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< Mississippi Sissy > < Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison > < Call Me by Your Name: A Novel > < Michael Tolliver Lives: A Novel > < Dog Years: A Memoir (P.S.) > < A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father > Kevin Sessums

price： 1896
St. Martin's Press(2007-03-06)
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customer 's review
(THIS Mississippi Sissy was not impressed)

(Good...not great)

(A Memoir from a Child's Stance with the Vocabulary of a Poet)

("...enough sassy sissy smarts...")

(Mississippi and it's best)

I finished the book and said to myself..."eh". I was underwhelmed as I ended up feeling that I was an outsider when I was expecting to be able to relate as one who is gay and Mississippi born. The story seemed more about impressing those who wrote the glowing forwards for the book with never ending references to authors, plays, and insider thespian references that the vast majority of the reading audience could/would not relate to. I could not relate to Mr. Sessum's plight as he shows nothing of himself as an adult gay man nor does he reflect effectively on what he experienced and what he learned from it. The plot is heavy on childhood and then jumps to a few teenage snippets.

I think the author was more bent on impressing people of his accomplishments and association with Eudora Weltey then with bringing himself in line with his readers. It all came off as a bragging right rather then a true insight on growing up gay in the deep south during the 60s and 70s. I big disappointment for all the fanfare.

I would recommend Dream Boy by Jim Grimsley any day or A Boy Named Phyllis over this one anyday.
I read this book at the urging of a friend, and I have to say that I enjoyed it. However, I would not say that it imparted to me any new insights, or startling revelations about gay life, life in the South, child molestation, death, racism, and evangelical religion. Since these things seem to be the main topics of the text, I can't say that it was a truly unique attempt.
Two elements of the text that I as a reader could not reconcile was the ever changing timeline and jumping from point to point. This ever shifting timeline does not normally bother me, if I see how it serves the writing. I did not see that here. Nor did I ever buy the extraordinarily precise memories of a 2 year old. I found some of the details that Sessums gave about that time in his life to be a little self indulgent, and perhaps too flattering.
I know a bit about some of the topics in this memoir, and this text imparted no new light or insight. It was a good book, but not a classic. Sessums skills as a writer are undeniable, but I guess considering the richness of the topics included, I was hoping for a classic.

MISSISSIPPI SISSY by Kevin Sessums has been a successful best seller since the journalist entered the realm of novelist in 2007. The reason for the extended readership of this coming of age story of a gay male in the 1970s South may puzzle some, but read a few chapters and the reason is clear: this is hilarious, sensitive, perceptive, colloquial writing at its best with the added attribute that Sessums' writing style is as eloquent as those writers he admired as a child - EM Forster, Flannery 'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, WH Auden, Toni Morrison, and Eudora Welty.

Sessums writes with candor about the racism he witnessed in the 1960s and 1970s, but his viewpoint is equally distributed between the gnarly vindictive vantage of his father and other white adults and the gentle love he worshiped in his closeness to his African American caretakers and colleagues. Orphaned at age 8 with his father's death in an automobile accident and his mother's subsequent death from cancer, Sessums was allowed more leeway with his propensity to dress and act like a 'sissy' and eventually came into his own sexuality both by exposure to a Pedophilic evangelist and his own exploration of gay bars and satisfying encounters with surprising partners (his first real love was a champion athlete who just happened to be African American!).

And while every page of this beautifully rendered memoir is full of elegant prose describing such issues as Southerner response to civil rights, the murder of JFK and MLK, Jr., participation in the lives of famous writers by way of his close friend Frank Hains, a journalist who molded Sessums in many ways, the author shares many of the idols of television ('What's My Line?' cast) and movies (Audrey Hepburn, etc) and other icons of the times of his maturing, giving the reader a memory book that goes far beyond simply a true personal memoir. Love, death, abuse, disease, racism, and dreams for a life of understanding blend on nearly every page. This is a book that is likely to become a classic and deserves all the weeks it spent on the national Best Seller Lists. It is just 'swell'! Grady Harp, August 08
I really wanted to like this book - and around page 200 - I think I finally started to.

From the offset the story travels in a bee's flight start to finish approach: but wait let's pause - and then resume - but never quite get back to the original point that a chapter or paragraph launched with. The story is frustrating (as if not edited or re-read subjectively by the author) - and often puts on airs of self-importance and name dropping to tie this autobiography onto some larger world or into the world's important events and happenings. A pattern Sessums seems to have been leaning into since his early life as the story tells it. He also seems to have an incredibly detailed memory from about 3.5 to 6 years of age... which at times seems a little filled in by a creative and self-flattering imagination.

Sessums is fascinated by his own "natural grace", "heightened sensitivities" and "exotic"-ness. He mentions these alluring attributes several times throughout the story - typically writing that these traits have been realized by other persons who he's encountered.

Sessums weaves back and forth interestingly for a while with an interesting imaginary friend crossing into real life as real people seem to fade out of the real world. He lays out tons of great references to "American classics" and other authors as well as to musicians, singers and musicals - some I am familiar with - others I've scratched down a list to look into.

He gives up an entire chapter of his own story to his brother's account of his time with Reverend Graham - which is so bizarrely out of step with the story in a forced fairytale tone - that by the end I thoroughly imagined bird's landing on ladies' outstretched fingers and a choir of angels bursting from the clouds.

In disclaimer, I will add: There is no way for me to imagine the losses Sessums encountered at a young age, matched up with being a sissy in southern culture, as well as with molestation. The book sloppily attempts to string itself into the issue of racism in the south through 1) an imaginary playmate, 2) a nanny/housekeeper type figure and 3) finally the man who takes his virginity.

Still wanting to have really liked this book, I dug into his website a bit before sitting down to type - trying to get a better feel for him as a person since the books gives so little (or what it gives seems incredibly far-fetched and not terribly likeable) - and found it interesting that an early negative review of his book dents his ego and he then makes a point of blogging that the critic gave no credit to the sensitive issues of race in the book (!) - that the critic isn't his "target audience" - that this mean critic is known to have no taste for "Southern gothic literature" - and that this is one more time in his life that the sissy is getting beat up on by a bully (and a lesbian at that).

His list actually makes her the perfect critic.

While Sessums blog is more current... it follows the same patterns as the book - it never lets the story tell itself - at least not until about page 203.
In reading Mississippi Sissy, on my recent annual vacation to Seaside, FL; I was very moved by Kevin's descriptions of Mississippi, it's pride and it's prejudices, it's famous people and not so famous ones.
I, too, am from Mississippi, and in the same age bracket. I worked at the Clarion-Ledger / Jackson Daily News in the early 70's, 80's, into the 90's; so I know of some of the brilliant characters he wrote about.
Quite a book you wrote, Kevin. Great work and very much enjoyed by me. I will pass it along to others, insist they buy it and read it as I am sure my friends and some family members will enjoy it as much as I did. It captured the hot, sticky, small thinking South as it was and is.
S. K. Pepper

Mississippi Sissyis the stunning memoir from Kevin Sessums, a celebrity journalist who grew up scaring other children, hiding terrible secrets, pretending to be Arlene Frances and running wild in the South. As he grew up in Forest, Mississippi, befriended by the family maid, Mattie May, he became a young man who turned the word "sissy" on its head, just as his mother taught him. In Jackson, he is befriended by Eudora Welty and journalist Frank Hains, but when Hains is brutally murdered in his antebellum mansion, Kevin's long road north towards celebrity begins. In a memoir that echoes bestsellers likeThe Liar's Club, Kevin Sessums brings to life the pungent American south of the 1960s and the world of the strange little boy who grew there.

Rerations
< Mississippi Sissy > < Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison > < Call Me by Your Name: A Novel > < Michael Tolliver Lives: A Novel > < Dog Years: A Memoir (P.S.) > freaks

< Deal with the Devil > < Word of Honor (Honor (Bold Strokes Books)) > < The Lonely Hearts Club > < The Rainbow Cedar > < Thirteen Hours > < The Candidate > Ali Vali

price： 510
Bold Strokes Books
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customer 's review
(Terrific Trilogy!)

(Love the Devil...)

(Hard to put down)

(You can never have too much Cain!)

(I Loved It!)

Because I didn't want to read the third of a series without reading the first two, I bought all three. The three books were excellent! I really enjoyed the references to a city close to my heart, New Orleans, and the author's attention to detail. I am so glad that I ordered and read all three (in order) so that I had a better understanding of the relationship between Casey and Emma. I can't wait for the next book in the series!
It was the best book in the series. More characters, more action and lots of romance, of course. I liked the fact things wasn't centralized around the relationship between Cain and Emma. Their story was told in the previous books and now was the chance to show some dimension, some depth from the other characters.
I'm waitin eagerly for the next book.
Each book in the series just keeps getting better. The characters are starting to become more dimensional and the passion just gets steamier!! I just can't get enough of Cain but with this book, I was drawn to Remi. The relationships and romance seem so dangerous at times you feel as if they are real and you are experiencing them. The ending is left at a cliff hanger so hopefully there has to be a fourth book. This series has become by far my favorite.
After anxiously waiting, Ali Vali give us what we crave - more Cain and the Casey Crew in Deal with the Devil. This 3rd book in the series is satisfying yet leaves the reader wondering why Ms. Vali decided upon this specific ending. It almost is anticlimatic when the last 20 pages ( or last 2 chapter) is thrown at us. Was there a deadline that had to be met? I felt rushed at the end of the book like when the cleaning staff wants you to leave the theatre at the end of the movie. I wanted to savor this delicious tale and all its characters to the fullest. I definately recommend this book and hope you find it as filling as I did.
Having read the first two books of the series I really looked forward to the release of the third book. I was not disappointed. I didn't want it to end - a sign of a great book. I loved it!

This book introduces new characters and delves further into characters previously introduced, bringing them together with Cain and Emma for a continuation of the Casey Family Saga. Cain is the perfect host, the passionate lover and the strong hand. She's a butch with superior wit, who's a romantic but also both judge and jury if her wife Emma and their children are threatened.

Emma is supportive of Cain's family business and will support any steps taken to keep her family safe. She sees a side of Cain that no one else sees except the reader who views the romance between them and the vulnerability that Cain may sometimes show.

Remington Jatibon, one of the twins from the Jatibon Family and a friend of Cain's, meets Dallas Montgomery, a rising actress, and falls for her hard while unsure of her motives and who she really is. Remi is the heir apparent of the Jatibon family, her father and twin brother letting her take the active role, and teams with the Casy family in business.

The FBI is persuing them as usual but a bigger threat is on the horizon.

This book is a keeper. I can't wait for the next one, which Ali Vali has said she will write. Buy it. You won't regret it at all. I loved it!
It's business as usual for crime boss Cain Casey, as she maneuvers to form an alliance with Ramon and Remington Jatibon and secure peace among the ruling families in New Orleans . Cain's new associate Remington Jatibon is a lot like Cain used to be-- a playgirl with a passion for bedding beautiful women and an even greater passion for expanding her father's empire, on both sides of the law. When Remi meets Dallas Montgomery, a budding actress working for the studio Ramon Jatibon has just acquired, she finds that there's more to Dallas than is included in her press pagers.

Meanwhile, on the home front it's anything but normal as she and Emma hope to conceive their third child. Little do they know an old enemy is about to surface who wants revenge on Cain and what better way that to take what she values above all else--her wife.
Rerations
< Deal with the Devil > < Word of Honor (Honor (Bold Strokes Books)) > < The Lonely Hearts Club > < The Rainbow Cedar > < Thirteen Hours > freaks

< Put Away Wet > < Homecoming > < Remember Tomorrow > < Lethal Affairs (Elite Operatives Romance Intrigue) > < A Place to Rest > < Falling Star > Susan Smith

price： 510
Bold Strokes Books
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Jocelyn "Joey" Fellows is having a bad day.

At 24, she's a college dropout who just got savagely dumped by her ex, Psycho Barbie. Joey works as a waiter in a pretentious, er, upscale Buffalo restaurant, the Heritage Room, with her best friend Steve. Steve is a gorgeous serial dater, gay man candy. He's had enough of Joey crying in her beer over Psycho Barbie, and convinces her to get back on the horse. Joey is adamant that she doesn't want a relationship, as her first lasted four years and destroyed her: Psycho Barbie shredded her self-esteem, deflated her bank account, and pressured Joey to drop out of college and work in the restaurant full time to support her, all while cheating on her. Joey needs time to heal and find out who she is. Steve informs her that she can find herself and get laid.

