Reclaiming Sodom (Paperback, Reissue)

"Reclaiming Sodom" surveys how the view of homosexual activities as socially dangerous has been perpetuated by the state, the church, the law and other institutions. The collection covers a wide range, from biblical scholarship, to the legal mobilization towards the catagory of sodomy in 18th- and 19th-century England, to an analysis of the ways in which the Judeo-Christian tradition has shaped anthropological accounts of same-sex practices of non-western people. This text explores alternatives to the force of the Sodomitic biblical narrative in Islamic, western and non-western traditions, and discusses ways in which sodomy calls into question definitions of gender and sexuality. The collection examines the relations between sex/gender identities and sexual acts, and argues for the political usefulness of both Sodom and sodomy. It makes a contribution to literature on sexuality and gender, as well as the nature of sex in our culture.