Goth Culture: Gender, Sexuality and Style

by Dunja Brill

Goth Culture explores Goths' expressive practices of dress, fashion, style and the body, in relation to issues of identity and representation. The book shares vivid accounts of the author's experiences exploring gender and sexuality and doing fieldwork in the Gothic subculture. Through the voices of Goths from the UK, US and Germany, it draws the reader into the gender-bending and heavily gendered world of Goth. It reassesses the significance of the dress of both male and female Goths, examining these striking and often highly creative subcultural fashion displays. Using a wide range of methods and sources, from ethnography to critical examination of music, literature, social theory and different types of popular media, Goth Culture offers an original and accessible analysis of the fashion, media and counterculture of the Gothic world.

Genres: Goth, Music, Nonfiction, Art, Gothic

224 pages, Hardcover

First published December 9, 2008

Reviews

[Teo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very mind opening and insightful about the Goth “genderless” goal, and how many contradictions there are within the scene to do with that, and other things. In saying that, it left me quite sad knowing there doesn’t seem to be any space/scene that is legitimately free from the problematic binds in society, especially sexualization of women, and how certain things within such places can actually reinforce the issues they are supposedly fighting against. Will keep me thinking for a long while

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Densely academic but fascinating, and ironically somewhat depressing. An incisive and thoughtful look at early 21st century goth in the UK and Germany.

[Leonardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book on the Goth subculture I've read so far. Passionate, intelligente, loving and yet unrelenting study of one of the most cherished aspects of Goth subculture: our claims to androginy. A goth herself, Dr. Brill nevertheless plunges into the depths and heights of Goth's intendend and actual sexual practices and gender roles. The book questions Goth's preconceptions abouth itself, and explore what "androginy" really means in a Goth context and how it clashes (and how it doesn't) with mainestrea and underground practices. From male's feminized androginy to females hyperfeminized feminity, to exposing how mainstream Goth simply repeats the vouyreist macho attitudes and beliefs of "the mortals".