Creep

Creeps surround us, seemingly everywhere. People creep up on each other both on the streets and online, with digital technologies vectoring a lot of cyber-stalking. It?s so easy to spy on people that ?creep catching? has even become a form of news entertainment in shows such as ?To Catch a Predator.? But what defines a creep is so broad that nearly anyone can be a creep at times. Many of us wonder if we ourselves have been creepy, or if perhaps we engage in behavior that, if others knew, would easily earn us the title ?creep.? Even Donald Trump, during the raucous 2016 campaign, was called a ?creep? on several occasions by various news media. Indeed, for many of us, the specter of the creep is not just threatening, but exciting ? exciting perhaps in the possibility of threat. Yes, we get creeped out. But we are also fascinated by creeps, perhaps in part because we all sense the potential inside ourselves for creepy behavior. In this provocative and engaging new book, Jonathan Alexander interweaves personal narrative and cultural analyses to explore what it means to be a creep. Calling this work a critical memoir, he draws on his own experiences growing up gay in the deep south, whi