Book review: sex, needs and queer culture: from liberation to the post-gay by David Alderson

If corporate backing for Pride events is one example of queer subcultures becoming increasingly commercialised, does this threaten the capacity to resist or might capitalism be progressive for queer subjects? In Sex, Needs and Queer Culture: From Liberation to the Post-Gay, David Alderson draws upon the work of Herbert Marcuse and Raymond Williams to examine processes of assimilation and resistance as well as the distinctions between countercultural and subcultural movements. Although she questions the particular focus on gay male culture, Sofia Ropek Hewson welcomes this rich and absorbing text for probing into the present relationship between capitalism, queer culture and political resistance.