Business, Not Politics

The Making of the Gay Market

Katherine Sender

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9780231509169
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

In a hard-hitting book that refutes conventional wisdom, Katherine Sender explores the connection between the business of marketing to gay consumers and the politics of gay rights and identity. She disputes some marketers'claims that marketing appeals to gay and lesbian consumers are a matter of "business, not politics" and that the business of gay marketing can be considered independently of the politics of gay rights, identity, and visibility. She contends that the gay community is not a preexisting entity that marketers simply tap into; rather it is a construction, an imagined community formed not only through political activism but also through a commercially supported media. She argues that marketing has not only been formative in the constitution of a GLBT community and identity but also has had significant impact on the visibility of gays and lesbians.

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Advisory Board of Editors
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. The Business and Politics of Gay Marketing
• Chapter 2. Evolution, Not Revolution
• Chapter 3. Professional Homosexuals
• Chapter 4. How Gay Is Too Gay?
• Chapter 5. Selling America’s Most Affluent Minority
• Chapter 6. Neither Fish Nor Fowl
• Chapter 7. Sex Sells
• Chapter 8. Just Like You
• Appendix 1: Pitching the Gay Market
• Appendix 2: The Gay Marketers
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index
• Series List