November 06, 2004

Book Review - Up All Night : Adventures in Lesbian Sex

In the tradition of the erotic bestsellers Skin Deep and Early Embraces, Up All Night presents the uncensored sizzling words of real women describing their hottest, wildest erotic adventures.

Stacy Bias is the founder of Technodyke.com, the gathering place for the web-savvy dyke. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is an editorial assistant at On Our Backs and has contributed writings to Starf*cker, Best Lesbian Erotica 2001, and Hot & Bothered 3. She lives in New York City.

November 04, 2004

Book Review - Bi Any Other Name : Bisexual People Speak Out

Customer Review

Even now, as in 1991 when this compilation of essays was published, a communnity for the bisexual person is essentially non-existent and, if contemporary studies are accurate, its members face prejudices that not even the gay community had in its evolution. "Bi Any Other Name," one of the pioneering publications that even acknowledged much less discussed in detail the dynamics being bi, is a worthy and valid read for both men and women whose dual attractions come with a sense of isolation and self-doubt. The essays here elicit the experiences of emotions of men and women bisexuals who share their own personal issues of loneliness, shame and secrecy and, for many, how they found the courage to come to terms with themselves and the sexual mores that sometimes condemn them. Especially now, when contemporary (2003) research indicates that bisexuals are literally hated even more than gays (with the rationale being that bi's introduced AIDS into the "straight" community?), the stories of the people featured in this book may provide a source of strength and a sense that the individual is not truly alone. For an early effort, this collection of personal stories may well be more relevant now than then.

November 03, 2004

Book Review - Talking In The Dark (Push Poetry)

This is a memoir that is lived in moments. The moments you know - when you see your parents' marriage dissolving, when you realize you're a boy who likes boys, when you speak the truth and don't know if it will be heard. The moments you don't recognize until later - when you leave things unsaid (even to yourself), when you feel your boyfriend letting go, when you give up on love. And the moment you get love back. In an amazing narrative of poems, Billy Merrell tells an ordinary story in an extraordinary way.

November 01, 2004

Book Review - The Commitment : Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family

The true story of a marriage (not really), a lovable and relentless mother, a six-year old who says his parents cannot get married (but wants to go to the reception), a partner who doesn’t want to act like a straight person, and the author, who has written a hilarious and poignant memoir about making "The Commitment."

There is no hotter issue than gay marriage in the culture-war debate, and Dan Savage, one of America’s most outspoken and beloved columnists, takes it on and makes it personal in this rollicking memoir of coming to terms with the very public act of marriage. What he discovers will make readers—gay or straight, right or left, single or married—howl with laughter as well as rethink their notions of marriage and all that it entails.

October 31, 2004

Book Review - The New Gay Teenager

Gay, straight, bisexual: how much does sexual orientation matter to a teenager's mental health or sense of identity? In this down-to-earth book, filled with the voices of young people speaking for themselves, Savin-Williams argues that the standard image of gay youth presented by mental health researchers--as depressed, isolated, drug-dependent, even suicidal--may have been exaggerated even twenty years ago, and is far from accurate today.