After two bottles of red wine, Joey goes online and posts a personal ad on a dating site: Newbie seeking erotic adventures, good-hearted, would-be ethical slut with no experience seeks experience. No men, no cheating, no relationships. Just good clean sexual fun. Joey ends up going on quite a few adventures, and along the way discovers a joy in sexuality, a new sense of self, and a woman, Leela, who teaches her how to embrace life, lust, and laughter.
Rerations
< Put Away Wet > < Homecoming > < Remember Tomorrow > < Lethal Affairs (Elite Operatives Romance Intrigue) > < A Place to Rest > freaks

< Running With Scissors: A Memoir > < Dry: A Memoir > < Possible Side Effects > < Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's > < My Friend Leonard > Augusten Burroughs

price： 996
St. Martin's Press(2006-10-26)
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customer 's review
(Run from this book...or take your scissors to it.)

(This book is too easy to read)

(Entertaining)

(Pure Trash)

(genius)

The reviews on the cover of this book were wildly misleading; I found no pleasure or humor in reading this tragic and twisted memoir. I actually felt sickenly violated after being exposed to the author's graphic depiction of his first and abusive sexual experience. I actually wish the toxic memory of this book could be erased from my mind. As a result, I will NOT donate this book to Goodwill to pollute anyone else's mind...it will go straight to the TRASH where it belongs.
If it was not for the overtly sexual and disturbing subject manner i would have thought this book was written by a ten year old boy. I got this book because it was at the dollar bookstore and i wanted a change a pace from the English Literature i have been reading lately.

I also got sick of all the pop culture references thought out the book. I also don't believe a lot of what in this memoir is true. The most appalling thing about this story is that all of the characters in this book felt it was ok for him to be sexually active when he was 13 and to have a 33 year old pedophile as a boyfriend. I gave this three stars because it was readable. Another thing that bugs me about this book is the way it is published. The words on the pages are too big and there is way too many spaces between the lines. This makes the book like 300 hundred pages. But if it was mass market paperback it would only be like 150 pages. With the enviorment in a state of decline i felt it should have used less paper. The only reason they made the book this way is too make it seem like it is a bigger book then it really is. If i paid the retail price for it i would have be livid.
While skimming through the reviews for Running with Scissors, I noticed that readers either loved it or hated it. I think that it depends on how you look at the book. If you are expecting to be entertained by the bizarre stories that Burroughs tells throughout his memoir, I think you will love it. If you are expecting a great piece of literary work, not so much. Burroughs is comparable to David Sedaris, and although I have not read any of Sedaris's books, although I do own a few, I know that they are lightly written, you don't have to think while reading them books. I loved the book, I thought it was bizarre and hilarious, and I think that is all the reader is supposed to get out of it. So my opinion is that you will either love it or hate it depending on what your expectations of the book are.
Augusten Burroughs should be ashamed of himself for writing such trash. It was neither funny...I can't beleive anyone would laugh at it, nor entertaining, nor horrible, because I don't for one minute beleive it was a true story. I read the first half and then threw it in the trachcan.
More entertaining in a fascinating way than hilarious but still worth every minute spent reading. I couldn't put it down. I disagree with people who say this book is offensive; i'd rather read one of Augusten's books than watch any U.S. news channel anyday - at least his work displays intelligence and compassion.

