Celebacies: American Modernism and Sexual Life PDF
Preview Celebacies: American Modernism and Sexual Life
Celibacies Duke University Press Durham and London 2013 Celibacies American Modernism & Sexual Life benjamin kahan © 2013 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper ∞ Designed by Courtney Baker Typeset in Whitman by Copperline Book Services, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Kahan, Benjamin. Celibacies : American modernism and sexual life / Benjamin Kahan. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8223-5554-0 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-5568-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sexual abstinence—Political aspects—United States. 2. Celibacy—Political aspects—United States. 3. Arts—Political aspects—United States— History—20th century. i. Title. hq800.15k34 2013 613.9—dc23 2013020977 To Mom and Dad with all my love Many people have their richest mental/emotional involvement with sexual acts that they don’t do, or even don’t want to do. —eve sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet Acknowledgments xi Contents introduction The Expressive Hypothesis 1 1 The Longue Durée of Celibacy: Boston Marriage, Female Friendship, and the Invention of Homosexuality 33 2 Celibate Time 56 3 The Other Harlem Renaissance: Father Divine, Celibate Economics, and the Making of Black Sexuality 81 4 The Celibate American: Closetedness, Emigration, and Queer Citizenship before Stonewall 99 5 Philosophical Bachelorhood, Philosophical Spinsterhood, and Celibate Modernity 121 conclusion Asexuality / Neutrality / Relationality 142 Notes 155 Bibliography 199 Index 223
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