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< Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India > < Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman > < Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village > < Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (Centennial Book) > < Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (5th Edition) (MySearchLab Series) > < CORRECTING COMMON ERRORS IN WRITING > Serena Nanda

price：~~$4.60~~
Wadsworth Publishing
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customer 's review
(Hijras, The Third Gender)

(review of neither man nor woman)

(Unforgettable!)

(Interesting ethnography)

(Nanda's Neither Man Nor Woman)

Fascinating book about the Hijras, a group of men in India that dress, act, and do whatever they can (surgeries, hormones) to be considered women. This book is not good for the close minded or immature as there are pages of entire lives of specific hijras, their struggles, and intimate secrets. It also demonstrates that tying the origins of hijras to myths and even Religion grants them a status of a Third gender and in some parts of India an incredible amount of respect. Shows the rigidness of the dichotmous western world and how this rigidness results in anger and hatred of the things that do not fit in the both categories.
I found this book very interesting and informative. I had read accounts of this type of goddess worship in ancient records (greek and roman)when I was a teenager but there was little cultural context and no rationale concerning the practices of emasculation. This book answered a lot of questions, why the operation, what the benefit to the devotee, who were these worshippers. I enjoyed finelly getting the answers to decades long questions.
A classic, absolutely fascinating study of the transvestite eunuch hijras of India. Combining objectivity with sympathy and respect, the writer allows us to glimpse the feelings and aspirations of these people, whose lives encompass joy, sadness, degradation, liberation, hope. The reader comes to know the hijras as real people while gaining an understanding of a very ancient and significant way of life. Nanda's lucid writing and subtle insights are augmented by a marvelous collection of color photographs and vivid case histories, including numerous first person accounts. This book is a model for ethnographic study and will leave an indelible impression on the heart and mind of anyone who reads it.
This was a very interesting book on a very interesting group of people. Nanda did a superb job of describing the Hijras in the context of Indian society. The personal accounts of individual Hijras added a great perspective. My one problem with this book is that throughout, while striving to show the validity of the concept of more than two genders, Nanda gave the impression that she feels that the Western cultural concept of gender dichotomy is backward and naive. To me, this felt like an attack on Western culture, which I do not look for in supposedly unbiased ethnographies.
While reading Nanda's Neither Man Nor Woman, I was struck by the sheer competancy and volume of her research. She truly gives a vivid, accurate picture of hijra life, ritual, and social attitude. The hijras are a group of traveling performers/prostitiutes who participate in ritualized castration. They are often homosexual, transsexual, or impotent men who are endowed by society with religious authority. They worship the Hindu Goddess Bahuchara Mata and participate in theatrical blessings of male children and newly weds. Nanda documents their rituals and beliefs while also defining their function within mainstream Indian society. My only point of criticism with Nanda'e work is her slight failure to fully demystify some of the ambiguities surrounding the hijras. One is never really certain of the actual definition and occupation of the hijras. However, after doing research on the hijras, Nanda's book is truly the most accurate and unbiased research available on hijra life. I would recommend it strongly.
This ethnography is a cultural study of the Hijras of India, a religious community of men who dress and act like women. It focuses on how Hijras can be used in the study of gender categories and human sexual variation.
Rerations
< Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India > < Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman > < Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village > < Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (Centennial Book) > < Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (5th Edition) (MySearchLab Series) > freaks

< Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son > < The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian > < Mississippi Sissy > < Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood > < Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison > < Of Sound Mind > Kevin Jennings

price：~~$4.80~~
Beacon Press
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customer 's review
(Growing Up Gay)

(LOVE SOMEONE NOT FOR WHAT THEY ,BUT WHO THEY ARE!!! R.T.)

(Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son)

(The teacher who enters the classroom ready to learn from his or her students has boundless capacity for growth)

(okay, I'm the spoiler)

Jennings, Kevin, Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir, Beacon Press, 2006

Growing Up Gay

Amos Lassen

"Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son" is a great new book about coming of age and growing up gay. Kevin Jennings is the founder of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network hand has been a fighter for non discrimination in our country's schools. With his book he lets us into his life and shows us how he came to be where he is today. His father had been a fundamentalist minister who dies suddenly in the middle of his eighth birthday party and his mother had to rake o the job as breadwinner. Having been raised in a trailer part, Kevin escaped into the world of reading. School was a battle for him--he was fat, intelligent and harbored an attraction for other boys. He finally escaped his childhood by winning a scholarship to Harvard where he could use his mind and not be shunned for his sexual feelings. Upon graduation he began to teach at some of the fine private schools in Boston and was loved by his students while causing nervous feelings among the administrations because of his desire to speak openly about his lifestyle.

His book speaks of the South (he was from North Carolina) and of the evangelicalism and the racism here. He describes his mother as a "working-class feminist" who was the first woman in North Carolina to gain a management position at McDonald's. When he came out to her, even though being perplexed, she founded a gay parents' support group. It is when he writes about his mother that the book takes flight. Here is a man who loves his mother and allows that love to shine through his writings.

This is a moving literate autobiography of an amazing man. His rise from "rags to riches' is related in such a way that the reader feels he is growing with the author. It is also the story of the determination of a woman to assure that her son gets the education that she never had and her son's attempts to break free from the constraints of the homophobic South, from the bullies that made his life miserable and from the narrow minded people he encountered in his life. But it is also the story of a teacher who made it his life goal to help the youth of America to be liberated and free.

It is a narrative that doesn't just roll along--it is full of turns along the way and I find myself asking "how did he do it?" as I read. It is an unlikely success story.

WOW!WOW!THIS BOOK IS SOOOO AMAZING. YOU GOT TO READ THIS BOOK. IT ALSO SHOWS THAT EVEN THOUGH WE ARE RAISED ONE WAY HOW ,AND WHEN WE BECOME EDUCATED IN WHY AND WHAT PEOPLE ARE GOING THROUGH. WE LOVE THEM UNCONDITIONALLY!!!!LOVE IT! LOVE IT!! NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN TAUGHT RELIGIOUSLY YOUR STILL HAVE NOT ARRIVED TO THE PLACE HOW GOD LOVES US! NO MATTER WHAT......
This is an awesome book. I laughed a lot and also shed a lot of tears as Kevin's journey and mine are so similar. Both preacher's sons and teachers. It has been a long up-hill battle but the end result is worth every bit of blood, sweat and tears.

I strongly urge everyone to read this book. Hey! You are not alone, there are others out there who have gone through or are going through what you are right now.
Kevin Jennings grew up as a preacher's son (the son of a Southern Baptist Minister) and a mama's boy (more interested in intellectual pursuits than athletics). This memoir is not merely the story of a homosexual boy in the Deep South living below the poverty line. Jennings's personal struggles with family and community acceptance are neither extreme nor representative of the majority. The strength of Jennings's life story lies in the experiences and incidents which led to his career as an activist. The author is able to portray the gradual development of his adult activist spirit, so far removed from the boy who lived in fear of school and his classmates.

As a reader, I especially enjoyed the story of young Kevin's black sister-in-law. His decade-older brother came back from military service with (gasp!) a black wife. They were exiled from the family and community and moved to the Northeast. Kevin had been raised to believe that the KKK, while not a part of his immediate family, did good for the whites in the South. He was ingrained with beliefs about scourge of the blacks in the South. He had extreme anxiety about visiting his brother and sister-in-law, but when he arrived at their house, he learned first-hand what a lovely woman Claudette was, and they quickly became friends and confidantes. Kevin's earliest moment of activism was introducing Claudette to all the family members at a funeral, and ensuring that they all shook her hand and talked politely with her, despite her outsider status.

Kevin Jennings was the first member of his family to go to college, but the family was disappointed that he chose a profession as un-important and un-manly a teaching. If there is one lesson from the story of Kevin Jennings, it is this: a teacher learns as much from his students as they do from him. A teacher who goes into the classroom ready to learn from his or her students has boundless capacity for growth. Jennings worked at a number of private institutions in his early career, learning from his students what level of "outness" they could accept (a lot, it turns out). He spoke up against administration policies which did not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. He formed early Gay-Straight Alliances, describing the impetus that came directly from both gay and straight students who placed importance on such partnerships.

I highly recommend this book as high school classroom reading. Kevin Jennings has a life story with elements of poverty (classism), sexism, racism, and discrimination based on sexual orientation. These are universal issues, and his personal experiences provide a starting point for dialog about acceptance and the destruction of stereotypes.
As a gay preacher's kid (fundamentalist) from the same geography (rural N.C.), I have to say I found Jenning's story to be irritatingly self-indulgent. I know many gay people who suffered a great deal more than he with the lack of acceptance and prejudice in the rural South. Yet they managed to achieve sucess and come out earlier in life and in far less accepting times and places than New England in the 80's. But, unlike Jennings, they do not seem to consider every personal experience they had on the way to self-fulfillment to be worthy of a book. I couldn't wait to put this one down.

Long before Kevin Jennings began advocating to end anti-GLBT bias in schools, he was a victim of it. In Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son, Jennings traces the roots of his activism to his school days in the conservative South, where “faggot” became more familiar to him than his own name. Creating safe schools for all youth is now a central part of the progressive agenda in American education, and Kevin Jennings is at the forefront of that fight. Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son was featured in People, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, and other national media.

“Kevin Jennings’s story brought me to tears again and again.” —Martin Moran, author of The Tricky Part: One Boy’s Fall from Trespass into Grace

“Kevin Jennings’s moving story takes us from the trailer parks of North Carolina to the halls of Harvard and meetings in the White House—and yet it is the most personal moments he dares to share that speak to our souls and teach the power of education.” —Bob Chase, president emeritus, National Education Association

A selection of the InsightOut Book Club

Kevin Jennings is the founder and executive director of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, a national education organization working to make schools places where young people learn to value and respect everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. He lives in New York with his partner.

Rerations
< Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son > < The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian > < Mississippi Sissy > < Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood > < Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison > freaks

< Living Two Lives: Married to a Man and In Love with a Woman > < Married Women Who Love Women, Second Edition > < Lesbian Epiphanies: Women Coming Out in Later Life > < And Then I Met This Woman: Previously Married Women's Journeys into Lesbian Relationships > < Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire > < Late Bloomers: Awakening to Lesbianism After Forty > Joanne Fleisher

price：~~$3.73~~
Alyson Books
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customer 's review
(Total Bitterness)

(Huge disappointment)

(AMAZING!)

(Understanding the Situation)

(Married to a Man And in Love With a Woman)

The book and the author's websites are anti male. A man's feelings are poorly represented in the book (3 men and 9 woman describing the man's response in CHapter 4) and male access is denied on the website.
Fortunately Ms Fleisher is no in need of federal funding.
To read this book by a "doctor" is to be told that it's ok to cheat on your husband and that it's ok to cheat on a lesbian you might be using for a relationship on the side. This book is anti-feministic and almost cult like by those that read it and have written about it.
There are no concrete plans that are helpful. Everything in this book is about giving more and more money to the author so she can basically tell you it's ok to cheat.
If you want to hear it's ok to cheat, please read this book. If you are looking for a deeper answer to your own sexuality, why not look inside yourself and not go to someone who is clearly just interested in lining her pockets with your woes.

After wading through a few books on Amazon on the subject, I settled on this one because it was the only one I found to be helpful for my situation. Boy was it! I recently came out to my husband of 8 years and this book really helped to validate so many of my feelings. The women's narratives helped me to realize that I wasn't alone and that everything I've been feeling is common to my situation. The author doesn't advocate any particular approach, but rather helps you to explore the avenues and decisions YOU want to pursue and does it WITHOUT JUDGMENT.

If you are thinking of coming out to your husband (or recently have, like myself), this book is HIGHLY recommended. My husband is reading it next :)
Women who feel like they're alone in this situation will find guidance and assurance that they are not alone.

Great book. Very insightful.

From 1967 to 1979 Joanne Fleisher led a happy life in the suburbs, a mother of two and the wife of a successful lawyer. Then she fell in love with a female friend and everything changed. Her experiences, as well as those of the women who write to her advice column Ask Joanne (www.lavendervisions.com), inspired her to writeLiving Two Lives, a guide for women grappling with the difficult process of coming out while being married to a man. Now a licensed clinical social worker, Fleisher has conducted married women's support groups, weekend conferences, individual therapy sessions, and national and international phone consultations for women in this situation. She now brings her wealth of insight to this guide to help married women navigate the stages of coming out: initial feelings of same-sex attraction, telling husbands and children, managing a roller coaster of emotions (grief at the end of a marriage, confusion and anger at the loss of heterosexual privilege, guilt, anxiety, depression), developing a support system, executing the awkward phases of dating, and, finally, moving into a new chapter of life. In addition,Living Two Livesprovides resources on organizations for married women, suggested reading, and helpful websites. Married women are a huge but invisible part of the lesbian population, often falling between the cracks of available resources. This book is a welcome tool to guide them out of isolation and into rich, rewarding lives.

Joanne Fleisheris a lifelong resident of Philadelphia. She is a graduate of Simmons College and of the Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. She and her partner of 25 years co-parented her daughters with her ex-husband, and she recently became a grandmother.

Rerations
< Living Two Lives: Married to a Man and In Love with a Woman > < Married Women Who Love Women, Second Edition > < Lesbian Epiphanies: Women Coming Out in Later Life > < And Then I Met This Woman: Previously Married Women's Journeys into Lesbian Relationships > < Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire > freaks

< Desires in Conflict: Hope for Men Who Struggle with Sexual Identity > < You Don't Have to Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling With Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is > < Growth into Manhood: Resuming the Journey > < When Homosexuality Hits Home: What to Do When a Loved One Says They're Gay > < Coming Out of Homosexuality: New Freedom for Men&Women > < 101 Frequently Asked Questions About Homosexuality > Joe Dallas

price：~~$2.80~~
Harvest House Publishers
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customer 's review
(A great journey)

(Desires in Conflict: I highly recommend the book)

(Joe Dallas's long, sad journey)

(Great Book)

(Dallas book an excellent resource)

This is the door to a new way of thinking about homosexual feelings in a man or a woman. People will criticize this way of thinking because they are not willing to accept the fact that this is not inborn but psychological. People CAN change. God TRANSFORMS lives, period. The only thing is that you HAVE to be be willing to accept HIM as the Savior and there's no other way. Obedience and compassion to ourselves will help us change.
"Desires in Conflict..." by Joe Dallas, is a manual for Christian men striving to be Godly while dealing with their homosexual temptations. The book deals with the topic honestly and sympathetically but remains grounded in scripture. I highly recommend the book to any man struggling with homosexuality, and to any minister who may be counseling such men.

I am a 23-year old gay man, and this book was given to me by a probably well-meaning relative. Joe Dallas falls into the same trap of attempted extrapolation that most exgay testimony books do: "My homosexuality makes me miserable and self-loathing, and your homosexuality should make you miserable too." He also blames his problems on homosexuality where the actual issues probably lay elsewhere. He admits in the later edition of his book that his sexual partners numbered in the hundreds(!) prior to 1984 (another common extrapolation in exgay testimonies - "I had hundreds of anonymous sex partners, so all gay men must.") and details his considerations and plans for suicide in the mid 80's. This sounds like a maladjusted or profoundly disturbed individual, perhaps sexually-addicted person who happens to be gay, not an accurate profile of how a gay man is. Many exgay books seem to fall into this unfortunate trap of trying denigrate all gay men to make their point.

He spends chapters on the idea of bad male-male non-sexual relationships (primarily those involving the father) as the primary driver of homosexuality, although he reluctantly admits at a few points that many heterosexual men seem to have the same deficits yet, strangely, aren't gay! His own assessment of father-son relationships is grim, calling them inevitably "doomed" to rages and hatred, more or less, including his own relationship with an adoptive son in the "raging" yet "re-bonded" category. These parts of the book is basically useless if your relationship with your father was not somehow estranged and you turned out to be gay anyway. (I even got the benefit of baseball-in-the-backyard with my dad on a regular basis growing up - sorry Joe, I got all that healthy male socialization and I still prefer men.)

I perhaps had one real argument with my father ever, nearly all my best friends in school were male, and even now I consider my relationship with my father considerably more genial and bearable than the one with my mother, and yet I am still gay. Also, since I am not plagued with guilt and self-loathing about my sexuality, I find little common ground to share with Joe Dallas. Perhaps if you're an evangelical Christian male miserable about your sexuality, you might feel less alone reading this ('uplifting' is not the word I'd use for this book, though), but it's virtually without value for people who don't fall into that narrow category. Two stars.
This book helped me learn so much for me to be able to turn my life around and change completely for the better. If you're struggling with your sexuality and desperate for answeres and help, this book is a must read. I hope it'll change all your lives for better as it did for me. I literally cried tears of joy as I read this book, and I could never thank the author enough for having taken the time to write it. Thank you, Mr. Dallas from the bottom of my heart.
For those interested in understanding the underlying dynamics of homosexual attractions, this book will be a necessary part of your library. The author, Joe Dallas, overcame his homosexual attractions and has been a professional counselor, author and speaker for years on this issue. He is well-educated and compassionate in his approach. No one book explains everything on the issue of homosexuality but I recommend his book first to anyone interested because it gives a great overview in discussion of the general issues. A must read!

For more than a decade,Desires in Conflicthas been the definitive“must–read” for those who wonder “Can a homosexual change?” This new edition with updated information offers more compelling reasons why the answer is “yes!”

“I read Desires in Conflict for the first time when I was 19...More than a decade later, I am free of desires that once held me captive, strong in my faith, married to my amazing wife, Leslie, and currently the Executive Director of Exodus International, North America. The Lord used Desires inConflict to help guide me out of homosexuality. Joe Dallas has eternally impacted a generation of young people like me.”

Alan Chambers
Executive Director
Exodus International

Rerations
< Desires in Conflict: Hope for Men Who Struggle with Sexual Identity > < You Don't Have to Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling With Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is > < Growth into Manhood: Resuming the Journey > < When Homosexuality Hits Home: What to Do When a Loved One Says They're Gay > < Coming Out of Homosexuality: New Freedom for Men&Women > freaks

< What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage > < Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, Revised and Expanded Edition: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church > < What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality > < For The Bible Tells Me So > < A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists: Musings on Why God Is Good and Faith Isn't Evil > < The Children Are Free: Reexamining the Biblical Evidence on Same-sex Relationships > David G. Myers,Letha Dawson Scanzoni

price：~~$1.29~~
HarperOne(2006-05-09)
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customer 's review
(A Happy Chance Find)

(Deceptive)

(A decent book on the gay marriage debate)

(Well done...)

(What God Has Joined Together?: A Christian Case For Gay Marriage)

I saw this while browsing a local bookstore and picked it up, and I'm glad I did. Myers and Scanzoni make a very convincing case that A) marriage is good for both individuals and society and should therefor be protected, and that B) the best way to protect marriage and promote a healthy society is to allow gays to marry as well. They contend that the battle against gay marriage serves to support the alternatives to marriage movement (for straights as well as gays) which harms society and is bad for individuals. Myers and Scanzoni also give good summaries of related issues such as apparent condemnations of homosexuality in the bible, and sexual reorientation training (it doesn't work).
This book is insidious. It lures you into its web by starting with principles people on all sides of the issue share. Before you know it, you are so used to nodding in agreement that you continue nodding when the arguments become weaker, and soon you are nodding at arguments that most of us would never accept if we stopped and thought about it.

And the authors are trying to answer the wrong question. This book is written for a Christian audience, among whom homosexual marriage is a small part of a much more critical issue. The debate isn't about marriage; it is about sin. If practicing homosexuality is not sin, then there is no reason to prohibit same-sex marriages. But if practicing homosexuality is sin, then even all the worldly benefits that Myers and Scanzoni predict (from lower depression and suicide rates to more stable relationships) cannot justify supporting those marriages or taking any other actions that condone that sin. This is the same principle that applies to all sin, including adultery and hate and gossip and even breaking the traffic laws. As a Christian, I am responsible for my homosexual brothers and sisters just as I am for other sinners, and I am accountable if my actions lead someone else to fall.

So the first, and possibly only, question a Christian needs to ask is: how does the Bible treat homosexual acts? Although Myers and Scanzoni do address that question, their arguments get mixed in with other issues while creating a surface appeal that sucumbs to the head-nodding process discussed above.

I'm not suggesting that you avoid this book. The only way to understand any issue is to know the arguments on both sides. But if you do read it you should also read the counterpoint in Straight&Narrow by Thomas E. Schmidt. Straight&Narrow?: Compassion&Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate Schmidt's book preceeded Myers and Scanzoni's book by a decade and does not cover some of the more recent research they discuss. But that research is inconclusive and/or unreplicated, and it does not make Schmidt's arguments any less valid.

I'm also not questioning the sincerity of the authors' Christian beliefs. On the contrary, David Myers was one of my favorite professors in college, and I always thought he was a strong Christian. (And although that was many years ago, I have no reason to believe it has changed.) But, as the authors readily admit, Christians aren't God, and some of our beliefs will inevitably contain error. So don't take their book (or Schmidt's) as gospel.

What God Has Joined Together is well-written and easy to read. It is even well-reasoned on the surface. But it is not what it seems.

Ok, if you are going to read a book on the gay marriage debate, this seems like a good one. If you are reading this review, you should know that I did not support gay marriage before nor do I now. This book is basically divided into three divisions.
Section 1: Promotes the value of marriage
Section 2: Describes what science can or cannot tell us about homosexuality
Section 3: Describes what the bible does or does not say about homosexuality
If you want a lot of specifics, I recommend reading the book. I was pretty impressed with Section 1&2. Ok, so what is my complaint about Section 3? Well, I find it mysterious that scholars are "all of a sudden" reinterpreting verses to say they are not referring to homosexuality. Also, the church history section is rather scarce. What has the church historically thought of homosexuality? If the conservative church takes the authors advice, I have a feeling there will be a lot more empty pews.
"What God Has Joined Together" is a gracefully written argument in favor of gay marriage. Despite the contentious debate around this issue, the book is written in a gentle style that reminded me of a peaceful sermon. The authors use empirical studies to make their case -- all people need community and security, gays and lesbians can't change their orientation, marriage can be strengthened by allowing gays and lesbians to marry. This isn't a polemic designed to galvanize one side in opposition to another - it is a call for liberal and conservative Christians to find common ground.
This is an excellent book for those interested in learning about Gay Rights, Gay Marriage, and the alienation of Gays from traditional Religion. I was impressed with the chapter on What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say. It corrects mis-translations and points out that "the word Homosexuality is never used in Scripture" and didn't exist until the late 19th century. This is an a good resource for Bible students as well.

Gay marriage has become the most important domestic social issue facing twenty-first-century Americans -- particularly Americans of faith. Most Christians are pro-marriage and hold traditional family values, but should they endorse extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians? If Jesus enjoined us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and the homosexual is our neighbor, does that mean we should accept and bless gay marriages? These and other, related questions are tearing many faith-based communities apart.

Across the country, states have voted, courts have debated, and churches have divided over the legitimacy of same-sex marriage. Amid the uproar one perspective is decidedly missing: that of thoughtful, pro-marriage Christians who, informed by their faith, are struggling to make sense of this issue.What God Has Joined Together?is an effort to bridge the divide between marriage-supporting and gay-supporting people of faith by showing why both sides have important things to say and showing how both sides can coexist. Drawing on scientific research as well as on the Bible, the authors explain that marriage is emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually beneficial for everyone, not just heterosexuals.

They debunk myths about sexual orientation, assess claims of sexual reorientation, and explore what the Bible does and does not say about same-sex relationships. The book ends with a persuasive case for gay marriage and outlines how this can be a win-win solution for all.
Rerations
< What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage > < Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, Revised and Expanded Edition: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church > < What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality > < For The Bible Tells Me So > < A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists: Musings on Why God Is Good and Faith Isn't Evil > freaks

< Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches > < Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, Revised and Expanded Edition: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church > < What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality > < Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Facets) > < The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium > < For The Bible Tells Me So >

price：~~$5.12~~
Augsburg Fortress Publishers
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customer 's review
(A Dynamic Read!)

(Not Great, Good to know)

(This little book is BIG)

(For the type of book it is, an excellent document)

(As the Christian daughter of a lesbian...)

The virtue of this book is the number of different voices that are found in it. I know this is one of the primary texts that my parents found helpful when I first came out and they were wrestling with understanding how Christians are to regard homosexuality. Unlike many other books on the Bible and homosexuality (including my own), Wink's book does not so much delve into biblical analysis of the "clobber passages," but rather it offers a more personal look at the struggle to understand to God's will as it relates to homosexuality. I find this unique approach quite refreshing, and highly recommend this book!

Justin R. Cannon
Editor, Sanctified: An Anthology of Poetry by LGBT Christians
Author, The Bible, Christianity,&Homosexuality
The way the book was organized was very interesting because of how the author injected the pro-gay theology with how some church leaders have responded to the gay community. I agree with how the leaders have responded to homosexuality but, I disagree with the twisting of what the bible teaches to fit an agenda of making homosexuals more comfortable with their faith. This book is very thin because there really isn't much that there is to say without really getting yourself in trouble on the subject. I have found other books that pigeon-whole this book to shreds that were more accurate and with better references.
This little book (just a bit over 130 pages) is big in caring and wisdom and compassion; in other words, it is just like Jesus!

Most of us who were 'churched' from birth into easy dichotomies/polarities like: saint/sinner, good/evil, saved/damned will find these writings liberating and confirming of what we have always suspected, that "not everything biblical is Christlike." This quote--which I think is what this book is about at its core--is from one of the essays in the book, written by William Sloane Coffin.

This book can help many come out of their own closets, the closets of unexamined prejudices; in particular, the ones made up of religious walls.

When talking about a book, it is essential to keep in mind which sort of book it is. For instance, we cannot expect of a novel what we would find in an essay. Likewise, in religious literature it is not exact to speak badly of a book just because it's not another kind of book.

Some of the reviews have objected that this book lacks scholarship, but this is not a scholar book, but a collection of writings to stir up conscience (although some pieces could indeed appear in a scholar book, like the essay by Walter Wink). In this book there's more preaching than theology; this is not to say that theology is not necessary (far from there!), but simply that there are other ways of dealing a subject, and appealing from a firmly persuaded mind is one of them, which does not at all substitute theology, to which in fact is a complement.

Who wants to read a scholar book of theology on the topic(I have done, and I strongly recommend this), can find them in Amazon (I dare recommend, for example, Seeking the truth in love, by Bishop Michael Dole or Theology and Sexuality, by Eugene Rogers -compilator).

Others have said that all the essays are "on one side" of the debate. Once again, if this were a scholar book which tried to give an exact account of the debate, it should include both positions, even if the book was clearly "on one side" (at least, they should be mentioned in order to be refuted). However, this is not this sort of book, it is a document which is aimed at taking a clear stand, and speaks out from the persuasion that what they say is true. We can disagree with them (I do not), but they have their right to preache (yes, it's "written preaching") what they honestly and firmly believe it is God's Will.

This book is then a plea for the acceptance of homosexuals in the church, and it is aimed at people's consciences, giving them reasons, and giving personal witnesses. Among the writings, there are essays like the beautiful one by Peggy Campolo ("In God's house there are many closets") that speak of a personal persuasion deeply stablished in her life, from her experience, and all this (even if this displeases her opponents) in the light of the Gospel. One may object to her positions or others' in the book (I do not), but not really criticise that this is not the book it never was intended to be.
I can safely say that this book makes an honest effort to approach the subject kindly and treat homosexuals in a loving way. I do not agree that homosexuality is just another lifestyle. I have watched my own mother go from lover to lover, never satisfied. She has had at least 13 lesbian partners in the past 14 years. She has finally found a woman that she is content to stay with but she is just that, "content," not necessarily happy. She left the church years ago and has no use for religion, but she and I get along beautifully. We have learned to love in spite of our opposing views on her sexuality. I love my Mom and I know that the environment she was raised in was one of maternal loss (her mother died when she was 18 months old), profound loneliness, and verbal abuse from an unaccepting, often cruel grandmother. Jesus encouraged compassion for every mortal, lesbian or straight, conservative or liberal. I leave the judging part to Him.
Issues surrounding homosexuality threaten to divide the Christian churches and the people within them. This unique resource presents short pieces from some of the nation's most prominent church leaders---Protestant and Catholic, mainline and evangelical---who address the fundamental moral imperative about homosexuality. Together they invite the reader to open his or her heart to the Spirit, to tolerance, and to Gospel values. Through personal testimony, factual clarification, and moral suasion, they provide much-needed clarity on the biblical witness and biblical authority, the nature or character of homosexuality and sexual orientation, and many related topics.
Rerations
< Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches > < Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, Revised and Expanded Edition: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church > < What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality > < Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Facets) > < The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium > freaks

< Vintage: A Ghost Story > < Wicked Gentlemen > < Hero > < Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie > < A Strong and Sudden Thaw > < The Blue Girl > Steve Berman

price：~~$7.97~~
Haworth Positronic Press

customer 's review
(Willing suspension of disbelief)

(Half in love with death)

(haunting on many levels)

(Young Adult at heart, but something for the not-so-young adults, too)

(A great first love story)

Vintage: A Ghost Story is a rare find among what I'll call the use of the supernatural in plots. This one has the usual stuff about ghosts and ouija boards, and how to allow a ghost to rest. But I knew it was going to be a ghost story, and so I gave it a chance. I didn't bargain for the creepy feelings that ensued, even when the main character meets the ghost, Josh, in the dark, out on Highway 47. From there the ghosts that appear are both fascinating and frightening on a truly visceral level; and even though there is at first a burgeoning love between Josh and the main character, how this writer achieves believability is so well done as to make one gasp when ghost and the living make physical contact. It is the true gem of this story and is very well done. I don't like to summarize the plot in my reviews. Others do it quite well. My interest here is to say that the writer has done a remarkable job on many levels, creating likable characters, setting, and most of all a believable and wonderfully creepy, frightening, and memorable ghost story.
In his first novel, about a gay Goth teenager who has unwittingly assumed the power to commune with the dead, Steve Berman shows terrific control of narrative voice, and his appealing and intelligent unnamed narrator (the Goth in question) speaks the way audiences his own age will recognize and acknowledge. The book begins terrifically, with the moody atmosphere of a small dead-end New Jersey town where the narrator (who has left his parents' unwelcoming house) to live with his aunt and work in a vintage clothing shop; his first encounter with a ghost, a local urban legend of a jock haunting a stretch of highway, is genuinely eerie. (As the novel continues, the narrator begins his first gay relationship with this ghost of a Fifties high-school athlete.) But Berman has trouble knowing where to go after this. The story isn't as suspenseful as you might like, and though the situations are sharply and intelligently drawn the characters (aside from the narrator and his sympathetic aunt) are not always as much. The strong sense I had from this novel were that the missteps were mostly those of a neophyte; certainly this book was worth reading, and we can expect even better novels from Berman in the future.
Vintage is a sweet, sad, true-to-life ghost story. The world of our hero, whom we only know by the surname Vesely, is, for teen readers, completely relatable to the world they inhabit. For older readers, the book is a reminder of what they endured in their teen years, where life could go from horrible to wonderful from one day to the next. As an older reader, I was torn between nostalgia for the foolish things I did in those years and parental horror at the risks--some deliberately self-destructive--young adults still take.

Mr. Berman is unnervingly adept at evoking teenage recklessness, insecurity, and yearning for connection and understanding. Vesely is a bit of a loner with good reasons to be unhappy. The woman who raised him, profoundly unworthy of the appellation "mother", drove him away from home, leaving him to seek shelter with a sympathetic aunt. His only confidante is his best friend, Trace--sweet, smart, and strong-willed enough to help Vesely stay anchored throughout a paranormal adventure that threatens serious and perhaps fatal harm to both body and soul. Vesely can communicate with the spirits of the dead--and the reason behind that ability is the most haunting aspect of the story.

Vintage is a just-right mixture of spooky-as-hell atmosphere and real-life every day normalcy. That, in itself, makes the story especially disquieting. The nightmares go from eerily ethereal to disturbingly grounded in the horrors one human being can perpetrate on another. But alongside those horrors are moments of self-discovery and unexpected emotional connections that give Vesely the strength and insight to come to the aid of those, living and dead, who need him. While not graphic in its sexual encounters, Vintage has a dark edge of eroticism in some moments and a tender, realistic sense of new-found love in others--providing a sharp contrast of the complexities involved in feelings of love and lust. All the innocence, confusion, need, and pain of the teen years is drawn with a terse, understated beauty and sympathy.

One thread of the story that struck the most resounding chord for me was Vesely's realization of his feelings for another character; it was unexpected and uplifting, with a familiarity and comfort in it that stayed with me after I'd finished the story. I don't think I've ever read a discovery-of-attraction that felt more true. The story is full of moments with that same sort of yes-I've-been-there edge to them, sometimes to the point where you feel as though your own ghosts are coming back to life around you. The author has a dead-on descriptive sense when it comes to creating an emotional connection between two fictional characters. Their feelings seem so true, you are convinced these are people you know in real life. I hope the author will be writing more love stories. This is a remarkable book that I'd recommend for both teens and adults.

What could possibly be worse than being "one of the odd ones," an outcast in the small town where you grew up? How about being a gay outcast? How about being a gay outcast that attracts ghosts? Such is the premise of Steve Berman's charming Vintage: A Ghost Story, a Young Adult novel with enough in to also satisfy the not-so-young adults out there.

Told in the first person, Vintage focuses on an unnamed (and, therefore, universal) seventeen-year-old boy and his friends, a family made up of outsiders. Our hero--having recently run away from home and dropped out of high school when his parents discovered he was gay--lives with his likeable, albeit a bit dense (or is she?) Aunt Jan, and passes the time with his best friend Trace, a similarly disaffected young woman. He is young, full of hormones and longing for someone to love. The problem is, our hero doesn't believe any boy would really be interested in him. So, he mostly hangs out with Trace, and the duo pass the boredom of their lives by dressing in dark clothes, drinking exotic beverages and attending random funerals that feed their interest in the occult.

Now, Berman may have wrapped his characters in the trappings of the goth scene, but he expertly avoids the character clichés: the faux bravado, the pretentiousness, the acid-dropping recklessness. Berman keeps the characters firmly rooted in reality, imbuing them with the very tangible concerns of youth without ever falling into melodrama. The protagonist and Trace have simply adopted some of the aspects of goth asa sort of armor, making themselves stand out before others have a chance to point at them and laugh for their differences. Filtering in and out of their lives are a teen lesbian couple, Maggie and Liz, and Trace's brother, Second Mike--so called as his mother named him after her first son who'd runaway and was presumed dead. Second Mike is a typical younger brother, fifteen, hovering about the older kids in his sister's life, sometimes annoyingly so.

One night while walking home from Trace's, our protagonist heads down Route 47 and stumbles upon the ghost of a high school football star who was killed on that road some 50 years before. Though our hero had heard the story before, it never involved the ghost speaking to anyone, and when he convinces Trace to come out to the highway on another night, he learns that the ghost only speaks to him. Smitten, he obsesses on the ghost and finds himself inexplicably "falling" for him. In short, our hero has found someone who in the real world would never give him the time of day, someone who makes him feel special. But as he has more and more encounters with his ghostly boyfriend and learns that the jock isn't the only ghost he attracts, things begin to feel a little more dangerous. What is it really that this ghost wants? Is he as gentle and loving as he seems? Or are there darker needs feeding this phantom's desire, some need that could prove fatal to all involved.

In Vintage, Berman has created a kindler, gentler ghost story-one that harkens back to days when tales of these types were devoid of massive gore and cynicism. Wisely, Berman never pushes things too far and mines humor where he can to keep things on track. When the boy finds himself falling in love with a ghost, the author is wise enough to have his characters understand the absurdity of that notion. And when our hero begins to see more and more ghosts, he sees the humor in it wondering when he became the kid from The Sixth Sense. Berman knows how far he can take the characters and wisely keeps them very real, appealing because they aren't stereotypes.

Berman also finds nice ways to pack a lot into very few words. Just by the fact that Second Mike was named after his dead brother, we're given a history without ever having to delve into its constituent parts. We can imagine what it must have been like for him to grow up in the shadow of a brother who had died before he was even born. And we learn a lot about our protagonist's outlook on life from two simple sentences: "I always thought my life would end up as an Araki film. Nothing by Burton." Trace is also nicely full character, a girl on the outside who is blooming into a womanhood of her own. She's a woman who is best friends with our gay hero, but hardly a "hag" as she's not so wrapped up in him that she puts her own life on the sideline.

With Trace, Second Mike and our protagonist, we have a nice trio of likeable characters and the piece works best when it stays focused on them and the plot. When we start wandering too far away from those three or the central story, the characters get a little thinner and the pace a little slower. Maggie and Liz tend to be drawn with a coarser brush than our core characters (I often go them confused, they seemed somewhat interchangeable), and the subplot with their characters is not as strong as it probably could have been had their personalities been drawn a little fuller. But soon the focus returns to the core group and the pace goes back to its nice, easy flow.

In the end, Berman has written a very nice YA piece that says a lot about self-acceptance, seeing beyond one's self, and discovering that love is more than infatuation. Yet, Berman never hammers any message home; it's all just easily woven into the book. A charming read that is part coming-of-age, part love story, and part horror story (with some genuinely creepy moments), Vintage may be directed at Young Adults, but its story is one which should appeal to a wide variety of ages.

Originally reviewed for Uniquely Pleasurable.
This was a book I took on the recommendation of Holly Black. (Author of Tithe, the Spiderwick Chronicles and such) I read through the book in one day because I just couldn't put it down. Unlike so much of the gay and lesbian fiction out there in the world, this story wasn't preaching to people about how hard it is to be gay. This story's soap box was all about how difficult it is to fall in love for the first time... especially when that first time happens to be a ghost.

The feelings in this book are universal. As a straight woman, I was was right there with our protagonist trying to figure out what my feelings were. The story is short but stunning, gripping but sweet. An absolutely wonderful read!
A lonely gay teen bides his time with trips to strangers' funerals and Ouija board sessions, desperately searching for someone to love--and a reason to live following a suicide attempt.

Walking an empty stretch of New Jersey highway on an autumn night, he meets a strange and beautiful boy who looks like he stepped out of a dream. But the vision becomes into a nightmare when the boy turns out to be the local urban legend, the ghost of a star athlete killed in 1957--a ghost with a deadly secret and a dangerous obsession.

Vintage: A Ghost Storyis an intense thriller that looks at the dark side of gay urban fantasy, where the dead can never rest and trapped spirits never find peace.
Rerations
< Vintage: A Ghost Story > < Wicked Gentlemen > < Hero > < Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie > < A Strong and Sudden Thaw > freaks

< Murder in the Garden District: A Chanse MacLeod Mystery > < Aloha Candy Hearts: A Russell Quant Mystery > < Mahu Vice: A Hawaiian Mystery > < Death in Key West: A Bradford Fairfax Murder Mystery > < Object of Desire > < The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks > Greg Herren

price：~~$4.78~~
Alyson Books
Not yet published

A leading candidate for the upcoming senatorial race and a scion of a Louisiana political dynasty is shot to death in his Garden District mansion, and the prime suspect is his much younger second wife with a checkered past. Detective Chanse MacLeod enters a world where nothing is as it seems, and uncovers the dark secrets of the state's first family-secrets someone is willing to kill to keep.

Greg Herrenis the author of four previous novels in the Chanse MacLeod series. He lives in New Orleans.

Rerations
< Murder in the Garden District: A Chanse MacLeod Mystery > < Aloha Candy Hearts: A Russell Quant Mystery > < Mahu Vice: A Hawaiian Mystery > < Death in Key West: A Bradford Fairfax Murder Mystery > < Object of Desire > freaks

< Gay and Single...Forever?: 10 Things Every Gay Guy Looking for Love (and Not Finding It) Needs to Know > < 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Find Real Love > < Ten Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives > < The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World > < Mr. Right Is out There: The Gay Man's Guide to Finding and Maintaining Love > < Boyfriend 101: A Gay Guy's Guide to Dating, Romance, and Finding True Love > Steven Bereznai

price：~~$3.51~~
Da Capo Press
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customer 's review
(A good read.)

(A good read.. but hardly a manual for us happily single)

(Vapid)

(Not a practical book for the single guy)

(LOOKING FOR LOVE....or not)

Books arent going to please everyone... some will speak to some and not others. That being said, I found this a nice read. This book doesnt present groundbreaking information, per se, but it does provide some good information and insightful views.
HI!
I forced myself to read this book twice.. once to simply tread, push, soldier, and wade through the pages of the author's sexcapades, his constant whining/pining, blaming, Ecstasy-induced, Cocaine-facilitated liaisons and to deal with the bleak future he gives gays--some from the interviews he conducted, but most from his own recollections.

My second reading was conducted to really go at it with a determination to be both objective and fair. I liked some of the realities and some of the socio-evolutionary findings. Yet, unfortunately, the second reading made me far more depressed than the first!

Is being a gay single defined solely as a life of clubbing, doing drugs, being obsessed with the body perfect (both yours and the body of the one you're interested in), having to work long hours to have money for a "plastic surgery fund", having sex at bath houses or with prostitutes (oh sorry.. they prefer to be called "escorts".. I tend to call things as they are) or F-buddies (call it what it is!), and basically whining about loves lost and this dark, dank, depressive whole he'd call a life; all the while trying to defy convention and not turning into, as he calls it, a "bitter sheila", but knowing you are slowly becoming one??

The advice he gives could have been given succinctly with clear bullet points and other resources; thereby cutting the book's size in half--and thus saving some of us the vapid tedium of wading through what amounts to a cross between "Bitter Sex and the City" and "Confessions of a Circuit Club Queen".

If his attempt was to be a mentor/role model that single, gay guys look up to, he failed! After the second reading of his book I was half-tempted to fix myself a Drain-o cocktail and end it all.

While there are parts of the book that were pretty interesting and actually hopeful (especially the sections and snippets where it's important to have friends who are in some ways truly family), the book as a whole was a total downer. I had expected much more in the way of positive, real-world realities, and a little less of his cruising confessional. If anything, he gave us a work that screams "WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW NOT TO BE"!!

Yeah, I'm really disappointed with this work.
To sum it up in one word: Vapid. Written by and about exactly the type of gay man(?) who makes me want to renounce my homosexualty. I am half way through this book and don't think I will be able to finish it. The meat of this book is a collection of woeful societial oppression collected&cited from other's works. It seems like a shallow circuit queen's way of excusing her own failure in the relationship arena.

I don't mean to seem bitter, but for around $10.85 Charlotte Kasl's "If the Buddha Dated" is a much better way to get in touch with yourself; Which seems to be the core message of this book.

Berenzai's book makes for the 11th thing I should know about being gay and single.
Sorry, this book wasn't for me. I gave it a chance, but its language just didn't reach out to me. But mostly, it just wasn't practical enough for me. There were interesting stories shared, like the one where the "friends with benefits" guy actually steps up and helps the author paint in a moment of crisis. Don't get me wrong, that was really sweet. There were a few moments like that.

But I'm newly single and trying to figure out how to date, and this didn't help me do that. I was looking for bulleted lists. Checklists. Nuts and bolts. Succinct and discrete steps. I didn't get that.
Bereznai, Steven, Gay and Single...Forever?: 10 Things Every Gay Guy Looking for Love (and Not Finding It) Needs to Know. Avalon 2006

Wow!!!!!!! That is a title for you. Here in this original, quite brave and easily arguable book comes a formula on what and what not to do about being single. The thesis concerns whether it is better to be single or not. It seems that since we became "liberated" after Sonewall, after the marches on Washington and after the multitude of changes in attitudes toward us, that gay men are opting to be, shall we say, unattached. Yet, on the other hand, there is a great deal being said about being partnered. Bereznai examines the issues of whether there is room for a single gay guy in today's modern society. He does this by interviews with gay men, through personal revelations and with detailed commentary based on both psychological and social thought. He wrote this book for us, and especially for the man who wants to stay single.

Berenzai starts off by telling us that the talk of gay marriage and being partnered, which has been such a hot topic of conversation, is "whimsy" as long as there are so many more important issues facing us. Yet essentially the struggle today is for equality--the enemy has not changed--it is still hate and fear. In other words, it is the same old war, just the battles are different.

This book is the result of a search for intimacy at a time when "gay singles are the new pariahs". (Interesting thought). Bereznai uses his own state of perpetual singledom as he sets out to explain his work. And what he has discovered while being single releases his thoughts about the needs of gay men and thereby gives a chronology of the shifting of relationships and how this has affected the cultural and political life of the entire gay community. His writing is heartfelt and witty at the same time. Although he writes from the heart, he doesn't ignore the mind or the other parts of the body. His remarks are "right on", sometimes so true that they hurt. This is a book for all those who live without love but want it very badly. There are times that I felt I was reading Carrie Bradshaw's column. One critic has called this book the "new gay bible". It certainly will help you understand why you never brought the lucky guy home to meet the folks.

Allow me to share some of the chapter titles with you. We start off with "Gay is good--being gay and single used to be, too". How about "Husbands and boyfriends don't guarantee happiness" and "Boyfriends can be like prostitutes---Prostitutes can be like boyfriends". And then there is my favorite, "Wanting to be with someone is natural....not wanting to stay with him is, too" Paul Rudnick, the gay playwright is quoted on the back cover, "Being gay and single is the new smoking. It won't be socially acceptable anymore, and you will have to go outside." That pretty well sums the book up.

Gay Is Good. Gay and Single Used to Be, Too…"Being gay and single is the new smoking," playwright Paul Rudnick has said. "It won’t be socially acceptable anymore, and you will have to go outside." Rudnick’s hilarious formulation--which cuts right to the heart of the idea that being gay and single is emerging as a new sort of pariah status--is the starting point for this original, brave, and compellingly argued book.

Journalist Steven Bereznai--presentable, accomplished, well educated, successful, and in his early 30s--has never had a boyfriend. "Is Singlesville my final destination?" Bereznai wonders. Or does a partner await? And what does he reallywant? To pair up, or to maintain the independence of a single life? Now inGay and Single . . . Forever?,Bereznai investigates the basic question of whether there can be acceptance for him and other single gay men—assingle men—where the push to partner with a man has replaced the pressure to marry a woman.

Bringing together a perfect mix of personal narrative, historical research, interviews with dozens of gay men--including Andrew Holleran, Michael Bronski, and Wayson Choy--and intensely penetrating social and psychological insight, Gay and Single ...Forever ?will resonate deeply among gay men--many of whom, even today, spend most of their lives not in a relationship.
Rerations
< Gay and Single...Forever?: 10 Things Every Gay Guy Looking for Love (and Not Finding It) Needs to Know > < 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Find Real Love > < Ten Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives > < The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World > < Mr. Right Is out There: The Gay Man's Guide to Finding and Maintaining Love > freaks

< Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South > < The Plantation Mistress > < Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Dover Thrift Editions) > < Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Gender and American Culture) > < When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection (Dover Thrift Editions) > < The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South > Deborah Gray White

price：~~$5.10~~
Co.
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customer 's review
(A good start)

(Sojourner's Truth Goes Marching On)

(Female Slaves)

(Ar'n't I A Woman?)

(My Review)

In her Ar'n't I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (1985), Deborah Gray White primarily challenges and corrects John W. Blassingame's singular focus on male slaves and masculinity, which was a product of the African-American males' Men's Rights Movement, so to speak. White is also adding to historiographical debates begun by Stanley Elkins, who says slavery made Africans into submissive, child-like individuals; Kenneth M. Stampp, who denies slaves had culture; and Eugene D. Genovese, who focuses on culture but uses the theory of paternalism focusing on slavery as a relationship based on consensus. Ultimately, however, all of these works serve as revisionist histories of U.B. Phillips's American Negro Slavery.

White's monograph is also the byproduct of the Civil Rights Movement and of the Women's Rights Movement. Although a precise date for the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement is impossible, it was clearly in progress with the Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. This movement awakened the attention of historians and the public to recognize and study the agency and equality of black Americans. Prior to the late 1960s and 1970s, all women, black or white, were generally excluded from the historian's scrutiny; therefore, it is not exceptional that it took until 1985 for enslaved African women to truly receive scholarly attention. Furthermore, whether consciously or unconsciously, these then contemporary events influenced White's choice of a topic, if only because of the new attention these minorities received. White was the first scholar to truly study enslaved black women.

Although their responsibilities were different, African-American women, like men, were slaves in the American South during the colonial and antebellum period. These women, like their male counterparts, were all individuals who were neither singularly submissive, caring, and/or sexual, nor superhuman as the "Jezebel" and "Mammy" stereotypes/archetypes disseminate. Female slaves did face a "double oppression" due to the combination of their race and sex (23). They also had dual responsibilities working for their masters and for their families. White primarily focuses on the antebellum period, but she also briefly covers emancipation and the re-enslavement of African-Americans after the Civil War. White argues on the assumption that female slaves experienced a different slavery than men and had different responsibilities.

"The Nature of Female Slavery" is White's most effective chapter because it truly addresses her concerns in writing this book. It recognizes women as individuals with agency. It specifically looks at women as slaves. This chapter focuses on disease, violence, resistance, and childbirth in the lives of slave women. In other chapters, information tends to be somewhat disorganized and redundant at times. Perhaps an organization by themes such as resistance, mothers, fields, etc. would help improve this. White's focus does not stay singularly on women and their experiences. Overall, White's monograph reads more like a series of articles.

White accomplishes a great deal in Ar'n't I a Woman, but she also leaves more than enough room for future historians to expand the scholarship of African-American female slavery. White concentrates on women who lived and worked on cotton plantations. Rice, indigo, tobacco, sugar, and hemp, for example, were also grown in the South by slaves. Foodstuffs such as rice have a prerequisite for gang labor and allow less free time, thus allowing male and female slaves less time to cultivate relationships, bare children, and transmit culture. By focusing on one type of plantation and generalizing that experience, White homogenizes the experience of women, probably often leading to a better picture than reality allows. In order to truly understand slavery the individual differences that comprise these individual women need recognition. Ar'n't I a Woman also neglects, like other works, to shed light on the true and multiple horrors of slavery. Readers are not left with an impression of slavery's brutality. Sexual exploitation by whites is discussed, but the complexity and consequences of it are not discussed. In some ways, White does not contribute completely new and original information as much as she re-conceptualizes and re-phrases the story of women found in earlier scholarship. Ar'n't I a Woman seems to have been written before the sources were readily available that would enable this to be a more unified, sophisticated, and comprehensive analysis. WPA interviews were heavily relied upon due to the lack of sources revealing the female slave experience. Ar'n't I a Woman is important and should continue to be read because it is a first in the field of slavery.

February Is Black History Month. March Is Women's History Month

I have mentioned more than once in this space, dedicated as it is to looking at material from American history and culture that may not be well-known or covered in the traditional canon, that the last couple of scholarly generations have done a great deal to enhance our knowledge of American micro-history. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in the study of American slavery and its effects on subsequent history for the society and for the former slaves. The book under review represents one such effort in bringing the previously muddled and incomplete story of the triply-oppressed black women (race, gender and class) to the surface.

As the author, Deborah Gray White, has pointed out in her introduction the general subject of the American slave trade, its place in the culture and the general effects of plantation life on the slave has been covered rather fully since the 1950's and 1960's. However, she set as her task filling the gap left by the mainly male historians (Elkins, Genovese, Apteker,et. al) who tended to treat the plantation slave population as an undifferentiated mass. Ms. Gray White undertook to correct that situation with this 1985 initial attempt to amplify the historical record. Although other, later researches have expanded this field (as a sub-set of women's history, at the very least) this is definitely the place to start. I might add that copious footnotes and bibliography give plenty of ammunition for any argument that the female slave has been under-appreciated, under-studied and misunderstood within the context of the historical dispute of the effects of slavery on the structure of the black family and black cultural life.

Ms. Gray White set up a five pronged attack on the then current (up to 1985) conceptions about the role of the female slave: the always `hot button' and continuing controversy over her role as sexual "Jezebel" or asexual "Mother Earth" nurturing Mammy: her central economic role in the upkeep of the plantation and of the slave quarters: her critical role as "breeder" of children in order to maintain the laboring population and slave-owners' profits; her relationship to other females on the plantation and the division of labor among them by age, child-bearing status and health; and, the myths or misconceptions about black families, marriage and culture.

As part of Ms. Gray White's argument she has addressed the thorny issue of the female slave as a sexual object (to both white and black men) on the one hand and her critical role of 'nurturer' to the next generation of slaves on the other. This is a tension that in many ways has not been resolved even in post-slavery times and so was worthy of her attention (and ours today, as well). Moreover, this ambivalence flows over into the kinds of work the female slave was expected to perform at various stages of her life as a "breeder" and the differential treatment she received by the slave-owners at various stages of that cycle. Ms. Gray White also has some interesting things to say about female social solidarity (and rivalries) in the workplace and in the cabins. The age old question of social hierarchy between "house" and "field" slaves also gets her close attention.

Additionally, Ms. Gray covers a then relatively new topic (brought about by male historian's conception of the female slave as dominating the family structure and therefore producing the stereotypical "Sapphire"). Although she has not provided any really new information about the economic and social structure of plantation life (which drove Southern society in the ante-bellum period in everything from national politics to "correct" racial attitudes among non-slave-owning whites) her great achievement is to give voice to the differences between male and female slaves that had not been previously appreciated.

Perhaps the most important scholarly achievement in this little book however is her challenge to the orthodoxy about the female dominance of black family life on the plantation and its effects on post-slavery life. This additional `hot-button' issue gets fully outlined here. To seek further insight in this issue today look at other sources to see how the arguments have continued not only as a question of historical importance but national social policy.

Deborah Gray White writes tellingly about the double evils faced by the Black woman of the old South: racism and sexism. Truly, they faced a lack of personhood at every turn.

The author weaves together quotes from enslaved Black women to tell her story. As other reviewers have noted, there does tend to be something of a feel of a feminist slant to the writing. I certainly would not argue against her basic premise of White male abuse of Black female slaves. However, having researched the White female slave owners, I would contend that women of the South were as guilty as the men of evil and condoning evil.

Reading firsthand accounts of these Black "sisters of the spirit" is the only way to truly gain a feel for what they endured and the larger cultural evils. Three examples include: "Behind the Scenes," "The House of Bondage," and "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl."

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction , Spiritual Friends, and Soul Physicians.
In the book Ar'n't I a Woman?, by Deborah Gray White, the reader is challenged by the author to set previous notions regarding American slave women aside to understand the truth, which has long been elusive to the majority of Americans. Over the course of the work, White shocks and appalls the reader in an attempt to inform her readers about the horrors and injustices that slave women were forced to deal with on a regular basis. In doing so, the author makes her point abundantly clear and leaves little question as to the authenticity of her research and work.

White begins her work quite firmly. She discusses two of the great myths of female slavery: Jezebel and Mammy. The author promptly exposes the lie that slave women were promiscuous, dirty women with an unquenchable lust for white men. She asserts, "The choice put before many slave women was between miscegenation and the worst experiences that slavery had to offer. Not surprisingly, many chose the former" (34). As a result, the act of the slave woman giving in to the sexual advances of her white owner branded her as unchaste, a Jezebel. The second stereotype discussed is that of mammy, the nurturing black woman who cares for the white children. Both of these stereotypes are important to note, not only because of their historical significance and their supreme effect on Caucasian beliefs, but also because White ties these ideas through the rest of her work.

After successfully debunking the myths regarding female slaves in America in the first chapter, White goes into great depth regarding the actual lives and hardships that slave women faced daily. For example, White paints a portrait of the female slave that depicts her as just as hard working, if not moreso, than her male counterparts. However, though her work in the fields was important, her true value was placed in keeping the male slaves sexually satisfied and reproducing new generations of slaves. As a result, most female slaves had families, though more disconnected than those of the American whites. The main reason for slave marriages, according to the author, was "to add to the comfort, happiness, and health of those entering upon it" (99). Indeed, even the supposedly sacred act of marriage was not off limits to Caucasian exploitation. As a result, the female slave trade did not highlight the hard-working nature of the slave, but rather her physical attractiveness, for the benefit of both the male slave and the slave owner. While all slaves were considered products, female slaves in particular were, quite literally, viewed as little more than sexual objects. This stigma did not immediately escape the black woman at emancipation either. White states, "From emancipation through more than two-thirds of the twentieth century, no Southern white male was convicted of raping or attempting to rape a black woman. Yet the crime was widespread" (188). Due to these injustices, the American people are too often subjected to an inaccurate portrait of the female slave and her female descendants, and therefore miss out on a truly inspiring individual.

In her work, Deborah Gray White tears apart the common misconceptions of female slaves and depicts a person that is loving, family-oriented, and hard-working. However, the book, though relatively brief in length can be a tedious read at times. Though White validates her assertions with just a few sources and anecdotes, she relentlessly re-asserts with numerous additional examples which come across as both unnecessary and excessive. As a result, Ar'n't I a Woman at times seems distractingly repetitive for the majority of its pages. In addition, the book could also present itself as an overtly feminist text, which has the potential to turn off many of today's readers of both genders. Though White places some of the blame for conditions and roles of slave women on Caucasian females, she undoubtedly places the majority of the blame on white men. However, it perhaps would have been more accurate and beneficial for her to blame Southern, and American, society as a whole, as Caucasian men were just a product of a long-standing tradition. Despite these obstacles, however, White cannot be discredited for her tireless pursuit to uncover the truth and discredit the myths that have haunted African-American women for centuries. Indeed, if she has accomplished anything, it is the true emancipation of America's most discriminated class.

I have not yet read this book. It looks exciting and I hope I enjoy it. I am reading this book for a report in JROTC.
Living with the dual burdens of racism and sexism, slave women in the plantation South assumed roles within the family and community that contrasted sharply with traditional female roles in the larger American society. This new edition of Ar'n't I a Woman? reviews and updates the scholarship on slave women and the slave family, exploring new ways of understanding the intersection of race and gender and comparing the myths that stereotyped female slaves with the realities of their lives. Above all, this groundbreaking study shows us how black women experienced freedom in the Reconstruction South-their heroic struggle to gain their rights, hold their families together, resist economic and sexual oppression, and maintain their sense of womanhood against all odds.
Rerations
< Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South > < The Plantation Mistress > < Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Dover Thrift Editions) > < Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Gender and American Culture) > < When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection (Dover Thrift Editions) > freaks

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