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Amber L. Hollibaugh

Amber L. Hollibaugh. THE FACTS:. Born in Bakersfield, CA to a gypsy father and Irish mother Left home at the age of 18 Political activist in the gay and lesbian civil rights movement, and HIV/AIDS activist Founding director of Lesbian AIDS Project (LAP) of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC)

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Amber L. Hollibaugh

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  1. Amber L. Hollibaugh

  2. THE FACTS: • Born in Bakersfield, CA to a gypsy father and Irish mother • Left home at the age of 18 • Political activist in the gay and lesbian civil rights movement, and HIV/AIDS activist • Founding director of Lesbian AIDS Project (LAP) of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) • Currently Executive Director of Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ)

  3. MY DANGEROUS DESIRES • COLLECTION OF ESSAYS THAT PRESENTS OVER 20 YEARS OF HOLLIBAUGH’S EXPERIENCES • FOCUSING ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACTIVISM AND DESIRE AND HOW SEXUALITY CAN BE INTIMATELY TIED TO ONE’S CLASS IDENTITY • EXPLORES THE CONCEPT OF LABELING AND ITS ASSOCIATED ISSUES

  4. REVOLVES AROUND THE WAY WE ORGANIZE OUR EROTIC CHOICES, EROTIC IDENTITIES, SOMETHING THAT IS NOT SIMPLY AN ACTIVITY OR LIFESTYLE. IT IS AS DEEP AND RICH, AS DANGEROUS, EXPLOSIVE, AND UNIQUE AS EACH OF US DARES TO BE OR BECOME. DESIRE: “MY OWN DESIRES SEEMED TO ME TOO DANGEROUS TO LIVE WITH. BUT I ALREADY KNEW WHAT IT WOULD MEAN TO LIVE WITHOUT THEM”

  5. “WHEN I FOUND BUTCH/FEMME, IT WAS LIKE REDISCOVERING MY HEART THROUGH MY CUNT” Jennifer Levin signifies herself, her most naked desires; it defines reflects the spirit of living at the center of her.

  6. find a “real” man “strolling together as a butch/femme couple, we were an erotic, magnetic, moving target for all the sexual fear, envy, and ignorance of this culture. Our movements ad our decisions were fraught with potential danger” • butch/femme was seen a dangerous heterosexist trap. • she was parroting heterosexuality because she was seen as being into “traditional male and female roles.”

  7. “I WAS FILLED WITH THE TERROR OF IT, AS I WAS FILLED WITH ITS HUNGER” “MY INTERNAL EROTIC IDENTITY MADE ME AN ALIEN TO THE POLITICS OF MY OWN MOVEMENT-- A MOVEMENT I HAD HELPED START, A MOVEMENT WHOSE SURVIVAL AND GROWTH I WAS COMMITTED TO.” • BUTCH/FEMME SEXUALITY HAD NO PLACE IN SEXUAL POLITICS • HOLLIBAUGH’S DESIRES, THE WAY SHE FELT AND EXPRESSED HER QUEER FEMME SEXUALITY, POSITIONED HER OUTSIDE THE RIGHTS SHE WAS MARCHING TO DEFEND.

  8. torn between two worlds politically radical lesbians or women’s liberationist lived in one stratosphere; working-class femmes and hookers lived in another

  9. “and i feared that, exploring and living out my femme identity meant going further away from the movements I ardently identified as my own” • “betraying its values, or disrupting its implicit sexualcodes, seemed to me then to act against myself, to become even more marginalized as a lesbian”

  10. shifted from “we are different” to “we are just like you” powerful erotic difference and sexual contrast gender appropriate gay representatives

  11. WHERE IS QUENTIN CRISP WHEN WE NEED HIM? RELATES TO PARIS IS BURNINGAND SONTAG ON CAMP • SHIFTING FROM RADICAL TO MAINSTREAM MOVEMENT, A MORE STRAIGHT-APPEARING GAY MOVEMENT

  12. DESIRE IS NO LONGER IN MOVEMENT “GAVE UP THE FIGHT FOR DESIRE AND SEXUAL DIFFERENCE, AS WE GAVE UP A MORE RADICAL VISION OF THE WORLD WE WANT TO CREATE” • MOVEMENT IS NOW MORE DIVIDED BY SEXUAL POLITICS, MORE STRATIFIED BY GENDER, CLASS, & RACE. “ONLY BY NOT FUCKING, NOT SWEATING AND FEELING AND WANTING AND POSSESSING EACH OTHER, WILL WE BE ALLOWED TO ENTER THE BIG HOUSE”

  13. HOLLIBAUGH’S DESIRE: “TO FIGHT FOR A WORLD WHICH VALUES HUMAN SEXUAL POSSIBILITY WITHOUT EXTRACTING A TERRIBLE HUMAN PRICE. TO BATTLE HUMAN GREED AND HUMAN FEAR IN ANY OF ITS FORMS. TO CREATE A MOVEMENT WILLING TO LIVE THE POLITICS OF SEXUAL DANGER IN ORDER TO CREATE A CULTURE OF HUMAN HOPE. THIS IS MY DREAM TODAY. THESE ARE MY MOST DANGEROUS DESIRES.” PUTTING SEX BACK IN POLITICS • MUST AFFIRM DESIRE. • DESIRE IS THE KEY TO ORGANIZING AROUND SEXUAL ISSUES, TO ACKNOWLEDGING SEX, TO CALLING THE SHOTS, BEING AT PEACE IN YOUR OWN BODY, TO BEING A WARRIOR AGAINST SHAME OF THE EROTIC.

  14. AUDRE LORDE • IDEA OF ISOLATION IN GAY COMMUNITY: • “FOR ME GOING INTO THE BAG ALONE WAS LIKE ENTERING AN ANOMALOUS NO-WOMAN’S LAND. I WASNT CUTE OR PASSIVE ENOUGH TO BE FEMME, AND I WASNT MEAN OR TOUGH ENOUGH TO BE BUTCH. NON-CONVENTIONAL PEOPLE CAN BE DANGEROUS, EVEN IN THE GAY COMMUNITY.”

  15. Leslie Feinberg • Exclusion from the lesbian community and the heterosexual community. • Constant harassment by men and people in the lesbian community • Assimilation when Jess decided to take hormones to become a man

  16. http://www.theonion.com/articles/gaypride-parade-sets-mainstream-acceptance-of-gays,351/http://www.theonion.com/articles/gaypride-parade-sets-mainstream-acceptance-of-gays,351/

  17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfQ_ptzFv7M a fun butch/femme music video

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