This is definitely more for pro-gay therapists than their gay male clients. It's a lifespan text, ranging from childhood memories to the aging process. One of the last sections is on gay men and aging. This ads to the growing and needed literature on older gay men. This book is full of exercises and thus might not go as in depth as readers who want to delve deeply into various topics. Key issues covered here are drug recovery, AIDS, depression, etc. The author works out of New Mexico, rather than San Francisco, so I think he's probably had to work with gay men that have had to face much homophobia outside of many coastal, liberal environments.

Professor Hill Collins asserts that Black Americans will not be able to advance at the rate they could unless they develop a progressive gender politics. Many activist black women have critiqued the overall community for not taking gender issues seriously. Still, this book gives it a fresh perspective that takes multiple identities into account, especiall in the post-civil rights era.

Hill Collins does a fantastic job in stressing that Black Americans are not a monolithic group. In her discussion about the media, she looks at black portrayals dividing depictions by gender and class-based groups. In discussing marriage, she analyzes "same race, opposite gender" mandates as they affect straight sistas, straight brothas, and Black gay men and lesbians separately. She understands that identities do not work in isolation by sit side by side continually interacting with each other.

Hill Collins does an excellent job in showing how all Black people are affected by any oppression. She shows that straight Blacks are harmed by heterosexism too since that same system that deems gays deviants deem Blacks globally as hypersexual. In a chapter on gender violence, she claims that Black men who dismiss the rape of Black women may feel differently given that so many Black men are being raped in jails.

Many talking heads say that older Americans are not as eager to employ new technologies. However, Hill Collins, a graying woman, does well in mentioning how the internet and other new technologies are affecting Black folk. Her analysis of J.Lo, the film "Booty Call", and the rap "Get Yo' Freak On" shows that she is very knowledgeable about youth culture.

I was disappointed how little sexual orientation matters got brought up in her "Fighting Words." However, in this book, she demonstrates thoroughly that she stands against homophobia. Not only is there a whole chapter dedicated to condemning heterosexism, gay issues are laced into every chapter. Like Guy-Sheftall's recent work, she is really trying to push Black thinkers that only want to talk about race, class, and gender (purposely in that order) to the exclusion of sexual orientation. She even praises media depictions of Black lesbian and gay characters.

It's funny that bell hooks is the most famous Black feminist when Hill Collins outshines her here by leaps and bounds. Hill Collins isn't as repetitive and demeaning. Her work isn't dependent upon personal anecdotes. She takes sexual orientation seriously and not just as a side issue. She dedicated to helping Black gays and lesbians and not just yelling that straight Blacks aren't homophobic. I can't wait for the day when Hill Collins gets all the credit she deserves.

Many might not like this book. She offers many critiques and close to no concrete solutions. The introductory chapter is full of caveats and can be easily skipped. Hill Collins cites Cathy Cohen, Dorothy Roberts, Professor Guy-Sheftall, and other progressive womanists so frequently, one may wonder what original ideas she is even proposing. Her discussion of blacks in the media is overly pessimistic.

Still, I loved this book. I think both academic and common readers will be able to digest it and find it useful. I predict great things ahead for this right-on sista.

Leigh Bowery was a genre-crossing conceptual entertainer who clearly has influenced club kids, Marilyn Manson, and many others.

In one of the first scenes of the documentary, they show Leigh falling down as he walks onto a television talk show program. It's purposeful, but it signifies that he thought outside of the box and worked against the grain.

He designed clothes, but didn't want people to buy them. Though a gender bender, he couldn't be minimized as "just" a drag queen. He was also involved in (post?)modern dance, club ownership, music video, and much more. His outfits are so asymmetrical, blinding, and large that they are better described as costumes. He was the epitome of contradiction and boundary erasure.

I think in America we associate men desperate to push society's buttons with heterosexual radio shock jocks. Here, we have a gay man playing that same role in 1980s Britain. Those interviewed for this documentary are just as freaky as Leigh was. His biographer's cleavage is hanging all over the place. One woman looks JUST like Annie Lennox, but isn't. When Boy George is one of the normal people being interviewed, you know this work has some freeeeakkkss in it!

This film is not for the weak at heart. It was hard for me to eat my dinner and watch it as much bad fashion and obscenity as there is here. Not only are some thing gross, there are also things here that can be viewed as racist and anti-Semitic. Leigh was operating in a time before and a country outside of political correctness. The film includes some clips of interviews from him and he can barely be heard. I'm surprised that his voice was so butch when his actions were just the opposite. The documentary is meant to be abstract, when the makers want to edit an interviewee's comments, they just fast-forward over it. No, your VCR or DVD is not malfunctioning.

My big disappointment is that there is very little focus on AIDS here. Learning about the way artists create work but survive this disease is important for individuals of all statuses to hear, thus I feel like an opportunity was lost. Granted, Leigh himself was secretive about his positivity. However, I wish the filmmakers had delved deeper here.

The title says it all: this book discusses gender and labor in the developing world. There is one article on India, but all the rest focus on sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Though this book focuses on men, most of the contributors are women. A professor of men's studies once wrote in a book that mostly women take his courses, so this doesn't surprise me.

The chapters have many important thoughts. They point to how completed the issue of gender and work is, especially for poor countries with high unemployment and low GDPs. The problem is that this book is a little boring. The cover is dull. The chapters wonder a bit.

This may be a helpful books for sociology and development studies majors. Nevertheless, most others will find the book pretty useless.

I loved Ben Watt's contribution to Lazy Dog I and hated Jay Hannan's. Thus, hearing that he has a good house CD is a relief. It's not that this disc has individual jams that I just had to have. This is just a decent CD if you want to listen to an hour's worth of house. It would be a good set at any club. Nothing revolutionary happens on this disc. However, I don't regret buying it. It was enjoyable, despite not being extraordinary. Long live the deep house sound!

This documentary examines films created by black directors and actors, for black audiences from the start of the 20th century to the Second World War. Here, black and white (plus female and male) film critics discuss various movies from one director to the next. It's jumping off point is that Black Americans not only protested the ultra-racist "Birth of a Nation," but they also produced cinematic work to counteract it. It ends by saying that this film history died with segregation. Who could have known that something so wonderful depended on something so oppressive?

Two things about this film surprised me. First, it oddly enough had "Southern" in its title. Though many of the movies discussed spoke of the North and cities as dens of evil and the South as innocent and pure, these films were made during the Great Migration. At no point in the film do they say only Southern black audiences watched these works. Instead of pointing out region, they should have pointed out the time period in the title. All the films discussed were in black and white (being that technicolor wasn't invented until the decade after WWII). Surely, they could have made some catchy title using the term "black and white."

Secondly, when discussing Micheaux, they did not focus on interracial romances. I once met a descendant of Micheaux's who gets a paycheck every month based on his ancestor's ouvre. He said most of his films dealt with that topic. In articles on Micheaux, I heard that a classic plot of his movies is that black men and white-looking women can continue their romances once the women find out that they are part black in some way. In this century, decades after the Loving v. Virginia decision, I am surprised that this is omitted. Those type of relationships are generally no longer taboo. So why avoid bringing it up here?

As far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as too many African-American documentaries. Thus, I definitely encourage all black folk, but also any film or history enthusiasts to see this work. We have a history that goes way beyond rappers-turned-actors, Spike Lee, Poitier, and even blaxploitation flicks. This work truly made me proud.

Forth examines how gender politics in fin-de-siecle France affected the Dreyfusard Affair and its key actors. This book not only brings up gender matters, but Jewish identity, obesity, intellectualism, the birth rate, among others.

The reader can instantly tell that the author had to read much information in order to come up with his thorough and concise descriptions. I am always frustrated that historians haven't picked up many of the important contributions from cultural studies. This book, however, was a good mix of history, Jewish studies, and gender studies.

This book brings up fascinating phenomena. For example, the author stated that stereotypes of French Jewish men as less manly were so pervasive that to call a Jewish man "unmanly" could automatically be understood as both patriarchal and anti-Semitic. Male Dreyfusards considered themselves the saviors of a female Truth, yet discouraged actual women from being too vocal in support of their cause.

This book will make you think about modern problems. Articles say that anti-Semitism is on the rise in France just as in the 1890s. Modern Americans worry about sedentary, middle-class jobs just as the French did more than a century ago.

