Using interviews, photos and archival footage, Hand on the Pulse is the poignant story of Joan Nestle, political and sexual "bad girl." Hand on the Pulse traces Joan's life; finding
her community in Greenwich Village in the 1950's, celebrating the body in her writings and in her public readings in her black slip, having a lesbian archives in her home for 25 years, teaching students from colonized backgrounds, participating in the Black civil rights movement as a freedom rider, becoming a feminist, and helping to forge a new lesbian and gay consciousness through grass roots organizing. Now in her 60's, Joan continues to celebrate the body as an aging woman and as a woman with cancer.
