True Norwegian Black Metal

Description: "When we’re on the road, all we watch is VBS, and our favorite series is Norwegian Black Metal." (Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters) Documentary photographer Peter Beste has spent the last five years working in the milieu of the Norwegian black metal scene. This scene, with its notorious events of murder, church arson, and self-mythology, is absolutely sealed to outsiders. The international black metal fan base is one of the most devoted, fanatical, and proprietary in the world. Beste’s access and insight into this world is unprecedented and has yielded an amazing photographic journey, along with a very popular documentary series on VBS.tv, also available on YouTube. Beste, together with Johan Kugelberg, noted writer, editor, and collector of documentary photography, has brought the images into a hermeneutic narrative that makes for a compelling experience along the lines of Anders Petersen’s Café Lehmitz, Ed Van Der Elsken’s Love on the Left Bank, or William Klein’s Life Is Good and Good for You in New York. (more...)

Greetings From the Gayborhood: A Nostalgic Look at Gay Neighborhoods

Description: From the Castro to Chelsea, Greetings From the Gayborhood celebrates twelve traditionally gay neighborhoods in America, past and present. Featuring archival images along with nostalgic and sometimes kitschy ephemera (bar ads, event programs, matchbooks, flyers, and more) this scrapbook-style collection is the perfect souvenir for where the boys are and were. Donald F. Reuter has chronicled the evolution of gay neighborhoods in twelve cities--Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC--and studied how gentrification has affected them and their role in the greater community. Greetings From the Gayborhood is a spirited and sexy time capsule that celebrates the history, creativity, and longevity of gay America. (more...)

No Regrets: The Best, Worst, & Most #$%*ing Ridiculous Tattoos Ever

Description: Dr. Phil, Gay Unicorns, and Jesus Christ... They're all tattooed on someone's ass. Or face, or whatever. Remember that time you were wasted and thought it would be a good idea to get a tattoo on your leg of Maury Povich shaking hands with Sasquatch, but your friends talked you out of it at the last second? Well, some people don't have any friends... (more...)

Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See

"If I have learned only one thing from a) personal experience and b) Vivian Cash's fascinating memoir, I Walked the Line, it is this: No human can compose a love letter without seeming slightly insane. Love letters are like suicide notes--if someone is in the emotional position to consider writing one, they're generally in the worst psychological position to make any cogent sense. That disconnect is what makes Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See a painfully entertaining twelve-minute read. The book delivers exactly what it purports: random personal letters from people who are either wildly ecstatic or profoundly depressed over the condition of their romantic existence. (One of my favorite entries is from a person who just printed the word liar 183 consecutive times.) Judging from the contents of these notes, we appear to live in a society that is sex crazed and optimistic yet consumed with deep regret. This is probably true" (Chuck Klosterman). (more...)

Church Pimps

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Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships

"In this wide-ranging examination of the emotional and physical relations between humans and the inanimate objects of their desire, AI guru Levy first addresses the question of love with robots, and moves on to consider the mechanics of actually having sex with them. In order to put the reader at ease with the possibility of human-robot love, Levy compares the phenomenon to the ways in which humans fall in love with each other, their pets, and even their motorcycles. From there, Levy argues, it is a short emotional step to the affection people can be expected to display towards robots" (Publishers Weekly). (more...)

A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis

A man can hold his manhood in his hand, but who is really gripping whom? Is the penis the best in man--or the beast? How is man supposed to use it? And when does that use become abuse? Of all the bodily organs, only the penis forces man to confront such contradictions: something insistent yet reluctant, a tool that creates but also destroys, a part of the body that often seems apart from the body. This is the conundrum that makes the penis both hero and villain in a drama that shapes every man--and mankind along with it.

Whether enemy or ally, demon or god, the source of satisfaction or the root of all earthly troubles, the penis has forced humanity to wrestle with its enduring mysteries. Here, in an enlightening and entertaining cultural study, is a book that gives context to the central role of the penis in Western civilization. (more...)

Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School

Demonstrates how the "specter of the fag" becomes a disciplinary mechanism for regulating heterosexual as well as homosexual boys and how the "fag discourse" is as much tied to gender as it is to sexuality.
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