Early Homosexual Rights Movement, 1864-1935 by John Lauritsen (1978-12-03)

Politics & Social Sciences

John Lauritsen

David Thorstad

Social Sciences

Times Change Press

Poison by Prescription: The AZT Story

Asklepios

This is the first book to deal comprehensively with the real reasons gay men are becoming sick in ways that are called AIDS.    The editors, John Lauritsen and Ian Young, and the other six contributors to The AIDS Cult examine psychological and cultural issues  the ways religious intolerance, group fantasies, toxic rugs,   pharmaceutical propaganda, deadly counselling, and a Cult of Doom have   acted together to destroy the health of gay men.    In his Introduction Ian Young writes: The orthodox view of our protracted health crisis  as a highly infectious contagion from without  has been found wanting.... we must seek the causes of this and other medical dilemmas in our own society, our own assumptions, our   group-fantasies, our regimens, our recreations, and our rituals.

The AIDS Cult: Essays on the gay health crisis

Sociology

Pagan Press

The main essay in this book, A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love, is a celebration and defence of male love from a secular humanist perspective. Its leading thesis: Male love is good; the opprobrium suffered by gay men is a product of Judeo-Christian superstition. A companion essay, Paradigms For Gay Liberation, recounts the ideas that have informed the movement. The author analyzes how the present-day movement has lost its bearings, and he indicates a way out of the thicket. There are eight Excursus: Male Beauty, The Golden Legend, Gay Christian Revisionism, Pluralistic Ignorance, Freethought, Circumcision of the Spirit, The Aster Epigrams of Plato, and A Pagan Prayer. An annotated Bibliography provides guidance for further reading.

A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love

John Lauritsen debunks the myth that Frankenstein was written by a teenaged girl, Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley), who took part in a ghost-story contest in Geneva, had a nightmare, and was inspired to write a story "which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night!" Lauritsen examines the Frankenstein text, along with works that Mary Shelley wrote entirely on her own, to demonstrate that she was a weak and sentimental writer, incapable of writing Frankenstein. He takes a long, hard look at the extra-textual evidence that has been used to argue for her authorship, and shows that none of it stands up to scrutiny. In reality, Frankenstein is not just a scary story, but a work of profound and radical ideas, written in poetically powerful prose by one of the greatest poets in the English language, Percy Bysshe Shelley. For personal reasons he chose to conceal his authorship. This book has three theses: 1. Frankenstein is a great work, which has consistently been underrated and misinterpreted. 2. The real author of Frankenstein is Percy Bysshe Shelley, not his second wife, Mary. 3. Male love is a central theme of rankenstein. According to Lauritsen, male love, as romantic male friendship, is a central theme of Frankenstein. Sometimes the expressions of male love are remarkably direct, but at other times they are expressed in coded language or references known only to the "initiated". He uses his skills as a gay historian to decode and interpret these references.

The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

A Freethinker in Alcoholics Anonymous is written by an A.A. member with 46 years of continuous sobriety, who believes that he owes his life to the A.A. Fellowship. There are plenty of books that attack Alcoholics Anonymous or defend it uncritically or supplement it with personal testimonies or various tweaks. A Freethinker in Alcoholics Anonymous will be the first one to celebrate and defend the things in A.A. that are right, but also, with no holds barred, to criticize the things that are wrong and ought to be changed.
 An atheist for all of his adult life and a long-time contributor to the secular humanist press, Lauritsen bases his recovery on the what he calls the True A.A., the A.A, that works: the 24-Hour Plan and the Fellowship. He regards the religiosity in A.A. as detrimental to recovery from alcoholism.
 A Freethinker in Alcoholics Anonymous is especially written for nonbelievers in recovery, who face difficult choices: going it alone or attending regular A.A. groups, secular A.A. groups, or secular alternative groups. But everyone who has an alcohol problem, or who knows someone who has one, can benefit from this book.
 Chapters describe Lauritsen's experiences in recovery, his analyses of the 24-Hour Plan and the A.A. Fellowship, his research on early A.A. history and forerunners of A.A., his objections to recitation of the "Lord's Prayer" in meetings, "A Freethinker's Steps for Recovery from Alcoholism", a heavily annotated Select Bibliography on Alcoholism, suggestions on how freethinkers can gain fellowship without sacrificing their principles, and his conclusions on how A.A. should be reformed.

A Freethinker in Alcoholics Anonymous

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Addiction & Recovery

In this book, gay historian John Lauritsen tells a story that will not be found in standard biographies. In 1822, two great poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and George Gordon, Lord Byron lived in Pisa, Italy, together with three friends. They met daily in Byron's palazzo. Although these men had wives and children, male love was an important part of their lives. They thought of themselves as pariahs in exile , and for good reason. Men and boys in their home country, England, were being hanged for having sex with each other, whereas Italy had no such laws. All of them were ardent Hellenists, who knew that male love had flourished in Ancient Greece the same male love that was persecuted in their own time. Despite the censorious efforts of friends and family, ample evidence survives that they loved other males. Homoeroticism in their works was usually coded for the initiated , but was sometimes amazingly candid. John Lauritsen de-codes homoerotic references, reinterprets major works of English Romanticism, and places all in historical context. He states: Love and sex between males is an ordinary, healthy part of the human sexual repertoire. For too long, biographers have falsified the love lives of the Shelley-Byron men. The time has come to bring them into the light of day. I am especially taken by your reading of Epipsychidion, for I am entirely convinced that Emily is indeed Edward Williams. Your reading makes Shelley's poem one of the grandest and most beautiful outpourings in any poetry I have read of one man's love for another. -- Beert Verstraete, Emeritus Professor of Classics. Editor: Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West. Author: Homosexuality in Ancient Greek and Roman Civilization: A critical bibliography. I enjoyed your book on Shelley and Byron very much. It is an imperative and necessary book. I read it in one swoop one evening and was so enlivened that I could not sleep. ... I found everything to admire. I knew much of the Shelley stuff and was substituting the gender in Epipsychidion and reflecting on Shelley's homoerotic feelings many years ago, but you fill in the evidential detail excellently. ... Byron I knew less about. He was obviously very close to Shelley, but I think their attitude to sexuality was very different: Shelley wanted a soul mate with deep feelings while Byron was a rover who sought sexual relationships wherever possible. -- Jim Herrick, former Editor of The Freethinker (London) and The New Humanist (London). Author of Humanism: An Introduction. Well reasoned and persuasive. -- Andrew Calimach, author: Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths.

The Shelley-Byron Men: Lost angels of a ruined paradise

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Books by John Lauritsen