A proud working class woman, an "out" lesbian long before the Rainbow revolution, Joan Nestle has stood at the forefront of American freedom struggles from the McCarthy era to the present day. Available for the first time in years, this revised classic collection of personal essays offers an intimate account of the lesbian, feminist, and civil rights movements.

A Restricted Country

Politics & Social Sciences

Nestle, Joan

Social Sciences

Firebrand Books

A Fragile Union is the long-awaited collection from feminist historian Joan Nestle. Nestle explores the fragile unions” of contemporary lesbian life, both personal and historic.

A Fragile Union: New and Selected Writings

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Cleis Press

A proud working class woman, an "out" lesbian long before the Rainbow revolution, Joan Nestle has stood at the forefront of American freedom struggles from the McCarthy era to the present day. Available for the first time in years, this revised classic collection of personal essays offers an intimate account of the lesbian, feminist, and civil rights movements.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

The diversity of New York City's people, cultures, religions, and backgrounds make it the indicator of American sexuality. It is black, white, gay, straight, rich, poor, rough, and tender all at once. From Margaret Sanger's dissemination of birth control to the Stonewall riot of 1969, New York City has repeatedly seen its sexual dynamics changed and American and international culture follow suit. Published to coincide with the much-anticipated opening of the Museum of Sex in New York, NYC Sex features conversations between major cultural figures and historians on sexual topics, including Grady T. Turner on "Sodom on the Hudson"; Martin Duberman and Joan Nestle on queers; Timothy J. Gilfoyle, Xaviera Hollander, and Tracy Quan on whores; Karen Finley, Luc Sante, Gene Simmons, and Art Spiegelman on the underground; and Vanessa del Rio, Legs McNeil, and Annie Sprinkle on porn. And what's a book about sex without pictures? In between the steamy conversation, NYC Sex posts photographs by Mapplethorpe, Ferrato and Gatewood; 19th-century drawings and photographs; film stills; posters; magazine pin-ups; and images of sex symbols past and present. It's a treat the whole family can enjoy. NYC Sex is the official book of the inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Sex, which will open in New York in September. 
"Well before New York was regarded as a center for high art, the Bowery was already the capital for popular and fringe culture...the Bowery was an open valve that functioned as a release in New York City. Anything might go on in the Bowery, and be marginally tolerated as long as it was sufficiently concealed." --Luc Sante 
Essay by Grady T. Turner. Conversations with Martin Duberman, Joan Nestle, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, Xaviera Hollander, Tracy Quan, Karen Finley, Luc Sante, Gene Simmons, Art Spiegelman, Vanessa del Rio, Legs McNeil and Annie Sprinkle. 
Paperback, 8.25 x 10 in., 224 pages, 150 color 
Publisher: Scala Publishers

NYC Sex: How New York Transformed Sex in America

DUBERMAN, Martin

Turner, Grady T.

Arts & Photography

Scala Pub

Extraordinary collection of new and beloved work by writer, thinker, and theorist Joan Nestle. 
For over fifty years, Joan Nestle has been chronicling lesbian and queer life boldly with guts, heart, and moral suasion. A Sturdy Yes of a People gathers Nestles most influential writing into a single volume presenting her persistent involvement in liberation movements, LGBTQ histories, erotic writing, and archives that document gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer lives. Embedded in tales of lesbian desire are Nestle's concerns with the power of class and race in America to exile bodies. 
From Nestle's earliest popular essays such as "Lesbians and Prostitutes: An Historical Sisterhood" to more recent powerfully evocative pieces like "I Lift My Eyes to the Hill" in which Nestle, a white lesbian, traces the life of her friend, African-American lesbian Mabel Hampton, A Sturdy Yes of a People gathers both her most enduring insights and new provocations for readers and fans to treasure or discover. Scholar Carolyn D'Cruz of La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia situates Nestle's work and its power while an afterword by Susie Bright reminds readers of how transgressive and potent Nestle's sex writing was--and remains. 
A bold and original thinker, deeply connected with her communities, with an abiding willingness to reexamine and reimagine queer lives by integrating new ideas, challenges, and experiences, Nestle dazzles as a powerful thinker, writer, and theorist. 
"Joan Nestle is a warrior. Yes."--Cheryl Clarke, poet, essayist, scholar 
"I have fallen in love with Joan Nestle all over again--her heart and her passionate belief that history is both created and found in the rich specifics of lives as they have been lived."--Samuel Ace, author of Our Weather Our Sea 
"Where would I be without Joan Nestle? I can't imagine my life without the fierce generosity of her writing on erotic pleasure, lesbian archives, Jewish working-class wisdom, and, above all, femme ways of knowing and being. For decades, she has gathered others together through her archival and editorial activism, now A Sturdy Yes of a People showcases the passionate force of her own words."--Ann Cvetkovich, author of An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures 
Literary Nonfiction. Essay. Jewish Studies. LGBTQ+ Studies. Women's Studies.

A Sturdy Yes of a People: Selected Writings (Sapphic Classic)

Sinister Wisdom

Genre Fiction

HYSTERIQUES ASS

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