The Third Sex

A gold mine of information about a hidden queer culture

Thirty-two years before Simone de Beauvoir's classic The Second Sex, popular French novelist Willy published The Third Sex, a vivid description of the world of European homosexuals in France, Italy, and Germany during the late 1920s. Stepping directly into the heart of gay men's culture, Willy follows homosexual nightlife into music halls, nightclubs, casinos, bars, and saunas. While he finds plenty of drug and alcohol abuse, he also discovers homosexual publishers, scientific societies, group rivalries, and opinions--both medical and political--about the nature of homosexuality itself. Lawrence R. Schehr's introduction provides context and translator's notes for this first-ever English edition.

"Willy" is the pseudonym of Henry Gauthier-Villars, best remembered as the husband of Colette. He hired ghost writers whose work he signed as Willy, making the name various, mysterious, and wild.

LAWRENCE R. SCHEHR is Professor of French at the University of Illinois. His most recent books are "Figures of Alterity: French Narrative and Its Others", "French Gay Modernism", and a translation of "The Third Sex".