In a series of provocative and often moving readings of authors as obscure as Marcel Jouhandeau and as well known as Jean Genet, he shows how the long history of gay men's uses of 'abjection' can yield alternative, non-moralistic models for thinking about gay male subjectivity. He argues that psychology, which is grounded in a highly prejudicial opposition between the normal and the pathological, between healthy and unhealthy behavior, masks a set of dubious moral assumptions about 'good' and 'bad' sex.Īgainst these insidious forms of sexual discipline, Halperin champions neglected traditions of queer thought, both literary and popular, that afford fascinating possibilities for addressing the vexed question of what gay men want. Unlike most writers on the topic of barebacking (condomless sex), David Halperin rejects psychology's claim to hold the keys to human subjectivity. Recent efforts to analyze gay men's motives for sexual risk-taking in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic have led to a revival of medical thinking about homosexuality and breathed new life into punitive clichés about gay men's alleged low self-esteem, lack of self-control, and various psychological 'deficits.' What Do Gay Men Want? offers a different language for describing gay men's inner lives.
Are homosexuals sick? Since gay liberation, the enlightened answer to that question has been a resounding no.