There is a passage early in Augusten Burroughs's harrowing and highly entertaining memoir,Running with Scissors, that speaks volumes about the author. While going to the garbage dump with his father, young Augusten spots a chipped, glass-top coffee table that he longs to bring home. "I knew I could hide the chip by fanning a display of magazines on the surface, like in a doctor's office," he writes, "And it certainly wouldn't be dirty after I polished it with Windex for three hours." There were certainly numerous chips in the childhood Burroughs describes: an alcoholic father, an unstable mother who gives him up for adoption to her therapist, and an adolescence spent as part of the therapist's eccentric extended family, gobbling prescription meds and fooling around with both an old electroshock machine and a pedophile who lives in a shed out back. But just as he dreamed of doing with that old table, Burroughs employs a vigorous program of decoration and fervent polishing to a life that many would have simply thrown in a landfill. Despite her abandonment, he never gives up on his increasingly unbalanced mother. And rather than despair about his lot, he glamorizes it: planning a "beauty empire" and performing an a capella version of "You Light Up My Life" at a local mental ward. Burroughs's perspective achieves a crucial balance for a memoir: emotional but not self-involved, observant but not clinical, funny but not deliberately comic. And it's ultimately a feel-good story: as he steers through a challenging childhood, there's always a sense that Burroughs's survivor mentality will guide him through and that the coffee table will be salvaged after all.--John Moe
Almost everyone can claim a crazy childhood. But did you have a childhood with: An electroshock machine as your favorite toy? Parades through the neighborhood led by your adopted psychiatrist/father? The whole family sleeping on the front lawn for weeks on end? Scotch for breakfast at age 13? A faked suicide attempt to get excused from the sixth grade? A pedophile living in the backyard shed? A psychiatric patient locked in the upstairs bedroom? Christmas trees in May and turkey carcasses under the couch? Lithium, Valium, and Halcyon to eat like candy?Running With Scissorswill shock, amaze and disturb you, and will never let you forget the story of an ordinary boy in anything-but-ordinary situation.
Rerations
< Running With Scissors: A Memoir > < Dry: A Memoir > < Possible Side Effects > < Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's > freaks

< Sleeping With Money (Yaoi Novel) > < Caged Slave (Yaoi Novel) > < Eternal Love (Yaoi Novel) > < A Promise Of Romance (Yaoi Novel) > < Body Language (Yaoi Novel) > < Better Than A Dream (Yaoi Novel) > Barbara Katagiri

price： 895
Digital Manga Publishing
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customer 's review
(Sleeping with Money by Barbara Katagiri)

(Yakuza and Salaryman Love Story)

(Surprisingly A Good One!!!)

This is maybe the first time I read a yaoi novel where the story is almost as interesting as the sex... (not that I read so many, so maybe this is not an exception!).

Tatsurou is a yakuza member without the attitude: from a poor family and with hopes to improve his perspective, soon out of high school he joined up a gang and now lives as debt collector. The work is pretty simple, since the reputation of the gang is enough for him to collect the debt without really making nothing of nasty. But then he is asked to collect a debt from the one man that in the past tried to help him and Tatsurou can't do that. In a drunken stupor he makes a bargain with Sagami, a former high school mate, now president of an important financial firm: Sagami will borrow Tatsurou the money he needs in exchange of his body: the day in which they sing the contract Tatsurou surrenders his body to Sagami and again every month as interest till the day he could repay the borrowing.

Both Tatsurou than Sagami are interesting characters. Tatsurou is a good guy without perspective that earns his day in the only way he knows; he knows that he is not a tough guy and he fears the day when someone will uncover his disguise. When he makes the bargain with Sagami he knows what he will face but he didn't expect to enjoy it so much. As he refuses to admit that he is not a bad guy, he refuses to admit that he is attracted by Sagami, and justifies his surrendering with the fact that Sagami compels him and during sex he is tied down; but he knows very well that the ties that held him are as weaken as his opposition, and that he could break them when he wants.

Sagami felt in love with Tatsurou in high school: he was entranced by the young boy with the angel face and the fiery behavior; actually he felt in love the first time he saw tears in Tatsurou's eyes, and at first he tries to do all he can to see again that tears. But he really doesn't want to hurt Sagami, he wants to see that tears from pleasure not from pain. It's obvious that Sagami is enjoying what they are doing together, but if let him know believe that he is forced will leave to the guy his honor, he will do that, since he most of all loves Sagami's spirit will.

