Sex Between Men

Harper San Francisco, 1996

by Douglas Sadownick

Sex Between Men traces the sexual history of gay men in America from the wartime intimacy of military “buddies” through the repression of the 1950s, the post-Stonewall opening of the 1970s bathhouse and sex-club scene, the trauma of the AIDS era, and into the 1990s. Sadownick blends first-person testimony, cultural commentary, and archival research into a psychosocial study of gay male sexuality — and within it, gives sustained attention to Jack Fritscher’s much-quoted novel Some Dance to Remember and his memoir of Robert Mapplethorpe, Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera.

“An intimate history of the sex lives of gay men postwar to present” features a very positive scholarly look at Jack Fritscher’s writing, particularly his much-quoted and referenced novel, Some Dance to Remember, as well as his autobiographical memoir of his lover Robert Mapplethorpe titled Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera.