Blake Smith

Blake Smith is a historian, translator and co-host of the 'Off Christopher Street' podcast. He has written many essays on the Christopher Street scene in Tablet, The Hedgehog Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and elsewhere.

Podcast David SessionsBlake Smith

When Gay Men Reinvented Love

Christopher Street's "Anatomy of a Love Affair" in the age of sad gay dating slop.
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Podcast David SessionsBlake Smith

Why the Gays Tried to Cancel 'Cruising'

'Christopher Street' editor Charles Ortleb saw the film as an opportunity to forge a gay "people" in the shadow of a looming fascism.
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Podcast David SessionsBlake Smith

What's So Casual About Casual Sex?

From Andrew Holleran's "fast-food sex" to today's Grindr angst, the gays have always been fretting about their own promiscuity.
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Podcast David SessionsBlake Smith

Gay Masculinity and Its Discontents

Critics saw 1970s "gay macho" as an abandonment of feminism for male privilege and heteronormativity. But they missed the emergence of a new, distinctively gay culture.
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Podcast David SessionsBlake Smith

Gay Men and the Politics of Hotness

Introducing our new podcast, 'Off Christopher Street.'
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Podcast David SessionsBlake Smith

Going Out and the Pleasures of Impersonal Intimacy

Why gays love the club, and worrying that they love it too much.
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