As always in this yaoi novel there is sex, and a lot of it, but it's not too much unbelievable as in other stories, even if multiple orgasm one after the other without resting time and the use of some sexual terms that in the past I only heard for female anatomy make me turn up my nose here and there. But well, it's funny, and no one is expecting reality from this type of fiction!
Is a story about a young Yakuza chief and a salary man, both of them met at a very young age when they were both participating in a kendo tournament, the salary man defeats the yakuza (sorry forgot their names) but the yakuza leaves a deep impression on the salary man, some years after they meet each other again in a bar, the yakuza tells him the story of his life how he have gotten on so many fights, how he had joined the yakuza group and how an old man had helped him when no one else would, and now he was been forced by his yakuza boss to collect a debt of 10 million yen which obviously the old man couldn't pay, and he didn't want to collect it either, so the salary man ends up burning the paper that included the debt, the next day the yakuza wakes up with a hang over realizing what they had done with the paper decides to go and look for the same man and collect the debt from him, the salary man simply refuses, desperate he ends up making a contract the money for exchange of having his body once a month,

****There starts the story with really sexy scenes, lots of troubles that they need to overcome and above all love, I definitely recommend it if you like yakuzas, salary mans and a little amount of sadism this is for you. And last but not least a seme totally in love with his uke.
First of all, i wasnt really that keen on getting this book after reading the summary in here and after reading some disappointing yaoi novels recently. I just bought this thinking what the heck its only 8.99 or something, so if its bad its not so painful. But boy oh boy!!!!!!!!!! AM I REALLY GLAD THAT my impulsiveness sometimes pays off. Worth the money and you are in for a surprise in this one. Its got some really plot, a past track storyline which could get you hook up and cannot wait for the next page (dont care much for the grammar problem, like some people do), and here's another thing if you are a YAOI FAN, celebrate in this one. It zizzzling hot. (You know what i mean, WINK) wheewww. This book is highly entertaining and have some comic moments. This one stays in my collection!! Katagiri san you Rock!!
Tatsuro, a good-looking yakuza who turns every head, is looking for a benefactor to take on his debts. Seizing that opportunity is Sagami, president of a large bank. However, even with all the wealth and power he could imagine, Sagami only wants Tatsuro!
Rerations
< Sleeping With Money (Yaoi Novel) > < Caged Slave (Yaoi Novel) > < Eternal Love (Yaoi Novel) > < A Promise Of Romance (Yaoi Novel) > < Body Language (Yaoi Novel) > freaks

< The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader > < The History of Sexuality: An Introduction > < Undoing Gender > < Queer Theory: An Introduction > < Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics) > < Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex > Henry Abelove

price： 500
Routledge
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customer 's review
(Always a good read)

(Super book)

(A monumental achievement)

(excellent queer/glbt studies/theory reader)

So many good reviews fo this book already, I will only jump in to say that this book would be awesome for any collection, you can put it ddown for weeks, months, and read it whenever you like.
A well rounded book that should be on your shelf. The author has done made a beautiful compilation of material related to the topic. This is a ground breaking work and strongly recommended.
This collection was the first of its kind when it came out in 1993. The three editors, all longtime advocates of queer scholarship, put together the Reader as an attempt to encourage new classes in queer studies. It was a resounding success, winning both a Lambda Literary award and notably being banned by Canadian customs.

The contributors to this volume are all well-respected names in their fields: John D'Emilio, Eve Sedgwick, Adrienne Rich, Judith Butler, Audre Lorde, and the editors themselves. There is impressive attention to including both people of color and strong lesbian voices, something many other similar collections have problems with.

The Reader is an excellent introduction to the field, although it is an academic text and can be a bit daunting for some. It works wonderfully for the purpose it was designed for, as a text for introductory classes. For those already immersed in the field, you obviously already own the book.
For an excellent compilation of essays, papers, and writings on what we now call"Queer/Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,&Transgender Studies,"this is your book. It has practically everything, including works by people of color. If you want to get academic and intellectual, here's where you might start. If you are already academic and intellectual, this book will be a welcome addition to your library. I read many of the pieces in this book for a class in college, and they were all highly thought-provoking and important. I consider this book to be one of the basic, necessary groundstones in my library of queer/lgbt studies books and readings. Thank god for Henry Abelove for putting this together!
The Lesbian and Gay Studies Readeris the biggest and most comprehensive multi-disciplinary anthology of critical work in lesbian/gay studies.

