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Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS (Unnatural Acts: Theorizing the Performative)

2010-05-19T05:34:00.001-07:00

Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS (Unnatural Acts: Theorizing the Performative) Review

This book is a valuable source for the variety of performances that have accompanied the appearance of AIDS in the United States. Roman carefully evaluates how theatre and performative events, from the activism of ACT-UP to Magic Johnson's announcement of his HIV status, have shaped the way that AIDS has been portrayed. In his introduction, Roman outlines his positionality within his subject, remaining critically responsible while acknowledging the impossibility of "objectivity." An important aspect of his critical approach is his "generosity" towards the performances he analyzes. He states that his purpose in the book is not to evaluate the performances for their artistic merit, but to show their position within the overall field of AIDS performance. He shows how performances that may have been "bad" nonetheless had an impact on their audience. Roman never succumbs to romanticism or nostalgia, but approaches his subject with reverence and respect. Roman's book leaves room for others to continue within the subject of AIDS performance and will continue to be a valuable source for those working in the field.

Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS (Unnatural Acts: Theorizing the Performative) Overview

Acts of Intervention examines the ways that gay men have used theatre and performance to intervene in the AIDS crisis. It discusses dramatic texts and public performances -- from cabarets and candlelight vigils to full-scale Broadway productions such as Angels in America and Rent -- that have shaped, and been shaped by, the history of AIDS in national, regional, and local contexts. Román examines mainstream as well as alternative and activist forms of theatre, including solo performance, community-based projects, mixed-media events, activist demonstrations, and AIDS educational theatre initiatives.

Acts of Intervention traces the ways in which performance and theater have participated in and informed the larger cultural politics of race, sexuality, citizenship, and AIDS in the United States during the last fifteen years. The book discusses not only how the theater has provided a forum for gay male response to the epidemic but also the degree to which those responses have in turn shaped the ideological formulation of AIDS. Román offers a new method for mapping the relation between AIDS and representation by combining interpretive strategies from performance theory, gay and lesbian studies, critical race discourse, and cultural studies.

This book is dedicated to writing the history of theatrical interventions in the AIDS epidemic, including performances whose official history has been largely neglected or forgotten. Because many early performances about AIDS left little or no documentation, the task of constructing an AIDS theatre historiography confronts immediate problems and limitations.

Acts of Intervention argues that the history of AIDS performance is located at the juncture of memory and disappearance, of mourning and survival, of representation and its impossibility in the context of epidemic loss.

Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS (Unnatural Acts: Theorizing the Performative) Specifications

AIDS has had myriad effects on gay culture, and its influence on gay writing and theater have perhaps been the most notable. While novels and poetry by gay men and lesbians have recorded the epidemic, performance art has most closely reflected and embraced AIDS activism. David Roman's Acts of Intervention chronicles the emergence of AIDS as a subject in performance and theater, from the post-modern, high-camp, drag extravaganzas of Lypsinka to the overtly political parody of the Afro Pomo Homos to Tim Miller's playful, nude monologue performances: art as politics. But Roman is as interested in politics as art, and much of Acts of Intervention impressively discusses how public activity protests against government AIDS policy are "performances" themselves. Roman's knowledge of AIDS, art, and gay culture is exhaustive, and his writing is clear, succinct, and informed. Gay culture and art has always been about becoming visible and powerful, and Acts of Intervention charts how this has occurred over the past 17 years.

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Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure

2010-05-17T18:58:00.001-07:00

Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure Review

I came to Duane Simolke's sci-fi novel, DEGRANON, after first having sampled the author's short stories, as included in THE ACORN GATHERING, Writers Uniting Against Cancer.

DEGRANON is sci-fi that warrants the attention of any serious aficionado, gay or straight, fascinated by alien worlds that mirror our own world -- complete with mind-bending drugs, political machinations, rigid class structures and struggles, cults, small-mindedness, corruption at all levels, loves, hates, aspirations, frustrations -- even bigotry; the planet Valchondria has mainly color-blind societies, long-eliminated prejudices arising from different colored skins having merely evolved into repression of the color-sighted minority by the majority who only see in black and white.

Admitteldy not a breeze-through novel, with its time-travel elements that take the plot from past to present to future to present to past, and its comments upon societal mores and relationships -- experienced through the complications of time travel -- it's nonetheless worth the effort for those who don't mind "food for thought" served up with the dessert of sheer good reading.

NOTE: For those who might prefer an experimental dose of Simolke, before taking on this, his 197-page sci-fi opus, try his and his fellow authors' "shorts" in his non-sci-fi THE ACORN GATHERING which -- all author and editor royalties donated to the American Cancer Soceity -- provides the dual rewards of good reading and benefiting a good cause.

Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure Overview

The scientist Taldra is one of the few people on the planet Valchondria who can see in color, but a police force called "the Maintainers" won’t let colorsighted people reveal their ability to the public. Duane Simolke explores that "closet" metaphor more in this revised edition of Degranon; he also recreates three of the major characters as gay men. Taldra’s family becomes entangled with a violent religious fanatic from a war-torn planet called "Degranon." The first edition of Degranon received a StoneWall Society Pride in the Arts Award, and Simolke’s publisher, iUniverse, named Degranon one of their Editor’s Choice books.

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Out on Holy Ground: Meditations on Gay Men's Spirituality

2010-05-16T16:55:00.001-07:00

Out on Holy Ground: Meditations on Gay Men's Spirituality Review

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A Report from Winter

2010-05-15T13:46:00.001-07:00

A Report from Winter Review

This memoir has already received high praise from numerous quarters and after reading the gripping account, I can add that it is all well deserved. This honest account is filled with memories and dreams of the author's childhood, his first date with his partner, and his quiet dysfunctional family. Although the summary calls this book stubbornly unsentimental, I would argue that the narrative is heavily sentimental but written with a brutal, almost painful honesty that yearns for something more than the truth will allow. Either way, this stark and evocative story will grip readers as it shows the love and pain within relationships.

Although the story is about the author's dying mother and coping with her final days, there are several asides included to keep the pace moving. This also serves to lighten the somewhat oppressive tone when recalling the painful death and indignity of illness. Here the author parallels a story of his childhood during a particularly bad snowstorm in Maine and shows how the pattern of his family is already set and not to be altered through the decades. His unhappy, perpetually disappointed mother coupled with an almost absentee father shown in stark contrast to the confused rejection of his brother, this one scene stretched out and told over the course of the book highlights several important factors. The first is the family dynamic, but more importantly, the author's place and ultimately his discovery of his sexuality.

At the same time, the narrative shows the warm and loving relationship with his partner, Ralph, through unconditional acceptance and love. The telling is brutally honest in exposing the author's own perceived weaknesses and faults while acknowledging that Ralph's strength and love is essential to his happiness. If anything, the narrative is almost too stark and open. Often the negative actions, thoughts, and desires are shown blatantly and without any positive context to soften the instinctive thoughts that are all too human. Tempered somewhat by the humor and wit woven into the various remembrances, the empty and cold landscape is often reiterated in the emotions and actions of various people in the book.

The writing itself is engaging and often invites the reader to laugh or cry with the emotions and actions depicted. The honesty of various situations is never in question, as every detail is offered with a painful unveiling from the aching need to be accepted and loved in places that will never happen to relying on the warmth and care of his partner. Although this makes the story difficult to read in places, the pacing and placement of the details keeps the book from being too dark and depressing. Perhaps the saddest detail is not in the unfortunate death of his mother but in lacking that much needed acceptance that was always craved. Such simple need is portrayed in a loving, sentimental, and brutal manner creating a gripping and enthralling story.

This memoir will resonate with many as the dysfunctional, cold family is not a rare experience among readers. The inability of two gay brothers to find common ground, however painfully so, will also be recognizable just as the witty retelling of a first date will evoke emotion in even the hardest hearts. The stunning description of Maine in winter with its beauty, chill, and heart breaking cold is incredible and leaps off the page. While not always an easy book to read, the emotion and context afforded make it well worth the journey.

A Report from Winter Overview

A Report from Winter is a death-in-the-family story, a love story, and a meditation on the meaning of ''winter''--as a season and as a metaphor for family relationships.

It's January 1998, and southern Maine is recovering from one of the worst ice storms in history. Into this unforgiving environment comes the author, flying home from Kansas City after a ten-year absence. His mother, Jennie, is dying of cancer. Though receiving excellent care in a nursing home, she has lost the ability to communicate. Needing support, Wayne makes an SOS call to Ralph, his longtime partner. Ralph boards a plane to Portland for his first exposure to a Maine winter, and to Wayne's family as well, including a feisty aunt and an emotionally distant brother. The contrast between a nurturing gay relationship and dysfunctional family bonds is as sharp as the wind sweeping in from the sea.

Stubbornly unsentimental, A Report from Winter weaves childhood memories of winter with the harsh realities of living in a family where there's not enough love to go around. The memoir is a tribute to hard-won relationships built on mutual trust and understanding, defying an uncaring world.

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Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (Observations)

2010-05-12T18:00:00.001-07:00

Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (Observations) Review

This book is the first and one of the few and to study male-male sexual behavior as it occurs between men who do not primarily identify themselves as being homosexual or bisexual. Previous studies had been largely clinical, based on the reports of individuals undergoing psychotherapy, and most ethnographic studies have been of more or less gay-identified communities -- gay bars, gay organizations, gay neighborhoods -- or male prostitutes. This was the first to study men who have sex with men but who mostly have lives as apparently ordinary, married heterosexuals. The study revealed some surprising facts about such men, and fired a controversy over sociological ethics and propriety that continues to this day.

During the course of a year, Humphreys observed male-male sexual activity in certain public restrooms (known in gay slang as "tearooms") in an unidentified city in the US. A year later, after having identified many of the men he had observed, he arranged to interview them as part of a different, general sociological study, which allowed him to ask a number of questions about their backgrounds and personal lives without revealing their clandestine activities; he also approached about a dozen of the men in the tearooms themselves and was able to interview them openly.

Humphreys' findings contradict a number of previously held assumptions about male-male sexual activity, and carry some important recommendations. One is that the "seduction of teenagers" does not occur in these public places, and in fact teenage boys are actively excluded despite their frequent desire to participate. Another is that the chance of anyone being unwillingly approached in a public restroom, unless he is behaving in such a way as to invite sexual advances, is practically nonexistent. Third, the most frequent criminal behavior which results from these practices is blackmail, primarily from the policemen on the vice squad who are assigned to eliminate sex in public places.

Finally, the book devotes a significant space to the ethical issues which were raised by its methodology. At the time, practically nothing was known about homosexual behavior in the general population, despite a great deal of attention from police, clergy, and politicians. The study was carried out with no untoward effects, and several participants stated that they were glad of the opportunity to talk about themselves. However, the study involved potential danger to the subjects in the event that confidentiality had been broken, and the subjects could not be asked for consent without fatally compromising the study. The debate which followed among sociologists, journalists, and ethicists, regarding the balance between society's need for objective knowledge and the individual's right to privacy, has continued to this day. It is a must-read for anyone concerned with the debate over research on human behavior, both for the historical documents it contains (several of the major criticisms and defenses of the study) and for the way in which it is often misrepresented today by its critics.

The book is well written and extremely readable, and gives some interesting insight into both the state of American homosexual behavior and of the political climate in the years immediately before Stonewall. It won the C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the author was later elected to the national board of a homosexual rights organization, in part because of the importance of this research. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the sociology or history of homosexuality.

Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (Observations) Overview

From the time of its first publication in 1970, Tearoom Trade engendered controversy. It was also accorded an unusual amount of praise for a first book on a marginal, intentionally self-effacing population by a previously unknown sociologist. The book was quickly recognized as an important, imaginative, and useful contribution to our understanding of "deviant" sexual activity. Describing impersonal, anonymous sexual encounters in public restrooms - "tearooms" in the argot - the book explored the behavior of men whose closet homosexuality was kept from their families and neighbors. By combining participant observation with structured as well as informal interviews, Tearoom Trade still furnishes a controversial example of recent social science methods.

This enlarged edition of Tearoom Trade includes the original text, together with a retrospect. The material added includes a perspective on the social scientist at work and the ethical problems to which that work may give rise, along with debate by the book's initial critics and proponents.

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Beach Reading

2010-05-11T16:06:00.001-07:00

Beach Reading Review

Abramson, Mark."Beach Reading", Lethe Press, 2008.

A Romantic Comic Mystery

Amos Lassen

I just finished reading Mark Abramson's "Beach Reading" and the only word I can think of to describe it is "WOW!". It's a short book--only 193 pages--and each of those pages is a pleasure.
The story takes place in San Francisco and it manages to cover many of the issues of gay life including homophobia, relationships, and S&M (stand and pose) as well as others. "Beach Reading is a "love song to San Francisco" and I felt like singing along as I read it. It seems that city on the bay has been the center of gay life forever and after reading this you will understand why.
Gay male tourists find their way to San Francisco by planeloads for what is to be "the party of the decade", a tribute to Sylvester at the Moscone Center. As it happens at major gay events, it is not only gay men who arrive and the Christian right led by Arlo Montgomery also finds his way there. He and his cohorts have come to protest the event and they have set up camp a few blocks away from the festivities at the Civic Auditorium. Tim Snow, a gay activist, plans to protest the protest and the fun and games begin.
I understand that this is the first in a series of books that Mark Abramson is writing on gay life. I plan to be a major fan and I will be bringing news of them when they are published. I also must commend Steve Berman of Lethe Press for picking up the slack that the folding of Harrington Park Press created.

Beach Reading Overview

Gay tourists are arriving in San Francisco by the planeload for the party of the decade at the Moscone Center, a tribute to a late disco star. On the same night as the dance festival, a infamous evangelist plans to bring his nationwide crusade against gay rights to the Civic Auditorium a few blocks away. Tim Snow finds himself caught in the middle when his activist friends plan a protest. For Tim, the fun and the intrigue are about to begin.

Beach Reading , a San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, is equal parts mystery and romantic comedy set in romantic San Francisco with a taste for adventure, a touch of magic.

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Bending the Landscape: Original Gay and Lesbian Writing: Science Fiction

2010-05-11T14:33:00.001-07:00

Bending the Landscape: Original Gay and Lesbian Writing: Science Fiction Review

Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction, is the first of a three-part series of "original gay and lesbian writing" edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel (not very coincidentally, a participant in Outworlders, a local Atlanta GLBTQ sci fi / fantasy fan group and the parent group to a book group I belong to.) After choosing Storm Constantine's The Sign for the Sacred as our group's first fantasy selection, we turned to Bending as a book that would cover science fiction but also appeal to a variety of tastes. Also playing into the selection was the fact that the book had been awarded a number of extremely prestigious awards and Stephen Pagel would possibly come to our meeting to discuss it (which he did!)

When I started on Bending, I really didn't quite know what to expect; most of my affection for science fiction comes not from books but from movies and television, so I really didn't know how much of it I would enjoy. I soon discovered that my wariness was unfounded, for not only did I enjoy the science fiction, but the designation "science fiction" didn't really cover what I was reading -- I found a lot of what I considered "fantasy" as well. I also discovered that Griffith and Pagel made some truly excellent story selections.

Bending features stories which, so Pagel told us himself, cover the full spectrum of science fiction -- everything from futuristic private eye stories to time travel escapades to stories of alien worlds to explorations of cyber consciousness and gender identity. Clearly, this was not a book simply thrown together or with the lowest common denominator in mind. Instead, it's a book in which writers of all sexual orientations explore situations that explore one of science fiction's enduring themes, "the Alien, the Not-Self, the Other," with the "other" a lesbian or gay man (interpreted, so the book's introduction admits, "liberally.")

There were a lot of stories in Bending that I loved and several which actually reminded me strongly of Storm's stories. For example, "The City in Morning" by Carrie Richardson reads like a chapter from a lost Storm Constantine novel. "On Vacation" is a subtly hilarious tale of aliens living on earth a la Men In Black. Far and away my favorite story, which I must have reread a dozen time the day I first read it, was the beautiful, elegant and sweetly heart-rending "Silent Passion" by Kathleen O'Malley. Set in A.C. Crispin's StarBridge universe, to which O'Malley has contributed two books), the story is one I summed up to a friend as featuring "giant gay, signing, alien crane-creatures" and their interaction with gay human couple, whose relationship turns a new corner when the narrator is finally able to move beyond the pain of human intolerance. It's a beautiful, life - and love-affirming story which I doubt I will ever forget and which I plan to lead me on to O'Malley's two StarBridge novels, which, so Pagel tells me, feature these same amazing crane-aliens.

Knowing there are two more Bending anthologies (fantasy and horror), I am sure I have many more great tales ahead of me.

Bending the Landscape: Original Gay and Lesbian Writing: Science Fiction Overview

Volume II of the award-winning collection of gay and lesbian short fiction exploring the horror genre.

On the heels of the phenomenal success and acclaim of Volume I (Science Fiction), Bending the Landscape: Horror brings together a tantalizing slew of truly "horrific" tales guaranteed to provoke, entertain and inspire fear. Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel have, once again, compiled an exciting array of never-before-published stories both from talented newcomers and award-winning genre veterans. In Kraig Blackwelder's Coyote Love, a man wakes up in a stranger's bed, not knowing how he got there. Terror ensues as the reader is shown just how far a person is willing to go to deny reality. In The WereSlut of Avenue A, Leslie What shows us that change is not always a good thing as we witness what may or may not be a physical transformation into something inhuman. These stories, written by writers both gay and straight, incite fear and spur thought. Contributors include Brian A. Hopkins, Holly Wade Matter, A.J. Potter, Carrie Richerson, Mark Tiedmann, Alexis Glynn Latner and more.

Bending the Landscape: Original Gay and Lesbian Writing: Science Fiction Specifications

This second volume of Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel's Bending the Landscape anthology series focuses on science fiction stories (the first book covered fantasy, and the third will cover horror). The editors asked contributors to "imagine a different landscape... some milieu that had not happened" and then address the theme of Alien or Other, with the Other being a lesbian or gay man. Since the writers include men and women, gay and straight, the results are fascinating and kaleidoscopic.

One of the best stories in this stellar bunch is Ellen Klages's "Time Gypsy," a "lesbian time-travel-romance-revenge story" about a scientist who discovers love in an unlikely way. L. Timmel Duchamp's "Dance at the Edge" is a heartbreaking story of visibility and strength, and Richard A. Bamberg looks at what it might be like to be the last gay person on Earth in "Love's Last Farewell."

Big name authors like Charles Sheffield, Nancy Kress, Stephen Baxter, and Elizabeth Vonarburg contribute stories as well. The science fiction volume, like all the Bending the Landscape anthologies, addresses universal themes of otherness, love, and loss. Great reading for the 21st century. --Adam Fisher

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Gay & Lesbian Atlas

2010-05-10T13:33:00.001-07:00

Gay & Lesbian Atlas Review

Gary Gates and Jason Ost have presented a carefully crafted volume, filled with gist for tremendous insights. Their methodology is clearly explained, and they have done an admirable job of trying to portray cartographic imagery of the gay and lesbian population of the United States.

This volume certainly belongs in every public and school library in the country.

And yet, I experienced a certain amount of frustration while poring over the state-by-state and city-by-city maps portrayed in this volume. This frustration does not stem from the admirable work of the authors, but rather from three sources largely beyond their control.

First among these sources of frustration is that the census data collected on same sex coupling, enticing as it is, leaves much to be desired. The census methodology makes the imputation of lesbian and gay populations difficult, at best. The only enumeration is of co-habiting "unmarried" partners of like gender. Left out are couples where neither is the 'head of household', couples not living in the same residence, or who are living in group quarters (such as housing complexes, nursing homes, and correctional facilities). Also left out are single gay & lesbian people, those who do not declare their relationship as an "unmarried partnership", and those who are currently cohabiting with a partner of dissimilar gender, or are in some other form of less traditional relationship status.
The limitation of our knowledge base to cohabiting couples of similar gender is frustrating when trying to imagine the exhuberant diversity of our communities as displayed across geographic space.

