Jeffrey Weeks

Most of us are programmed into thinking of our sexuality as a wholly natural feature of life. But sexual relations are just one form of social relations. Sexuality has both a history and a sociology -- it is not simply a matter of biological or psychological drives. Drawing on the analysis of Michel Foucault and other key thinkers, this new edition of Sexuality examines the subject in terms of social, moral and political issues, and features new material on AIDS, queer theory and postcolonial perspectives on race. This book provides an indispensable, comprehensive introduction to the sociology of sexuality, discussing its cultural and socio-historical construction, its relationship with power, and the state's involvement in its rationalization and regulation.

Sexuality

"Much acclaimed when first published in 1977 as a pioneering study of the growth of homosexual consciousness, this classic and prize-winning book is now reissued in a revised and updated version. Coming Out records the development of lesbian and gay identities and struggles for equality from the harsh legal and social oppression of the nineteenth century to the tremendous impact of the gay liberation movement in the 1970s and beyond."--From cover.

Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present

Coming Out

Words, Freud once wrote, are like magic. Nowhere have words been more magical than in the writing of sexuality. Through words we learn what is good or bad, pleasurable or painful, significant and insignificant. The words used about sexuality do not simply describe something out there. They help shape what sexuality is. A clearly written presentation of complex ideas, this book provides a pathway to further reading. Arranged alphabetically it is a compendium of one hundred words that are key to the understanding of contemporary sexualities...

The Languages of Sexuality

Catherine Donovan

Brian Heaphy

Based on extensive interviews, this fascinating new book argues that developments in the non-heterosexual world are closely linked to wider changes in the meaning of family in society. This topical book will provide compelling reading.

Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments

Same Sex Intimacies

Sheila Rowbotham

The Personal and Sexual Politics of Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis

Socialism and the New Life

Jeffrey Weeks has established an international reputation as one of the most original and influential writers on the social history of sexuality.

Making Sexual History

Few topics evoke so much anxiety and pleasure, pain and hope, discussion and silence as sexuality. Throughout the Christian era it has been a major moral preoccupation. Since the eighteenth century it has also been the focus of 'scientific' exploration and political activity. But, despite this obsessive concern, we are still as baffled as our predecessors about the 'true' meaning of sex. In this book Jeffrey Weeks unravels the dense web of historical, theoretical and political forces that have culminated in the contemporary crisis of sexual meanings and values. The book begins with a powerful evocation of our present discontents and their potent signs: the rise of the New Right, the retreat of progressive forces and a wave of moral panics around sex. It argues that this crisis is rooted in a tradition which has ascribed an inflated importance to sexuality, whilst claiming a privileged access to truth. The author then examines radical debates of recent years, and asks whether they contain the potentiality for taking us beyond the existing boundaries of sexuality. From this analysis emerges a controversial 'radical pluralist' approach to sexuality built on an acceptance of diversity and choice. By linking our present discontents to a clear understanding of the past, Jeffrey Weeks presents a rational, optimistic and challenging vision of a realizable future.

Meanings, Myths, and Modern Sexualities

Sexuality and Its Discontents

Theo Sandfort

Jan Willem Duyvendak

Judith Schuyf

This timely book seeks to demonstrate the coherence of lesbian and gay studies. It introduces the reader to the principal inter-disciplinary approaches in the field and critically assesses their strengths and weaknesses whilst asking: What is lesbian and gay studies? When did it emerge? And what are its achievements and research agenda? The gay and lesbian movement has emerged as a major political and cultural force. It poses a series of far reaching questions about the organization of identity, the operation of power and the limits of tolerance. Lesbian and Gay Studies has emerged as a vital and enriching field. It offers challenges to more traditional disciplines and requires new forms of thought about the connections between academic work and personal politics.

An Introductory, Interdisciplinary Approach

Lesbian and Gay Studies

This is an important intervention in debates on the family and sexuality, exploring clashes over sexual values and contemporary sexual dilemmas such as AIDS.

Sexual Values in an Age of Uncertainty

Invented Moralities

C. Cook

P. Jones

J. Sinclair

From 1970 to 1977 a major project to uncover source material for students of contemporary British history and politics was undertaken at the British Library of Political and Economic Science. Fiananced by the Social Science Research Council, and under the direction of Dr Chris Cook, this project has attempted a unique and systematic operation to locate, and then to make readily available, those archives that provide the indispensable source material for the contemporary historian. This volume (the fifth in the series) provides a guide to the papers of propagandists who were influential in British public life. Included in this volume are the papers of such persons as newspaper editors, leading economists, social reformers, socialist thinkers, trade unionists, industrialists and a variety of theologians and philanthropists. In all, this volume not only completes the findings of the project but opens up the archive sources of a hitherto neglected area of research into contemporary social and political history.

Volume 2: A Guide to the Private Papers of Selected Public Services

Sources in British Political History, 1900-1951

A compelling and comprehensive account of British LGBT lives from the late 1800s to the present day, written by a leading authority. Essential for anyone interested in LGBT issues. Originally published to great acclaim in 1977 as a pioneering study of gay and lesbian lives, this classic prizewinning title is newly reissued in a revised and updated edition at a time when LGBT issues are a matter of national importance. As a gay activist and campaigner, Jeffrey Weeks has been on the frontline of the fight for equality for decades.

