The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac

The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac
Author: Clayton Howard
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2019-04-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812251245

The right to privacy is a pivotal concept in the culture wars that have galvanized American politics for the past several decades. It has become a rallying point for political issues ranging from abortion to gay liberation to sex education. Yet this notion of privacy originated not only from legal arguments, nor solely from political movements on the left or the right, but instead from ambivalent moderates who valued both personal freedom and the preservation of social norms. In The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac, Clayton Howard chronicles the rise of sexual privacy as a fulcrum of American cultural politics. Beginning in the 1940s, public officials pursued an agenda that both promoted heterosexuality and made sexual privacy one of the state's key promises to its citizens. The 1944 G.I. Bill, for example, excluded gay veterans and enfranchised married ones in its dispersal of housing benefits. At the same time, officials required secluded bedrooms in new suburban homes and created educational campaigns designed to teach children respect for parents' privacy. In the following decades, measures such as these helped to concentrate middle-class families in the suburbs and gay men and lesbians in cities. In the 1960s and 1970s, the gay rights movement invoked privacy to attack repressive antigay laws, while social conservatives criticized tolerance for LGBTQ+ people as an assault on their own privacy. Many self-identified moderates, however, used identical rhetoric to distance themselves from both the discriminatory language of the religious right and the perceived excesses of the gay freedom struggle. Using the Bay Area as a case study, Howard places these moderates at the center of postwar American politics and shows how the region's burgeoning suburbs reacted to increasing gay activism in San Francisco. The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac offers specific examples of the ways in which government policies shaped many Americans' attitudes about sexuality and privacy and the ways in which citizens mobilized to reshape them.

The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac

The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac
Author: Clayton Howard
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2019-02-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812295986

The right to privacy is a pivotal concept in the culture wars that have galvanized American politics for the past several decades. It has become a rallying point for political issues ranging from abortion to gay liberation to sex education. Yet this notion of privacy originated not only from legal arguments, nor solely from political movements on the left or the right, but instead from ambivalent moderates who valued both personal freedom and the preservation of social norms. In The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac, Clayton Howard chronicles the rise of sexual privacy as a fulcrum of American cultural politics. Beginning in the 1940s, public officials pursued an agenda that both promoted heterosexuality and made sexual privacy one of the state's key promises to its citizens. The 1944 G.I. Bill, for example, excluded gay veterans and enfranchised married ones in its dispersal of housing benefits. At the same time, officials required secluded bedrooms in new suburban homes and created educational campaigns designed to teach children respect for parents' privacy. In the following decades, measures such as these helped to concentrate middle-class families in the suburbs and gay men and lesbians in cities. In the 1960s and 1970s, the gay rights movement invoked privacy to attack repressive antigay laws, while social conservatives criticized tolerance for LGBTQ+ people as an assault on their own privacy. Many self-identified moderates, however, used identical rhetoric to distance themselves from both the discriminatory language of the religious right and the perceived excesses of the gay freedom struggle. Using the Bay Area as a case study, Howard places these moderates at the center of postwar American politics and shows how the region's burgeoning suburbs reacted to increasing gay activism in San Francisco. The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac offers specific examples of the ways in which government policies shaped many Americans' attitudes about sexuality and privacy and the ways in which citizens mobilized to reshape them.

The Mystery of Case D. Luc (Cul-de-Sac Kids Book #6)

The Mystery of Case D. Luc (Cul-de-Sac Kids Book #6)
Author: Beverly Lewis
Publisher: Baker Books
Total Pages: 56
Release: 1995-08-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1441260692

Dunkum's new basketball has been signed by his hero, David Robinson. Now Dunkum spends all his time playing with the ball. He's much too busy for his Cul-de-sac friends.When the ball disappears, Dunkum finds a secret code. Someone with a weird name has stolen the basketball! And he's leaving messages everywhere! Who is the mysterious Case D. Luc? And will the codes lead Dunkum to his treasured ball? The Mystery of Case D. Luc was chosen as a C.S. Lewis Noteworthy Book

The Generic Closet

The Generic Closet
Author: Alfred L. Martin
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253054621

Even after a rise in gay and Black representation and production on TV in the 1990s, the sitcom became a "generic closet," restricting Black gay characters with narrative tropes. Drawing from 20 interviews with credited episode writers, key show-runners, and Black gay men, The Generic Closet situates Black-cast sitcoms as a unique genre that uses Black gay characters in service of the series' heterosexual main cast. Alfred L. Martin, Jr., argues that the Black community is considered to be antigay due to misrepresentation by shows that aired during the family viewing hour and that were written for the imagined, "traditional" Black family. Martin considers audience reception, industrial production practices, and authorship to unpack the claim that Black gay characters are written into Black-cast sitcoms such as Moesha, Good News, and Let's Stay Together in order to closet Black gayness. By exploring how systems of power produce ideologies about Black gayness, The Generic Closet deconstructs the concept of a monolithic Black audience and investigates whether this generic closet still exists.

Disturbed

Disturbed
Author: Kevin O'Brien
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Total Pages: 495
Release: 2011-01-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0758271824

A newlywed woman faces frosty neighbors as a coldblooded killer stalks Seattle in the New York Times bestselling author's chilling domestic thriller. The houses in Willow Tree Court are sleek and modern—the kind designed to harbor happy families and laughing children. No one would guess the secrets that lurk beyond the neat lawns and beautiful facades. Molly Dennehy is trying to fit in to her new surroundings, though her neighbors are clearly loyal to her husband's ex-wife. But that's the least of Molly's worries. Her stepson's school has been rocked by a brutal slaying, and a psychopath known as the Cul-de-Sac Killer is murdering families in Seattle homes. Homes just like Molly's. With each passing day, Molly grows more convinced that someone is watching her family, someone consumed with rage and vengeance. On this quiet road, a nightmare has been unleashed, and the trail of terror will lead right to her door . . .

