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Lavender Culture
The influence of gays and lesbians on language, literature, theater, poetry, dance, music, and the arts is unmeasurable. In the era before AIDS, gay and lesbian culture had a defining, if unrecognized, influence on American life, an influence that is only now being acknowledged.
This reissue of the classic anthology, Lavender Culture, serves as a provocative, dynamic, and wide-ranging reminder of American gay and lesbian culture in the days before the status of gay people received widespread attention in the media, religion, and politics, before Newsweek saw it fit to feature a cover story on LESBIANS, and before gays and lesbians took center stage in America's cultural landscape.
Here we find the young, assertive voices of such activists, authors, and artists as Rita Mae Brown, Barbara Grier, John Stoltenberg, Julia Penelope, Andrea Dworkin, Andrew Kopkind, Jane Rule, Arthur Bell, Charlotte Bunche, and dozens more. Including essays on such diverse subjects as gay bath houses, the gay male image in classical ballet, images of gays in rock music, Judy Garland, lesbian humor, sports and machismo, the growing business of women's music, and the Cleveland bar scene in the 1940s,
Lavender Culture, with new introductory essays by the editors and Cindy Patton, offers a panoply of gay and lesbian life, tracing the current influence and visibility of gay and lesbian culture back to its origins.
This reissue of the classic anthology, Lavender Culture, serves as a provocative, dynamic, and wide-ranging reminder of American gay and lesbian culture in the days before the status of gay people received widespread attention in the media, religion, and politics, before Newsweek saw it fit to feature a cover story on LESBIANS, and before gays and lesbians took center stage in America's cultural landscape.
Here we find the young, assertive voices of such activists, authors, and artists as Rita Mae Brown, Barbara Grier, John Stoltenberg, Julia Penelope, Andrea Dworkin, Andrew Kopkind, Jane Rule, Arthur Bell, Charlotte Bunche, and dozens more. Including essays on such diverse subjects as gay bath houses, the gay male image in classical ballet, images of gays in rock music, Judy Garland, lesbian humor, sports and machismo, the growing business of women's music, and the Cleveland bar scene in the 1940s,
Lavender Culture, with new introductory essays by the editors and Cindy Patton, offers a panoply of gay and lesbian life, tracing the current influence and visibility of gay and lesbian culture back to its origins.
530 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
3 people are currently reading
220 people want to read
About the author
Karla Jay
21 books18 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Karla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published. Jay was born Karla Jayne Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, to a conservative Jewish family. She attended the Berkeley Institute, a private girls' school in Brooklyn now called the Berkeley Carroll School. Later she attended Barnard College, where she majored in French, and graduated in 1968 after having taken part in the student demonstrations at Columbia University. While she shared many of the goals of the radical left-wing of the late 1960s, Jay was uncomfortable with the male-supremacist behavior of many of the movement’s leaders. In 1969, she became a member of Redstockings. At around the same time she began using the name Karla Jay to reflect her feminist principles.
Karla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published. Jay was born Karla Jayne Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, to a conservative Jewish family. She attended the Berkeley Institute, a private girls' school in Brooklyn now called the Berkeley Carroll School. Later she attended Barnard College, where she majored in French, and graduated in 1968 after having taken part in the student demonstrations at Columbia University. While she shared many of the goals of the radical left-wing of the late 1960s, Jay was uncomfortable with the male-supremacist behavior of many of the movement’s leaders. In 1969, she became a member of Redstockings. At around the same time she began using the name Karla Jay to reflect her feminist principles.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 22, 2016
I am too sick to write as detailed a review as I wanted. Even though the book was dated, had a few flaws (such as Gerald Hannon's entire chapter which was self-contradicting, badly written, interested and creepy and should probably not have been printed...I mean sure these people want to push boundaries and not censor but imagine what could have replaced it?). Some of the writers were not great writers and most of the chapters were opinion pieces and preachy memoirs. The balance was still toward males seeming to have far more than half of the air time (I was going to give quantitative evidence for this but am in PAIN).
Even so this for me was a crucial read, partly to give me a sense of history (reading what seemed current in queer issues in the 70s) and partly for the complexities and good questions that in a more superficial (perhaps) age we seem to have largely abandoned or answered and now deny the problematism of. I LOVED Allen Young's writing and I warmed to Karla Jay too. There were some names like Rita Mae Brown that I knew.