My second frustration stems from the difficulty in displaying information that is highly dependent on population density. In the maps these authors portray, the vast majority of the country looks as though there is a paucity of gay and lesbian couples. This is chiefly due to the fact that rural settings take up a lot of "space" on the map, while urban clusters are often barely visible, let alone the small-area variation in the prevalence of couples across the urban landscape.
The authors have tried to overcome this difficulty somewhat by displaying blow-ups of various cities (such as San Francisco, Houston, Boston, etc.), but often these maps of cities are so de-contextualized from their surroundings that it is difficult to visualize the residential patterns of similar gender couples. For example, Boston is displayed without the integrally linked cities of Cambridge and Somerville that (at least anecdotally) contain a large proportion of Boston's gay and lesbian community.

My third frustration stems from the fact that the authors have presented only one measure of gay & lesbian residental patterns (to be fair, three measures: one for gays, one for lesbians, and one combined). This is a relative measure, which is a bit more difficult to interpret than an absolute measure, such as the proportion of similar gender couple-headed households, would have been, because the 'normal' reference for each state is different, making parts of rural North Dakota look as queer-friendly as Manhattan.
Furthermore the authors have limited themselves to a single gay/lesbian index, presumably because of the prohibitive cost of producing a volume with multiple indices. The drawback to this is that a variety of audiences will be interested in more than the relative concentration of lesbian and gay households to all households. The census, for instance, has elected to present data on same sex households as a proportion of all coupled households, rather than including single person households, or households in which the adults have no stated relationship. Other viewers may wish to consider only those households where the head is over a given age.

Much of these difficulties could be overcome by creating an accompanying website which would allow a reader/viewer to zoom in and out according to their own particular preferences, and to display the index of lesbian/gay residential density of greatest interest to them.

All in all, this volume is a tremendous effort and acheivement, hampered not by the authors' originality or effort, but by inescapable quirks of census data collection, and the ability of our minds to grapple with spatial information.

Bill Jesdale, Providence RI (by the way, the finest queer community in the country...)

Gay & Lesbian Atlas Feature

ISBN13: 9780877667216
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Gay & Lesbian Atlas Overview

While the words "we are everywhere" can be frequently heard at gay and lesbian political events, The Gay and Lesbian Atlas provides the first empirical confirmation of this rallying cry. Drawing on the most recent data from the U.S. Census, this groundbreaking work offers a detailed geographic and demographic portrait of gay and lesbian families in all 50 states plus the top 25 U.S. metropolitan areas. These results, presented in more than 250 full-color maps and charts, will both confirm and challenge anecdotal information about the spatial distribution and demographic characteristics of this community. It is probably no surprise that San Francisco, Key West, and western Massachusetts all host large gay and lesbian populations, but it might surprise some that Houston, Texas, contains one of the ten "gayest" neighborhoods in the country, or that Alaska and New Mexico have high concentrations of gay and lesbian couples in their senior populations. The Atlas is a unique and important resource for the political and public policy communities, public health officials, social scientists, and anyone interested in gay and lesbian issues.

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Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men

2010-05-10T04:59:00.001-07:00

Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men Review

I am amazed that I missed this book until a couple months ago. Indeed, it amazes me how few people have been motivated to write a review of it.

Rotello really explains in a simple sensible understandable fashion how the AIDS epidemic resulted from changes in technology , sexual role changes among gay males , social patterns of IV drug users (those in NYC shared needles in galleries while on the West Coast most used their own works at home and escaped the epidemic) and finally how hyperpromiscuity in large cities were the core centers for spreading this epidemic.

Most importantly, Rotello sees a continuing disaster in the gay community if old patterns of multi-partner 1970s promiscuity are reverted to by today's generation.

This is a must read book for anyone touched by this disease. It should get 50 stars.

Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men Overview

ntensively researched, passionately argued, and intellectually rigorous, Sexual Ecology sounds a clarion call for the controversial revision of the gay male community's beliefs about and approaches to AIDS. It is widely agreed that Sexual Ecology is the first book since And the Band Played On to fundamentally challenge social perceptions of this virulent modern plague. Gabriel Rotello argues that a series of accepted views, such as "there are no such things as risk groups, only risky behaviors," the product of well-intentioned attempts to combat social stigma are fallacies that have hampered our attempts to study the disease. From the false security of condoms to the seeming magic bullet of protease inhibitors, simplistic ways of looking at AIDS have allowed thousands of gay men to become infected each year. Weaving together the intertwining threads of sexual politics, science, and survival, Sexual Ecology constructs an incisive, even-handed discussion that has been debated by activists and affirmed by scientists and epidemiologists, and that is relevant to all our lives.
The extremely strong response to the hardcover and wide media coverage confirms the timely nature of the subject.
Includes a new afterword by the author.

Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men Specifications

There was a time, before AIDS, when gay male culture was often synonymous with multiple partners, bathhouses, and an emphasis on youth and physical beauty. Monogamy was identified with "straight" culture and therefore something to be resisted. Even when the AIDS epidemic was at its height, the gay community promoted condom use but did little to discourage risky behavior. In his groundbreaking book Sexual Ecology, author Gabriel Rotello views the epidemic in a new way: as part of an ecological system. Rotello's approach, while unique in the study of AIDS, is one familiar to the environmental movement. He sees the disease not as a discrete element, but as part of a system of "behaviors, thoughts and feelings that made gay culture so susceptible to AIDS."

Although Rotello aims his book primarily at a gay audience, Sexual Ecology has a wider appeal. His chronicle follows the growth of promiscuity among homosexual men through its promotion by bathhouse owners and the gay media. Equally fascinating is the current trend toward more mainstream values among many gay men. Finally, his suggestions for making gay culture sustainable (in the words of environmental science) instead of self-destructive provide serious food for thought and for debate.

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The Gay Detective

2010-05-08T14:55:00.001-07:00

The Gay Detective Review

Originally published in 1961, The Gay Detective by Lou Rand is a highly recommended "pulp fiction" gem that combines the "hard-boiled" detective genre with a brightly flaming twist. Set in a fictional city that mirrors San Francisco, and set among a scene populated by handsome thugs, vituperous drag queens, remorseless businessmen and cops and politicians on the take, The Gay Detective paints a sometimes shocking, sometimes flamboyant, often over-the-top, but consistently engaging and entertaining noir picture which is certain to be relished by hard-boiled mystery fans for its irony, camp, and deftly written plot turns.

The Gay Detective Overview

Before there was Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, vintage pulp writer Lou Rand delivered this high-camp masterpiece. Set in Beat-era gay-mecca-in-the-making San Francisco, the 1961 novel stars a sissy gumshoe, his butch ex-Marine assistant, a nymphomaniac on the make, and plenty of dishy humor. This flamboyant whodunit is now available for the first time in three decades.

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Jane Eyre - My Brother James (Gay Classic)

2010-05-07T09:25:00.001-07:00

Jane Eyre - My Brother James (Gay Classic) Review

Generally, loved it, will be passing to the book club for review. The conclusion to Weathering Heights is great, the ending very haunting, loved it, loved the end, very romanic.
Ok so not everyone is in to the old stuff, we recommend the Sinbad and Tarzan series by Arius.
I've read most of the classic, they imply sex, and male glances at one another. HOney your not glancing in these books, your apart of it it. Love the story telling, the romance between the men and the hidden hardships of the era, have passed to the book club for review, the book club gives this one 5 stars.

Jane Eyre - My Brother James (Gay Classic) Overview

Jane Eyre - My Brother James - Is the retelling of the classic with a gay twist.
This book is illustrated with gay sex, male one on one sex and illustrations, if this offeneds you, do not buy this book.
This is the classic tale of love, passion, male lust and greed that end as no one will guess, or maybe you have. Yes, there is sex, and illustrations of sex, I cannot state this strongly enough.
Cum, take a journey into the days of old, into the country side that once was and into the lives of the manor house and find in the end the result of the adventure.
Other titles by this Author are:
Ride Em' Cowboy - Train Robbers
Tarzan's First Love
The Making of A Gay American Spy
Ride Em' Cowboy - The Store Clerk
Growing Up Gay
Soldiers - Prisoner of War
Islam - Religon of Hate
The Islamic Wars
Ride Em Cowboy-Cum Ride My Phony
Soldier-Prisoner of War
Soldier-Prisoner of War - New Edited
Frankenstein - For the Love of a Man
The GAY Vampire
The Cliff House Vampire
These Are My Children
Finding Simon
Ride Em' Cowboy – Dodge City
The Gay Vampire – The Journey Home
A Romance in the Wilderness
From Boys to Men
Ride Em’ Cowboy – The Grizzly
Sinbad – The Balloon Kingdom
Tarzan – The Awakening
Alien Encounter
Cum Ride My Pony
Drag Queen – Alice in Wonderland
Edward
Ghosts and Nightmares
Jane Eyre – My Brother James
Weathering Heights – Conclusion
Ride Em Cowboy – The Dude Ranch
Ride Em Cowboy – He Lived to Tell the Tale
Ride Em Cowboy – Indian Affairs
The Cliff House Vampire
Sinbad the Gay Sailor
Whispers in the Night

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Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experiences

2010-05-06T03:54:00.001-07:00

Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experiences Review

Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experiences Overview

This collection of nineteen original essays by activists and academics both documents and analyzes the dramatic changes taking place in lesbian and gay experience over the last twenty years. It charts the growth of lesbian and gay studies and examines key issues for gay communities, identities, relationships, sexualities and politics. Edited by a leading author in the field, these essays mark a new confidence and maturity for the growing field of lesbian and gay studies.

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A Gay American Spy - What would you do for your country? How far would you go? (Gay Spy)

2010-05-06T01:23:00.001-07:00

A Gay American Spy - What would you do for your country? How far would you go? (Gay Spy) Review

A Gay American Spy - What would you do for your country? How far would you go? (Gay Spy) Overview

What is real, what is not? What can be seen, what can not? Who is a Spy? Who Is Not?

This is the true story of just such a spy, an, American,and gay. This is a very odd story, one that many will not believe, many will question and others will outright dismiss it. Frankly, I don't care. This book was not written for anyone but the person who lived this unquestionably remarkable life. Justification, truth, its all here. Many will not want to hear it, others will not want to read it. The response is simple: then don't. Justification is not needed. The events in this book are real, they happened. Many of the places, names of people, and events have been alterned to protect the living, the nation, and the author. This is the story of Morris, the Gay American Spy who has seen it all, been a part of the spy world since 1975 and lived this remarkable life which had an impact on the United States and in some cases, the world. Here is that life.
Other titles by this Author are:
From Boys to Men
Ride Em' Cowboy - Train Robbers
The Making of A Gay American Spy
Ride Em' Cowboy - The Store Clerk
Growing Up Gay
Soldiers - Prisoner of War
Islam - Religon of Hate
The Islamic Wars
Ride Em Cowboy-Cum Ride My Phony
Ride Em' Cowboy – Dodge City
Ride Em’ Cowboy – The Grizzly
Weathering Heights – Conclusion
Ride Em Cowboy – The Dude Ranch
Ride Em Cowboy – He Lived to Tell the Tale
Ride Em Cowboy – Indian Affairs
The Cliff House Vampire
Sinbad – The Balloon Kingdom
Sinbad the Gay Sailor
Sinbad & The Diamond King
Sinbad and Mendor theMonster
Whispers in the Night
Tarzan – The Awakening
Tarzan's First Love
Tarzan His Own Kind
Tarzan and the Lost Empire
Alien Encounter
Cum Ride My Pony
Drag Queen – Alice in Wonderland
Edward
Ghosts and Nightmares
Jane Eyre – My Brother James
Soldier-Prisoner of War
Soldier-Prisoner of War - New Edited
Frankenstein - For the Love of a Man
The GAY Vampire
The Cliff House Vampire
These Are My Children
Finding Simon
The Gay Vampire – The Journey Home
A Romance in the Wilderness

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Fresh Men 2: New Voices in Gay Fiction (v. 2)

2010-05-04T12:38:00.001-07:00

Fresh Men 2: New Voices in Gay Fiction (v. 2) Review

I read a lot of these collections having followed the Men On Men series Penguin did for years. I read the first of these and wasn't all that gung ho for it, but it didn't really deter me from trying this one out. This one is better than the first one, there is a story here and there that just doesn't work, as there are with most collections, but the majority of these stories are well done and many of these writers have or should be well on their way to full fledged novels by now. It is a good way to test out new writers to decide if you will like their stuff before committing to a full novel.

Fresh Men 2: New Voices in Gay Fiction (v. 2) Overview

Fresh Men 2 collects the best new writing by emerging gay authors from around the nation. With equal parts sensitivity and irreverence, the anthology speaks to the broad range of gay experiences. From stories of coming out, coming of age, self-representation and family to sex and love in the time of AIDS, from living in the closet to loving in a post-gay world, this book highlights the complexities of gay life. Fresh Men 2 is a groundbreaking collection that also embodies a wide spectrum of literary tastes, from works rich in experimental, transgressive elements to more conventional, traditionally crafted stories.

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Spartacus International Gay Guide 2007

2010-05-03T12:35:00.001-07:00

Spartacus International Gay Guide 2007 Review

I travel often and around the globe. Spartacus will bump out underware (or anything else for that matter) from my suitcase if needed. The previous review of only 4 stars is strange....this is the guide which all others are rated against. It's 5 out of 5 for global usage. Spartacus is truely the only guide you'll need. And at around 20 bux, why are we even talking about it? The cost is under 2 drinks at a bar cost-wise. This is one of my annual purchases. Buy it and you'll not regret it.

Spartacus International Gay Guide 2007 Overview

SPARTACUS INTERNATIONAL GAY offers rapid orientation to all the most important locations for the gay tourist: addresses, tips, and information for more than 160 countries worldwide. With over 22 000 addresses the SPARTACUS covers all the highlights for the gay man, Whether you are looking for an extraordinary hotel, the hottest clubs the most exciting gay beaches or the most popular bars, you will find all this and much more. Hot off the press!

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Fatherhood for Gay Men: An Emotional and Practical Guide to Becoming a Gay Dad

2010-05-01T04:43:00.001-07:00

Fatherhood for Gay Men: An Emotional and Practical Guide to Becoming a Gay Dad Review

REVIEWED BY: Francis A. Martin, Ph.D.
Department of Counseling and Human Resource Development
South Dakota State University, Brookings.

APPEARED IN: THE FAMILY JOURNAL: COUNSELING AND THERAPY FOR COUPLES AND FAMILIES / July 2004

In my heart I knew that I was a natural dad, but intellectually I had to convince myself that I could do it?

Mr. McGarry's comment may seem to be a little odd to many of us. Most of us don't have to convince ourselves that we can do it when it comes to deciding to be a parent. Generally, we just do it, because we know that we can and because we want to. For many of us, finding an answer to the question about whether to become a parent is just a little more challenging than breathing.

But what if the person who wants to be a parent is a gay man? How does he enter the psychological and social zones of existence that allow him to know that his desire to be a parent is OK? And beyond the turmoil of sorting through the complex inner map that shows no clear roads to gay parenthood, how does a man become a gay father? What does the lawsay that he can do? How does he get a child? How much is it going to cost?

Among all of the questions and challenges, he must, in his own way, settle for himself the rightness of becoming a gay father. As McGarry reveals, this is no easy process. But as he also reveals, it is extraordinarily fulfilling and life affirming.

And then, he gets to work. Among many things, McGarry finds a way to complete a home study to show that he is capable of caring for a child, knowing that as he seeks to get it done, he may find a social worker who rejects the possibility of a man becoming a gay father. Then, of course, he must find a child within a limited time or he must have another home study done. This, however, is mostly easy stuff. Finding a child is the hard part. Paying for the whole process is another hard part, with costs of approximately U.S.,000, according to McGarry.

Luckily, for those who are interested in getting information about these matters, McGarry provides it. He gives details about home studies, locating children, the relevant laws in each of the United States, the costs involved in adoption, and much more. So, as McGarry invites his readers to share his search, with its uniquely internal and external aspects, its emotional and practical aspects, he gives insights and information that every prospective gay father needs. In response to this, the reader is likely to feel as much gratitude as intimidation, as much eagerness as dread, and as much real expectation as confusion.

McGarry traveled to Vietnam to adopt his children. He uses some of the sections of his book to describe his experiences that are associated with his Vietnam connections. Fortunately, he uses other sections to share the diary that he kept, revealing much of the substance that may be important for those who want to become a gay father and understanding for those who care about them. As opposed to seeing a picture of it, reading his diary entries is akin to smelling a rose and touching it.

In some important ways, this book does not comport with the standards of well-written books. The diary entries are not very efficient, although they are insightful and truly moving experiences to read. The discussion of state laws and practices
that may help an explorer to decide in which state he wants to become a gay father leaves the reader knowing a great deal but not enough. Sometimes, its ideas seem to be lacking in detail, as if the story should contain more than the author knows. Sometimes, its promise of being a significant resource for its readers exceeds the reach of possibility. However, if these few features of this book are the ones to which a reader gives significant attention, the importance of this book will have been missed. Serious and competent readers often discover that the author who has something important to say is more important and more influential than the author who writes well but has nothing of importance to offer. McGarry is a writer who has something important to say.

As a writer,Mr. McGarry has produced a reasonably good product. Frankly, though, evaluating him as a writer misses the significance of what he has accomplished. More than being a writer, he is a man who presents the experience of seeking to adopt a child and doing it and then writes from the experience of repeating the process. He reveals his sometime torment and sometime ecstasy, with serious swings of mood in between these two extremes, along with true grit and ingenuity in overcoming huge barriers. Because of his passion to disclose his experience to others, he attempts to provide a somewhat encyclopedic document, falling short in this short document, of course. Falling short in this way, however, matters very little when compared with his attempt to accomplish something that is deeply personal and newas a fundamentally important contribution to a major social change.

Given all that this book appeared to promise, I was skeptical of it. After reading it, I concluded that it is an important book that many parents should read. Clearly, men who aspire to be gay fathers must read it. Its importance, though, is bigger than this. Surely, it is a gift to these men as well as being a gift to the rest of us. The gift is that it helps men who want to be gay dads and helps the rest of us to understand our parenting a little better, but its larger gift is that it helps to initiate, legitimate, and facilitate major social change. Long after some of its shortcomings are forgotten, this book will be remembered because McGarry eased the way for many men who want to be gay ads and eased theway for the rest of us to be more understanding, fulfilled, and effective human beings. What better gift could a writer give? What better incentive for social change could we need?

Fatherhood for Gay Men: An Emotional and Practical Guide to Becoming a Gay Dad Overview

Get the inside story on a single gay man's struggle to adopt!

Fatherhood for Gay Men: An Emotional and Practical Guide to Becoming a Gay Dad is the story of one man's journey down the road less traveled—a single gay man adopting and raising his two sons. Author Kevin McGarry recounts his passage into parenthood after years of having his natural fathering instincts stifled by the limits—real and perceived—of being gay. This unique book details the emotional, financial, practical, and social realities of the adoption process for gay men.

From the author: "We take risks by coming out of the closet as gay men and at the end of the day, we are emotionally happier because we took those risks. By coming out, we are being true to who we are. The same goes for anyone, gay or straight, who has gut instincts for parenthood. I knew over the years that I had parenting instincts because I had this incredible envy of other dads. I would watch them with their kids and wish that somehow, I could have that role. It was painful at times because being gay, I didn't think parenting was in my life plan. Had more role models been available to me, the process would have been a little less difficult."

