5 gold stars! This was fantastic. Every gay person should read this. It is a collection of essays about gay issues that are current and relevant and aggravating. I actually learned a bit from a few of these perspectives.

I disliked a lot of this book. I liked a lot of it also. Most of all, I found myself wanting to talk about the subjects raised with everyone all the time, in an attempt to figure out how I felt about all of things it churned up, and also just because there were interesting ideas to discuss.

I got this book for Christmas. Every year I peruse the Lambda Literary Awards and this was nominated in the LGBT Anthology section. As a progressive queer activist in college I’ve read some of the other works edited by Mattilda including That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation. This is a collection along the same lines as others in that there are 30 short entries with most about 4-5 pages each as the book ends at 208 pages.I was interested in reading this because as a somew...

A disjointed collection of stories and essays. From the title, I was expecting essays relating to gay assimilation vs. cultivating a separate culture. Instead, this is mostly short personal memoirs, often in an academic style. I was disappointed and just skimmed the stories for a while. But I got caught up in some of the stories and am ultimately glad I read the collection.

A few solid essays, but mostly disappointing - almost nothing directly grapples with toxic masculinity/misogyny in gay male communities, and some don't even address it indirectly, and most essays have some cis guy praising the "good looks" of some white thin able-bodied cis guy. Also a weird story from a prison security guards POV that is supposed to be sympathetic bc she says she doesnt hate gay men? Disappointing.

Being gay isn't a choice, but have you ever wondered if there's a different way of living your gay life? One not prescribed by The Advocate and Out and a white, fratboy-esque, dude pornography? Well, then, this book is for you. Gay Marriage and gay people serving in the military may sound good on paper, but have you ever wondered why Marriage and the Military are so freaking important? Isn't there another way of being? Being gay should call into question some of the traditions of society, so why...

This book has to be the most powerful collection of essays I've read in my life, especially relating to queer identify and gender performance. I'm grateful for the good fortune I had to stumble upon this text. Each essay is brilliantly written and boldly attacks common prescriptions of how we should think of gender and sexuality. Some of these essays made me uncomfortable, exposing my AIDS-phobia as the oppressive monster it is, others made me cry, narrating agonies with which I am intimately ac...

Giving this a 3 because there are most certainly voices worth hearing in this collection. Otherwise though, this is such a mess. Uneven mix of personal, political and cultural essays. They make sense in terms of their subject matter, but the presentation and depth don't sync much. Most are anecdotal and speak in a reactive manner, like just expressing emotion and not going much deeper. There's a place for that, most definitely, but this book wants to sell itself as more than outbursts of feeling...

This was very, very interesting. Lot to digest here. Longer review when I have time.

Started in Summer '16 (shortly before Pulse), abandoned in Fall '16 as I got wrapped up in stress. Finished in Oct '17 in a much different climate for the queer person, especially the one challenging "assigned" masculinity. Disparate (especially as you move towards the end of the collection where the essays become much more spread-out in subject matter), but worth at least checking out the CAConrad, Michael J. Faris/ML Sugie, and especially the Eric A. Stanley and Horehound Stillpoint ones.

These essays span the horizons of gender, race, class, occupation, and even sexuality. I was amazed at the level of diversity in this book-- though I suppose that’s the point, it was still amazing to read in an anthology multiple essays by people of color, not just one that is the “token brown person” so everyone knows your anthology isn’t racist. Even the methodology of writing was diverse: some were straight narrative, some were prosey introspection, some were critical analysis, and so forth.

Disappointing. I like to think that the disappointment I feel with this anthology is sourced in the authors' disappointment with the successes of gentrification and assimilation. Whereas the first two (That's Revolting! and Nobody Passes, respectively) were, albeit sometimes average collections, a pretty good reflection on history, advocacy, opportunity, and the complexity of identity - this one instead seems to give up while desperately kicking and screaming for a better world, the one they wan...

This anthology showcases the blood, sweat and tears of the proudly deviant, where being queer is sensual and filthy, and homonormativity and whitewashing can take a seat. With the neo-liberal hyper masculine social circles that now dominate every aspect of gay life its made for a little literary oasis for this punk ass queer femme. Some standouts for me are Jones' The Unlikely Barebacker, Fagan's My fear, The Forces Beneath; and Clarkson's Penis is Important for That. But it was Ezra RedEagle W...

disgusting. and so much fun!

Some of the essays were great. Many were thought-provoking. Some of them, as with Sycamore's other book ("That's Revolting!"), were filled with a misguided nostalgia for "the good old days" - you know, when gay bars were run by the mafia, queer people faced more serious repression, etc. There's also - and I'm writing as a gay man who works to fight economic injustice with poor mothers - a very disconcerting anti-child stance that permeates a few of the essays.And can we admit that just like ther...

The essays in this book are some of the most visceral, intense pieces of writing I've ever read. The dogmatism and self-analysis that cluttered MBS' previous anthologies are minimized, if not gone. Instead, the book pushes you headlong into the subjective reality of everything that's wrong with our current consumerist macho queer culture--into being closeted in prison, fucking bareback while HIV positive, and a thousand other fucked up experiences. And these vignettes are a better argument again...

Sycamore does exactly what Sycamore tells the Society has done to the gays: use offensive language to cajole, to make them fit into an expected shape.

3 1/2 out of 5, I think. I really wanted to love this book -- I wanted this to be the best book I had ever read in gender and sexuality studies, a book that I could use in a syllabus should I ever start teaching. And in parts of this, it delivered just that: a bold critique of masculinity, internalized homophobia, patriarchy, and transphobia in the gay community. Queers from their early 20s to their 60s and 70s give firsthand accounts of their personal struggles with objectification throughout

I needed a dose of liberation when I received this book in the mail from a friend. Consumerist forces and the need to fit a certain body type to feel attractive have plagued gay male subcultures in the United States for a long time. This book mostly filled the need for a dialogue on some of these issues by offering up a sobering number of perspectives in the form of essays. That being said, I can't help but expect more from a book that claims to challenge rather than reaffirm problematic subcult...

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots, edited by Mattilda Bernstein SycamoreI hesitated a long time before reading this book. It’s been on my shelf for about a year. I have never been a deliberately provocative queer. Femmeness has never felt comfortable on my body. I have never liked the term “faggot,” laden with schoolboy hatred often preserved by homophobic masculinity far past boyhood. Still, the bright pink, the glitter, the obvious queerness of the cover dripping out of urine receptacles de...