I disagreed with a great deal of it. Some struck deep resonance with me and I mourned that we seemed to have forgotten crucial questions and critiques. The moral superiority of some of the writers (I am talking about you Fag Rag Collective though you weren't the only one) appalled me. Other writers gave me numerous tips for more writers and singers and such to check out for my own interest.
A rich look at queer history, before it knew it was history.
Even so this for me was a crucial read, partly to give me a sense of history (reading what seemed current in queer issues in the 70s) and partly for the complexities and good questions that in a more superficial (perhaps) age we seem to have largely abandoned or answered and now deny the problematism of. I LOVED Allen Young's writing and I warmed to Karla Jay too. There were some names like Rita Mae Brown that I knew.
I disagreed with a great deal of it. Some struck deep resonance with me and I mourned that we seemed to have forgotten crucial questions and critiques. The moral superiority of some of the writers (I am talking about you Fag Rag Collective though you weren't the only one) appalled me. Other writers gave me numerous tips for more writers and singers and such to check out for my own interest.
A rich look at queer history, before it knew it was history.
June 11, 2025
book 3 for pride!!
another one from my uncle bob, i'd never heard of it before but picked it up based on the title and i'm so glad i did!
this might be the most obscure book i've read, at least according to goodreads standards; my reading brings the total number of ratings up to 23 with 8 reviews. the cover image of this edition is a photo i took of my own copy, i couldn't even find something usable online!
this was just wonderful, i learned so much!!! obviously things have changed significantly (especially with gay male culture due to the aids epidemic) but so much of this is still relevant today. i found the article on gay visibility in the military particularly interesting and am looking forward to reading randy shilts' "conduct unbecoming" in the future. it's quite jarring in retrospect to read that it was believed the military would soon pioneer acceptance of openly gay people in the workplace as they did with interracial marriage, in reality it really lagged behind the movement with don't ask don't tell going into effect 15 years after this book was published and being repealed in 2011. side note: my dad was in the military and made a great parallel regarding people's misguided perception of transgender identity become more prominent in recent years. he didn't know a single gay person in the military until don't ask don't tell was repelaed, and then suddently he knew a whole lot of gay people in the military!
i think it's so important to understand our history and i've gotten a bit of it from this book. in this regressive political time, it's good reflect on how far we've come while we continue on in the struggle!
another one from my uncle bob, i'd never heard of it before but picked it up based on the title and i'm so glad i did!
this might be the most obscure book i've read, at least according to goodreads standards; my reading brings the total number of ratings up to 23 with 8 reviews. the cover image of this edition is a photo i took of my own copy, i couldn't even find something usable online!
this was just wonderful, i learned so much!!! obviously things have changed significantly (especially with gay male culture due to the aids epidemic) but so much of this is still relevant today. i found the article on gay visibility in the military particularly interesting and am looking forward to reading randy shilts' "conduct unbecoming" in the future. it's quite jarring in retrospect to read that it was believed the military would soon pioneer acceptance of openly gay people in the workplace as they did with interracial marriage, in reality it really lagged behind the movement with don't ask don't tell going into effect 15 years after this book was published and being repealed in 2011. side note: my dad was in the military and made a great parallel regarding people's misguided perception of transgender identity become more prominent in recent years. he didn't know a single gay person in the military until don't ask don't tell was repelaed, and then suddently he knew a whole lot of gay people in the military!
i think it's so important to understand our history and i've gotten a bit of it from this book. in this regressive political time, it's good reflect on how far we've come while we continue on in the struggle!
November 3, 2019
It’s always interesting reading essays about gay subjects from this time period, before AIDS when gay liberation and lesbian-feminism were in full swing. This book gives a nice cross section of articles on a wide range of topics and makes sure to include male and female contributors pretty equally, which is a treat. Not all the articles are great, but most at least give an idea of what conversations were happening at that time and how people saw themselves. I admit, a few articles I thought were not worth even that, but I would recommend this collection anyway to anyone looking to learn more about queer history.