Much more than a "how-to" guide to adoption, Fatherhood for Gay Men is the personal account of a single gay man's struggle to become a father despite the real and imagined limitations of being a gay man. The book looks at the adoption process (domestic and international) from the inside, providing unique insight into:

conducting a homestudy
costs (fees and expenses)
what countries allow men to adopt
alternatives to adoption
life as a new parent
online resources
and a state-by-state review of adoption laws, categorized by "Completely Legal," "Favorable Climate," "Mixed Success," and "Illegal"

The book also includes results of the 2000 study by Gillian Dunne, senior researcher for the London School of Economics Gender Institute, of 100 gay fathers and fathers-to-be. "Fatherhood for Gay Men: An Emotional and Practical Guide to Becoming a Gay Dad is a heartfelt and heartwarming story of a father's refusal to be denied a family.

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Gay TV and Straight America

2010-04-29T17:48:00.001-07:00

Gay TV and Straight America Review

Becker, Ron. "Gay TV and Straight America", Rutgers University Press, 2006.

Ending the Silence

Amos Lassen

As we learn in Steve Capsuto's fascinating study on gays on TV and radio, Ron Becker takes us one step further as the looks at the 1990's and the increase in programming that incorporated and/or centered on gay material. So many shows dealt wih gays--"Friends", "Seinfeld", "Homocide", "Ellen", "Will and Grace, "Party of Five" and so on. Gay and lesbian relationships were explored and often in detail. Becker looks at the politics and the culture of the age and explains the new trend in gay iamages and representation on the little screen. He shows Supreme Court rulings and the media coerage of civil rights as well as debates, political correctness and so much more to explain how we got to be where we are today. He looks at the business strategies of the networks as they targeted a new section of society and consifered the limits of how far they could go. He also looks at mainstream anxiety and the audiences that embraced the new GLBT material.
There are stil controversies over what is broadcast yet millions turn on their TVs to see the new programming. We cannot really take this as a sign that we have arrived but it is a lot better than it was.

Gay TV and Straight America Overview

After decades of silence on the subject of homosexuality, television in the 1990s saw a striking increase in programming that incorporated and, in many cases, centered on gay material. In shows including "Friends", "Seinfeld", "Party of Five", "Homicide", "Suddenly Susan", "The Commish", "Ellen", "Will & Grace", and others, gay characters were introduced, references to homosexuality became commonplace, and issues of gay and lesbian relationships were explored, often in explicit detail. In "Gay TV and Straight America", Ron Becker draws on a wide range of political and cultural indicators to explain this sudden upsurge of gay material on prime-time network television. Bringing together analysis of relevant Supreme Court rulings, media coverage of gay rights battles, debates about multiculturalism, concerns over political correctness, and much more, Becker's assessment helps us understand how and why televised gayness was constructed by a specific culture of tastemakers during the decade. On one hand the evidence points to network business strategies that embraced gay material as a valuable tool for targeting a quality audience of well-educated, upscale adults looking for something "edgy" to watch. But, Becker also argues that the increase of gay material in the public eye creates growing mainstream anxiety in reaction to the seemingly civil public conversation about equal rights. In today's cultural climate where controversies rage over issues of gay marriage yet millions of viewers tune in weekly to programs like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", this book offers valuable insight to the complex condition of America's sexual politics.

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Ragged Angels

2010-04-28T02:10:00.001-07:00

Ragged Angels Review

Ragged Angels Overview

A gay vampire romance novel that is both erotic and philosophically compelling.

When the book was first published in 1997, a print-reviewer stated: ...if you enjoyed Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, you will surely love Ragged Angels for its bold depiction of love, sex and death: the three most profound experiences every human being must face. Ragged Angels takes the vampire mythos out of the Hollywood nonsense and brings to it a gritty realism mixed with some of the most erotic and sensuous writing in the genre of male/male fiction. This is one I'll read again for the dark philosophical look at immortality, as well as the resplendent and emotionally mature love story...

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Latin American Writers on Gay and Lesbian Themes: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook

2010-04-26T17:18:00.001-07:00

Latin American Writers on Gay and Lesbian Themes: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook Review

Latin American Writers on Gay and Lesbian Themes: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook Overview

Homoerotic themes and undercurrents in Latin American literary works have been largely ignored. This reference explores the importance of gay and lesbian themes in Latin American literature by providing entries for more than a hundred authors. Each entry assesses and analyzes homoerotic elements in the work of a particular author and closes with a bibliography of primary and secondary material. Entries are arranged alphabetically for ease of use.

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Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works Ffrom the First Half of the Twentieth Century

2010-04-24T18:48:00.001-07:00

Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works Ffrom the First Half of the Twentieth Century Review

Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works Ffrom the First Half of the Twentieth Century Overview

Searching for an introduction to the shadowy, intriguing world of early 20th century gay-themed fiction?

In Lost Gay Novels, respected pop culture historian Anthony Slide resurrects fifty early 20th century American novels with gay themes or characters and discusses them in carefully researched, engaging prose. Each entry offers you a detailed discussion of plot and characters, a summary of contemporary critical reception, and biographical information on the often-obscure writer. In Lost Gay Novels, another aspect of gay life and society is, in the words the author, “uncloseted,” providing you with an absorbing glimpse into the world of these nearly forgotten books.

Lost Gay Novels gives you an introduction to:

authors who aren't usually associated with homosexuality, including John Buchan, James M. Cain, and Rex Stout
the history of gay publishing in the US and abroad
gay themes in novels published between 1917 and 1950—with entries from nearly every year!
the ways in which the popular culture of the time shaped the authors' attitudes toward homosexuality
the difficulty of finding detailed biographical information on little-known authors

If you're interested in gay studies or history, or even if you're just looking for a comprehensive guide to titles you've probably never heard of before, Lost Gay Novels will be a welcome addition to your collection. The introduction from author Slide—called by the Los Angeles Times “a one-man publishing phenomenon”—provides you with an overview to the basics of this landmark collection. Themes found in many of the titles include death, secrecy, and living a double life, and in reading the entries you will discover just why these themes are so common.

As Slide says in his introduction: “The approach of the novelist toward homosexuality may not always be a positive one… but the works are important to an understanding of contemporary attitudes toward gay men and gay society.” Lost Gay Novels will help you further your own understanding of the dynamic relationship between literature and culture, and you will finish the book with a greater appreciation of modern American gay fiction.

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Queer Japan: Personal Stories of Japanese Lesbians, Gays,Transsexuals and Bisexuals

2010-04-22T09:20:00.001-07:00

Queer Japan: Personal Stories of Japanese Lesbians, Gays,Transsexuals and Bisexuals Review

People will stumble upon this book, I think, from their interest in other areas, gay and lesbian studies, or Japanese culture for example. The area of gay and lesbian studies in Japan is still so new and relatively small compared to the United States, for example, that as a discourse it does not quite have the independence and stature to attract wide notice or sympathy.

That said, this is an excellent introductory book, one-of-a-kind, in fact, of Queer Japan. In every story, translated by a trio of non-Japanese academics who have spent several years apiece in Japan and are active in gay-lesbian-bisexual-transexual groups, the author is awash with gratitude, to be allowed finally to speak in one's own voice, of the struggles, pain, and yes, the joys experienced. In such an oppressive culture, where candid, direct speech is not encouraged, or even actively discouraged as being childish and selfish, these essays are all the more remarkable.

My only complaint, which prevented me from giving 5 stars to the book, is technical: there are numerous grammatical errors, as well as careless word use. Sorry, I was an English major in college. I was trained to spot misuse of transitive/intransitive verbs, for example. It makes me sad that such errors suggest to me a lack of attention on the part of the publisher; in other words, this makes me feel that those involved in editing the book did not take as much pride in their own book as their subjects, which conflicts with the heartfelt call for those in the book, and others like them who struggle in Japan, to take pride in themselves, their essential beings.

In short, an excellent, though technically flawed book, for those looking to expand their understanding of modern Japan.

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Heat: Gay Men Tell Their Real-Life Sex Stories (Transworld)

2010-04-20T20:25:00.001-07:00

Heat: Gay Men Tell Their Real-Life Sex Stories (Transworld) Review

"Jack Hart, the editor of My First Time and The Day We Met, is back with a brand-new collection of true gay sexual encounters that reads like the best of erotic fiction. Among the highlights in this group of over 60 stories: A man gets turned on by his physician during his yearly physical exam; a lieutenant has sex aboard ship with a Marine guard in 1967; a physical education assistant at a university has sex in the showers with a workout stud; two gay pledges discover each other in a frat house; the coach of a company softball team gives a player a 'special session'; two horny reserves bunk together during annual training exercises; and a guy gets caught trying to steal a blond neighbors briefs from their condo's laundry room. Covering experiences from first-time encounters to three-ways in tearooms, from military maneuvers to unexpected seductions, Heat is one book that won't cool down."--© zebraz

Heat: Gay Men Tell Their Real-Life Sex Stories (Transworld) Overview

Jack Hart is back with a brand-new collection of true gay sexual anecdotes that reads like the best of erotic fiction.From first-time encounters to three-ways in tearooms, Heat is one book that won't cool down!.

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Always My Child: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Your Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered or Questioning Son or Daughter

2010-04-13T15:40:00.001-07:00

Always My Child: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Your Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered or Questioning Son or Daughter Review

Kevin Jennings, Executive Director of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) has co-authored the definitive book on guiding, understanding, and - hopefully - accepting in love your GLBTQ child. It is primarily targeted toward parents struggling to help and deal with their questioning or coming out teenage child.
This book is not specifically about dealing with transgender children, although there are about 30 pages devoted to dealing with issues and problems of Trans teens. It also talks to people of color and includes young peoples' input to parents. Cultural messages of gender and sexuality are discussed and techniques of dealing with these messages are offered for consideration.
Many of the popular myths about homosexuality and transgenderism are analyzed, with facts presented to aid in accepting and understanding. Suggestions are provided for dealing with friends, your teen's friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Signs of trouble are discussed, along with suggestions for helping your teen deal with them.
While the advice is directed toward sexual and gender diversity, the advice applies to dealing with any youth. The principles of dealing with children apply globally.
So what is the secret? The title says it best - "Always My Child." Your child's needs come first, no matter what. Love your child; don't pressure them, but encourage them to discus their feelings, fears, and problems.

Always My Child: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Your Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered or Questioning Son or Daughter Overview

The first book to focus on the day-to-day experiences of adolescents dealing with sexual identity issues, Always My Child provides the insights and practical strategies parents need to support their kids and cope themselves.

Parents whose children are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or who are going through a "questioning phase" are often in the dark about what their children face every day. As a result, offering support that will comfort and fortify them feels like solving a puzzle with missing pieces.

In Always My Child, Kevin Jennings supplies the missing pieces by guiding parents through the world their child inhabits. He explains what these teens often encounter -- teasing and harassment -- and offers solutions for parents who want to better understand their LGBTQ children and learn how to protect their self-esteem. He offers advice, including how to:

Initiate constructive communication with their child

Respond effectively to frequently asked questions

Recognize depression and signs of drug abuse and harassment

Successfully advocate for their child's well-being outside the home

Always My Child makes it possible for parents to create the kind of relationship with their children that allows them to grow into emotionally healthy adults.

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Gay and Lesbian Historical Fiction: Sexual Mystery and Post-Secular Narrative

2010-04-11T09:40:00.001-07:00

Gay and Lesbian Historical Fiction: Sexual Mystery and Post-Secular Narrative Review

I have had the priveleg to have Norman as a professor and I can tell you that is very well informed, articulate, kind, and funny. I imagine this would be a wonderful read...but ? I guess I'll wait for a while...just one tip if you read this Proff. You're more likely to sway people to your point of veiw if they read the book :)

Gay and Lesbian Historical Fiction: Sexual Mystery and Post-Secular Narrative Overview

The first extensive study of gay and lesbian historical fiction, this book demonstrates how the highly popular genre helps us understand gay and lesbian history. It shows not only why the genre should be taken more seriously by historians but also how it implicitly works to ameliorate divisions between Christianity and homosexuality. The book contends that gay and lesbian historical fictions model ways of approaching sexual and historical mystery not as a threat to understanding but as its ground. These fictions thus implicitly undermine the supposed dichotomy between secular and sacred ways of knowing, thereby expanding the resources for ethical debate about homosexuality.

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Body, Remember: A Memoir (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies)

2010-04-09T10:35:00.001-07:00

Body, Remember: A Memoir (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies) Review

Fries, Kenny, "Body, Remember: A Memoir", University of Wisconsin Press, 1997, 2003.

A Moving Memoir

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

Kenny Fries in "Body, Remember" has written a memoir that moves one to tears As we embark on a journey from sympathy to admiration, we read a book without a false note in it. When Fries wrote his memoir he was 36 years old and a noted poet, an essayist, and a critic. He writes what it is like to be disabled--he was born with two malformed legs as a result of a congenital birth defect and he endured many operations to correct. There is no "pity me" in his memoir--he uses honesty and even allows those he is or has been at odds with to maintain their dignity. With extreme patience Fries looks back on his life and explores family documents, medical records and memory (his own and his parents') to try to understand how he got to be where he is. He discovers that the details of his early life were unspoken but he was able to map out his sexual identity and sexual desire. As he comes to terms with himself, he also writes about what it is like to be different.
Fries is a man very concerned with identity.
Being gay and Jewish help him form a self image and as a person with a defect, he uses his memoir to help discover who he is. It is his disability that rules his life and it cannot be ignored as the most important facet of his life--in fact, it claims most of his attention. He has a complex self image, especially regarding his gayness by which his disability is not a part. He explores where he stands in terms of his religion concerning his homosexuality. These three personas--disabled, gay, and Jewish are the issues that concern him most and he reaches no conclusion--at least none that I could see. He seems to be able to balance the three. This lack of perspective is the only fault I can find with otherwise a beautifully written memoir.
The beauty of the writing is the way that Fries interweaves memories and fragments from his life. It is almost hard to read when he writes of his brother who abused him both sexually and physically. Likewise his meetings with men in Israel and his ill-fated relationships with two other men are sad and heart-rending. He finally, after the publication of his poetry and years of psychotherapy, manages to achieve happiness with another man, Kevin, with whom he is still partnered.
Fries wars scars on his body and on his mind and his self awareness of his physical deformity is examined in great detail. The book is deeply personal and is not a history but a memoir. He takes us on a journey from the shallow end of life where he could barely use his own legs to where he is able to achieve a rich and happy life.
As I read, I thought how lucky I was that I only had to endure two of Fries problems--being Jewish and being gay. I can't imagine how much a physical disability can even make life that much harder.

Body, Remember: A Memoir (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies) Overview

In this poetic, introspective memoir, Kenny Fries illustrates his intersecting identities as gay, Jewish, and disabled. While learning about the history of his body through medical records and his physical scars, Fries discovers just how deeply the memories and psychic scars run. As he reflects on his relationships with his family, his compassionate doctor, the brother who resented his disability, and the men who taught him to love, he confronts the challenges of his life. Body, Remember is a story about connection, a redemptive and passionate testimony to one man's search for the sources of identity and difference.

Body, Remember: A Memoir (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies) Specifications

Kenny Fries, noted poet, critic, and essayist, has produced a moving and memorable memoir of what it is like to live with a body you are told is less than perfect. Fries was born with incompletely formed legs, a congenital birth defect that had no scientific name but entailed multiple surgeries just to partially correct. In Body, Remember, Fries, with patience and forbearance, travels back through his life--examining medical records, family papers, his own and his parents' memories--to uncover how he became who he is today. Fries's search is, in part, a mystery not simply because he uncovers many details of his early life unspoken within the family, but through its charting of the discovery of his sexual desire and identity. While much of Fries's memoir is a beautifully written elucidation of what it means to be "different," its fire and heart comes from its author's growing sense of self and dignity as he examines and learns to understand the scars on his psyche as well as on his body. --Michael Bronski

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Flesh: True Homosexual Experiences (v. 2)

2010-04-08T10:01:00.001-07:00

Flesh: True Homosexual Experiences (v. 2) Review

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Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Myths from the Arapaho to the Zuni: An Anthology (American Indian Studies, V. 13)

2010-04-07T21:39:00.001-07:00

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Myths from the Arapaho to the Zuni: An Anthology (American Indian Studies, V. 13) Review

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A Gay Synagogue in New York

2010-04-06T16:15:00.001-07:00

A Gay Synagogue in New York Review

Shokeid, Moshe, "A Gay Synagogue in New York", University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995, 2003.

Beit Simchat Torah

Amos Lassen

For some reason for the longest time, spirituality and homosexuality did not mix. In recent years however many homosexual men and women are reaching out to religion with hopes of finding their place in it. "A Gay Synagogue in New York" tells us of Beit Simchat Torah in New York City. It is a real synagogue with a membership of real men and women and it is a fascinating story---for me especially because I can put faces with the names that I read about.
The book examines the beginnings of the synagogue and its history and then looks at the need for separatist facilities for gay Jews. He examines the holy writings to find rustication for the existence of a gay synagogue and he looks at gender in general. One of the most rewarding chapters is how Simchat Torah reacted to the AIDS epidemic and how it survived when so many of its members did not. Finally we look at Simchat Torah as a safe place, as a gay place and as a Jewish place.
This is an example of modern ethnography and it is wonderfully written. Here is an easy read that has a lot to say and it is not just for Jews but for anyone who wants to be included.

A Gay Synagogue in New York Overview

A Gay Synagogue in New York recounts the communal experiences and personal dilemmas of the congregants of Beth Simchat Torah, the largest gay and lesbian synagogue in the United States.

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Muscle Men: Rock Hard Gay Erotica

2010-04-06T15:45:00.001-07:00

Muscle Men: Rock Hard Gay Erotica Review

Muscle Men: Rock Hard Gay Erotica Overview

Muscle Men is a celebration of the body beautiful, where men who look like Greek gods are worshipped for their outsized attributes. Editor Richard Labonté takes us into the erotic world of body builders and the men who desire them. These uninhibited stories are by the masters of the genre, including Jack Fritscher, Jeff Mann, Steven Bereznai, Tom Fuchs, and Ryan Field. At the gym, in the locker room, and especially in the steam room, the hunks who look hard, work hard, and play hard inspire fantasies the world over. Visit the masculine studs of Muscle Men to enjoy a taste of their strength and power.

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Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life

2010-04-05T13:23:00.001-07:00

Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life Review

A great many exceptionally astute, historically accurate, ethically sound, and sexually accurate books have been written on the subjects of "Homosexuality", "Gay or Lesbian" attitudes, lifestyles, and sexual practices, Blumenfeld and Raymond quote or repeat the core of actual information previously presented and do it well and clearly.

What is remarkable and new is that there presentation has incredible simple clarity. This clarity goes beyond the actual presentation of thinking and ideas. These authors have actually made the words "Gay" and "Lesbian" words of reasonable behaviour, reasonable lifestyle, and reasonable sexuality.

Through their presentation they have clearly defined and (more importantly) emotionally presented the Gay and Lesbian world as an arena or paradigm of Normalcy, and this is something which has been crying out to be accomplished ever since the late 19th century published brilliance of Edward Carpenter and the incredible energy, courage, and insisting writing of One Magazine in the 1950s and 1960s. It is a tour de Force of Demonstrated Normalcy for an aspect of our civilization which has been called every negative name known to all of us. As such, in its very quite way, it is a very revolutionary book.

Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life Overview

The most reliable and comprehensive source of information about every major aspect of te lives of gay men and lesbians.

