Jeffrey Escoffier delves into GLBTQ history, politics, culture, sexuality, music, and dance. As a co-founder of OUT/LOOK: National Lesbian and Gay Quarterly, he has significantly shaped discourse in these fields. His work is marked by a profound exploration of community and perversity, examining the history and politics of sexuality and culture both within American life and across broader historical contexts. His analyses span from the history of gay porn cinema to deep dives into the sexual revolution.
The making of pornographic films is examined as a social process that intertwines the fantasies, sexual scripts, and identities of various contributors, including performers, writers, directors, and editors. This exploration highlights how these elements come together to create engaging and sexually stimulating content, shedding light on the unique interplay between fantasy and reality in this genre of entertainment.
Pornographic films combine fantasy and real sex to create a unique genre of entertainment. This book explores how the making of pornographic films is a social process that draws on the fantasies, sexual scripts and sexual identities of performers, writers, directors, and editors to produce sexually exciting videos and movies.
Jeffrey Escoffier explores the evolution of gay and lesbian political identity over the past four decades in this collection of influential essays. He situates the emergence of gay and lesbian communities within a broader context of recent American history, illustrating how a marginalized urban subculture transformed into a vital public community with an activist agenda and significant cultural influence. Escoffier introduces the "political economy of the closet," arguing that market forces have played a crucial role in shaping these communities, which in turn have impacted the American marketplace.
He discusses the rise of a camp sensibility in popular culture, influenced by the erotic exhibitionism of drag queens, and the public reformation of safer-sex guidelines, highlighting how the gay movement has gained social authority and recognition as a thriving market. Throughout the struggle for legitimacy, gays and lesbians have navigated the tension between the homoeroticism present in American culture and episodes of homophobic backlash. Escoffier traces the lesbian and gay movement's journey through American political life, revealing how sexual minorities challenge societal norms while being integrated as citizens. From McCarthy-era witch hunts to the activism of Queer Nation, he vividly captures the complex American homosexual experience within the political landscape of authenticity, identity, and community.
