"Show Me," Said the Spectator: Chronicles of the Backlash, Episode the Eleventh

I'm not sure whether I'll finish reading Scott Herring's Queering the Underworld: Slumming, Literature, and the Undoing of Lesbian and Gay History (Chicago, 2007). The writing is low-level academese, with an inordinate fondness for alliteration, but I could overlook that. What makes me wonder if it's worthwhile to read more is the (you should pardon the expression) thought.Herring's subject is