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Homosexuality and Male Bonding in Prenazi Germany: The Youth Movement, the Gay Movement, and Male Bonding Before Hitler's Rise : Original Transcript

2010-04-05T10:36:00.001-07:00

Homosexuality and Male Bonding in Prenazi Germany: The Youth Movement, the Gay Movement, and Male Bonding Before Hitler's Rise : Original Transcript Review

Homosexuality and Male Bonding in Prenazi Germany: The Youth Movement, the Gay Movement, and Male Bonding Before Hitler's Rise : Original Transcript Overview

This is a landmark publication featuring English translations of selections from the early gay German journal, Der Eigene. This collection, previously scattered and difficult to read in the original German, allows readers direct access to primary source material on the early gay movement. Neglected for years, these articles provide insight into the early gay movement, particularly in its relation to the various political currents in pre-World War II Germany. Simultaneously, the essays are relevant to current discussions and debates in contemporary gay, women’s, and youth movements. Masterly introductory and concluding essays add additional insight by placing the articles in their historical context, discussing their past and current significance, and drawing lessons for the future. Readers of all levels of sophistication will find this anthology a fascinating look at homosexuality in early years.

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Best Gay Romance 2010

2010-04-04T11:50:00.001-07:00

Best Gay Romance 2010 Review

Best Gay Romance 2010 Feature

ISBN13: 9781573443777
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Best Gay Romance 2010 Overview

Best Gay Romance 2010 covers every romantic possibility with first love, true love, wake-up sex, makeup sex and everything in between. Richard Labonté has gathered a sensational collection of stories about finding love at home, at work, at any age, and often in the most unexpected places. Contributor David Holly's "meet cute" hook-up in "Guy Sydney," is a thoroughly modern love story, while Elazarus Wills's dramatic "A Companion for the Road" shows that many things get better with age. Trebor Healy's New Orleans star-crossed lovers in "Trunk" encounter voodoo, hoodoo, and an unexpectedly sweet surprise. Each story is redolent with romance, great sex, and characters who are fully fleshed out in more ways than one. Sometimes rowdy, always randy, and surprisingly tender, these tales celebrate the coming together of souls as well as bodies. Whether happily ever after or just a happy ending, Labonté continues to raise the bar on gay love stories.

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Current Issues in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender Health

2010-04-04T10:16:00.001-07:00

Current Issues in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender Health Review

Current Issues in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender Health Overview

Learn what resources are needed for lesser-recognized LGBT health issues

Most literature that explores LGBT health issues concentrates on HIV/AIDS while leaving research studies on other vital issues lacking. Current Issues in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health addresses this inadequacy by presenting a broad range of LGBT health issues from an interdisciplinary and mixed-method perspective. Leading experts present both quantitative and qualitative descriptions of health issues among various population groups, focusing on those topics poorly represented in present-day literature. This book is a strong start to fill in the blanks about unrealized health issues of LGBT individuals and offers insights into the resources needed to address them.

Methods to assess sexual orientation and gender identity are not normally found in most population-based research. Because of the diversity within the relatively small LGBT population, research has been forced to generalize, making it less likely to effectively contribute to quality health issue data for these individuals. The research presented in Current Issues in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health takes particular care to specify how the orientation and sexual identity of study participants was measured. This book carefully mines previously unrevealed health disparities among LGBT populations across a broad spectrum of diseases—beyond the standard focus on HIV/AIDS. The most current and important studies are presented, including rare research on transgender health issues. The chapters are extensively referenced, and several include figures and tables to clarify and enhance understanding of the information.

The wide range of topics in Current Issues in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health include:

the inclusion of sexual orientation questions in research studies

comparison of mental health issues between women of different sexual orientations

mental health issues among men of different sexual orientations and HIV status in Australia

the impact of sexual identity distress and social support in GLBT youth issues

transgender youth health issues

female-to-male (FTM) transexuals’ experiences accessing health care

research on LBT domestic violence survivors

health needs of male-to-female (MTF) transgenders of color

Current Issues in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health is crucial, thought-provoking reading for researchers working in LGBT health, public health professionals working in community health and LGBT health, policymakers, advocates, public health and community health faculty, and students interested in LGBT health issues.

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Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America

2010-04-03T10:29:00.001-07:00

Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America Review

Examining the millitary's own record, Nathaniel Frank makes the tight case that don't ask don't tell has ultimately undercut the military's effectiveness and readiness.

It plays into the agency's/Congress's stereotypes about who an effective solider is instead of seeing factual evidence. Meanwhile, ignoring the current policy, GLBT servicemembers (and those merely suspected of it) are rooted out, robbing the armed forces of much needed and highly trained personnel.

Were this not bad enough, to quickly fill in the gaps, they look to lesser qualified people with questionable backgrounds. But these people are ironically acceptable under the current policies because they are deemed straight. In an agency concerned about security, safety and quality, I'd actually think the new hirees would be more of a danger than GLBT servicemembers.

Throughout the book Frank himself makes the point that until don't ask, don't tell is overturned, we will have this absurd--and dangerous catch 22 policy. It is not about protecting the country or ensuring military preparedness. It is about appeasing deep rooted fears of military officials and Congressional leaders. The American public has a right to demand a qualified competend millitary.

Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America Feature

ISBN13: 9780312603533
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America Overview

Drawing on more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, Nathaniel Frank exposes the military’s policy toward gays and lesbians as the damaging one that it is and demonstrates that “don’t ask, don’t tell” must be replaced with an outright reversal of the gay ban. One of the nation’s leading experts on gays in the military, Frank’s even-handed and always scrupulously documented chronicle shows how the ban on open gays and lesbians in the U.S. military has greatly increased discharges, hampered recruitment, and—contrary to the rationale offered by proponents of the ban—led to lower morale and cohesion within military ranks.

The author presents indisputable evidence showing that gays already serve openly in the U.S. military without causing problems, and that the policy itself is weakening the military it was supposed to protect. Part history, part exposé, and fully revealing, Unfriendly Fire is sure to make the blood boil of any American who cares about national security, the right to speak the truth, or just plain common sense and fairness.

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Best Gay Erotica 2004 (Best Gay Erotica Series)

2010-04-03T07:25:00.001-07:00

Best Gay Erotica 2004 (Best Gay Erotica Series) Review

I'd venture that this year's "Best Gay Erotica" is one of the best collections of erotica that I've read, and perhaps my favourite in the series to date. And I've read a lot of them.

You'd think that an anthology about gay sex would be mostly about fantasy (and there is a lovely fantasy story this year about the power to stop time...) but I think what I like most about this collection is the reality. Objects of attraction are hairy guys (lots of `em); bears (quite a few); young studs; a bisexual married man, older men (than the narrators); and older men in general. There's a whole ton of sweaty humping, a bit of oral, some role-playing, powerfully written S&M, protected and unprotected sex, and drug-taking. There's joy and reflection, nostalgia, and quite a bit of hard reality. There's eroticism found in hard-luck stories, a history of a tattoo, and confession. These are real stories about real men having real sex. Good for us.

I'm impressed that the editors, Kirk Read and Richard Labonté managed to put together a collection where I liked every story - and more so, was surprised by each of them: their tenderness, despair, joy, quirkiness, hardness, sweetness and reality. Think I'm gushing a little too much? Buy a copy yourself, and you'll see. I dare you.

Best Gay Erotica 2004 (Best Gay Erotica Series) Overview

Best Gay Erotica 2004 captures the hottest, freshest stories of man-on-man desire by the most cutting-edge writers of gay erotica today. The 2004 edition features stories selected by Kirk Read, author of the wildly popular memoir How I Learned to Snap, one of the most engaging gay coming-of-age stories published in recent years.

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Born to be Gay: A History of Homosexuality (Revealing History)

2010-04-02T08:42:00.001-07:00

Born to be Gay: A History of Homosexuality (Revealing History) Review

Born to be Gay: A History of Homosexuality (Revealing History) Overview

A global history of homosexuality from the earliest civilizations to the present day.

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Critical Essays: Gay and Lesbian Writers of Color

2010-04-02T07:05:00.001-07:00

Critical Essays: Gay and Lesbian Writers of Color Review

This book is one of the first anthologies about gays and lesbians of color. If you can find a copy, do buy it. I found myself citing this book all the time for college papers. This book includes great articles about figures such as Audre Lorde and Arturo Islas. It has wonderful essays from up and coming academics such as Sharon Hom and Martin Manasalan IV. Even a decade after its release, this book will seem fresh and relevant. This anthology also does a great job of focusing on Latinos, Asians, and Blacks equally rather than tokenizing any group. Two big snaps for Critical Essays!

Critical Essays: Gay and Lesbian Writers of Color Overview

This pioneering work is the first book to systematically explore the literature of gay and lesbian writers of color in the United States. Critical Essays challenges the marginalization and tokenization of gay men and lesbians of color in the dominant academic discourses by focusing exclusively on the imaginative work of representative Native-American, Asian-American, Latino(a), and African-American gay and lesbian writers.

As the first book offering a scholarly assessment of ethnic gay and lesbian writing in the U.S., Critical Essays simultaneously defies ethnic and mainstream homophobia as well as straight and gay/lesbian racism. This deliberate counter to the dominant white discourse of gay and lesbian literature offers a lively contribution to the debate on the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender/sexuality and class in American literature. A wide range of critical approaches, including historical readings, cultural analysis, and deconstructive criticism, is employed to the works of such major literary figures as Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, John Rechy, Paula Gunn Allen, and Gloria Anzaldúa.

These thought-provoking chapters disrupt the complacent notion of a unified gay/lesbian community by questioning the presumed similarities of persons who share sexual identity. Some of the specific topics explored in Critical Essays include:

post-coloniality and gay/lesbian identities
emerging Asian-American gay and lesbian writers
redefining the Harlem Renaissance from gay perspectives
contemporary African-American gay male performance art
relocating the gay Filipino

This groundbreaking volume will be of immense interest to undergraduate, graduate, and advanced scholars in Gay and Lesbian studies, Women’s studies, African-American studies, Asian-American studies, Latino(a) studies and Native-American studies. It will also serve students and scholars as a valuable introduction to the diversity of authors that comprise twentieth-century American literature.

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Best Gay Stories 2008

2010-04-01T08:35:00.001-07:00

Best Gay Stories 2008 Review

Berman, Steve, editor. "Best Gay Stories, 2008". Lethe Press, 2008.

Some of the Best

Amos Lassen

Sometimes it is easier to read "the best" when they are all assembled in one volume and that is just what Steve Berman has done in what he hopes will become the first of a series that takes into the best writing that the gay world has to offer.
The stories in "Best Gay Stories, 2008" touch on all of the issues in gay life and include selections from the very finest gay authors including Jameson Currier, Erastes, Greg Herren, David Leviathan, Jeff Mann and Ethan Mordden among others. There are twenty stories and each has something valuable to sat. The selections are varied giving us a cross-section of gay life and I found the stories to be enlightening, entertaining and though provoking.
Berman's new baby, Lethe Press, is a wonderful addition to gay literature and he brings us quite a group of writers. It is so good to have him reprinting some of the best of gay literature by authors who lost their publishing houses when they were closed or sold. If this book is a glimpse at what is to come, we are very lucky.

Best Gay Stories 2008 Feature

ISBN13: 9781590211915
Condition: USED - GOOD
Notes:
Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Best Gay Stories 2008 Overview

Editor Steve Berman (Charmed Lives, So Fey, Wilde Stories) has selected twenty stories--some moving essays, some splendid works of fiction--from the prior year that best feature the lives, loves and losses of gay men. With tales by fresh voices and established writers, Best Gay Stories offers readers indiscretions, poignant trysts, and reminiscences that are as evocative as they are imaginative.

The contributors to this year's volume are: M. S. Allen, Holly Black, Richard Bowes, Tom Cardamone, Jameson Currier, Peter Dube, Erastes, Greg Herren, James Klise, David Levithan, Raymond Luczak, Joseph Manera, Jeff Mann, Billy Merrell, Ethan Mordden, Paul Reidinger, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Paul Russell, Aaron Shurin, and Robert Warwick.

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Gay Warriors: A Documentary History from the Ancient World to the Present

2010-04-01T00:26:00.001-07:00

Gay Warriors: A Documentary History from the Ancient World to the Present Review

It wasn't "Don't ask, don't tell" in ancient Greece. Same-sex romances were a common and condoned part of military culture.
Learn about Samarai sex, American Civil War, WW I and II, the contemporary U.S. military as well as sailors and pirates.

Gay Warriors: A Documentary History from the Ancient World to the Present Overview

In Ancient Greece and Rome, in Crusader campaigns and pirate adventures, same-sex romances were a common and condoned part of military culture. From the Peloponnesian War to the Gulf War, from Achelleus to Lawrence of Arabia gays and lesbians have played a crucial but often hidden role in military campaigns. But recent debates over the legality of gay service in the military and the "don't ask, don't tell" policy have obscured this rich aspect of military history. Richard Burg has recovered important documents and assembled an anthology on these often invisible gay and lesbian warriors.

Burg shows us that the Amazons of legend weren't just fictional. We learn about the richness and variety of their culture in documents from Plato, Seneca and Suetonius. The sexual culture of the samurai is explored along with its relationship to warmaking. From courts-martial proceedings we discover women warriors in seventeenth century England who passed as men in order to serve, and army officers whose underground culture fostered long-term romantic friendships.

There are also sections on the American Civil War, World War I and II, the contemporary U.S. military as well as sailors and pirates. This anthology will forever change the way we think about "gays in the military."

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Queering Tourism: Paradoxical Performances of Gay Pride Parades (Routledge Studies in Human Geography)

2010-03-31T08:09:00.001-07:00

Queering Tourism: Paradoxical Performances of Gay Pride Parades (Routledge Studies in Human Geography) Review

Queering Tourism: Paradoxical Performances of Gay Pride Parades (Routledge Studies in Human Geography) Overview

Gay Pride parades are annual arenas of queer public culture, where embodied notions of subjectivity are sold, enacted, transgressed and debated.

From Sydney to Rome, Queering Tourism analyses the paradoxes of gay pride parades as tourist events, exploring how the public display of queer bodies - the way they look, what they do, who watches them, and under what regulations - is profoundly important in constructing sexualized subjectivities of bodies and cities.

Drawing on extensive collections of interviews, visuals and written media accounts, photographs, advertisements, and her own participation in these parades, Lynda Johnston gives a vibrant account of ‘queer tourism’ in New Zealand, Australia, Scotland and Italy. For each place, she looks at how the relationship between the viewer and the viewed produces paradoxical concepts of bodily difference, and considers how the queered spaces of gay pride parades may prompt new understandings of power and tourism.

Examining the intersection of sexuality, space and tourism, and using empirical data gathered at Gay pride parades such as the Sydney Mardi Gras, New Zealand HERO Parade and World Pride Roma 2000, this important work produces a deconstructive account of tourism and presents new ways of thinking through the powerful processes of subjectivity formation.

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Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights: An A-to-Z Guide

2010-03-30T14:28:00.001-07:00

Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights: An A-to-Z Guide Review

Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights: An A-to-Z Guide Overview

With a few notable exceptions, gay artists of earlier generations felt compelled to avoid sexual candor in their writings. Conversely, most contemporary gay poets and playwrights are free from such constraints and have created a remarkable body of work. This reference is a guide to their creative achievements. Alphabetically arranged entries present 62 contemporary gay American poets and dramatists. A number of these writers are well known, including Edward Albee, Harvey Fierstein, and Allen Ginsberg. Others, such as Alan Bowne, Timothy Liu, and Robert O'Hara, merit wider recognition. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, an overview of the author's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies.

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Gay and Lesbian Washington D.C. (DC) (Images of America)

2010-03-30T06:53:00.001-07:00

Gay and Lesbian Washington D.C. (DC) (Images of America) Review

Gay and Lesbian Washington D.C. (DC) (Images of America) Overview

In the identity of gay and lesbian America, Washington, D.C., has a history, perhaps unknown, that begs to be acknowledged. This history ranges from the planner of this new city on the Potomac River to generations of gay women who fought, lobbied, and marched for the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Prohibition promoted the rise of underground clubs with back rooms for gays and lesbians to socialize in the 1920s. The history of these clubs and cruise spots reveals the migration of gay neighborhoods across the city, from Georgetown to Lafayette Square to Dupont Circle. In the 1960s and 1970s, gays and lesbians marched with Pride to be recognized. In the 1980s, they covered the Mall with a quilt to finally hear politicians utter the word AIDS. Today, the word is marriage: equal under the law and equal in the heart.

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Amuse Bouche (Russell Quant Mysteries)

2010-03-29T09:02:00.001-07:00

Amuse Bouche (Russell Quant Mysteries) Review

Amuse Bouche (Russell Quant Mysteries) Overview

A gay wedding gone bad. A missing groom. An unsullied reputation at risk. Enter Russell Quant—cute, gay, and a rookie private detective. With a nose for good wine and bad lies, Quant is off to France on his first big case. From the smudgy streets of Paris, he cajoles and sleuths his way to the pastel-colored promenade of Sanary-sur-Mer.

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The Gay Almanac

2010-03-29T06:13:00.001-07:00

The Gay Almanac Review

If you need to find out about gay organizations, gay friendly insurance companies, gays in the military, support groups, gay writers, lesbian characters in novels or ANYTHING gay related (almost): get that wonderful book!

The Gay Almanac Overview

Compiled by two nationally known and highly respected gay organizations, a unique, comprehensive almanac designed for gay men traces the history of the gay community, offers a directory of gay and lesbian organizations, and much more.

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Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (Caravan Book)

2010-03-28T04:26:00.001-07:00

Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (Caravan Book) Review

Johnson, E. Patrick. "Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South", University of North Carolina Press A Caravan Book, 2008.

Hearing What Is Not Usually Heard

Amos Lassen

If there is any group in the GLBT community that we know little of, it is the Southern Black Gay male. I have never understood why this is so but I must congratulate E. Patrick Johnson for helping to fill that void. Incidentally he is now on tour with his one man show based on this book and bringing awareness to the matter.
"Sweet Tea" (what a great title) is a detailed oral history of the subcultures of Black gay men in the South and it covers all milieus. Johnson interviewed sixty-three men to give us a picture of what it is like to be gay and Black. He uses a set slate of questions for all he interviewed and this is one of the two faults of the book in that there is little variety especially in the matter of faith issues. The other problem that I see it that Johnson did not follow up on some of the answers that he received that showed a new insight into Black gay life.
I did like the way that the book is arranged by categories such as love and relationships, coming out, etc. It is extremely difficult for a Black man to claim both Southern and Black cultures as we read here and we are all well aware that racism is not dead. It is indeed difficult to find acceptance in rural areas of the Bible belt south and in many cases identities must be redefined.
Those interviewed are indeed a cross section, Johnson interviewed men between the ages of 19 and 93 and we learn that there is a Black gay subculture in the South and we learn how this community is maintained, Here in Little Rock, for example, we were able to have a Pride celebration in 2008 because of a lack of volunteers. I was very surprised when I learned that there was a very successful Black Gay Pride festival especially since I knew nothing about the local Black gay community. I do not go out much in Little Rock and I do not recall seeing Black gay men when I did.
The book reads wonderfully, almost as if it is a collection of stories instead of honest testimonies and thereby proves that in the South we know how to tell a tale.

Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (Caravan Book) Feature

ISBN13: 9780807832097
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (Caravan Book) Overview

Giving voice to a population rarely acknowledged in writings about the South, Sweet Tea collects life stories from black gay men who were born, raised, and continue to live in the southern United States. E. Patrick Johnson challenges stereotypes of the South as "backward" or "repressive," suggesting that these men draw upon the performance of "southernness"—politeness, coded speech, and religiosity, for example—to legitimate themselves as members of both southern and black cultures. At the same time, Johnson argues, they deploy those same codes to establish and build friendship networks and to find sexual partners and life partners.

Traveling to every southern state, Johnson conducted interviews with more than seventy black gay men between the ages of 19 and 93. The voices collected here dispute the idea that gay subcultures flourish primarily in northern, secular, urban areas. In addition to filling a gap in the sexual history of the South, Sweet Tea offers a window into the ways that black gay men negotiate their sexual and racial identities with their southern cultural and religious identities. The narratives also reveal how they build and maintain community in many spaces and activities, some of which may appear to be antigay. Ultimately, Sweet Tea validates the lives of these black gay men and reinforces the role of storytelling in both African American and southern cultures.

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Without Condoms: Unprotected Sex, Gay Men and Barebacking

2010-03-28T03:58:00.001-07:00

Without Condoms: Unprotected Sex, Gay Men and Barebacking Review

If you work with gay men as a health care provider, especially as a psychotherapist or health department prevention case manager, this book is a must. It is directed at professionals, and is quite scholarly, with thirty-three pages of references. However, the fact that the author talks about his own experience as a clinical social worker in private practice, and also the fact that he, himself has HIV, makes the book all the more compelling. It is extremely thorough (with one exception), and explores, in depth, the many reasons that gay men choose to have sex without condoms. The conclusion is that there is no simple answer, and clinicians need to individualize their assessments. No broad brush can put the crystal meth party boy in the same category as the committed couple who stop protection. "Barebacking" can be too easily demonized. The bare, unvarnished fact is that the majority of gay men are not 100% safe, 100% of the time. As health care workers we must be realistic, and look for other interventions besides, "Just say no". In this vein Shernoff discusses the "harm reduction model", offering very specific suggestions. Our challenge is to accept our clients where they are, without condemnation, if we are to truly engage them in a process of change. At the same time we must acknowledge it can be a challenge to witness what seems to us to be provocative behaviors. Shernoff explores his own reactions to his clients' confessions, and how he deals with them; encouraging all of us to do the same.

The one exception to this extremely thoughtful and in-depth examination has to do with Shernoff's cursory treatment of sex addiction. He devotes less than a page to the subject, and describes it as "controversial" and "based on a heteronormative concept". Sorry, I beg to differ: it is based on an addictions concept. If you substitute "sex" for "alcohol" in the criteria for alcoholism, the many parallels are obvious. In no way does this mean that the sex gay men have, even in a casual context, is a sex addiction, just as a gay bar patron is not necessarily an alcoholic - but in some cases both meet the criteria of addictive behaviors. The significance of this is that groups such as Sex Addicts Anonymous and the 12-Step process can offer significant support for alternative ways to cope with life, and better choices for harm reduction. For more information the interested reader can get another perspective from Robert Weiss's book, Cruise Control: Understanding Sex Addiction in Gay Men (LA: Alyson Books, 2005).

This, however, is a very minor drawback to an otherwise exhaustive examination of the issues. I have worked in this field since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic both as a private therapist and health department consultant. Even with an extensive background and experience this book had much to say to me, and much that I could apply to my own practice. If you work in a related field, this should be required reading.

Michael E. Holtby, LCSW, BCD

Without Condoms: Unprotected Sex, Gay Men and Barebacking Overview

After years of activism, risk awareness, and AIDS prevention, increasing numbers of gay men are not using condoms, and new infections of HIV are on the rise. Using case studies and exhaustive survey research, this timely, groundbreaking book allows men who have unprotected sex, a practice now known as "barebacking," to speak for themselves on their willingness to risk it all.

WithoutCondoms takes a balanced look at the profound needs that are met by this seemingly reckless behavior, while at the same time exposing the role that both the Internet and club drugs like crystal methamphetamine play in facilitating high-risk sexual encounters. The result is a compassionate, sophisticated and nuanced insight into what for many people is one of the most perplexing aspects of today's gay male culture and life style. Michael Shernoff digs deep and forces us to see that the AIDS epidemic is not over. We must now ask the hard questions and listen to the voices that answer. The stakes are too high to ignore.

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The Struggle Over Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Rights: Facing off in Cincinnati (New Approaches in Sociology)

2010-03-27T03:58:00.001-07:00

The Struggle Over Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Rights: Facing off in Cincinnati (New Approaches in Sociology) Review

The Struggle Over Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Rights: Facing off in Cincinnati (New Approaches in Sociology) Overview

Using qualitative data, Kimberly Dugan captures the dynamics and interdependence of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual movement and the Christian right as they engaged in conflict over Issue 3 by focusing on cultural factors relevant to movement mobilization, strategies, and success.

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Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East

2010-03-27T01:12:00.001-07:00

Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East Review

Whitaker, Brian, "Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East." University of California Press, 2006.

Arab Love

"Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Lover in the Middle East is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. I suppose one of the reasons I found it so fascinating is because I spent so many years of my life in that section of the world. Brian Whitaker has dome an admirable job in collecting research for this book which reads quickly and says much.
At this time in the mind of America, the Arabs have gained a new minority status, especially because of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The Arab world has always been one of mystery to the Western man. Information on homosexuality there has always been shrouded from us Whitaker opens the door on that part of the world and lets us look inside of those countries that consider being gay a major crime, not just against humanity but against the Moslem religion It has always been a taboo subject in Arab countries. The press, when it does write about it, calls homosexuality "shameless and Moslems say it is "heinous". In a world where diversity has finally begun to come into its own, the Arab countries are moving the other way.
What gave Whitaker the "inspiration" to write "Unspeakable Love" was the now famous incident in 2001 when Egyptian police raided a boat on the Nile River and arrested many men. Both the arrest and the ensuing trials caused many lives to be ruined and attracted worldwide attention. Shortly afterwards, Whitaker met two of the men who had been closely involved in the case and what began as a feature article grew into this wonderful book. The incidents of the boat raid and arrests and imprisonments raised the issue of homosexuality in the entire Arab world. Quite naturally it would have been impossible to cover all of the twenty-two countries of the Arab League so Whitaker has concentrated on the issues that are common to all of the countries. The basic problem is that the Arab nations do not even acknowledge that homosexuality even exists today. In the past, homosexuality was by and large ignored or people looked the other way but this is still intolerance. If a person's sexuality departs what is considered the "norm", he can have no legal rights and is forced to live a secret life, constantly afraid of discovery and blackmail. The fact that sexual issues in the Arab world become a part of international politics makes the situation even more difficult and is regarded as a barrier to social progress. Because sexuality is not regarded rationally except as a means for procreation, reform and open discussion are impossible. Worst of all is that there is pessimism among the Arab gay men and women that there is any change in the offing. It is a dismal conclusion but unfortunately this is what the author was able to surmise from the research that he did.
Whitaker seems to express some hope that things will change however. It also appears that tradition and family honor are the major issues that stand in the way of acceptance of gays in the Arab world. I must Say that the book held me captive as I turned the pages. I have known "gay" Arabs--basically Palestinians--and I have heard their stories. Again, I was amazed at how brutal man can be because of what he does not understand. Whitaker's details are both accurate and highly disturbing but his book does give us a good deal of insight into the nature of social pressure as well as the sense of being alone that Arab homosexuals feel. If you are interested in reform, this is an ideal book to read. The Arab nations that wish to move forward into the modern world must realize that the enslavement of any singular group is inhumane and modernity can only come with enlightenment. Anxiety, fear and trauma are what should be the taboos, not men loving men and women loving women.

Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East Overview

Homosexuality is a taboo subject in Arab countries. Clerics denounce it as a heinous sin, while newspapers write cryptically of "shameful acts." Although many parts of the world now accept sexual diversity, the Middle East is moving in the opposite direction. In this absorbing account, journalist Brian Whitaker calls attention to the voices of men and women who are struggling with gay identities in societies where they are marginalized and persecuted by the authorities. He paints a disturbing picture of people who live secretive, fearful lives and who are often jailed, beaten, and ostracized by their families, or sent to be "cured" by psychiatrists.
Whitaker's exploration of changing sexual behavior in the Arab world reveals that--while deeply repressive prejudices and stereotypes still govern much thinking about homosexuality--there are pockets of change and tolerance. The author combines personal accounts from individuals in the region with a look at recent Arab films and novels featuring gay characters and conducts a sensitive comparative reading of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic strictures around sexuality. Deeply informed and engagingly written, Unspeakable Love draws long overdue attention to a crucial subject.
Copub: Saqi Books

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Still Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama

2010-03-25T20:12:00.001-07:00

Still Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama Review

Scholar John Clum's critical textual analysis of Gay Theatre, is not a historical account of the plays themselves. In this work, he critically looks at a wide variety of gay plays, some well known others not. In conclusion Clum writes that this type of drama has much wider universality to audiences (both gay and straight) than what is often perceived. A must for scholars of both Theatre and gay studies!

Still Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama Overview

Still Acting Gay is a revision and expansion of Clum's celebrated book, Acting Gay. The book focuses on the relationship between American and British dramas written by and about gay men and the changing gay culture those plays reflect, from the carefully enforced closet to liberation politics to AIDS to the qualified security of the present. Still Acting Gay chronicles the transition of the gay man as subject for sensational melodrama to creator of many of the most powerful and celebrated plays of the late 20th century.

Still Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama Specifications

This reprint (with some revision and a new chapter) of John Clum's classic 1991 study should be shelved beside Alan Sinfield's Out on Stage (1999) in the library of anyone interested in theater or gay culture. In his introduction to this new edition, Clum offers his work as a "testament to the importance of gay playwrights in the history of American and British theatre," while acknowledging that in the 21st century, the stage no longer holds a central role in gay cultural life, especially for young urban queers: "We're the subjects of serious, gay-created movies. Gay writers and pundits are on chat shows. There are celebrated openly gay rock stars. Which is to say that gay men no longer need to go to the theater to see ourselves and our lives and that gay dramatic writers no longer see the theater as the only medium open to us." Nevertheless, as Clum argues, gay drama of the past 70 years is a good place to look for both sanctioned and unsanctioned representations of homosexual characters and gay life, and perhaps (given the historical association of queers and theater) the best place to trace these changing images. His section on Tennessee Williams (updated here) is especially good, as is his long and celebratory treatment of Tony Kushner's Angels in America. --Regina Marler

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No Bath but Plenty of Bubbles: An Oral History of the Gay Liberation Front, 1970-73 (Lesbian & gay studies)

2010-03-25T19:58:00.001-07:00

No Bath but Plenty of Bubbles: An Oral History of the Gay Liberation Front, 1970-73 (Lesbian & gay studies) Review

No Bath but Plenty of Bubbles: An Oral History of the Gay Liberation Front, 1970-73 (Lesbian & gay studies) Overview

This text examines the workings of the London Gay Liberation Front between 1970 and 1973. It gathers the accounts of people who were involved and the papers they wrote, as well as the comments of bemused bystanders. A chronology gives context to the GLF against a background of events of the time.

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Monique Wittig: At the Crossroads of Criticism (Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies)

2010-03-24T17:39:00.001-07:00

Monique Wittig: At the Crossroads of Criticism (Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies) Review

Monique Wittig: At the Crossroads of Criticism (Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies) Overview

"Lesbians are not women." This (in)famous statement by renowned theorist, writer, and activist Monique Wittig marked a watershed moment in critical understandings of gender and sexuality.Wittig's mise en question of the notion of "woman"--a term she argued was necessarily enmeshed in heterosexual and patriarchal systems of knowing--unsettled seemingly self-evident relationships between language and reality, signification and subjectivity, and even, if not especially, women and feminism. Recalling Wittig's project and practice of lexical disidentification, by which gender and other signs of identity are ruptured and reworked, this special issue of GLQ offers a variety of often conflicting views on Wittig's aesthetic, political, and theoretical work.

Contributors provide critical and disparate snapshots--some more theoretical and abstract, some more experiential and concrete--of debates on, and investments in, Wittig's theoretical legacy. Judith Butler analyzes Wittig's "particular" universalism and offers a careful exposition of her worldview. Diane Crowder studies Wittig within a context of materialist inquiry that has often been ignored or misunderstood. Robyn Wiegman examines the complex nature of memorialization and inquires into Wittig's place in contemporary queer theory. Seth Clark Silberman, calling attention to Wittig's fiction, reverses the usual ascendancy of critique over narrative fiction and produces a formally innovative, if willfully "parasitic," account of Wittig's claim on the contributor's imagination as he watches his mother slowly die of cancer. Alice Jardine, who situates Wittig as a disruptive and disorienting force in a mother-centered feminism, provides an autobiographically charged review of the recent history of feminism, queer studies, and the still uneasy relations between them. The issue also includes a detailed introduction by Brad Epps and Jonathan D. Katz; a brief personal reflection by Sandra Soto, a close friend and colleague of Wittig's; and two texts by Wittig, one critical (with a foreword by Sande Zeig) and the other creative, both previously unavailable in English.

Contributors. Judith Butler, Diane Crowder, Brad Epps, Alice Jardine, Jonathan D. Katz , Seth Clark Silberman, Sandra Soto, Robyn Wiegman, Monique Wittig, Sande Zeig

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Gay & Lesbian Theologies: Repetitions With Critical Difference

2010-03-24T17:27:00.001-07:00

Gay & Lesbian Theologies: Repetitions With Critical Difference Review

Gay & Lesbian Theologies: Repetitions With Critical Difference Overview

Gay and lesbian theology has been one of the most distinctive voices to have emerged in Christian theology in the last 30 years. It has placed lesbian and gay experience at the heart of the theological process. Elizabeth Stuart, one of the most prominent theologians in this field, presents a critical survey of gay and lesbian theology. She charts the development of gay and lesbian theology from an early apologetic phase, to a more confident liberationist outlook which owed much to Latin American liberation theology and feminist theology, and finally to its current wrestling with queer theory.

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An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies)

2010-03-23T16:33:00.001-07:00

An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies) Review

Beck, Gad. "An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Germany, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

Triumph of Will

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

We all have a great deal of trouble understanding the Holocaust and what it did to so many people. We have been slowly getting the stories of the Nazi persecution if gays and if one was both gay and Jewish, he had real troubles. Gad Beck was a man like that but he survived and was able to tell his story as he does so eloquently in "An Underground Life". Even though his book begins slowly, it picks up pace quickly and as you read your mouth falls open to see stories about man's inhumanity to man. When the Nazis began their reign of terror he was living underground and was sought by the Gestapo. Beck was an organizer and helped many who lived illegally by finding them shelter and food as well as providing a listening ear and support in any way that he could. The fact that he was gay was secondary to the fact that he was Jewish.
In this memoir Beck brings to life both the cruelty to the Jews but the cruelty to the gays as well. This is a shocking and horrifying account as he writes about a gay man's coming of age in Nazi Germany. It is an erotic tale but also shows how love should be considered. This was probably the first time in the modern age that the gay spirit managed to triumph over intolerance and bigotry--even against the greatest crime ever against humanity.
The fact that Beck survived in itself is miraculous but even more amazing is that he was able to write about what he endured. When Robert Plant published "The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals" in 1986, the door was opened to a new aspect of the Holocaust. Several personal accounts followed, but few have been published that talk about the Nazi treatment of gays ad I imagine that this is because so few survived and those that did could not think about what they had endured. This makes this book that much more valuable.
Beck's own story is unique in that he was born of a mixed marriage in 1923 to a Jewish father and a Christian mother thereby not Jewish according to strict Orthodox law. Nonetheless, the Nazis did not care--if he had a drop of Jewish blood, as far as they were concerned, he was Jewish. As the Nazi party rose to power and began their housing relocation plan, forced labor and transport to death camps, Beck organized a resistance movement to hide others and to smuggle food and drugs to them, He even once wore a Nazi uniform to rescue a doomed gay man from the camps. He does not in any way disguise his sexuality and he gives details of his own sexual liaisons. He gives us an amazing picture of the horror of Nazi rule. He was one of the fortunate gay men whom his parents loved and accepted his sexuality and was very lucky that the Christian side of his family felt the same. In 1933, when Hitler came to power, he was forced to attend a Jewish school to reinforce his identity and to be visible to the ruling party and he immersed himself in Judaism and embraced the idea of the Zionist movement. He also embraced a great many men and he hides nothing about his sex life (except for actual sexual descriptions) as well as writes openly about his secret political activities. He rose in power in the Zionist movement and became a central character in working to establish a Jewish homeland. He survived the Nazis by living illegally in Berlin. Because of that he was able to write this wonderful memoir.
This is a book that holds you from the beginning to the end, so much so that you want a sequel. He embraced his gayness at the same time that he embraced his Jewish--at a time when it meant death to be either. There are stories of betrayals and back stabbings and secret meetings and the memoir reads like a combination thriller/spy novel. That he survived s incredible and even more incredible is that he endured all that he did.

An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies) Overview

That a Jew living in Nazi Berlin survived the Holocaust at all is surprising. That he was a homosexual and a teenage leader in the resistance and yet survived is amazing. But that he endured the ongoing horror with an open heart, with love and without vitriol, and has written about it so beautifully is truly miraculous. This is Gad Beck's story. "There may be other books by other Jewish Berliners, but surely none as riveting as this one." -Frontiers "Born to an interfaith couple, Beck . . . discusses the near-simultaneous embrace of both his Jewish and his gay identities in the most unlikely of settings: a Nazi Germany that was intent on eliminating both groups." -Publishers Weekly "An extraordinary tale. . . . Beck's stories of secret meetings, backstabbing betrayals and Nazi interrogations are the stuff of spy novels-only here they are real, with a hauntingly young protagonist." -Wayne Hoffman, Washington Post "The person you meet in the pages of An Underground Life is far from pitiable. [Gad Beck] is instead a proud, insouciant man. . . . His involvement in the traumatic events of his time is so intense and authentic that his narrative pulls you along."-Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times "Despite the grim backdrop, Beck's reminiscences are sensual, passionate, and strangely joyful." -Out Magazine "An inspiring tale that should serve as a reminder that straight people don't have a monopoly on courage." -Deborah Peifer, Bay Area Reporter

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Cool Thing: The Best New Gay Fiction from Young American Writers

2010-03-20T05:26:00.001-07:00

Cool Thing: The Best New Gay Fiction from Young American Writers Review

Mastbaum, Blair and Will Fabro, editors." Cool Thing: The Best New Gay Fiction from Young American Writers", Running Press, 2008.

18 New Stories

Amos Lassen

Today gay young people have it so much easier that I did. They can, in most cases, come out without the fear and pain that many of us felt and they are certainly more open that my generation was. This collection of short stories, wonderfully edited by Bair Mastbaum and Will Fabro is full of the excitement of youth and the stories deal with all of the aspects of GLBT life. These are the voices of the young and they bring a new dimension to gay literature--one we have not had much of. They look at sexuality in a different way, it is not a struggle for them and their coming out stories are wild, happy and enthusiastic and not important as they once were.
The stories are like the colors of the rainbow--diverse and beautiful. I do not have much is common with the writers in this anthology as they did not face the same challenges and obstacles as I did but that does not mean that these stories do not speak to me. The writers here are also searchers and they sometimes find and sometimes don't. And as they search, they also flee from certain issues. What they do more than anything else is give us a picture of what it means to be young and gay today. They are also willing to write down their experiences and share them with us.
The stories deal with drug abuse, looking for sex, imagining sex with Brad Pitt, of an eco-terrorist action plot, of a dead boyfriend, and other topics. They represent youth in all of its aspect and they are great reading.