Lgbt Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present

We are almost programmed into thinking of our sexuality as a wholly natural feature of life. But sexual relations are but one form of social relations, as Jeffrey Weeks makes clear in his book. Drawing on the analyses of Michel Foucault, amongst others, the book examines the social, moral and political issues raised by contemporary forms of sexuality. Weeks provides an authoritative introduction to the sociology of sexuality, discussing its cultural and socio-historical construction, it's relationship with power and the State's involvement in its rationalisation and regulation. This second edition is also updates to include global and postcolonial perspectives on sexuality, queer theory, the internet and cybersex, AIDS as a global phenomenon and international debates on the politics of sexuality. This book is an indispensable introduction to this complex and expanding field.

Our families are increasingly a matter of choice, and the choices are widening all the time. This is particularly true of the non-heterosexual world, where the last ten years have seen a popular acceptance of same sex partnerships and, to a lesser extent, of same sex parenting. Based on extensive interviews with people in a variety of non-traditional relationships, this fascinating new book argues that these developments in the non-heterosexual world are closely linked to wider changes in the meaning of family in society at large, and that each can cast light on the other. Same Sex Intimacies gives vivid accounts of the different ways non-heterosexual people have been able to create meaningful intimate relationships for themselves, and highlights the role of individual agency and collective endeavour in forging these roles: as friends, partners, parents and as members of communities. This topical book will provide compelling reading for students of the family, sexuality and lesbian and gay studies.

Volume 4: A Guide to the Private Papers of Members of Parliament: L–Z

Sources in British Political History 1900–1951

The Theory and Politics of Social Diversity

The Lesser Evil and the Greater Good

Dennis Altman

"A pleasure...a really sensitive, lucid account of his personal liberation...a penetrating analysis of the political premises and goals and philosophical background of the movement." —The New York Times "The one to read...may very well be the most intelligible and best written books on the subject." —The Minneapolis Tribune When Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation was first published in 1971, The New York Review of Books, hailed it as the only work that bears comparison...with the best to appear from Women's Liberation. Time wrote that, among the whole tumble of homosexuals who have `come out of the closet', perhaps best among these accounts is a book by Dennis Altman. Long out of print, Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation remains a seminal work in the gay liberation movement. Altman examines the different positions promoting gay liberation, and recognizes the healthy diversity in these divisions. Elaborating on the writers of the emergent movement--James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg, Christopher Isherwood, Herbert Marcuse, Kate Millett, and others--Homosexual suggests that we can nurture a common, progressive movement out of our shared sexuality and experience of a heterosexist society. Today, in the age of AIDS, ACT UP, and Queer Nation, the possibility of such commonality is of critical importance. Jeffrey Weeks's new introduction places Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation in its historical context, while the author's new afterword examines its significance in light of today's lesbian and gay movement.

Oppression and Liberation

Homosexual

The World We Have Won is a major study of transformations in erotic and intimate life since 1945. We are living in a world of transition, in the midst of a long, unfinished but profound revolution that has transformed the possibilities of living out our sexual diversities. This book provides a balance sheet of the changes that have transformed our ways of being, from welfarism to the pill, women's and gay liberation, from globalization, consumerism and individualization to new forms of intimacy, from friends as family to same sex marriage. Some respond to these challenges with a deep cultural pessimism or moral conservatism. It rejects such views and argues that this is a world we are increasingly making for ourselves, part of the long process of democratization of everyday life. Unless we grasp this we cannot understand, not only the problems and anxieties, but the opportunities and hopes in this world we have won.

The Remaking of Erotic and Intimate Life

The World We Have Won

Essays on History, Sexuality and Identity

Against Nature

Until the 1970s the history of sexuality was a marginalized practice. Today it is a flourishing field, increasingly integrated into the mainstream and producing innovative insights into the ways in which societies shape and are shaped by sexual values, norms, identities and desires. In this book, Jeffrey Weeks, one of the leading international scholars in the subject, sets out clearly and concisely how sexual history has developed, and its implications for our understanding of the ways we live today. The emergence of a new wave of feminism and lesbian and gay activism in the 1970s transformed the subject, heavily influenced by new trends in social and cultural history, radical sociological insights and the impact of Michel Foucault’s work. The result was an increasing emphasis on the historical shaping of sexuality, and on the existence of many different sexual meanings and cultures on a global scale. With chapters on, amongst others, lesbian, gay and queer history, feminist sexual history, the mainstreaming of sexual history, and the globalization of sexual history, What is Sexual History? is an indispensable guide to these developments.

What is Sexual History?

A man’s own story from the Rhondda. Jeffrey Weeks was born in the Rhondda in 1945, of mining stock. As he grew up he increasingly felt an outsider in the intensely community-minded valleys, a feeling intensified as he became aware of his gayness. Escape came through education. He left for London, to university, and to realise his sexuality. From the early 1970s he was actively involved in the new gay liberation movement and became its pioneering historian. This was the beginning of a long career as a researcher and writer on sexuality, with widespread national and international recognition. He has been described as the ‘most significant British intellectual working on sexuality to emerge from the radical sexual movements of the 1970s’. His seminal book, Coming Out, a history of LGBT movements and identities since the 19th century, has been in print for forty years. He was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Jubilee Honours in 2012 for his contribution to the social science.

Jeffrey Weeks

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