摘要：I often struggle to explain to my students why the catapulting of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans
(GLBT) people into the public eye is not an unequivocal political victory. To paraphrase sociologist
Suzanna Danuta Walters, being ¡°all the rage¡± by no means guarantees concrete improvements in GLBT
lives. While a growing literature analyzes the relationship of gay and lesbian visibility to consumer and
popular culture, Katherine Sender¡¯s Business Not Politics: The Making of the Gay Market breaks new
ground. Definitively moving forward, Sender shifts the debate from the pros and cons of GLBT media and
market visibility to a sophisticated and complex study that asks how the dynamics of consumer culture
produce and articulate contemporary gay (and, as Sender persuasively argues, it is overwhelmingly ¡°gay¡±
not GLBT) identity in the United States. Importantly, Sender does not assume a preexisting gay market
waiting to be tapped. Instead, she plumbs the history of advertising in early gay publications, interviews
¡°professional homosexuals¡±¡ªpredominantly white, male, and gay-identifying media industry insiders¡ªand
traces the ties that bind the business of GLBT marketing to a mythically affluent gay niche. Deftly
attentive to how race, gender, sex, and class assumptions shape formulations of a gay market, Business
Not Politics offers a comprehensive case study of the relationship between capitalism, markets, and
political identities.
