Guy Hocquenghem is a key figure in the history of gay theory and activism in France. Best known in the English-speaking world for Homosexual Desire published in 1972, Hocquenghem's subsequent work challenged many of the orthodoxies of sexual and identity politics.



This introduction situates his theoretical writings in the specific French historical context of the aftermath of 1968, as well as in the intellectual traditions to which he is close: Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari, but also, Benjamin, Diderot, Fourier, Lucretius and Gnosticism. Bill Marshall also points to the way the presence of Hocquenghem might invigorate our contemporary debates concerning gay pride, outing, queer theory, consumerism and the nation.