Cool Thing: The Best New Gay Fiction from Young American Writers Feature

ISBN13: 9780786720118
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Cool Thing: The Best New Gay Fiction from Young American Writers Overview

Lambda Award-winning novelist Blair Mastbaum and writer Will Fabro have put together a fun and edgy anthology of hot new fiction by young gay writers. With works by Mastbaum, Fabro, Mark Edmund Doten, Michael Tyrell, Sam J. Miller, and more, Cool Thing has something for everyone.

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Coming Out Within: Stages of Spiritual Awakening for Lesbians and Gay Men

2010-03-18T15:01:00.001-07:00

Coming Out Within: Stages of Spiritual Awakening for Lesbians and Gay Men Review

Written in 1992, when perceptions of LGBT lifestyles were culturally far worse than today, this book was an uncommon voice.

"Coming Out Within" - by Craig O'Neill, a Catholic Priest, and Kathleen Ritter, a psychotherapist and professor at CSU Bakersfield - asserted a premise (in 1992) that many (if not nearly all) non-heterosexuals developed their gender, sexual, familial, work, role, and relationship identities in a "heterosexual-only" Western Culture environment. In the late 20th Century, LGBT self-images were often created in dramatic and constant incongruities with popular "acceptable imagery."

It is important for everyone, in any era, to have easily available access to healthy portrayals, imagery, and written contextual reasoning to support our honest feelings and desires.

If you want to understand why I work so consistently to highlight intelligent, healthy, and considerate LGBT images of relationships and sexuality, then reading this book will give you more cultural imagery and self-perception concepts to consider.

I would not be surprised if Deborah Tolman, who in 2005 wrote "Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality," read "Coming Out Within" before writing her introduction to her book. Tolman's discussion of a "heterosexual exclusive" culture has many similarities to the authors' ideas in "Coming Out Within".

"Coming Out Within" may help homosexuals recognize some of their likely unrealized hurt, loss, and pain they took onto themselves as "expected" or "part of being gay in a straight society." The authors suggest it may be more healthy to acknowledge the mistreatment and unfairness they've grown accustomed to receiving from heterosexually-dominant families and communities.

"Some lesbians and gay men achieve success in the workplace at the expense of their integrity. They pretend that they are not who they are and, as a result, live distant from their inner beings, often in a world of fear and denial. The trappings of success that come with buying into a hetrosexually based life image are exchanged for the turmoil of incongruity and the pain of living separated from their souls. Peter Tchaikovsky described this well when he said, 'All that is left is to pretend. But to pretend to the end of one's life is the highest torment.' " p. 26

The authors then outline a therapeutic 8-Step process from "Loss to Transformation," giving many illustrative and practical examples each step of the way.

I don't recommend the book because I think their 8-phase healing process is the way to address related issues. I recommend the book because their 8-phase process is one more way to consider addressing related issues. The authors also wisely recommend individual counseling in addition to taking self-therapeutic steps.

Coming Out Within: Stages of Spiritual Awakening for Lesbians and Gay Men Overview

Loss--feeling unacceptable to family, church, or workplace; losing loved ones to AIDS; being despised by segments of society--is universal among lesbians and gay men. Using an eight-phase model illustrated with real case histories, the authors explore loss as a catalyst for growth and personal and spiritual transformation.

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The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film: A History and Annotated Bibliography

2010-03-17T14:24:00.001-07:00

The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film: A History and Annotated Bibliography Review

For mystery buffs or fans of gay literature, The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film by Drewey Wayne Gunn is a must-have. The book is pretty evenly divided between a fascinating look at the gay male sleuth throughout history and a comprehensive bibliography of books featuring gay male sleuths.

It's obvious that Gunn has done his homework here, and equally obvious that this is a genre he loves. While academic in nature, the book is easy to read and understand, and actually quite enjoyable. It certainly fills a void. While there have been a few other studies and bibliographies on LGBT mystery and detectives novels, they missed many titles and practically ignored books featuring gay males. There were virtually no books indexing gay male sleuths in film.

There is much to learn in these pages, even for a writer of a gay male sleuth! For instance, did you know that the first recognizably gay detective did not appear until 1953 in an English novel The Heart in Exile by Rodney Garland? However, it was not marketed as a gay mystery and so it is often overlooked. The first actual gay sleuth presented as such appeared in 1961 in a pulp novel by Lou Rand titled The Gay Detective. It too was largely overlooked because of its pulp origins. It was only recently that gay mystery novels really took off and became truly a marketable subgenre.

Gunn breaks his history into bite-sized sections based on authors, characters, themes, and sometimes the target audience. For instance, you'll find Bleeding Hearts listed under Teenage Sleuths (for Teenage Readers). The bibliography claims to be the most comprehensive ever offered on this subject, including more than 600 novels, over 100 movies, and nearly 20 television or video series.

If you enjoy mysteries in general, and gay mysteries in particular, then you'll want to be sure to pick up a copy of this book. It will provide you with a reading list to last a long, long time!

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The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law

2010-03-16T12:57:00.001-07:00

The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law Review

This is a fascinating book, targeted at lawyers, but readable by the informed lay person. Koppelman begins with an overview of Romer, in which the Supreme Court held that a Colorado state constitutional amendment violated the United States Constitution by providing that "neither the state nor any of its subdivisions could prohibit discrimination on the basis of homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships." Justice Kennedy wrote that the Amendment "has the peculiar property of imposing a broad and undifferentiated disability on a single named group," and Koppelman summarizes the decision as saying "if a law targets a narrowly defined group and then imposes on it disabilities that are so broad and undifferentiated as to bear no discernible relationship to any legitimate government interest then the court will infer that the law's purpose is simply to harm that group, and so will invalidate that law." *

He provides background on homophobia, quoting from a 1950 Senate committee investigation on the employment of homosexuals that "Even one sex pervert in Government tends to have a corrosive influence on his fellow employees... One homosexual can pollute a Government office."

He also points out that a recent study by the US Department of Justice found that homosexuals are "the most frequent victims [of hate violence today]," and public opinion polls show that homosexuals are the least liked group in America, with 28.2% giving homosexuals a zero ranking (on a scale of 0 to 100) with only 9% doing so for illegal immigrants and 2 percent doing so for Blacks.

Some of the book is spent trying to reconcile Romer with Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) in which the Supreme Court held that a law criminalizing homosexual sodomy did not violate the Due Process Clause. It is fascinating to see him struggle with Bowers when you know that his argument against this decision, which he characterizes as "a disastrously bad piece of judicial craftmanship," was to win the day only months after the book's publication in the Lawrence decision of 2003.

The thrust of the book is to examine four arguments for gay rights in general and gay marriage in particular:

The Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment
The Due Process clause of the 14th amendment
The "Right to Privacy" arising out of Griswold and also Roe
Sex discrimination

In one fascinating section he shows how the Federal DOMA removes the full faith and credit assumption only from judgments in which the rendering court recognizes same-sex marriage but not in which the rendering court denies it. Thus, in a hypothetical wrongful death case, if the defendant "filed a counterclaim for declaratory judgment and relitigated in the liability in a new forum, and that court held that no wrongful death suit could lie because no marriage ever existed, that judgment would be entiteled to full faith and credit everywhere, even in the state that recognizes same-sex marriage....If on the other hand the new forum state refused to collude in this evasion and confirmed the judgemetn,t he second judgment, too, would under DOMA not be entitled to full faith and credit, because that second judgment too would have recognized the existence of a same-sex marriage. The defendant would then be free to relitigate the question anew in a third forum and a fourth and so on. When at last he found a court that would cooperate with his scheme, the judgment issued by that forum would then be entitled to full faith and credit throughout the United States!"

Koppelman's conclusion is that not only is the Federal DOMA unconstitutional, but it is so clearly targeted at homosexuals as a class that it strengthens the argument in favor of treating homosexuals as a suspect class, and thus laws against homosexuals are more suspect and held to a harder-to-defend standard. Thus, in the long run, he argues, DOMA will strengthen gay rights.

The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law Overview

The gay rights question is whether the second-class legal status of gay people should be changed. In this book Andrew Koppelman shows the powerful legal and moral case for gay equality, but argues that courts cannot and should not impose it.

The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law offers an unusually nuanced analysis of the most pressing gay rights issues. Does antigay discrimination violate the Constitution? Is there any sound moral objection to homosexual conduct? Are such objections the moral and constitutional equivalent of racism? Must state laws recognizing same-sex unions be given effect in other states? Should courts take account of popular resistance to gay equality? Koppelman sheds new light on all these questions. Sure to upset purists on either side of the debate, Koppelman's book criticizes the legal arguments advanced both for and against gay rights. Just as important, it places these arguments in broader moral and social contexts, offering original, pragmatic, and workable legal solutions.

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The Gay Academic

2010-03-15T08:32:00.001-07:00

The Gay Academic Review

"...a refreshing collection of essays by some of today's leading gay spokespersons on national campuses. Gay/lesbian movement activities and gay research are analyzed by gay professionals from a broad cross-section of scholarly disciplines. Endnotes, bibliographies and a comprehensive index are especially helpful for scholars and the scope and diversity of the general material can benefit anyone interested in the subject of homosexuality."

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The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

2010-03-14T07:24:00.001-07:00

The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs Review

After years of avoiding Nietzsche, I recently tried reading him again, inspired by Hollingdale's biography "Nietzsche: The Man and his Philosophy." Looking for one of Nietzsche's works that would give me a better general understanding of his philosophy and outlook on life, I turned to "The Gay Science" -- and was immersed in a world of explorations (of knowledge, truth, and morality), inspiring challenges ("Live dangerously!"), infamous declarations ("God is dead"), and a constellation of poems -- one of which, "Star Morals," could summarize Nietzsche's entire philosophy: "Called a star's orbit to pursue, / What is the darkness, star, to you? / Roll on in bliss, traverse this age - / Its misery far from you and strange. / Let farthest world your light secure. / Pity is sin you must abjure. / But one command is yours: Be Pure!"

Impressive poet, intriguing psychologist, intimidating philosopher: Nietzsche is also a superb writer; and although I've never read Nietzsche in the original German, this translation by Walter Kaufmann, the foremost translator of Nietzsche, is excellent. However, Kaufmann's notes sometimes seem less than helpful in elucidating the text, seem to focus mainly on mechanical matters of translation, and contain numerous references to his own works -- which strikes me as slightly pompous. But I'm neither a Nietzsche scholar nor an expert on translation, and these are merely a lay-reader's observations.

In his introduction, Kaufmann notes that "The Gay Science" is "a microcosm in which we find almost all of Nietzsche" - Nietzsche as poet, as psychologist, and as philosopher. Because Nietzsche's writing is so vibrant and his thoughts and ideas so compelling and complex, "The Gay Science" is worth reading, and re-reading, and reading again - for a single reading doesn't begin to do Nietzsche justice.

The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs Feature

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The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs Overview

Nietzsche called The Gay Science "the most personal of all my books." It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God -- to which a large part of the book is devoted -- and his doctrine of the eternal recurrence.

Walter Kaufmann's commentary, with its many quotations from previously untranslated letters, brings to life Nietzsche as a human being and illuminates his philosophy. The book contains some of Nietzsche's most sustained discussions of art and morality, knowledge and truth, the intellectual conscience and the origin of logic.

Most of the book was written just before Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the last part five years later, after Beyond Good and Evil. We encounter Zarathustra in these pages as well as many of Nietzsche's most interesting philosophical ideas and the largest collection of his own poetry that he himself ever published.

Walter Kaufmann's English versions of Nietzsche represent one of the major translation enterprises of our time. He is the first philosopher to have translated Nietzsche's major works, and never before has a single translator given us so much of Nietzsche.

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The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: 'An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail' (Studies in American Popular History and Culture)

2010-03-13T03:32:00.001-08:00

The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: 'An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail' (Studies in American Popular History and Culture) Review

This is a sensitive and very important book about a topic that has been barely scratched by the media: the radical genesis of the gay liberation movement. There are numerous books that whitewash this, that try to make the beginnings of the movement squeaky clean, but this is one of the few that covers it as it was. It also deals with what is now a very difficult subject to handle: queer youth and sex. It is incredibly well researched, has a huge bank of footnotes and bibliography, and profiles too many people who are prenaturely dead, so they will not get to speak for themselves as much as they can. They've been silenced, but they speak beautifully here. The real great beauty of this book though is that the writing is clear, lively, and intriguing. You want to read it. For a book with an academic premise from an academic press that is a reason to rejoice and experience this account of lgbt youth in the late 60s and into our time.

The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: 'An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail' (Studies in American Popular History and Culture) Feature

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The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: 'An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail' (Studies in American Popular History and Culture) Overview

Between 1966 and 1975 North American youth activists established over 35 school- and community-based gay liberation youth groups whose members sought control over their own bodies, education, and sexual and social relations. This book focuses on three groundbreaking New York City groups -- Gay Youth (GY), Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), and the Gay International Youth Society of George Washington High School (GWHS) -- from the advent of gay liberation in NYC in 1969 to just after its dissolution and the rise of identity politics by 1975. Cohen examines how gay liberation -- with its rejection of stultifying sex roles, attack on institutional oppression, connection between personal and political liberation, celebration of innate androgyny, and resolute anti-war and anti-capitalist stance -- shaped understandings of sexual identity, membership criteria, organization, decision-making, the roles of youth and adults, and efforts to effect social change.

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Latino Gay Men and HIV: Culture, Sexuality, and Risk Behavior

2010-03-12T02:24:00.001-08:00

Latino Gay Men and HIV: Culture, Sexuality, and Risk Behavior Review

Dr. Diaz talks about the multiple factors which may contribute to gay Latino men's susceptibility to contract HIV/AIDS. This book is great in that it does not assume that all Latinos associate gays with whiteness or that those who are attracted to men refrain from identifying as gay. It ends with a promotion of activism and a description of a gay Latino organization that is fighting the disease. Every GLM that I know in San Francisco owns a copy and every gay person of color should go out and buy one for themselves. This book is an important contribution to gay studies and Latino studies.

Latino Gay Men and HIV: Culture, Sexuality, and Risk Behavior Overview

With research based on focus group and individual interviews in the United States, as well as a thorough and integrative review of the current literature, LatinoGay Men and HIV discusses the six main sociocultural factors in Latino communities -- machismo, homophobia, family cohesion, sexual silence, poverty and racism--which undermine safe sex practices. In an attempt to explain the alarmingly high incidence of unprotected intercourse in this population, this in-depth cultural and psychological analysis shows how an apparent incongruence between knowledge or intention and behavior can possess its own sociocultural logic and meaning.

Latino Gay Men and HIV: Culture, Sexuality, and Risk Behavior Specifications

Over the past 10 years, AIDS educators have consistently had one truth driven home to them: it is impossible to talk about HIV, AIDS, and safe sex without talking about how people live their lives. This is the message that resonates through Rafael M. Diaz's Latino Gay Men and HIV. Diaz, trained as a social worker, is a Professor of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco, and has created a panoramic portrait of the wide range of issues that Latino gay men deal with in making decisions about safe sex. Discussing issues of poverty, class, ethnicity, and gender as well as concepts of "manliness" in Latin culture, Diaz supplies us with some steps that might be taken to help stop the spread of AIDS among Latino men. Perhaps more important, his writing conveys an insightful, nuanced portrait of gay Latino men's lives. Perceptive, intelligent, and sensitively written, Latino Gay Men and HIV is an important addition to AIDS literature and to the growing body of work that examines the diversity of gay life and culture.

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Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division

2010-03-11T01:50:00.001-08:00

Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division Review

Ginoli, Jon. "Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division", Cleis Press, 2009.

Out and Proud

Amos Lassen

It's been a Pansy Division week for me. I received both the DVD, "Life in a Gay Rock Band" and "Deflowered", the book by the band's founder, Jon Ginoli. I have already reviewed the film so I will concentrate on the book here. I have long been a fan of "Pansy Division" as I admire them for singing about the things they do and I believe they have a positive influence of our community. Jon Ginoli shows us his pride in his memoirs here and as you can imagine his road to success was not easy. The book looks at two different aspects of his life--the recording industry and being gay and out.
Ginoli was born in Illinois and he grew up there but it was not until the got to college that the idea of having a gay band actually became a reality. In his book he takes us with him on his journey of self-discovery as well as his passion for music. What is interesting about his passion for music is that it led him to write songs like "Queer to the Core", "Fem in Black Leather Jacket" and many others that amazon.com would not welcome me to write here.
Pansy Division was and still is the first out and proud queer band to go big time but it was a struggle to get to that point. Jon together with Chris Freeman worked their "buns" off to get to be where they are.
Ginoli is a good writer and his book reads smoothly. I felt as if I was with the guys as they forged their way and I have a sense of pride that they made it.
It is hard not to repeat what I said in my review of the film because the two are so similar and both are great. Get them both and be twice as knowledgeable---then drop them a line at
info@pansydivision and let Jon know how much you enjoy what he does.

Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division Feature

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Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division Overview

"We're the buttfuckers of rock-and-roll, We want to sock it to your hole!" With these words written in a notebook, Jon Ginoli sets off on a journey of self-discovery and musical passion to become the founding member of Pansy Division, the first out and proud queercore punk rock band to hit the semi-big time. Set against the changing decades of music, we follow the band from their inception in San Francisco, to their search for a music label and a permanent drummer to their current status as indie rock icons. We see the highs—touring with Green Day—and the lows—homophobic fans—of striving for acceptance and success in the world of rock. Replete with the requisite tales of sex, drugs, groupies, band fights and label battles, this rollicking memoir is also an impassioned account of staying true to the artistic vision of queer rock'n'roll.

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Gay Rights

2010-03-10T01:44:00.001-08:00

Gay Rights Review

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Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identities in Families: Psychological Perspectives

2010-03-08T22:12:00.001-08:00

Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identities in Families: Psychological Perspectives Review

This book has been helpful to dispel many myths related to gays, lesbians and bisexuals. I feel that every public library should have one for reference.

Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identities in Families: Psychological Perspectives Overview

Breaking through long-held presumptions about family relationships, this volume focuses on lesbian, gay and bisexual identities as an important facet of life in many families. For the first time, it examines the entire multifaceted experience of such relationships, in contrast to studies which have looked exclusively at the lives and origins of lesbian and gay couples. The editors bring together the most important recent scholarship on lesbian, gay, and biosexual identities in families, and identify directions for future research and theory in this area. The first section of the book discusses different perspectives on sexual orientation in families. It highlights important and controversial new research on sexual orientation and emphasizes the interplay of continuities and discontinuities across generations. The next section focuses on key aspects of interpersonal relationships within the families of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual individuals. The relationships between children and parents of different sexual orientations are discussed. The final section of the book focuses on the community and contextual issues. It explores the economic issues, antigay attitudes, policies, and social structures. This volume, the first to discuss the family relationships of gay men, lesbians, and bisexual men and women, will be interesting to psychologists, scholars of gay/lesbian/bisexual studies, as well as lay audience.

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Cut to the Bone: A Novel

2010-03-07T21:56:00.001-08:00

Cut to the Bone: A Novel Review

Let me start off by saying that I have a real weakness for revenge books. There is just something truly decadent and delicious about taking a well-orchestrated (and violently nasty!) vengeance against those responsible for the murder of...the only person you've ever loved! Even more impressive is solid writing and interesting dialogue (how often can you say that?) which are accented by a tight plot that actually avoids the usual genre-driven pitfalls. Oh, and the hero is _totally_ hot (or at the very least, smart and charismatic).

Santos De La O (yep, it's a fake name) is a half Italian, half Mexican gunrunner/enforcer for a drug cartel in Mexico. He has family connections in the Italian mob, but leaves to start his own business because he's gay and his uncle, Vito the fixer, "can't employ no finocchio in this business, if you'll pardon the expression."