Comprising scholarship, criticism, commentary, and political analysis, lesbian/gay studies is one of the fastest growing fields in contemporary thought. Its influence is changing the shape of every branch of learning in the humanities and social sciences.

Bringing together forty-two groundbreaking essays--many of them already classics--this collection provides a much-needed introduction to the contemporary state of lesbian/gay studies, extensively illustrating the range, scope, diversity, appeal, and power of the work currently being done in the field. Featuring essays by such prominent scholars as Judith Butler, John D'Emilio, Kobena Mercer, Adrienne Rich, Gayle Rubin, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,The Lesbian and Gay Studies Readerexplores a multitude of sexual, ethnic, racial, and socio-economic experiences.

Ranging across disciplines including history, literature, critical theory, cultural studies, African American studies, ethnic studies, sociology, anthropology, psychology, classics, and philosophy, this anthology traces the inscription of sexual meanings in all forms of cultural expression. Representing the best and most significant English language work in the field,The Lesbian and Gay Studies Readeraddresses topics such as butch-fem roles, the cultural construction of gender, lesbian separatism, feminist theory, AIDS, safe-sex education, colonialism, S/M, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, children's books, black nationalism, popular films, Susan Sontag, the closet, homophobia, Freud, Sappho, the media, thehijrasof India, Robert Mapplethorpe, and the politics of representation. It also contains an extensive bibliographical essay which will provide readers with an invaluable guide to further reading.

In the tradition of Routledge'sCultural StudiesandUnequal Sisters,TheLesbian and Gay Studies Readermarks a critical moment in the development of the field. It will be essential reading for anyone--gay or straight--interested in the history of sexuality, sexual politics, and gender studies.

Contributors:Henry Abelove, Tomas Almaguer, Ana Maria Alonso, Michele Barale, Judith Butler, Sue-Ellen Case, Danae Clark, Douglas Crimp, Teresa de Lauretis, John D'Emilio, Jonathan Dollimore, Lee Edelman, Marilyn Frye, Charlotte Furth, Marjorie Garber, Stuart Hall, David Halperin, Phillip Brian Harper, Gloria T. Hull, Maria Teresa Koreck, Audre Lorde, Biddy Martin, Deborah E. McDowell, Kobena Mercer, Richard Meyer, D. A. Miller, Serena Nanda, Esther Newton, Cindy Patton, Adrienne Rich, Gayle Rubin, Joan W. Scott, Daniel L. Selden, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Barbara Smith, Catharine R. Stimpson, Sasha Torres, Martha Vicinus, Simon Watney, Harriet Whitehead, John J. Winkler, Monique Wittig, and Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano.
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< The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader > < The History of Sexuality: An Introduction > < Undoing Gender > < Queer Theory: An Introduction > < Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics) > freaks

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(An Absolute Must-Read)

(Excellent points)

(Sad, heretical, completely unsound theology.....)

(Not worth reading)

(Helminiak: Lying for Gays)

Since its initial publication in 1994, this slim volume has become THE must-read book for anyone seeking to reconcile being gay and being a Christian.

Helminiak makes his case incredibly well...he goes through the Scriptures step by step to reveal and discuss the historical context and the meaning behind them.

I cannot say enough good things about this book, but if you are gay and Christian, RUN to your nearest bookstore or order a copy online immediately. It is a very easy book to read; Helminiak is not writing to scholars here but to ordinary citizens. And his conclusion that the Bible says NOTHING about homosexuality is breathtaking, and he backs it up with Scripture all the way.
This book points out what I have believed for decades; the Bible has been transalated and retranslated so many times over the millenia a lot of it is open to spin and interpretation. Whether the Bible condemns or condones homosexuality is largely irrevelent to me as the whole book is simply a bogus replica of a host of pre Judeo-Christian myths, cultures, and beliefs and in the 21st century serves as a means by which Christian bigots can base their hatreds.
From the synopsis: While cautioning against viewing biblical teaching as "the last word on sexual ethics," he stresses the need for accurate understanding of what the biblical "facts" are and concludes that "the Bible supplies no real basis for the condemnation of homosexuality."

