In a fascinating and radical critique of identity and class, Your Place or Mine? examines the modern invention of homosexuality as a social construct that emerged in the nineteenth century. Examining “fairies” in Victorian England, transmen in early twentieth-century Manhattan, sexual politics in Soviet Russia, and Stonewall’s attempt to combine gay self-defense with revolutionary critique, Dauvé turns his keen eye on contemporary political correctness in the United States and the rise of reactionary discourse.
The utopian vision of Your Place or Mine? is vital to a just society: the invention of a world where one can be human without having to be classified by sexual practices or gender expressions. Where one need not find shelter in definition or assimilation. A refreshing reminder that we are not all the same, nor do we need to be.
What People Are Saying
“Do you ever ask yourself why there is so little class analysis applied to the assimilation of the ‘gay movement,’ or even of the previously glamorous and revolutionary ‘subcultures’ denoted by the word ‘queer,’ why today’s ‘activists’ are so keen on reformist political strategies, why the current LGBTQQIP2SAA configuration used to describe the ‘gay’ or ‘queer’ community indicates a factionalization of sexual identity that has become so inclusive as to become almost meaningless ? I have, and if you have too, Gilles Dauvé’s Your Place or Mine? A 21st Century Essay on (Same) Sex is the right book to be holding in your hands.” Bruce LaBruce
About the Author
Gilles Dauvé is a French political theorist. He was a participant in the 1968 Paris rebellion and a writer for the radical gay magazine Fléau Social. His books Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement and From Crisis to Communisation are published by PM Press.