Book Review	Book Reviews Archive

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue
Samuel Delany
New York University Press
How to order Desired Past, A: A Short History of Same Sex Love in America
Lelia J. Rupp
University of Chicago Press
How to order

Finally, a book-- Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (New York University Press, 208 pages, $19.95)-- full of common sense about sex, cities, and porn. Samuel Delany-- award-winning science-fiction writer and critic-- has written a dazzlingly eloquent, provocative, and persuasive cri de coeur against New York City's gentrification and redevelopment of Times Square, committed in the name of "family values" and safety. In this brace of two distinct but interrelated essays, Delany, Manhattan native, writes about his own sexual adventures in Times Square's peep shows, porno houses, and bars. In the first essay he juxtaposes personal history with a detailed account of how the city has gradually shut down its red light districts over the past 40 years. The companion piece details Delany's sociological and anthropological observations explaining why a city should not only tolerate but value and encourage a culture of public sexuality.

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Delany draws upon a wide range of historical and theoretical materials-- the history of pornographic films, Jane Jacobs's Death and Life of Great American Cities, Supreme Court discussions about homosexual activity-- to argue his case, and it is a radical one: because areas like Times Square promote relationships across class boundaries, they promote an environment of safety, empathy, and social coherence.

Delany is at his most damning when he charges that, City Hall rhetoric aside, Times Square's "Disneyfication" is not about public morality, safety, or health but simply bolstering private economic interests. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue's thoughts on gender, race, and economic disparity are as cogent and illuminating as the portraits Delaney draws of the men who live, work, and socialize there are vivid and moving.

Skims nicely

Tired of books on gay and lesbian history that are too academic, too theoretical, too filled with turgid post-modern jargon? Lelia J. Rupp's A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America (University of Chicago Press, 224 pages, $22) is a survey of 400 years same-sex love in America that goes down easy.

Rupp, a history professor at Ohio State University, begins by introducing material about her own life, her lesbian aunt Lilia, coming out, and her work in the gay and lesbian community. But the bulk of this thin volume is an engaging but cursory look at highlights of its chosen topic. Walt Whitman's life and poetry makes a major appearance, as does Emily Dickinson's "romantic friendship" with her sister-in-law. Rupp covers how gender and sexuality differ over time when discussing Native American berdaches, and explores the beginnings of modern gay and lesbian communities by explaining the importance of World War II in helping forge the modern gay scene.

But there's little new research here, and although Rupp draws upon the standard sources for gay and lesbian history-- Allan Bérubé, Esther Newton, George Chauncey, Jonathan Katz, Lillian Faderman-- she more often summarizes their ideas than uses them to build new, more elaborate or conclusive arguments.

Rupp has produced a very readable-- and to the right readers probably quite useful-- Young Adult version of gay American history.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com