LAUSR

some nations are ‘pinkwashing’ themselves as ‘gay-friendly’ to signify their cosmopolitanism, a move that has been criticised as glossing over persistent inequalities and the damage political regimes have inflicted on queer subjects. In the end, despite the various conceptual resources Alderson accumulates throughout the book, he offers ‘no grounds for great optimism’ (p. 32) for the potential in contemporary politics of sexuality to converge with socialist aspirations. Some readers may find this note of pessimism obscures other possibilities for political resistance, while others will find a cool sense of what is politically (im)possible carried in Alderson’s suggestion, that there is no obviously progressive way out of current capitalistic economic arrangements. Still there is some optimism, as Alderson clings to the idea that subculture may still have a role to play in generating critical consciousness, even in the problematic forms he criticises. To that end, ‘non-judgemental organisations, institutions and spaces that are at least not hyper-commercialised’ are said to be possibilities that might foster ‘antior non-consumerist sensibilities’ (p. 297). In these types of ‘independent’ organisations, Alderson hopes we can unhitch queer from its association with privilege in the media. This is an exciting prospect which comes in the closing pages of the book, and which deserves a greater level of detail and exploration than it is currently allocated by the author. In summary, while readers might be frustrated with Alderson’s reading of queer culture through a gay male lens, and although the text jumps abruptly at times from highbrow theory to analysing novels and pop culture, Alderson has written a provocative account of the dynamics of capitalism, queer culture and political resistance.