The Transformation of American Sex Education

The Transformation of American Sex Education
Author: Ellen S. More
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2024-09-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1479835242

A comprehensive history of the battle over sex education in the United States Mid-century America had a problem talking about sex. Dr. Mary Calderone first diagnosed this condition and, in 1964, led the uphill battle to de-stigmatize sex education. Supporters hailed her as the “grandmother of modern sex education” while her detractors painted her as an “aging libertine,” but both could agree that she was quickly shaping the way sex was discussed in the classroom. Part biography, part social history, The Transformation of American Sex Education for the first time situates Dr. Mary Calderone at the center of decades of political, cultural, and religious conflict in the fight for comprehensive sex education. Ellen S. More examines Americans’ attempts to come to terms with the vexed subject of sex education in schools from the late 1940s to the early twenty-first century. Using Mary Calderone’s life and career as a touchstone, she traces the origins of modern sex education in the United States from the work of a group of reformers who coalesced around Calderone to create the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) in 1964, to the development and use of the competing approaches known as “abstinence-based” and “comprehensive” sex education from the 1980s into the twenty-first century. A fascinating and timely read, The Transformation of American Sex Education provides a substantial contribution to the history of one of America’s most intense and protracted culture wars, and the first account of the woman who fought those battles.

The Stories We Tell

The Stories We Tell
Author: Patti Callahan Henry
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2014-06-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250040310

"Eve and Teddy Morrison are Savannah's power couple. They're on every artistic board and involved deeply in the community. And they have the wealth and name that comes from being part of an old Savannah family. But things aren't as good as they look. Eve and Teddy are fighting about her work, their marriage, and their daughter most of all. Teenaged Gwen is rebelling and Teddy is blaming this on Eve's preoccupation with work. The Morrison marriage is taut with tension, but when Teddy is involved in a car accident with Eve's sister, Willa, the questions surrounding the event bring the family close to breaking point. Sifting between the stories, Eve has to find out what really happened--and just who she believes"--

Abandon

Abandon
Author: Pico Iyer
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307424596

From the national bestselling author of The Half-Known Life comes an intoxicating novel that's at once a stylish intellectual mystery and a pulse-quickening love story—the love in question being at once sacred and profane. John Macmillan, a classically reticent Englishman who has moved to California to study the poems of the Sufi mystic Rumi, unexpectedly becomes involved in two equally absorbing quests. The first is for a mysterious Rumi manuscript that may have been smuggled out of Iran; the second for the elusive Camilla Jensen, who continually offers herself to him only to repeatedly slip from his grasp. Are these quests somehow related? And can Macmillan give himself over to them without losing his career and identity? Moving deftly from California academia to the mosques of Iran, filled with insights into the minds of Islam and the modern West, Abandon is a magic carpet-ride of a book.

Kevin O'Brien Bundle: Disturbed, The Last Victim, Watch Them Die

Kevin O'Brien Bundle: Disturbed, The Last Victim, Watch Them Die
Author: Kevin O'Brien
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Total Pages: 1429
Release: 2011-04-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0786028912

Disturbed Deceptive The houses in Willow Tree Court are sleek and modern-the kind designed to harbor happy families and laughing children. No one would guess the secrets that lurk beyond the neat lawns and beautiful facades. Depraved Molly Dennehy is trying to fit in to her new surroundings, though her neighbors are clearly loyal to her husband's ex-wife. But that's the least of Molly's worries. Her stepson's school has been rocked by a brutal slaying, and a psychopath known as the Cul-de-Sac Killer is murdering families in Seattle homes. Homes just like Molly's. Disturbed With each passing day, Molly grows more convinced that someone is watching her family, someone consumed with rage and vengeance. On this quiet road, a nightmare has been unleashed, and the trail of terror will lead right to her door. . . The Last Victim A Killer's Masterpiece At first, Bridget Corrigan's work with her twin brother's senatorial campaign is an exciting distraction from the trauma of her messy divorce. But everything changes when Bridget is reminded of the secret she and Brad have been keeping since high school, a secret that could destroy the campaign--and their lives. Someone else knows what they did. Someone who's been picking off the members of their little group one by one. . . Will Be Painted His job keeps him busy, but he loves every moment of it. Following them, photographing them, and immortalizing them on canvas. He knows exactly how they'll look when the last breath is drawn, because he has planned out their deaths with perfect precision. And the best is yet to come: Bridget Corrigan. He has very special plans for her portrait--she just doesn't know it yet. . . In Cold Blood With every "accident" that befalls the members of her old clique, Bridget feels danger edging closer to home. Yet uncovering the truth about the killer would mean revealing what really happened that horrible night years ago. She'll have to find someone to trust--the question is, who? Because turning to the wrong person could be the last mistake she ever makes. . . Watch them Die Different Victims The blonde film student. The brunette paralegal. The red-headed artist. Different Methods The first victim is strangled. The second is stabbed repeatedly. And the third is pushed out of an open window. Same Madman In the city of Seattle, no single woman is safe. From afar he watches the ones he so desperately wants. Willing to do whatever it takes to prove his love. But should his latest obsession betray him, he will have no choice but to punish her. By finding new and brutal ways to teach her a lesson. And by finally loving her--to death. . .