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Contacts Desired: Gay and Lesbian Communications and Community, 1940s-1970s. By Martin Meeker. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. xviii, 321 pp. Cloth, $75.00, ISBN 0-226-51734-9. Paper, $25.00, ISBN 0-226-51735-7.)
Prior to World War II, individuals desiring same-sex encounters and relationships found "partners in crime," as it were, without relying on the modern identity categories of gay and lesbian- Martin Meeker picks up this wellrehearsed narrative in Contacts Desired and adds to it a new, albeit obvious, twist: that once the categories gay and lesbian took hold, "communication networks" locating and linking gay men and lesbians became critical to identity formation and community organizing (p. 13). Meeker's well-written book focuses on San Francisco and traces lesbian and gay organizations and publications in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
Section 1 details two of the most prominent homophile organizations on the West Coast, the Mattachine Society and...