We get to watch Santos be really clever, make lots of money selling cool high-tech guns and missiles, and discover his softer side by of course falling in love with Tony. (All this happens in only about 70 sparse but perfect pages. The novel is only 200 pages long.) I can't express what a pleasure it was to read a book that has NO wasted filler, yet manages to convey a clear and emotional impact. When Santos is standing over Tony's body at the morgue "he kissed his fingertips and pressed them gently against the empty face" and says "Te amo...te amo tanto, tanto. I love you. I love so very much." Yes, my eyes actually teared up.

Without giving the rest of the book away, let me just mention some of the things the book doesn't do.

(1) Santos doesn't magically know who is responsible. We have an actual witness. And a license plate number. Wow.
(2) The drug cartel has nothing to do with Tony's murder. Yes, we were spared the tired and annoying drug cartel conspiracy plot.
(3) Not all of the cops are stupid and corrupt.
(4) Not one of the cops is a genius. ;-)
(5) Santos only does "normal" stupid things and he's only mostly lucky. We are not subjected to plot holes a 12 year old can figure out.
(6) There is no impossible action. No one jumps through a second-storey window and survives.
(7) The violence is not our usual boring blah, blah, blah violence. Really. Santos's revenge against one of the murderers is, um, original.

Hopefully I've convinced you to try this book. Oh, and if you're worried about the gay sex angle, well I'm sorry to have to say, it's of the boring ...and the next morning they woke up together...variety. Alas there is no explicit sex.

Cut to the Bone: A Novel Overview

"Stupidity. The unforgivable sin, stupidity. The only sin, to tell the truth. Never to be pardoned, not in this world nor in the world to come. Greed, treachery, blowing your cool at the check-points, not having your papers in order, playing both ends against the middle, cutting yourself a piece, yes, there were a hundred ways of being stupid for every one way of being smart. But losing a shipment? Now that was the ultimate stupidity. Losing a shipment demanded exemplary punishment, a very public auto da fe, so the less afflicted might be warned off by the ostent-tious sufferings of the hopelessly lost. Santos, one of the avenging angels of this moral order, knew that when Gregorio Olivares turned a deathly shade of purple and ranted about stupidity, retribution had taken wing."—From Chapter One

It was his last job. Santos de la O would make a mint smuggling the most sophisticated weaponry across the Texas-Mexico border for a Mexican drug lord, then retire, take his lover Tony and find the good life for both of them far from the danger and violence of El Paso–Ciudad Juarez. But a celebratory night ends in gunfire, Tony dies in Santos’s arms, and things go downhill from there. Instead of arming warring factions in the drug war, the weapons are used to assassinate a U.S. official, and then Santos is on the run from the DEA and the Mexican mob. But the only thing on his mind is revenge against Tony’s killers. With multiple parties scrambling to cover their tracks, the body count continues to rise, as Santos and Fernando, a young hustler who witnessed Tony’s murder, ruthlessly conduct a manhunt across Texas while pursued by relentless homicide detective Jenna Lessing. Santos de la O is perhaps the most morally ambivalent character to ever appear in gay literature, and Robert Conner’s unflinching portrayal of a merciless man seeking redemption behind the barrel of a gun offers a blistering update on the traditional western, where bad men inadvertently become heroes and the law is often irrelevant.

Robert Conner lives in San Francisco. He has experience with and knowledge of sophisticated weaponry. Cut to the Bone is his first novel.

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Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area

2010-03-06T19:44:00.001-08:00

Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area Review

As a long time gay resident of San Francisco, I was thrilled when this historical pictoral tome came out way back then.
I bought the book and have it sitting proudly on my coffee table - after all these years.
It has great text and even more wonderful photos of personalities and memorabilia from decades of historical gay & lesbian San Francisco. Van Buslkirk and Stryker know their stuff and I appreciate all the research and the historical facts that come out in this masterfully produced work.
The photos are well reporduced and there is even the great reprodcution of the hilarious 1982 SURRENDER DIANE campaign poster from Sister Boom Boom's historical SF supervisorial run against then and unpoular Mayor Diane Feinstein. Classic. BUY THIS BOOK.

Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area Overview

A fabulous montage of word and image, this book is the first-ever to chronicle the origin and evolution of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender culture. Capturing the international center of the gay experience as never before, Gay by the Bay features over 200 photos of historical memorabilia, 80 in full color.

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Conversaciones: Relatos por padres y madres de hijas lesbianas y hijos gay

2010-03-05T19:24:00.001-08:00

Conversaciones: Relatos por padres y madres de hijas lesbianas y hijos gay Review

I knew something important happened when my mother saw the film "The Wedding Banquet." She saw a family of color dealing with a gay family member and she saw how the Chinese mother looked silly being so devestated by her son's sexual orientation. This book works in a similar way. This was the first book I've ever read that was entirely in Spanish. The editor had an article in "Companeras", a Latina lesbian anthology, where the editor there said she reprinted whole Spanish dialogues in order to preserve the truth of people's words. Like that editor and others (such as Anzaldua and Moraga), I think Romo-Carmona wanted to be true to the contributors. This is a slim book and the essays are quite short, but as someone who learned Spanish in the classroom, it took me a while to read. It's amazing too that this family-oriented book came from the lesbian sex-positive/radical Clies Press. Like Anglo PFLAG materials, this book began and ended with the parents of famous Latino gays (authors, elected officials, ppl who have been on TV) writing. Almost every author is supportive of their gay child and every submission ends with them saying "I would never kick my child out of the house." The last contributor, noted author Jaime Manrique, even registers his shock about how supportive the parents are here. So this book is positive, rather than normative. The authors are quite diverse in terms of ethnicity/nationality. The book is somewhat scant on bisexual and transgendered issues, but they are covered at least. In many articles, the parents write and then their gay children add in: this gets very repetitive. Probably due to the author's gender, this book is heavily lesbian and woman-slanted (even more mothers write than fathers). That's cool because it fights lesbian invisibility, but we still need to recognize the burden that gay Latino MEN carry. One contributor says straight up that it's okay for her daughter to be gay, but that would not be acceptable for her son. There are many great entries from parents whose gay sons have died of AIDS. Some articles feature gay parents who discover their children are gay. Nevertheless, abuse, alcoholism, custody battles, and other family tragedies do come up often in this book. A big critique that I have of this book is that racism in the US and the US gay community is hardly brought up. For example, many of the gay Latino children seem to have non-Latino partners (including the editor) and the parents never discuss it. Still, I loved this text and want every Spanish-speaking parent of a gay child to read it. My parents never even considered going to a PFLAG meeting until they heard that a black chapter was being formed. If straight people only feel comfortable discussing gay family in race-similar environments, then we just have to deal with that reality.

Conversaciones: Relatos por padres y madres de hijas lesbianas y hijos gay Overview

Comprised of 25 original essays by the parents of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered children — accompanied by commentary from their queer sons and daughters — Conversaciones furthers the dialogue among Latinos and Latinas on sexuality, acceptance, and family life.

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Unleashing Feminism: Critiquing Lesbian Sadomasochism in the Gay Nineties/a Collection of Radical Feminist Writings

2010-03-04T17:53:00.001-08:00

Unleashing Feminism: Critiquing Lesbian Sadomasochism in the Gay Nineties/a Collection of Radical Feminist Writings Review

Unleashing Feminism: Critiquing Lesbian Sadomasochism in the Gay Nineties/a Collection of Radical Feminist Writings Overview

Radical feminist essays, poems and short stories that expand the scope of the discussion about sadomasochism and pornography. Unleashing Feminism is an earnest plea for a revitalized, powerful feminism, in an era where earnestness is caricatured more and more as old-fashioned and silly, uncool, uptight.

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Mar 05, 2010 08:49:13

Gay Haiku

2010-03-03T16:36:00.001-08:00

Gay Haiku Review

Derfner, Joel. "Gay Haiku", Broadway Books, 2005.

Sweet and Sassy

Amos Lassen

Joel Derfner is my new hero. After reading his new book, "Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever", I made my own quest to find his first book, "Gay Haiku". It sounded like it would be great selection of short jokes but it is so much more than that. Yes, it is funny but it is also insightful and biting. It is a description of the crazy and maddening world of gay dating and it is very easy to relate to the haikus that he gives us. In seventeen syllables he catches each moment perfectly something that authors have written full books about and not managed to get.
The Haiku poem has long been part of the Japanese literary tradition. Usually a haiku expresses peace and contemplation as well as spiritual enlightenment with a balance of rhythm and rhyme. Rather than write about the changing of the seasons or the miracles of nature, Derfner writes haiku about the changing of boyfriends and the miracle of shopping. (How can one not love that?). Included are 110 irreverent and witty haiku poems and each is fresh and original. Topics of the poems include decorating, dating, shopping culture and politics, family and, of course, sex.
"Gay Haiku" is terrific and is a laugh a line. It will probably give you an impetus to write haiku of your own.

Gay Haiku Feature

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Gay Haiku Overview

Impossible to resist, this hilariously sassy and sweet collection of haiku turns the perilous sport of gay dating into pure poetry.

For hundreds of years, the Japanese haiku has been equated with peaceful contemplation and spiritual enlightenment. A delicate balance of rhythm and line, the haiku has provided countless readers with an appreciation of the changing of the seasons and the miracles of nature. Now, in Gay Haiku, readers can finally appreciate more important things—like the changing of boyfriends and the miracles of shopping.

Irresistible and irreverent, this collection of one hundred and ten witty and wicked short poems captures the many dating disasters of first-time author Joel Derfner. In a wonderfully fresh and original voice, Derfner shamelessly mines his personal life to send up such broad-ranging topics as gay pop culture, politics, family, sex, and, of course, home decorating.

Gay, straight, or undecided, readers will delight in Derfner’s dry sense of humor and unmistakable charm as he tackles the big questions of life.

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Mar 04, 2010 07:32:17

The Mammoth Book of Gay Erotica

2010-03-02T15:40:00.001-08:00

The Mammoth Book of Gay Erotica Review

There are a LOT of stories in this anthology! And a wide variety. Characters of many ages, countries, etc. are included. Some stories are quite funny, some "artistic", some militant. Some "literary", some more typical.

These stories will take you into lives you'll never see. It's an entertaining, sad, happy, and sexy book. A cut or two above much of it's kind.

Hard to go wrong at this price!

The Mammoth Book of Gay Erotica Overview

The largest collection of gay male erotica available, featuring a wide range of authors from the United States, Britain, and around the world. Contributors include Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Oscar Wilde, William J. Mann, D. Travers Scott, and many others .

The Mammoth Book of Gay Erotica Specifications

Since the early 1990s gay male erotic writing has gained greater acceptance in the world of mainstream publishing. Fiction and nonfiction erotic anthologies have appeared and titillated millions of men who formally found these delights only between the covers of porno magazines. Lawrence Schimel's The Mammoth Book of Gay Erotica is one of the best additions to this growing genre. Schimel has reprinted old favorites by writers such as Aaron Travis and Bill Mann, as well as excerpts from novels by notables such as Christopher Bram, Neil Bartlett, and Alan Hollinghurst. The Mammoth Book of Gay Erotica also features new stories by Paul Elliott Russell, Lars Eighner, and Andrew Holleran and rediscovered writings by Edmund White and Michael Denneny. Sexy, sweaty, sweet, and often very moving, this collection renews your faith in the sexual power and performance of the written word.

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Gay Men, Drinking, and Alcoholism

2010-03-01T15:04:00.001-08:00

Gay Men, Drinking, and Alcoholism Review

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Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theater History (Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance)

2010-02-28T14:08:00.001-08:00

Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theater History (Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance) Review

Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theater History (Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance) Overview

Passing Performances gathers a range of critical and biographical essays on notable personalities whose major contributions to the stage occurred before 1969, the year of the Stonewall riots that kicked off the gay rights movement in the United States. How these theater practitioners variously "passed"-- i.e., managed unconventional sexual inclinations both on- and offstage--significantly determined the course of their personal and professional lives and thus the course of U.S. theater history.
The actors, directors, producers, and agents examined here include Edwin Forrest, Charlotte Cushman, and Adah Isaacs Menken, whose personal lives and careers traded on the same-sex erotics of "true love" in the antebellum period; Elisabeth Marbury, Elsie de Wolfe, Elsie Janis, Nance O'Neil, and Alla Nazimova, whose intimate female liaisons were variously interpreted around the turn of the century; the "lavender marriages" of Alfred Lunt to Lynne Fontanne and Guthrie McClintic to Katharine Cornell; the lesbian collaborations of Margaret Webster and Cheryl Crawford; the comic antics of Monty Woolley, which negotiated codified constructions of homosexual perversion in the post-Freudian interwar years; and the on- and offstage performances of Mary Martin and Joe Cino, which resisted the paranoid enforcements of heterosexual normality in the McCarthy era. Central to these investigations are the complex connections of performances of sexuality and gender and their different implications for men and women practitioners working under pervasive sexism and homophobia.
The volume also includes striking archival photographs of the performers and their performances, and an index to facilitate the cross-referencing of subjects' intersecting careers. Passing Performances will engage both general and academic readers interested in theater, gay and lesbian history, American studies, and biography.
Robert A. Schanke is Professor of Theatre and Chair of the Division of Fine Arts, Central College, Iowa. Kim Marra is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, University of Iowa.

Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theater History (Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance) Specifications

From the suspect heroism of Edwin Forrest, paragon of 19th-century American manhood, to the "lavender marriage" of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the private lives of leading actors are unearthed in 14 stimulating essays by historians of American theater. The subtitle Queer Readings... is especially apt, in that Passing Performances continually addresses the promises and perils of "outing" famous figures who lived, in some cases, before the terms homosexual, gay, and lesbian were coined, and before many of the behaviors now associated with same-sex love took on their current meanings. While the best essays here explore the larger significance of these actors' romantic affiliations--how it affected their performances, for example, or their choice of roles--many have a more narrow focus on sexual orientation, and are thus hampered by what the editors call the "vexed and elusive" evidence of sex acts or desires. Lacking documentary evidence or eyewitness accounts, writers are forced to rely (with varying success) on gossip and anecdote, and sometimes on gender stereotyping. Mary Martin is classified as bisexual, for instance, almost solely on the basis of her haircut. Despite occasional leaps of faith, Passing Performances capably fills a longtime gap in theatrical history and the expanding queer curriculum. --Regina Marler

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The City Kid (Gay Men's Fiction)

2010-02-27T13:55:00.001-08:00

The City Kid (Gay Men's Fiction) Review

I first discovered Paul Reidinger's work many years ago with his novel The Best Man. I was astonished by that book. Reidinger took as his subject a near universal experience of gay life which, paradoxically, had been largely ignored by the official gay litterati. Show me a gay man who hasn't experienced at least an infatuation (if not a full on romance) with a closeted guy determined to marry, father children, and pass for straight, and I'll show you a gay man who's only been out of the closet himself for about fifteen minutes. Reidinger's handling of that subject matter is scrupulously honest and at the same time beautifully told. In The City Kid, he once again treads ground multitudes of mature gay men have tread before him. The story of a middle aged gay man entangled in a bizarre relationship with a monumentally confused adolescent can't help but be messy and discomforting, but it's a realistic one. Reidinger doesn't so much create his characters as report the experiences of living, breathing human beings, flawed as they are and boring as they can occasionally be. He tells us the truth about people and relationships. He deals with issues and situations few authors will attempt to write about. They're not glamorous or particularly sexy, and they demand a degree of integrity in their portrayal which many writers simply won't bother to muster. This novel may not be the most entertaining one you'll ever read, but it will be one of the most thought provoking ones. And for fans of The Best Man, there's the additional treat of revisiting the main characters of that novel twenty some years later. If you don't like books that make you think, you probably won't like this one. But if fiction is more than brain candy for you, then you're making a mistake not reading this book.

The City Kid (Gay Men's Fiction) Overview

In The City Kid, Guy Griffith, gay, 40, and less than satisfied with the current state of his life, comes to San Francisco like many before him--as a refugee from some intimacy gone disastrously wrong in the huge nation east of the bay. When he meets sixteen-year-old Doug Whitmore on a ridge overlooking a nude beach, he surrenders with pleasure to the boy's radiant adolescent energy. Guy doesn't yet understand how deeply rooted Doug's hurts and confusions are, nor how dangerous they might come to be, and he is not entirely willing to admit, even to himself, how susceptible he is to the fugitive attraction that he and Doug both feel.

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On Being a Gay Parent: Making a Future Together

2010-02-26T13:44:00.001-08:00

On Being a Gay Parent: Making a Future Together Review

When I came out to my children in 1992, I searched the library for anything that might help me with this difficult and frightening event in my life and that of my children. There was nothing on the library shelf!

What Brett Webb-Mitchell has so brilliantly created is an easy reference guide written in a conversational style. This book is extremely helpful for anyone on the path of being a gay parent. Each chapter addresses the author's own personal experiences on ten different and critically important aspects of life we, as gay parents, can and may times do experience. The author is 'right there with you' openly sharing his life while helping to give you guidance plus many helpful and insightful moments as you read almost every page.

This is a book that should be read by not only gay parents but anyone who sees themselves as someone wanting to understand the challenges of those not in the 'main stream' of the american experinece of parenting. The more we share Brett Webb-Mitchell's book with others, the deeper the understanding we will have of each other and the more help we will provide to those on the difficult path that he has and continues to travel.

Congrats to the author for writing a book that has been so sorely needed for so many years. Now future generations of gay parents will have the guidance/advise that has been missing for so many years. Now those who truly wish to understand the life and challenges of gay parents have a place to go.

Personally, I recommend this book without hesitation. Buy extra copies and give them to your friends!!!

On Being a Gay Parent: Making a Future Together Feature

ISBN13: 9781596270619
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

On Being a Gay Parent: Making a Future Together Overview

This practical, down-to-earth guide to being a gay Christian parent is filled with interesting stories, simple anecdotes, creative ideas, and thoughtful reflections, while raising up important issues facing gay-and lesbian-headed households in contemporary American society. Includes a list of resources helpful in addressing often-surprising issues, simple day-to-day tasks, and crucial decisions around being a gay or lesbian parent in today's world.

"A truly faith-based family story, where love is what matters and the challenges of living openly and honestly are faced head on." -

Jane Tully - Clergy Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays

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Stepping Out: Nine Walks Through New York City's Gay and Lesbian Past

2010-02-25T13:35:00.001-08:00

Stepping Out: Nine Walks Through New York City's Gay and Lesbian Past Review

I'm not even through the first tour of Stepping Out, and I'm already addicted. From page one, I was hooked. Daniel writes with a humor and an appreciation for Gay History that we can all appreciate and love. The information is detailed, without being boring or stuffy. The descriptions make you feel like you're there, even if you're just loungeing in bed scanning through it. From the riots at Stonewall Inn, to strolling down Christopher Street, it's like you're there. He includes the details that matter, such as witty quotes out of some of our favorite, and even a few unknown, GLBT historical figures. I can't wait to go to New York and actually visit the places he speaks about! This is a must for anyone who is interested in GLBT history and culture.

Stepping Out: Nine Walks Through New York City's Gay and Lesbian Past Overview

A lively, campy guide presents nine walking tours that celebrate gay culture, history, and gossip, each taking in twenty to thirty locations, including rallying sites like Stonewall, bars and clubs, and the haunts of famous homosexuals. Original.

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Zorro, The Gay Blade

2010-02-24T13:32:00.001-08:00

Zorro, The Gay Blade Review

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Men to Men: New Voices in Gay Fiction

2010-02-23T13:27:00.001-08:00

Men to Men: New Voices in Gay Fiction Review

Men to Men: New Voices in Gay Fiction Overview

Certain to become a literary touchstone, Men to Men showcases the best new writing by emerging gay authors from around the nation. From coming out to coming of age to growing old, the collection speaks to the rich diversity of the gay experience in stories that are provocative, intelligent, and hot.

