Amber L. Hollibaugh is a lesbian sex radical, ex-hooker, incest survivor, gypsy child, poor-white-trash, high femme dyke. She is also an award-winning filmmaker, feminist, Left political organizer, public speaker and journalist. "My Dangerous Desires" presents over 20 years of Hollibaugh's writing, an introduction written especially for this book, and five new essays including "A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home", "My Dangerous Desires" and "Sexuality, Labour and the New Trade Unionism". In looking at themes such as the relationship between activism and desire or how sexuality can be intimately tied to one's class identity, Hollibaugh fiercely and fearlessly analyzes her own political development as a response to her unique personal history. She explores the concept of labelling and the associated issues of categories such as butch or femme, transgender, bisexual, top or bottom, drag queen, b-girl, or drag king. The volume includes conversations with other writers, such as Deirdre English, Gayle Rubin, Jewelle Gomez, and Cherrie Moraga.
From the groundbreaking article "What We're Rollin' Around in Bed With" to the radical "Sex Work Notes: Some Tensions of a Former Whore and a Practising Feminist", Hollibaugh charges ahead to describe her reality, never flinching from the truth. Dorothy Allinson's moving foreword pays tribute to a life lived in struggle by a working-class lesbian who, like herself, refuses to suppress her dangerous desires. Having informed many of the debates that have become central to gay and lesbian activism, Hollibaugh's work challenges her readers to speak, write and record their desires - especially, perhaps, the most dangerous of them - "in o
Author Biography:
Amber Hollibaugh has been a political activist for over thirty years. The documentary film she coproduced and directed, The Heart of the Matter, won the Freedom of Expression award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. Among her health education work, she founded and directed the Lesbian AIDS Project at Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York, for which she won the Dr. Susan M. Love Award for Achievement in Women’s Health. She has written for, among others, The Nation, Socialist Review, NY Native, and the Village Voice. My Dangerous Desires is her first book.