Homosexual Desire

Originally published in 1972 in France, Guy Hocquenghem's "Homosexual Desire" has become a classic in gay theory. Translated into English for the first time in 1978 and out of print since the early 1980s, this new edition, with an introduction by Michael Moon, will make available this vital and still relevant work to contemporary audiences. Integrating psychoanalytic and Marxist theory, this book describes the social and psychic dynamics of what has come to be called homophobia and on how the 'homosexual' as social being has come to be constituted in capitalist society. Significant as one of the earliest products of the international gay liberation movement, Hocquenghem's work was influenced by the extraordinary energies unleashed by the political upheavals of both the Paris 'May Days' of 1968 and the gay and lesbian political rebellions that occurred in cities around the world in the wake of New York's Stonewall riots of June 1969. Drawing on the theoretical work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari and on the shattering effects of innumerable gay 'comings-out', Hocquenghem critiqued the influential models of the psyche and sexual desire derived from Lacan and Freud. The author also addressed the relation of capitalism to sexualities, the dynamics of anal desire, and the political effects of gay group-identities. Two decades after its appearance, "Homosexual Desire" remains an exhilarating analysis of capitalist societies' pervasive fascination with, and violent fear of, same-sex desire and addresses issues that continue to be highly charged and productive ones for queer politics. Guy Hocquenghem (1944-1988) taught philosophy at the University of Vincennes, Paris. He was the author of numerous novels, works of theory, and was a staff writer for the French publication Liberation. He was a founding member of le Front Homosexuel d'Action Revolutionnaire (F.H.A.R.). Hocquenghem died of an AIDS-related illness in 1988.