Los Angeles–based Christopher Rice is most recently the author of Blind Fall.

Donald Weise is publisher of Alyson Books in New York.

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Man to Man: Gay Couples in America

2010-02-22T13:24:00.001-08:00

Man to Man: Gay Couples in America Review

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Gay and Lesbian Mental Health

2010-02-21T13:20:00.001-08:00

Gay and Lesbian Mental Health Review

The chapter on eating disorders was especially fascinating, and while some portions were a bit more psychodynamic than is in accord with my tastes, still a good read. It's worth noting that this is geared towards practitioners treating members of the gay & lesbian community and is *not* (thankfully) a guide to "conversion therapy".

Gay and Lesbian Mental Health Overview

As a sourcebook on many mental health issues, Gay and Lesbian Mental Health covers eleven principle issues that gays and lesbians may face during their lifetimes, and it suggests ways for readers to begin improving the lives of gays and lesbians in many different areas, including parenting, eating disorders, coming out, aging, gay men's self-image, dual needs of ethnic homosexuals, adolescence as a homosexual, need and use of support groups, parental guidance of homosexual children, adult partners of adult survivors of child sexual abuse, and spirituality.

Each chapter of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health is written by experts in the field who are able, through their professional and personal experience, to facilitate reader understanding of the particular topics covered. The authors draw on recent research and often use actual clinical experiences to flesh out dry statistics and to help practitioners work with the issue and, more importantly, the individual. Readers learn about many issues and developments on the cutting edge of research and practice, including:

narcissism and egocentricity in gay men
sexual minority youth suicide attempts
aging and mental health in the gay community
body dissatisfaction and eating disorders
AIDS and the global loss in the gay community
identity development

A practical guide for health care professionals working with gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals, Gay and Lesbian Mental Health offers suggestions and steps for effective intervention, support, and guidance based on sound research, clinical interviews, and clinical experience. Psychologists, family therapists, group leaders, and interns and trainees at clinics serving the gay community will find this book an invaluable tool for delivering excellent services. Professors and students of sociology, psychology, and mental health will also benefit from the book's guidelines for study.

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The Children Are Free: Reexamining the Biblical Evidence on Same-sex Relationships

2010-02-20T13:16:00.001-08:00

The Children Are Free: Reexamining the Biblical Evidence on Same-sex Relationships Review

By far, one of the most comprehensive studies on the topic I have ever read. Be sure to read it with an open mind and an open heart. We are teaching a class at our church using this book as the guide.
It is time we let go of the old way of looking at this issue. The study of biology and psychology have come a long way, and now someone has done the Biblical research to companion what we all in our hearts already know.
I buy at least 10 a year and give them away as gifts. You will too.

The Children Are Free: Reexamining the Biblical Evidence on Same-sex Relationships Overview

In The Children Are Free, Rev. Jeff Miner and John Tyler Connoley offer a comprehensive yet easy-to-read examination of the biblical evidence regarding loving same-sex relationships and God's attitude toward them.

In Chapter One, the authors lead the reader through a discussion of each of the six passages traditionally used against gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. They demonstrate how an anti-gay interpretation is a misapplication of these scriptures.

In Chapter Two, Miner and Connoley turn our attention to the biblical stories and passages that affirm loving same-sex relationships. Did you know Jesus once met a gay person? Jesus' loving response is just one of the well-researched stories presented in this chapter.

Chapter Three asks readers to take seriously the call of Jesus to think more deeply about biblical rules. And Chapter Four calls Christians to action, making a connection between the conflicts in the early Church and those occurring within the Church today.

This book belongs in the library of any Christian questioning the role of Scripture in the lives of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, or the role of GLB people in the Church.

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Fragments grave and gay; (The Fontana library: theology and philosophy)

2010-02-19T13:14:00.001-08:00

Fragments grave and gay; (The Fontana library: theology and philosophy) Review

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Romeo's Romeo

2010-02-18T13:09:00.001-08:00

Romeo's Romeo Review

Romeo's Romeo Overview

Classic tale of young gay love on the streets and in the bedrooms of Paris. This book-"Romeo's Romeo"-is the first part of a trilogy. Two other books-"Romeo Without Romeo"-are to be published in due course.

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The Joy of Gay Sex, Revised & Expanded Third Edition

2010-02-17T06:25:00.001-08:00

The Joy of Gay Sex, Revised & Expanded Third Edition Review

I first came across this 30 years ago in the first edition. What they have done in this edition is nothing short of brilliant. Clear, concise and factual, it presents vital information for a healthy, gay lifestyle and enables responsible choices and decisions. I refer to it often to refresh my resolve to live a happy, healthy life.

The Joy of Gay Sex, Revised & Expanded Third Edition Feature

ISBN13: 9780060012748
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

The Joy of Gay Sex, Revised & Expanded Third Edition Overview

For a new century and a new generation of readers comes a fully revised and expanded edition of a classic guide to gay sex, love, and life.

Invaluable as a sex guide, a resource on building self-esteem, and a trusted aid for coming out of the closet, The Joy of Gay Sex covers the ins and outs of gay life alphabetically from "anus" to "wrestling." Noted psychologist Dr. Charles Silverstein has collaborated once again with critically acclaimed novelist Felice Picano on this third edition, updating every single entry and adding nearly thirty new entries. The authors provide positive and responsible advice on safe sex in all its varieties; on emotional and relationship-oriented issues such as long-term couples, loneliness, and growing older; and on scores of diverse topics ranging from spirituality to online dating. With fifty new line drawings by acclaimed illustrator Joseph Phillips, this landmark reference is a necessary addition to every gay man's bookshelf.

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Three tips for Book Marketing Success

2008-06-20T11:09:00.000-07:00

by: Wayne Perkins
Have you ever heard the expression, " the quickest way to reach your goals is to help others reach their goals?"I remember this expression and use it as my Internet book-marketing plan. It has paid off with 3 best selling books for me in the past year.How does it work in Internet Bookselling? Let me explain.Websites generally have three characteristics that help them consistently remain in the top search engine standings:1. Websites must add and change their content often. (Once or twice a day is perfect)2. Websites must offer an e-zine or newsletter. The top websites offer newsletters and e-zines that are delivered via e-mail every day.3. Websites will usually have their own bookstore with an affiliation or association with Amazon.com to allow visitors a method of purchasing books that complement the information on the website.Top websites spend a great deal of time and money to remain at the top of the heap. Everyone wants to be there, but only a few can hold down those top positions.Understanding these three characteristics have enabled me to achieve my goals by helping websites achieve their goals.Step One: Search for the Big Guys on the InternetI have two areas of expertise. I am a hypnotist who writes books and e-books on how to achieve success through hypnosis. I am also an E-book Marketing Consultant and write books on how to write and sell e-books.In order to find top websites that may be interested in hypnosis, I search on broader topics like "health" and "mental health." For my books on E-book marketing I search on topics like "Internet marketing" and "E-commerce."Even though there are hundreds of search engines and thousands of directories, I begin with searching on Yahoo. Yahoo is a directory that is difficult to get into and even more difficult to maintain a high ranking.>From my own experience once I made the top of the heap in Yahoo, under "hypnotism" my web traffic more than doubled and stayed that way over the past three years.Therefore, I conclude that the websites that arise to the top of Yahoo will be much more highly visited than through other search engines and directories.Step Two: Help the Webmaster Offer More ContentOnce I search under the two major categories that fit my topic, I send e-mail to the webmasters at those sites sending along my article or sample chapter.I tell the webmasters I would appreciate posting my article for their readers in return for a short bi-line or description on what I do and a link over to Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com or my own website in return for the favor.Most webmasters jump at the opportunity at receiving free content that allows them to maintain the high rankings on their websites.Step Three: Help the Website Newsletter EditorThe top ranking websites also sponsor their own newsletter or e-zine. After contacting the webmaster about content added directly to the website, I then contact the newsletter editor in regards to placing an article or sample chapter in the newsletter. Sometimes at the bottom of a sample newsletter there will be specific instructions on how to submit articles. Many times there is even a section on the website where you can post your articles directly to the editor.After following the directions in the newsletter, I submit my article or sample chapter to the website newsletter editor.I have just added more content to their website, again helping the website increase traffic and at the same time direct interested visitors to my book offerings located in the author's bi-line.Step Four: Help the Website Bookstore Make MoneyMost of the time, you will find that the top websites also have their own bookstore. Usually the Website bookstore will be an "associate of Amazon.com."For example: You search on the keyword "health" on Yahoo and are taken to the top five health sites. Let's call the top website "health.com."After navigating around the website you find a Health.com bookstore that offers many titles on a particular aspect of health you are interested in. When you click on a book cover on that website, you are immediately sent over to a book description page on Amazon.com.If you look at the complete link that shows up in your browser you will see an URL (the Internet address) which looks something like this:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1929695217/healthcom/104-2910323-8772701The two most important parts of the link are the ISBN number which is the number called "ASIN/" which is Amazon.com's identification number, and the words following the book's ISBN number which is "/healthcom.""Healthcom" is the website's Amazon.com Associate identification number. This number allows the website to get paid for any sales that result by someone clicking on the link and then purchasing the featured book on Amazon.com.The next thing you do is shave off the number off the end of the URL.Now the URL will look like this:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1929695217/healthcomIf your own book title listed on Amazon.com has an ISBN number or ASIN number of 1585003557, what you do is insert that ISBN number in place of the website's featured book.Now the URL will look like this:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585003557/healthcomThat new URL is going to mean instant book sales for you.Take your revised URL with your book ISBN and send a short message via e-mail again to the webmaster of the website. Ask the webmaster to feature your book on the website. Mention that you are including the URL with the website's Amazon.com Associate identification number.Within a few days you will begin to see a surge in your book sales as a result of this technique.Summary:By helping the webmaster add content, the newsletter editor offer new articles and the website bookstore earn more money from Amazon.com by adding your books, you are helping the website maintain a top ranking.By helping the top websites achieve their goals you are driving qualified traffic to your own website or to Amazon.com to fulfill your goal of becoming a best selling author.
About the Author
Wayne Perkins is an E-book Marketing Consultant and author of the best selling e-book, A Cheap and Easy Guide to Self-publishing E-books.http://www.wayneperkins.net/order/BkTitles.htmlWayne offers free e-book marketing teleseminars at:http://www.wayneperkins.net/ebooks/write.htmlmailto:wayne@wayneperkins.net

Getting Help to Market Your Book

2008-06-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

by: Penny C. Sansevieri
Marketing your own book can be fun, but it can also be a daunting task. Deciding how and when you need help will usually depend on a few things. First off, if the success of your book is suffering because you have limited time to promote it, you might want to consider having someone promote it for you. While promotional windows for most books can run for months or even years, there are several things like book reviews, signings and tours you can't afford to wait on. Other indicators that you're ready to outsource this project are if you're at a loss as to how and when to send something to the media, if you don't know where to start, or you want to begin a media campaign and don't have the contacts. It may be time to outsource some of this work. #1 Look for someone with book marketing experience!When you begin looking for assistance, try to find a publicist or media relations person who is familiar with the author/book market. Book promotion is entirely different from anything else, it's crucial that whoever is going to promote your book has a background in this. Also, don't be shy about getting references. Talk to other people they've worked for, and find out who they've placed and on what show. #2 Find out how they charge, leave nothing to chance!Inquire as to their fee structure. Some publicists will bill by the hour, while others charge a project fee. Some will charge additional for postage and phone calls. Others will include it in their project fee. Does the publicist you're looking for charge a per city fee for promotion? Most do. In fact, it's good to list the cities you're thinking of promoting to and tell that to the publicist right up front. He or she will be able to tell you whether or not you'll get dinged for every city they promote you to. When it comes to book promotion, flexibility is key. If budget is a concern, it's better if you can find a publicist who won't bill you per city otherwise this could considerably limit your options. Also, keep in mind that hiring someone doesn't mean you have to let them do all of the work. In fact, if you decide you want to outsource only a portion of this, find someone who is willing to just handle those items. Press release creation, media kits, book reviews, radio interviews, and tv segment proposals are all items that can be handled on a case by case basis. #3 Don't go for big and glamorous unless it's right for your book and your budget!Remember that more is not better, sometimes it's just more. If the publicist you're thinking of hiring is trying to talk you into a big, national campaign, watch out. Unless your book is being published by a traditional house, you probably don't need or want to get into the expense of a national campaign. Also remember that as a self-published author, you are limited to a certain degree as to what you can and can't do with your book. Make sure the publicist you're dealing with is familiar with print-on-demand and self-publishing. The campaigns for these books are decidedly different from those of traditional publishing houses. #4 Be wary of flash in the pan promotion!Be wary of one shot packages! I see a lot of packages out there promising a great deal but delivering very little. Fax blast programs are a great example of this. For a nominal fee, your press release will go out to seven hundred media people around the country. This seems like a great way to get the word out about your book, right? Wrong. Fax blasting is a good idea only if you have pre-qualified the media you're sending to. Most of these packages are just a blind list used over and over again for every book. Without pre-qualifying or follow-up, these programs are fairly ineffective. One shot packages are great when it comes to something like book reviews but little else. If you purchase one of these packages, make sure you clearly understand who does what and how much follow up work the publicist will do for you. Finally, remember that you must feel comfortable with whomever you bring in to help publicize your book and it's important that they understand your topic as well as your audience. Bringing someone in to help share the responsibility of book marketing is an important one. Spend the time it takes to research your options so you can form a partnership for success!About the author:Penny C. Sansevieri The Cliffhanger was published in June of 2000. After a strategic marketing campaign it quickly climbed the ranks at Amazon.com to the ##1 best selling book in San Diego. Her most recent book: From Book to Bestseller was released in 2005 to rave reviews and is being called the “roadmap to publishing success.” Penny is a book marketing and media relations specialist. She also coaches authors on projects, manuscripts and marketing plans and instructs a variety of coursing on publishing and promotion. To learn more about her books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at To subscribe to her free ezine, send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@booksbypen.com Copyright ã 2005 Penny C. Sansevieri

Get Your Book Done … Now!

2008-06-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

by: Penny C. Sansevieri
I don't believe in writer’s block. (I can hear the gasps of disbelief already.) Listen: If you hire a plumber to come to your house and fix a problem, do you expect him to say, "Sorry, I can't figure out what your problem is. I think I have plumber’s block"? Probably not, and if he did, you'd toss him out and call another guy faster than you can say Drano. Not that plumbing can be compared to writing, but if we follow the proper steps to get the job done, I find that writer’s block melts away, the drains are unclogged, and the words start flowing like water from a faucet. But what are these "steps"? Well, a big part of my job as a book marketing specialist is to help people create something they can actually market: a finished book. Many of us have ideas aplenty but not a clue how to get them down on paper.Unlike other professions, authors operate under a whole different set of rules. We often can't just sit down and pound out a story, and those who do have created their own formula for doing so. We see this huge story with all sorts of directions we want to take it, we see the cover, we see the characters, we see the market potential. Then we see Katie Couric or Oprah smiling and holding up our book for the whole world to see. Then we glance back down at our monitor and see a tormenting blinking cursor and blank screen. And we are again reminded of what a failure we are. We have all these stories and nothing on paper. We are idea generators. We have zillions of them running through our minds, but none of them on paper. Unless you make your money in a think tank, operating this way probably isn't getting you any closer to your goals.When a project looms before us, it’s like this big elephant -- huge, overwhelming and ready to stomp us flat any minute. There’s an old saying: "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." The same is true for writing. You finish a book, one step at a time. But to create these steps, you first have to break down your book into manageable, bite-size pieces. This can be accomplished by creating a TOC (table of contents) that can guide you through the book. My reasoning behind this is as follows: You'd never think of driving from California to New York without a map, right? Well, how can you expect to finish your book without one? Your TOC is your roadmap, guiding you through your book. If your chapters don't have individual headings, then write a 2-3 sentence description of what the chapter encompasses. Don't get too elaborate on this. Remember, it’s not going in your book; it’s just a brief descriptor. Once the TOC is outlined, you'll have a vision of your book from star! t to finish. A few things that creating this TOC will do for you: It will show you any gaps in your story that might need to be fleshed out, and it will give you a sense of completion, of seeing the book or project actually done, and this is a serious psychological turn-on for most authors, because we often live in a world of half-completed projects. Sometimes this step alone can propel an author enough to get their book done, or at the very least give it a darned good kick-start.Once you've developed your TOC, you'll want to go through it and create a "to do" list. Regardless of what genre your book is, you will always have a to-do list. Whether it’s getting endorsements, doing research, or getting approvals for quotes or excerpts for your book, this to-do list will become yet another item that will help propel your book toward completion.Once the to-do list is done, set it aside. Now you should have your completed TOC with a vision of the entire book and a growing list of items that will need to be handled for the book to get done. Now the real fun begins.Some books on writing will tell you to set aside a day or two a week, or an evening here and there to get your book completed. I disagree with this theory, and here’s why: You need to stay dialed into your topic. When I was working on an upcoming book, I would often put the project aside for days or weeks at a time, promising myself to schedule time "as soon as I could." Well, that rarely happened. What I found is that if I set aside some time every day to do something on the book, I got it completed a lot quicker. The more you keep your hands in your project, the more it will stay at the front of your mind and on your radar screen, and the more energy you will invest to finish it. I won't tell you to set aside hours of your time each day -- in fact, you don't even have to set aside an hour. Take 15 minutes, or even five -- whatever your schedule permits. If this seems like a ridiculously short amount of time, consider this: You now have your to-do list and your outlined TOC! . If you are short on time one day, pick a quickie item from your to-do list and get it done. If you have more time, then pound out a chapter or two. The idea behind creating the to-do lists and a TOC is to not only give your project a structure, but to also eliminate any and all excuses for getting it done. Don't feel like writing today? No problem. There’s probably a mountain of research just waiting to be traversed. Get the picture?But let’s say you can't even get through the TOC. "My book has too many layers," you lament. "Too many back stories, tons of stuff going on. I can't possibly be expected to filter it down into a neat little TOC." Yes, you can, and you must. If your book has no focus, your book will have no focus. It’s as simple as that. But it doesn't stop there -- if your book is all over the place and you do actually manage to get it done, you'll never be able to keep a reader interested because you will be the only one who will get it, and what’s the point of that? What you'll need to do in this case is find the "core" of your book or the focus of your story. Ask yourself this: What’s the one thing this book cannot do without? What’s the one thing this story circles around? That’s your core. If you're still coming up with three or four things that your story circles around, you aren’t focused enough and neither is your book. Find that one thing and build your story or book around it.If you follow these steps, your book will get finished quicker than you could have ever imagined. And the once-dreaded writer’s block will go from a stumbling block to a building block.Need a little coaching? Check out our book coaching program - guaranteed to get your book on the road to completion in four sessions - or less! http://amarketingexpert.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/68?osCsid=5d1f3ca504d47bd6cd0faee53546ee47About the author:Penny C. Sansevieri The Cliffhanger was published in June of 2000. After a strategic marketing campaign it quickly climbed the ranks at Amazon.com to the ##1 best selling book in San Diego. Her most recent book: From Book to Bestseller was released in 2005 to rave reviews and is being called the “roadmap to publishing success.” Penny is a book marketing and media relations specialist. She also coaches authors on projects, manuscripts and marketing plans and instructs a variety of coursing on publishing and promotion. To learn more about her books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at To subscribe to her free ezine, send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@booksbypen.com Copyright ã 2005 Penny C. Sansevieri