June 12, 2023
there’s always going to be issues with older writings, characteristics of a certain time period will leak through and it can be upsetting/shocking but i only found a few essays (some only sections) reflective of this. i just think it’s really special to be able to read the words and experiences of elder queers and both the trials and joys of that time, immediately pre- and post-stonewall especially. it’s upsetting that a lot of the issues back then are still rampant today yet at the same time, so uplifting to reflect on all the change and progress that’s been made since then.
June 7, 2025
THE ORIGINAL 1978 COLLECTION OF ARTICLES ABOUT GAY CULTURE
Allen Young wrote in his introductory chapter to this 1978 book, "When we originally conceived a collection of articles about culture, we had to confront the fact that the word 'culture' is open to several interpretations... Perhaps the most common misunderstanding among gay men in looking at gay culture is to ignore the difference between the male and female experience, to forget everything that feminists have been saying about power relationships between men and women. In combining articles by men and women in the same volume, we hope that we can accomplish a celebration of our cultural achievements and heritage while at the same time we learn about and from the variety of experience." (Pg. 23).
Karla Jay says in her own article, "once we gathered together in groups, rather than as couples or in fleeting sexual encounters, what was it that we had in common? Was there anything that made us a 'people'? The emerging answer is yes, and the culture that has grown since the Stonewall rebellion has been an important contribution...The flowering of culture in the past decade has been especially true for lesbians... However, it remains to distinguish what is really `us' and what is the baggage of our homosexual upbringing and endless brainwashing." (Pg. 50-51)
She adds, "I feel that gay men can learn a lot from what lesbians have done, and pure separatism is a luxury enjoyed only by a few lesbians in rural communes or in large metropolitan areas... and indeed, not all lesbians wish to separate from ... the male minority." (Pg. 53)
Rita Mae Brown wrote of her visit (while disguised as a man) to a gay bathhouse: "I wanted to take off my clothes. Under the mustache I was grand old glorious me, but whatever slender bond these men felt for me as a male would have been shattered if I revealed myself as a woman. I began to get angry that a woman would freak out some of these men. Their sexuality was their business. All I wanted to do was remove my robe, the codpiece, the mustache, and feel the sensual pleasure of heat and nakedness. But naked I would become frightening to some of these men. Their sexuality depended on my absence... gay men are no exception. We still aren't people to them." (Pg. 74-75) Later, she adds, "the bath scene has never worked for women. About four years ago, a tiny offshoot of the Continental opened its doors to lesbians. Instead of zeroing in on each other, the women preferred to chat in the TV lounge. There was hardly any stalking, very little sex transpired. After a month, the place reverted to an all-male policy." (Pg. 80-81)
One essayist says, "Ours is still... an uninformed community---our diverse parts have yet to come together, and our attempts at creating a culture of pride often go unnoticed by those who don't read gay papers or attend gay community center functions." (Pg. 182) Another suggests, "The lack of any overtly gay art has always been a severe problem for gay audiences... Possibly the fact that gay people were already hiding within the culture made them unwilling to relate to a song that was filtered through the persona of a singer. [Judy] Garland sang directly to her audience and, what is more, she needed them probably as much as they needed her." (Pg. 203)
Still another asks, "Given that most of us are poor, where are we going to find the money to build ourselves a community? One answer comes from the fact that there are a lot of us. Individually we may be poor but collectively we are not." (Pg. 479)
Though 45 years old, this pathbreaking book is still of far more than merely "historical" interest.
Allen Young wrote in his introductory chapter to this 1978 book, "When we originally conceived a collection of articles about culture, we had to confront the fact that the word 'culture' is open to several interpretations... Perhaps the most common misunderstanding among gay men in looking at gay culture is to ignore the difference between the male and female experience, to forget everything that feminists have been saying about power relationships between men and women. In combining articles by men and women in the same volume, we hope that we can accomplish a celebration of our cultural achievements and heritage while at the same time we learn about and from the variety of experience." (Pg. 23).