Despite being impressed with this book, I know that it will frustrate many. The author freely admits that he does not solve whether Dreyfus committed treason or not and that his focus is upon the undercurrents of the debate. Still, social conditions in France are covered more than the Dreyfus Affair. Dreyfusards are analyzed more so than Dreyfus himself. Non-Jewish thinkers are discussed more than Jewish ones. This book goes into descriptions of physique magazines and urban crowds way afield of the main discussion. Each chapter foreshadows a talk about French author Emile Zola and then in the Zola chapter, the author is only brought up in a few pages. The remoteness of Forth's discussion is going to frustrate many readers. This will only reaffirm ideas that historians shouldn't dabble into gender matters and other sociocultural issues.

This anthology asks and answers how gay men's sense of masculinity influences their actions and interactions among themselves and with others.

Unlike many other anthologies where a large chuck of the contributions are only tangential to the topic at hand, in every chapter here, masculinity is consistently brought up. I felt that this book was fairly accessible, but the academic and heavily sociological tone may turn off some readers.

This book tries hard to be inclusive. Though about gay men's masculinity, it brings up women, feminine gay men, and even straight men. Unlike much work that can only investigate one axis of identity, this book brings up age, class, and race well. It has impressive works on Latino and Asian-American gay men. However, I was disappointed that there was no chapter on black gay men. Some readers may be disappointed that bisexual men are not really covered here and that gay men are consistently contrasted with straight men as if the two categories were exhaustive. Chapters discussed populations in Spokane, Southern California, and Texas. With the exception of New York City, this book seemed very West Coast-focused. That's probably due to the editor's residence, but the point is that this book's conclusions might not be true all over the nation.

This book was a decent mix of men's studies, gay studies, and sociology.

For anyone who has ever wanted to punch a wall, this is the song for you. To this day, when someone gives me a nasty look for no reason, I say, "Like I'm the one who got your daughter strung out on crack!?" LOL!: love that lyric! Anytime I had writer's block in college, I'd listen to this song and the critique would flow. I knew someone that quit a transportation job because this song would be on the radio too much putting her in a bad mood. Plus, the CD single had killer reggae and house remixes of this masterpiece. One-hit wonder or not, I have to thank Sagat for making this jam. All bitter people must own a copy of this classic!

Ogersby illustrates how American men went from valorizing only hard work to enjoying and celebrating consumerism. He principly looks at the role that men's magazines Esquire and Playboy played in this phenomena. Still, he examines film, history, and other items caused this too.

This was a unique blend of history and cultural studies. For readers that look down on cultural studies as fluff, this book has much "concrete" information for them to appreciate.

I appreciated most that despite the all-encompassing title, the author both emphasizes that this was a middle-class white trend at the same time that he does write women and people of color into the picture. For instance, he mentions that Helen Gurlie Browne was the female Hugh Hefner; he adds that "Ebony" does much of what "Esquire" does. In discussing exotica, the author not only brings up the American fascination with Polynesia, but with Britain as well.

The author avoids viewing men as a monolithic category. He stresses that youth or the valorization of youth was employed as a tool to get grown men to spend.

The author is a British academic. It's funny to read a book about the United States with words like "programme," "colour," and "enrolment" in it. Further, I'm impressed that an academic outside the US had access to so much American material. An American who wrote a similar book on any other country couldn't have done so with out a sabbatical to that land.

This book may frustrate Marxists. The brief, somewhat flippant introduction tries to address this, but not really. Hearing about men spending money and buying butter (rather than guns) may make one think the author is celebrating this trend, rather than just reporting on it. Though this book is positive, rather than normative, some readers that resent American materialism may have difficulty processing through this book.

This book definitely sees heterosexuality and doesn't just take it as a privileged given. The author constantly has to mention that advertisers had to convince straight male shoppers that buying leisure items didn't make them gay. Still, homophobia is not cited enough here. The question of where this leaves gay male consumers is never even a thought here.

The author quotes so much from Ehrenstein and Chudacoff that it may feel difficult to point to what new territory he is covering.

This book will help readers to think deeply about modern magazines like "Maxim" or current catchwords like "metrosexual." I highly recommended it to anyone interested in men's studies, American history, and the marketplace.