A Hispanic American lesbian offers a collection of prose poems, meditations, and reflections on being a Latina and a lesbian.

Perversion for Profit traces the crucial function of pornography in constructing the New Right agenda, which has emphasized social issues over racial and economic inequality. Whitney Strub vividly recreates the debates over obscenity that consumed ACLU members in the 1950s and revisits the deployment of obscenity charges against purveyors of gay erotica during the Cold War, revealing the differing standards applied to heterosexual and homosexual pornography. He follows the rise of the influential Citizens for Decent Literature during the 1960s and the pivotal events that followed: the sexual revolution, feminist activism, the rise of the gay rights movement, the "porno chic" moment of the early 1970s, and resurgent Christian conservatism, which currently shapes public policy far beyond the issue of sexual decency. Strub also examines the ways in which the Left failed to mount a serious or sustained counterattack to the New Right's use of pornography as a political tool. As he demonstrates, this failure has put the Democratic Party at the mercy of Republican rhetoric for decades.

From lesbians writing gay male sex to straight chicks writing as horny men, this collection turns stereotypes on their heads. From the most subtle erotic gesture to the most extreme expressions of forbidden rage, the authors spill their inner sluts: butt zits, saggy tits, wiry nipple hair, jellyroll bellies, knife fetishes, and all. Taste the blood and the bliss.

Discover the rich history of slam poetry through the lens of the New York City scene that pioneered it Author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz situates New York slam poetry in the history of oral tradition in poetry throughout history and around the world, with particular attention to the three major 20th century arts movements that helped set the stage for it: the Harlem Renaissance, the Beats, and hip hop. Aptowicz explores the birth of slam at the Nuyorican Poets’ Café and the genre’s explosive growth as the media responded with events like Lollapalooza and MTV’s Unplugged. The book expands the canvas by examining the connections between academia and slammers, especially the poets of color, the youth slammers, and the burgeoning hip hop poetry scene. Interviews with key players like Chicago’s Marc Smith and San Francisco’s Gary Mex Glazner help tell this fascinating story from the inside.

“Maggie Estep is the bastard daughter of Raymond Chandler and Anaïs Nin. Her prose is hard-boiled and sexy; she turns a good phrase and shows some leg. Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals is one hell of a great book! By the way, when Chandler and Nin left her at the orphanage, she was adopted by Charles Bukowski and Dick Francis.” —Jonathan Ames, author of What’s Not to Love? Charting Life at Its Most Bizarre . . . is an obsession for Maggie Estep, and in Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals this obsession reaches a fever pitch that is as readable and as entertaining as it is strange. Here is your chance to experience the world according to one of our most original and honest voices. Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals showcases some of the best of what Maggie Estep has to offer. Here, gathered together for the first time, are Maggie’s infamous spoken word pieces—including “Sex Goddess of the Western Hemisphere,” “Hey Baby,” and “I’m an Emotional Idiot,”—that landed her on MTV and HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. This varied collection also brings together a myriad of writing styles, such as diary-style magazine columns, articles highlighting Estep’s friends and heroes—from punk godfather Iggy Pop to Permanent Midnight author Jerry Stahl—and short stories that feature Maggie’s own brand of original fiction. From her many smoking relapses, to her obsession with horses and horse racing, to her manic love life, to her motley assortment of friends, to her battles with an onslaught of killer attack “biker” fleas, to an epistolary short story that is a collaboration with Rick Moody, Maggie Estep offers a humorous if twisted view of reality in Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals.