From Amazon.com
"We are your worst fear," went one 1970s rallying cry among gay activists. "We are your best fantasy." Michael Bronski runs with that paradoxical notion, arguing that "straights" are correct to believe that homosexuals represent a threat to the values of Western civilization--and that's a
good thing. What they fear (and resent) most in homosexuality, Bronski argues, is the ability of homosexuals to simply enjoy themselves, to take the pleasures of sexuality without the cultural baggage of reproductive responsibility and social conformity. Consequently, the "unique position" of homosexuals "as sexual outsiders endows them with an unparalleled vision for cultural and social change."
Bronski deftly deals with a dizzying array of post-WWII American history and culture, from the battles between homophile assimilationists and gay liberationists to the media controversy surrounding Pee-Wee Herman's arrest and the rise of lesbian chic. He makes a strong case both for the vitality of gay culture (including sexuality) and the necessity of explicitly recognizing the contributions that it has made and continues to make to mainstream culture. "Only when those in the dominant culture realize that they are better off acting like gay people," Bronski writes, "will the world change and be a better, safer, and more pleasurable place for everyone." --Ron Hogan
From Publishers Weekly
"For decades," writes Boston gay cultural critic Bronski (Culture Clash), "conservative psychoanalysts, religious leaders, and politicians have charged that homosexuality is about nothing more than having sex; that homosexuals are 'obsessed' with sex; that homosexuality is a 'flight' from the responsibilities of 'mature' sexuality. And they are right." Though occupying an uneasy middle ground between the academic and the mainstream (reflected in its clear but occasionally fussy prose), Bronski's book is important as a long-overdue addition to the discussion of gayness and sexuality in general in the U.S. In devoting the greatest part of his argument to the relationship of gay sex to pure pleasure, and to the lessons in pleasure learned by the rest of society from the gay example, Bronski is able to deal with issues that nearly all sides of the debate have tended to shy away from. Bronski draws compelling and broadly considered parallels between homophobia and anti-Semitism and provides a useful history of the development of ghettos as a way that various societies have handled unassimilable minorities. Though he forthrightly takes on the issue of children and homosexuality, he is at his weakest there for relying heavily on correspondences and opinions that seem inconclusive. Yet his book reminds us that before matters of sexuality?homo-, hetero- or otherwise?can be resolved, sexuality itself and the concept of pleasure must be confronted head on.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
