Book picks similar to
Edges of the Rainbow: LGBTQ Japan by Michel Delsol
nonfiction
japan
lgbt
asian-american-literature
Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity
Peggy Orenstein - 2020
It also had an unexpected effect on its author: Orenstein realized that talking about girls is only half the conversation. Boys are subject to the same cultural forces as girls—steeped in the same distorted media images and binary stereotypes of female sexiness and toxic masculinity—which equally affect how they navigate sexual and emotional relationships. In Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein dives back into the lives of young people to once again give voice to the unspoken, revealing how young men understand and negotiate the new rules of physical and emotional intimacy.Drawing on comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, academics, and experts in the field, Boys & Sex dissects so-called locker room talk; how the word “hilarious” robs boys of empathy; pornography as the new sex education; boys’ understanding of hookup culture and consent; and their experience as both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence. By surfacing young men’s experience in all its complexity, Orenstein is able to unravel the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important realities of young male sexuality in today’s world. The result is a provocative and paradigm-shifting work that offers a much-needed vision of how boys can truly move forward as better men.
Is It a Choice?: Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions about Gay & Lesbian People
Eric Marcus - 1993
Offering frank insight on everything you've always wanted-and needed-to know about same-gender relationships, coming out, family roles, politics, and much more, including:How do you know if you're gay or lesbian? What should you do if your child is gay or lesbian? Do gay parents raise gay children? If you think a friend is gay or lesbian, what should you say? Why do gay men and women want to get married? What does the Bible say about homosexuality?
The Book of Salt
Monique Truong - 2003
The taunts of his now-deceased father ringing in his ears, Binh answers an ad for a live-in cook at a Parisian household, and soon finds himself employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.Toklas and Stein hold court in their literary salon, for which the devoted yet acerbic Binh serves as chef, and as a keen observer of his "Mesdames" and their distinguished guests. But when the enigmatic literary ladies decide to journey back to America, Binh is faced with a monumental choice: will he, the self-imposed "exile," accompany them to yet another new country, return to his native Vietnam, or make Paris his home?
Jonny Appleseed
Joshua Whitehead - 2018
Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishizes himself in order to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the "rez," and his former life, to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The next seven days are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny's world is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages--and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life. Jonny Appleseed is a unique, shattering vision of Indigenous life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams.
As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
John Colapinto - 2000
The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine—and a total failure. As Nature Made Him tells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his medical history, made the decision to live as a male. A macabre tale of medical arrogance, it is first and foremost a human drama of one man's—and one family's—amazing survival in the face of terrible odds.
Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society
Cordelia Fine - 2017
According to this false-yet-familiar story, the divisions between men and women are in nature alone and not part of culture. Drawing on evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and philosophy, Testosterone Rex disproves this ingrained myth and calls for a more equal society based on both sexes’ full human potential.
"I Will Not Be Erased": Our stories about growing up as people of colour
gal-dem - 2019
In this thought-provoking and moving collection of fourteen essays, gal-dem's writers use raw material from their teenage years – diaries, poems and chat histories – to explore growing up. gal-dem have been described by the Guardian as "the agents of change we need", and these essays tackle important subjects including race, gender, mental health and activism, making this essential reading for any young person.
The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens: A Memoir of the Beales, the Maysles Brothers, and Jacqueline Kennedy
Jerry Torre - 2018
The book is a behind-the-scenes look at “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” and their bizarre and reclusive life of squalor amidst the tremendous wealth of East Hampton, the family bond that developed between Jerry and them, and the afternoon everything was turned upside down forever with the arrival of documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles.What begins as a teenager coming upon what he assumed was an old, abandoned house takes on new dimensions when suddenly Edie appeared on the porch draped in a shower curtain with an apron tied around her head. “You must be the Marble Faun,” she told the stunned Jerry. Rather than chasing him away as he at first feared, she invited Jerry to meet her mother upstairs.So begins a strange and unusually close friendship with the two women as Jerry takes on the task of volunteer gardener of their estate, often sleeping nights in their living room and staying out of the way of mother-daughter arguments. The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens is Jerry’s look back on the filming of Grey Gardens but also how the notoriety the movie achieved changed his life along with the Beales’s as their private world was shared with audiences everywhere.
Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East
Brian Whitaker - 2006
Clerics denounce it as a heinous sin, while newspapers write cryptically of "shameful acts." Although many parts of the world now accept sexual diversity, the Middle East is moving in the opposite direction. In this absorbing account, journalist Brian Whitaker calls attention to the voices of men and women who are struggling with gay identities in societies where they are marginalized and persecuted by the authorities. He paints a disturbing picture of people who live secretive, fearful lives and who are often jailed, beaten, and ostracized by their families, or sent to be "cured" by psychiatrists.Whitaker's exploration of changing sexual behavior in the Arab world reveals that—while deeply repressive prejudices and stereotypes still govern much thinking about homosexuality—there are pockets of change and tolerance. The author combines personal accounts from individuals in the region with a look at recent Arab films and novels featuring gay characters and conducts a sensitive comparative reading of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic strictures around sexuality. Deeply informed and engagingly written, Unspeakable Love draws long overdue attention to a crucial subject.Copub: Saqi Books Brian Whitaker was Middle East editor at the Guardian for seven years and then an editor for the newspaper’s Comment is Free website. He is the author of What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East (Saqi Books, 2009). His website, www.al-bab.com, is devoted to Arab culture and politics. Unspeakable Love was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award in 2006.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Trans (But Were Afraid to Ask)
Brynn Tannehill - 2018
The book aims to break down deeply held misconceptions about trans people across all aspects of life, from politics, law and culture, through to science, religion and mental health, to provide readers with a deeper understanding of what it means to be trans.The book walks the reader through transgender issues, starting with "What does transgender mean?" before moving on to more complex topics including growing up trans, dating and sex, medical and mental health, and debates around gender and feminism. Brynn also challenges deliberately deceptive information about transgender people being put out into the public sphere. Transphobic myths are debunked and biased research, bad statistics and bad science are carefully and clearly refuted.This important and engaging book enables any reader to become informed the most critical public conversations around transgender people, and become a better ally as a result.
Street Zen: The Life and Work of Issan Dorsey
David Schneider - 1993
Street Zen follows Dorsey from his days as a female impersonator to the LSD experiences that set him on the spiritual path. In 1989, after 20 years of Zen practice, he became abbot of San Francisco's Hartford Street Zen Center, where he founded a hospice for AIDS patients. Street Zen draws on interviews David Schneider conducted with Dorsey before his death in 1990 and parallels their nearly 20-year friendship.
Fairest: A Memoir
Meredith Talusan - 2020
citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as she was treated by others with special preference or public curiosity.As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved.Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni's Room. Her evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.
The Women
Hilton Als - 1996
It is conceived as a series of portraits analyzing the role that sexual and racial identity played in the lives and work of the writer's subjects: his mother, a self-described "Negress," who would not be defined by the limitations of race and gender; the mother of Malcolm X, whose mixed-race background and eventual descent into madness contributed to her son's misogyny and racism; brilliant, Harvard-educated Dorothy Dean, who rarely identified with other blacks or women, but deeply empathized with white gay men; and the late Owen Dodson, a poet and dramatist who was female-identified and who played an important role in the author's own social and intellectual formation.Hilton Als submits both racial and sexual stereotypes to his inimitable scrutiny with relentless humor and sympathy. The results are exhilarating. The Women is that rarest of books: a memorable work of self-investigation that creates a form of all its own.
As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil, the impossible life of Mary Benson
Rodney Bolt - 2011
Edward went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury and little Minnie - as Mary Benson - to preside over Lambeth Palace, and a social world that ranged from Tennyson and Browning to foreign royalty and Queen Victoria herself. Prime Minister William Gladstone called her 'the cleverest woman in Europe'.Yet Mrs Benson's most intense relationships were not with her husband and his associates, but with other women. When the Archbishop died, Mary - 'Ben' to her intimates - turned down an offer from the Queen to live at Windsor, and set up home in a Jacobean manor house with her friend Lucy Tait. She remained at the heart of her family of fiercely eccentric and 'unpermissably gifted' children, each as individual as herself. They knew Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Gertrude Bell. Arthur wrote the words for 'Land of Hope and Glory'; Fred became a hugely successful author (his Mapp and Lucia novels still have a cult following); and Maggie a renowned Egyptologist. But none of them was 'the marrying sort' and such a rackety family seemed destined for disruption: Maggie tried to kill her mother and was institutionalized, Arthur suffered numerous breakdowns and young Hugh became a Catholic priest, embroiled in scandal.
Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions
Lisa Wade - 2014
Probing questions, the same ones that students often bring to the course, frame readable chapters that are packed with the most up-to-date scholarship available—in language students will understand. The authors use memorable examples mined from pop culture, history, psychology, biology, and everyday life to truly engage students in the study of gender and spark interest in sociological perspectives.