James Polchin Talks with Camille Leblanc at Crime Reads

“Both a social history and a true crime page-turner—a primer in the evolution of American thinking about sexuality as well as a compelling account of the murders that “equated brutal violence with homosexual encounters in the public imagination”—Indecent Advances opened my eyes to a history I didn’t know and pained me to learn. I read it slowly, letting the mosaic of tragedies take shape around me as I was immersed in a time and a national frequency, when the country vibrated with panic about the state of sexuality (the acceptable dose of testosterone was not a hair too macho or too feminine, for to waver—in either direction—was to suggest you fell somewhere beyond the constricted arena of “normalcy”). Queer men were trapped in a pocket of the oversized clothing assigned to society’s most feared composite: the sexual psychopath. Moral authority over the nature of homosexuality became a tug-of-war between the medical profession and the law, each responding to the perceived dangers that were seen as intrinsic to the queer experience. And across the country, men were murdered, killed in hotel rooms and back alleys, in parks and ports. “

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