Queer Man on Campus: A History of Non-Heterosexual College Men, 1945-2000 [Hardcover]

Most books on young gays are autobiographical anthologies. Finally, we have a book where a scholar is trying to think of this population theoretically. This is an intersectional work: Dilley emphasizes how college affects men's identities just as much as he emphasizes how much homosexuality does.

Few studies of gays are cross-historical like this. One would imagine that elderly gay men would be too closeted and afraid to talk about their earlier search for a sexual identity. Additionally, so many of the men who would fit under the "gay" label in this chart have succumbed to AIDS over the past two decades. I've heard people differentiate between generations of gay men playfully, but this is the first study which illustrates just how time period and age affect a person's gay status. So Dilley really needs to be commended for this study. I can imagine that this book would be a great reference book for college counselors and dorm monitors, not just for thinking about what motivates gay campus activists, but what motivates their closeted counterparts as well.

The majority of readers, especially non-academic ones, will enjoy section two, the narratives, the best. All readers will both relate and be surprised by what the respondents have to say. Here, gay men talk about tales of woe, triumph, embarrassment, shame, and pride: human phenomena for which we should all understand. Many of the events here made me laugh, gasp, frown, and smile. Additionally, in this section, Dilley shows off his skills as a journalist and biographer.

Too often, gay school narratives center around prestigious schools along the coasts. Perhaps due to the fact that he teaches in downstate Illinois, Dilley includes a wide variety of college types, especially Midwestern, public schools. The sample is so diverse, it kinda made me sad that my own alma mater wasn't mentioned. Dilley notes that he has collaborated on work with my college-years mentor Kris Renn yet he never mentions Brown University. (Oops! What was I say about elite coastal schools!?)

Still, this book had its problems. While I think gay men will love the hot sex stories recounted here, straight people and lesbians may be shocked. In both the theoretical section and in the real-life narratives, gay men discuss having sex way before ever falling in love. This may push people to buy into notions of gay men as oversexed, predatory, and promiscuous.

Though Dilley makes clear that one paradigm does not necessarily preclude another, I still found the distinction made between "gay" and "queer" students odd. He defines queer students as willing to do drag and be performative, but in the time right after the Stonewall Rebellion, gay men were very into performance, especially around gender. The book shows an advertisement for a gay campus dance in the 1970s where the characters are in drag, i.e., performing "queerly." Further, in describing "homosexual" men from an earlier era, almost all the respondents were music or art majors: stereotype or reality?

Dilley employs the term "non-heterosexual" to be inclusive of homosexual, gay, queer, straight-acting, closeted, and questioning men. I applaud his sensitivity and inclusiveness, but this term gets cumbersome after a while. While this book is filled with gay men mentioning they dated or married women, none of the respondents identified as bisexual. The last chapter even has "fluidity" in its title, yet bisexual-identified men are still not brought up. (Neither are transgendered men, in either direction, for that matter.) Bisexual activist readers may be particularly irked by this.

On most campuses, lesbians and bisexual women have played very important roles in promoting gay rights. Their exclusion from this study seemed unnecessary. I particularly feel this way because masculinity, one's identity as male, and other topics brought up in men's studies are not really analyzed here. This book includes biographical sketches of a Latino man, an Asian-American, and an African-American. Nevertheless, white gay men with black fetishes got more coverage than black gay men themselves. I harshly criticize the author for being so callous in this matter. Further, Dilley states that fraternities do much in helping to forge gay men's sexuality, yet he never mentions the famous black or Latino fraternities. Also, working-class men are rarely addressed here. Most of the respondents seemed to have gone on to graduate school. Gay men who never attended college might find no use for this book.

When I saw this book at a store, I immediately had to buy it. Once I got it home, I found myself less and less pressed about reading it. I am so glad this book was made and I wish Dilley much success. Still, I didn't devour this text like I thought I would have.