In the Shadow of the Object: Sexual Memory in the AIDS Epidemic

Much of the work of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender past has involved finding or creating spaces in which to know ourselves and become known to others. Given the role such spaces play in supporting the formation of identities and communities, “queer geographies”may be said to reflect discontinuities and sympathies between psychic and social spaces, complicating the distinction between public and private. Histories of queer psychic and social forms may be read, therefore, from the geographies in which they were constructed. One of these histories is explored through a close reading of Manhattan’s West Side piers, for many years a well-known gay public sex site that has now been demolished and replaced with a public park. The history of the site surfaced particularly clearly during the first years of the AIDS epidemic, when the disappearance of the site mirrored the devastation experienced by the community.