Erotic city sexual revolutions and the making of modern San Francisco - Sides, Josh (Oxford University Press, 2009)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-274) and index
What's become of the Paris of the West? -- Sex radicals and captive pedestrians -- When the streets went gay -- The unspoken sexuality of golden gate park -- Taking back the streets of San Francisco -- The many legacies of AIDS -- Newcomers, new revolutionaries, and new spaces
Since the 1960s, San Francisco has been America's capital of sexual libertinism and a potent symbol in its culture wars. In this highly original book, Josh Sides explains how this happened, unearthing long-forgotten stories of the city's sexual revolutionaries, as well as the legions of longtime San Franciscans who tried to protect their vision of a moral metropolis. Erotic dancers, prostitutes, birth control advocates, pornographers, free lovers, and gay libbers transformed San Francisco's political landscape and its neighborhoods in ways seldom appreciated. But as sex radicals became more vi