A fundamental platform of what Christians believe is that the Bible IS the inerrant LAST word on ALL morality and ethics.

The description of the book attempts to claim that homosexuality "as we know it" was a concept lost on the ancient world. COME ON!!! Are you KIDDING me??? Where do you think we got it?? That same sex relationships just sprung up out of nowhere in the last 1000 years??

I'm sure this book makes a lot of people feel good about their struggle with reconciling what the Bible says with homosexuality. The only problem is you have to completely ignore what the Bible ACTUALLY says to swallow it.

Sad. Misleading. If you want to know what the Bible really says about homosexuality, just read it. It means what is says. It says what it means. Period.
For those who prefer an in depth researched and well written book on homosexuality in the church...DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK! It is too generalized and shallow of a writing and not convincing at all. Though a few of his points may be somewhat accurate and his aims are honorable, look for another resource. It is poorly written, research is rarely cited, and terminology is very vague.
When I received this book, the first thing I noticed was glowing endorsements from Spong and Countryman, neither of whom are exactly conservative theologians. Then I noticed that this is a popular book and therefore there are no footnotes or references, so I cannot check his sources to see whether he is saying the truth or not, probably just as well, as he can lie with impunity.

On page 26 he trots out the party line by saying that one is "born gay, it cannot be changed and is benign", none of these statements are factually true, they are simply popular myths. He then compounds the error by comparing homosexuality with race and left-handedness. Once again he is incorrect. If homosexuality was like left-handedness (i.e. genetic) then we would expect the same percentage of homosexuals in rural and urban areas, yet this is precisely what we do not find, even for young people who have not migrated yet.

On Sodom, he gives the usual revisionist interpretation (based on Boswell and Bailey), it was about their inhospitality, this is a half truth, they were very inhospitable. The men of the city wanted to have sex with the male visitors, they wanted to rape them and unknowingly they would have raped angels. The purpose of the narrative was to show that God was just in destroying the cities.

On the meaning of arsenokoitai, he is unsure of the meaning, but if it does refer to male same-sex acts then it only "condemn wanton, lewd, irresponsible male homogenital acts but not homogenital acts in general" (p. 105). Of course the etymology of arsenokoitai is well know, it is derived from the Septuagint translation of the Levitical prohibitions of male-male intercourse (see Scroggs, p. 65), but this is rather inconvenient to Helminiak because it means that Paul thought that the Levitical prohibitions still applied in his day. Helminiak is aware of this (see p. 111), but he soft peddles here, lamely saying that 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10 "may be repeating the prohibitions in Leviticus 18:22."

Then we come to Helminiak's best lie. His word study of toevah and bdelygma on p. 64-65. Toevah is the Hebrew word usually translated as abomination and bdelygma is the Septuagint Greek equivalent translation. Toevah is used in the Levitical prohibitions on male-male sex in Lev 18:22 and 20:13. He confidently asserts that toevah means "what is culturally or ritually forbidden" it is not a sin. He then compounds the error by saying that the Greek translation bdelygma, which he says, means a "ritual offense". When I looked up the meaning of the words toevah and bdelygma, the actual meanings of these two words is nowhere near as narrow as Helminiak implies. Toevah can be used in both a ritual and a moral sense, the same as bdelygma. In Lev 18:26-30 toevah is used four times and refers to adultery, child-sacrifice, male-male intercourse and bestiality (in Lev 18:20-23), bdelygma translates toevah in three of these verses. In the New Testament bdelygma is used of the "abomination of desolation" (Mat 24:15).

Lastly, we come to another quirky interpretation of Helminiak. The Greek word akatharsia which is translated "impurity" and Paul uses it in Rom 1:24 just before he talks about those who indulge in female-female sex and male-male sex in Rom 1:26-27. In all nine cases when Paul uses this word akatharsia it refers to moral sin. And yet Helminiak rather weakly says that "It must be admitted that Paul's use of the word impurity (akatharsia) here is out of line with his usage elsewhere" (p94). In other words making a scriptural case for homosexuality always involves special pleading, even lying.

This is the second edition of this book, so he had plenty of time to rectify an