Karla Jay says in her own article, "once we gathered together in groups, rather than as couples or in fleeting sexual encounters, what was it that we had in common? Was there anything that made us a 'people'? The emerging answer is yes, and the culture that has grown since the Stonewall rebellion has been an important contribution...The flowering of culture in the past decade has been especially true for lesbians... However, it remains to distinguish what is really `us' and what is the baggage of our homosexual upbringing and endless brainwashing." (Pg. 50-51)
She adds, "I feel that gay men can learn a lot from what lesbians have done, and pure separatism is a luxury enjoyed only by a few lesbians in rural communes or in large metropolitan areas... and indeed, not all lesbians wish to separate from ... the male minority." (Pg. 53)
Rita Mae Brown wrote of her visit (while disguised as a man) to a gay bathhouse: "I wanted to take off my clothes. Under the mustache I was grand old glorious me, but whatever slender bond these men felt for me as a male would have been shattered if I revealed myself as a woman. I began to get angry that a woman would freak out some of these men. Their sexuality was their business. All I wanted to do was remove my robe, the codpiece, the mustache, and feel the sensual pleasure of heat and nakedness. But naked I would become frightening to some of these men. Their sexuality depended on my absence... gay men are no exception. We still aren't people to them." (Pg. 74-75) Later, she adds, "the bath scene has never worked for women. About four years ago, a tiny offshoot of the Continental opened its doors to lesbians. Instead of zeroing in on each other, the women preferred to chat in the TV lounge. There was hardly any stalking, very little sex transpired. After a month, the place reverted to an all-male policy." (Pg. 80-81)
One essayist says, "Ours is still... an uninformed community---our diverse parts have yet to come together, and our attempts at creating a culture of pride often go unnoticed by those who don't read gay papers or attend gay community center functions." (Pg. 182) Another suggests, "The lack of any overtly gay art has always been a severe problem for gay audiences... Possibly the fact that gay people were already hiding within the culture made them unwilling to relate to a song that was filtered through the persona of a singer. [Judy] Garland sang directly to her audience and, what is more, she needed them probably as much as they needed her." (Pg. 203)
Still another asks, "Given that most of us are poor, where are we going to find the money to build ourselves a community? One answer comes from the fact that there are a lot of us. Individually we may be poor but collectively we are not." (Pg. 479)
Though 45 years old, this pathbreaking book is still of far more than merely "historical" interest.
July 29, 2020
Lavender Culture is a collection of essays on different topics surrounding gay and lesbian culture (mostly in America). Because this anthology was originally published in the '70s, much of it is dated. I couldn't recommend this to someone who doesn't already have an empathetic and well-rounded understanding of modern Queer culture and its roots. The treatment of BDSM in the book is seriously misguided and there is a near complete erasure of bi and trans people. In it's historical context, this wasn't surprising to me, I just wouldn't want someone to read it as a first-foray into queer history.
Not all of the pieces were winners but I wanted to note some of my favourites:
- Why I'm not Dancing by Felice Newman
- Toeing the Line: In Search of the Male Gay Image in Contemporary Classical Ballet by Graham Jackson
- The X-Rated Bibliographer: A Spy in the House of Sex by Karla Jay
- Some Pulp Sappho by Fran Koski & Maida Tilchen
- The Poetry of Male Love by Ian Young
- Memoirs of a Lesbian Daughter by Blynn Garnett
- Growing Up Gay: Where Were You in '62 by stuart Byron
- The Politics of Dress by David Holland
- Letter to M by Andrea Dworkin
- Practical Economics for a Women's Community by Nancy Groschwitz
Not all of the pieces were winners but I wanted to note some of my favourites:
- Why I'm not Dancing by Felice Newman
- Toeing the Line: In Search of the Male Gay Image in Contemporary Classical Ballet by Graham Jackson
- The X-Rated Bibliographer: A Spy in the House of Sex by Karla Jay
- Some Pulp Sappho by Fran Koski & Maida Tilchen
- The Poetry of Male Love by Ian Young
- Memoirs of a Lesbian Daughter by Blynn Garnett
- Growing Up Gay: Where Were You in '62 by stuart Byron
- The Politics of Dress by David Holland
- Letter to M by Andrea Dworkin
- Practical Economics for a Women's Community by Nancy Groschwitz
February 19, 2013
Dated for sure, with some problematic ideas born out of 90s mainstream g/l rhetoric (and ignorance). However, just the introduction by Cindy Patton was worth the read. Very good for providing some context as to 'why older, conservative gays and lesbians believe the way they do', and a few interesting articles, but go into it with caution.
Want to read
August 31, 2009This is edited by Karla Jay and Allen Young, not Cindy Patton.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews