Book Review - Nurturing Queer Youth: Family Therapy Transformed

Addressing the needs of those who come out in late childhood or adolescence.Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth are coming out at younger and younger ages. The authors provide a unique approach for addressing sexual identity issues during this turbulent stage of life, as they instruct therapists in how to lead the whole family toward a positive understanding of a son's or daughter's sexual orientation. Rich in case examples and therapeutic wisdom, this book promises to have a significant impact on family therapy.

Book Review - VICE VERSA : Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life

Despite the flood of sexuality theory and queer cultural studies in 20th-century academia, bisexuality--and the many questions and problems surrounding it--has been little considered. In Vice Versa, Marjorie Garber, director of the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Harvard University, takes on this enormous project with refreshing academic rigor and compelling enthusiasm. Covering cultural influences from antiquity through early psychoanalysis to such recent provocateurs as Geraldo Rivera and Susie Bright, Garber calls into question the basic underpinnings of even the most radical views of human sexuality. She suggests that bisexuality is "not just another sexual orientation but rather a sexuality that undoes sexual orientation as a category," and leads us through the ensuing ruckus with wit and grace.

Vice Versa offers personal accounts, clinical studies, and analysis from every possible camp to demonstrate Garber's thesis that bisexuality as an idea and an experience "disappears" or is erased from our discussions of sexuality at every turn through the normalizing (not to mention limiting) influence of the terms of the discussion itself. Her call to recognize bisexuality as not only valid but deeply transgressive--and therefore useful--in our culture is urgent and marked by a great affection for her subjects, from Freud to Madonna. "One of the key purposes of studying bisexuality is not to get people to 'admit' they 'are' bisexual," she says, "but rather to restore to them and the people they have loved the full, complex, and often contradictory stories of their lives." --Jessica Peterson

Book Review - Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex

In Bodies That Matter, Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most ``material'' dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in Gender Trouble, Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the ``matter'' of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain ``sex'' from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She offers a clarification of the notion of ``performativity'' introduced in Gender Trouble and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; ``Paris is Burning,'' Nella Larsen's ``Passing,'' and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of ``performativity'' and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory.

Book Review - The World in Us : Lesbian and Gay Poetry of the Next Wave

Twenty years ago, an anthology of poetry by openly gay and lesbian writers would have been uneven at best, and at worst an embarrassment. Even now, as the editors of this watershed volume attest, a number of our more accomplished poets (mostly of the "pre-Stonewall generation") decline to have their sexual identities made public, or their work associated with gay and lesbian culture. One hopes that their reluctance won't prevent them from reading The World in Us and being dazzled--or shamed--by the daring and eclectic work of these 46 living, midcareer writers who are actively producing queer-themed poetry. With such a wide variety of work included, there's something here for almost everyone, although aficionados of pop culture will be especially pleased, with poems devoted to David Cassidy (Dennis Cooper's "David Cassidy Then"), Marlo Thomas (Jeffrey Conway's "Marlo Thomas in Seven Parts and Epilogue"), and the glamorous Kennedys (Eileen Myles's "An American Poem"). Among the well-established poets here are Marilyn Hacker, David Trinidad, Rafael Campo, and Olga Broumas (represented by a somewhat eccentric selection), while a number of the novices included are young poets involved in the burgeoning spoken-word movement. Each of these writers offers a jolt or a caress, ample evidence of the richness of the poetry scene and the extravagant talents of queer writers. In particular, don't miss the work of Cyrus Cassell, Wayne Koestenbaum (author of The Queen's Throat), or Minnie Bruce Pratt. "We hardly need a place at anyone else's table," the editors note, "when our own dining room is full to bursting." --Regina Marler