and speculation—going.

I’VE READ A LOT of crime fiction, but never have I heard of a mystery with a premise like that of Bone Horn, by Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain. Here it is in a nutshell: ...

A BAR IS THE STAR of this deliciously entertaining history of gay New Orleans. Shortly after the end of Prohibition in 1933, Tom Caplinger, Harold Bartell, and Mary Collins leased 941 Bourbon St. and opened Café Lafitte. The building—with its ancient bricks, exposed wood, and a slight lean—dated to 1772. The name of the barMore

Klein was well acquainted with both modes of living. He had for years pursued a “manic happiness” fueled by vodka and beer, as he says in his latest essay collection, Happiness Ruined Everything. But by the time he moved to Provincetown, he was several years into sobriety and spiraling up into a very different kindMore

Reviews of EDMONIA LEWIS: Said in Stone, THE SPIRIT OF ANI: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music & Freedom, A ROOM IN BOMBAY: A Memoir, AIDS IN SOVIET RUSSIA: A Story of Deception, Despair and Hope, INSPIRATION PORN: Essays, and NIGHTS IN FAIRYLAND Gossip, Blackmail, and the Many Lives of “Broadway Brevities”.

IT’S A BALMY October afternoon in 1975. John Wojtowicz sweats through his prison jumpsuit as he sits in the large room used as a movie theater at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. On this day, though, Wojtowicz is the only inmate there. Two uniformed guards loom behind him, ready to use violence if necessary to prevent himMore

ALTHOUGH its provocative title might lead readers to assume that Sex in Public will focus on tearooms or hookups in the park, Angela Jones’ book is actually a call for “everyone out there in the world to think deeply about how various systems of power have formed their sexual desires and behaviors.”

I Think of You Constantly with Love is a collection of their letters—most of them written by the older man—and represents the clearest testament we have to Wittgenstein’s gayness and to his capacity for love. At the same time, it shows that his expectations for love could be both intense and clutching.

KAI MARSHALL GREEN breaks new ground in his compelling debut memoir, A Body Made Home, which loosely adopts the form of biomythography, a Black literary genre that combines personal narrative, fiction, and myth that was first identified by lesbian feminist Audre Lorde. Green’s stylistic innovations greet the reader from the subtitle on.

QUEER AS FOLK TALES is an entertaining collection of short stories with gay or lesbian takes on mythology and folk tales. Most are set in Indonesia, where author James Penha lives, though a few take place in the world of Norse myth, the lands of the Æneid, or in purely imaginative locations.

LONDON IN THE 1970s—a decade defined by alternative lifestyles and mainstream rebellion—was set to a brash, angry soundtrack of punk music full of chaotic energy. Antisemitism still lingered from the devastation of World War II. Madeleine Dunnigan’s prickly, deeply moving debut novel Jean crystallizes the impact of these forces into the tale of a seventeen-year-old boyMore

THE TRADITION of elegiac poetry has always lent itself to a certain kind of gorgeousness; loss somehow seems to naturally engender a sense of beauty. Now two well-regarded poets have given us their own takes on love and loss, each remarkably moving in its own way.

THE PRIMARY CHARACTERS in James Cahill’s latest novel, The Violet Hour, inhabit the lofty, rarefied world of contemporary fine art, galleries, and artists. It’s a world composed of trickery, greed, delusion, backstabbing jealousies, and obscene amounts of money. It’s also an awful lot of fun.

  LEVITICUS Directed by Adrian Chiarella Neon The Australian horror film Leviticus is a conversion-therapy allegory set in a drab, dried-out area in New South Wales dominated by industry and agriculture, where seemingly everyone belongs to the same evangelical Christian church. The nerdy, new-in-town teen protagonist Naim, played by Joe Bird, becomes fixated on hisMore

A LOT CAN HAPPEN in one summer, especially for a seventeen-year-old new kid in a small town on the brink of senior year. Girls Like Girls follows Coley (played by Maya da Costa), who’s struggling to adjust to life with her estranged father following her mother’s death.

WHAT A WAY to open a film: “What up, faggots?” Looking down at the camera is the chiseled “Aaron Eagle,” played by Kieron Moore as a tatted-up, sadistic “camboy” (meaning that he performs sex acts on camera) in his late twenties who kisses his bulging biceps, massages his package through tighty whities, and tells hisMore

[Cruising] remains agnostic on the ethics of S/M and the leather scene but reminds us that the gay men who cruised the trucks and participated in the late-night bar scene always knew they were flirting with danger, especially once drugs and alcohol were added to the mix. Without putting too fine a spin on it,More

THE 42ND INSTALLMENT of Boston’s Wicked Queer Film Festival reflected the zeitgeist, screening films about powerful government, corporate, and religious forces arrayed against ordinary LGBT people simply trying to survive. The seventeen features and dozens of short films that I saw during the ten-day festival were replete with underdog stories, often with ambiguous if notMore

Two new HBO series, DTF St. Louis and Half Man, are responses to this aspect of the zeitgeist: the erosion of masculinity and heterosexuality as they are conventionally conceived. It’s a one-two punch: the first darkly satirical and the second dire and disturbing. DTF St. Louis (an abbreviation for “down to fuck”) stars Jason BatemanMore

THE PHOTOGRAPHER Peter Hujar (1934–1987) has been turning up everywhere lately. One place I wasn’t expecting to find him was the Morgan Library & Museum.

THEY SAY you shouldn’t meet your heroes. They also say there’s an exception to every rule. Author, activist, and film critic Vito Russo was that exception. He was also a hero of mine, and I consider myself blessed to have met him and honored to have befriended him late in his short life. Vito’s bestsellerMore

IN ROMAN CATHOLIC CIRCLES, Father John McNeill is considered the dividing line on LGBT issues between the wilderness and the Promised Land. McNeill, who died in 2015, was probably the most notable figure in late 20th-century Catholicism to publicly address homosexuality with empathy. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his landmark book The ChurchMore

Takes on news of the day.

Readers’ thought on recent articles in The G&LR

  THIS ISSUE explores the phenomenon of cruising, a feature of gay life whose significance was best summed up by George Michael when he was approached by a tabloid photographer while cruising for sex on London’s Hampstead Heath. “This is my culture,” he replied. Indeed, what we recognize as cruising has existed over the centuriesMore

WHEN REX REED (1938–2026) died in May at the age of 87, he left behind a staggering body of work as both a movie critic and a celebrity profiler. His take-no-prisoners style had made him a legend.

  I am four in this photograph with lines from Natasha Trethewey’s “History Lesson”   I am four in this photograph with lines from Natasha Trethewey’s “History Lesson” I am four in this photograph, standing at home plate, my white pants with columns of fire-truck red sun-stained and windwhipped in baseball diamond sand, eyes shadowedMore