Pomosexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality [Paperback]

We live in a complicated world, and according to PoMoSexuals, it is a lot more complicated than we thought. Now that society has become accustomed to the idea that gay men and lesbians exist, Lawrence Schimel and Carol Queen have brought together 15 essays dedicated to demolishing those categories. They are not, of course, arguing that homosexuals don't exist, but simply that these categories and words cannot do justice to the wondrous complexity of human sexuality. In PoMoSexuals you can read about heterosexual women who identify as gay men, the politics of placing a transgendered personal ad, and how trendy gay male ghetto culture is less about sexual liberation than brand-name accumulation. No matter what your sexual identity is, PoMoSexuals will startle and enlighten, provoke and entertain.

As the gay and lesbian movement heads toward the mainstream, the trans movement is left behind at the margins, virtually alone in challenging the way society constructs and defines gender and sexuality. The executive director of GenderPac, Wilchins combines personal narrative, essay, photojournalism, history, and a critique of the feminist and queer movements to present a unified rage against gender-based oppression. In her enlightening and moving book, she challenges us to break out of our boxes and view gender, eroticism, oppression, and persecution through the eyes of a strident member of the trans community. Covering much of the same territory, PoMoSexuals gives voice to 15 people living in the gray areas of gender and sexuality who struggle with what it means to have "nonstandard" erotic desires and identities in America. They represent people on the margins of gender and sexuality, ranging from a man who becomes a lesbian woman to a heterosexual woman exploring her attraction to gay men and a lesbian who writes gay male porn. These eye-opening stories carry us into the lives of people we don't usually encounter. The collection varies in quality, but pieces by well-known authors, such as Dorothy Allison and Pat Califia, help to carry the rest of the work. Wilchins also offers a powerful autobiographical essay. Academic libraries with gay/lesbian and feminist collections should include both books in their collections.?Jerilyn Veldof, Univ. of Arizona Lib., Tucson
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

PoMoSexuals dishes up an all-star cast of articulate, witty gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered authors - all of whom want to explode your assumptions about sexuality : Pat Califia, Dorothy Allison, Laura Antoniou, Jill Nagle, Ricki Anne Wilchins, Michael Thomas Ford, Scott O'Hara, Marco Vassi, Carol Queen, John Weir, D. Travers Scott, Greta Christina.

PoMo: short for PostModern: in the arts, a movement following after and in direct reaction to Modernism; culturally, an outlook that acknowledges diverse and complex points of view. PoMoSexual: the queer erotic reality beyond the boundaries of gender, separatism, and essentialist notions of sexual orientation. "How about you? Ever wonder if you're the only one who doesn't quite fit in one of the sanctioned queer worlds? Like, are you really a lesbian? Are you really a gay man? Maybe you fall outside the 'permitted' labels, and maybe you're the only one who knows you do, and so you feel a bit guilty? Well, I've got news for you. You're not guilty, you're simply postmodern. Isn't that neat? If you don't believe me, all you need to do is pick up this book and start reading anywhere. Really. I keep a copy in my bathroom because that's where I do a lot of my wondering. From revelation to analysis, from XX to XY and back again, PoMoSexuals is the literary amusement park we've all been hoping exists someplace. Carol Queen and Lawrence Schimel have found Oz" - KATE BORNSTEIN By the editors of Switch Hitters: Lesbians Write Gay Male Erotica and Gay Men Write Lesbian Erotica

Carol Queen is the author of The Leatherdaddy and the Femme (Cleis Press, 1998), Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture (Cleis Press) and Exhibitionism for the Shy (Down There Press). A second novel, a collection of short stories, and more sex education material are in the works. Her erotic stories have appeared in Best Gay Erotica 1996, Best American Erotica 1993 and 1994, Doing It For Daddy, Looking for Mr. Preston, Herotica 2, 3, and 4, Virgin Territory, Leatherwomen, Noirotica, Coming Up: The World's Best Erotic Writing, and Once Upon a Time: Lesbian Erotic Fairy Tales. Her essays about sex and culture have appeared in The Erotic Impulse, Madonnarama, Women of The Light, Dagger, Bi Any Other Name, The Second Coming, and Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries and Visions. She has contributed to such 'zines and journals as Taste of Latex, Frighten the Horses, Libido, Slippery When Wet, Black Sheets, The Realist, P-Form, The Advocate, Girljock, The Insurgent Sociologist, and The San Francisco Bay Guardian, and a monthly column in the Bay Area sex newspaper Spectator. She lives in San Francisco, is a worker/owner at Good Vibrations, and is recently received a doctorate in sexology.