Untamed

 Untamed by Glennon Doyle
2020
Weight: 1.05 lbs
Method of Disposal: Giving to a Friend

I have wanted this book since before it was published, though I am quite new to Glennon Doyle, having just over a year ago discovered her at a Leadercast Conference.  It is hard to imagine us all packed into that auditorium now.  She had me laughing so much and, ever since, I have been on the hunt for this book, which finally was published.  Ultimately, a friend gave me a copy AND Harriet bought me a copy for Christmas.  I think Harry might have been trying to imply something when she bought be the LARGE PRINT edition.

I really enjoyed reading this book.  It does not include groundbreaking feminist ideology or tell us more about human sexuality than we previously knew, but it delivers information about both and so many other things in a fun, open, and useful way.  I loved (if love is the right word) when Doyle was talking about asking her kids if they were hungry.  The boys, in unison, immediately said "yes."  The girls looked to each other to determine silently if they themselves were hungry and one girl spoke up with "no."  I like how she describes the strengths of each of her kids and how different they are.  I appreciate her insights into addiction and living post-addiction.

There is a section of the book where a friend of hers says something about how she was "born that way," and she makes the argument of why could I not choose this for myself because it is GOOD.  Every time I hear "who would choose to be born that way," my soul cringes.  There was a time when I would not have chosen this, when I was young and scared, but now I would choose this and choose Harriet fully, knowingly, and 100 times over.

This is a good, fun, meaningful read.  I recommend it!

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

 Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
1982
Weight: 14 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

I am currently on a little bit of an Audre Lorde kick and have just re-read Zami: A New Spelling of my name.  One thing I absolutely love about Audre Lorde is that she is so seemingly honest and raw.  She is open about things that many people would keep private.  I think about her walking the streets with a knife in her coat, not knowing what she is doing or why, but disgruntled with upset about a recent breakup and her girlfriend finding a new partner.  This is not okay, and she knows this is not okay.  She does nothing with that knife, and she admits to having done it in her biography.  She writes about being a woman loving woman and a black woman in a time when that was even more shunned, ostracized, and legislated against than it is now.  She talks about trying to form a triatic relationship when no one around her was doing that and how it, ultimately, failed because no one in the relationship really knew themselves all that well.  We read about heterosexual feminists who cannot accept lesbianism or queerness of any sort.  They have no room in the movement.  Lorde writes about the anguish of losing her childhood bestfriend.  A friend that came to her for help and who she was unable to help at that time due to her fear of her parents anger.  She had no idea that meant her friend would end up dying by suicide, but it haunts her into adulthood.  She did not realize the abuse that friend was enduring at the hands of an adult man.  And yet, she also shows us beauty, determination, strength, and a will to fight and live.  

There is so much packed into this biography about race, class, coming of age, being a woman, loving women and people hating it, loving sex.  It ends with Lorde still in her twenties, and she still had so much life left to live.  She would pass away at 58, battling cancer, but she packed so much in to the next thirty or so years, and she left the world a more beautiful, empowered place.

I am now re-reading Sister Outsider.  I always appreciate the context Zami gives me for the rest of Lorde's work.

Premarital Counseling for Gays and Lesbians

 Premarital Counseling for Gays and Lesbians: Case Studies and Helpful Questions by Pamela Milam, LPC
2012
Weight: 5 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

This seems like a great place to start for anyone in a serious relationship if they are looking to get married, be together for a long time unmarried, move in together.  It is small, easy to read, and just simple good, advice.  It is inclusive of polyamorous relationships.  Unfortunately, it no longer seems to be readily available many places.  I would love to get this book to someone that needs it or wants it.  If you have any suggestions in the near future or would like me to mail it to you, let me know!

When I Knew

When I Knew Edited By Robert Trachtenberg
2005
Weight: 1.3 lbs
Method of Disposal: Leaving in a Lending Library

This book was more fun than I expected, particularly when it came to gay men, who were featured more than anyone.  The lesbian snippets were good but few.  It does not expand much past those worlds, which is okay.  It is a book about when each person realized they were gay with a capital G, after all. 

I loved the opening one.  "1969: My father was watching the evening news.  The announcer said that Judy Garland had died.  I fainted.  I was nine."  -Andre Freedman

Anyway, a fun book for your coffee table or for a quick read if you are interested!

Frankissstein

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson 2019
Use This Book: The Only Book You'll Ever Need! by Melissa Hecksher 2006
Adult Doodle Book
Very Hungry Caterpillar Coloring Book by Eric Carl 2003
Weight: 3.5 lbs
Method of Disposal: Sterilizing/Sending to a friend

I have a compulsive need to read everything that Jeanette Winterson publishes and have ever since I was 16 years old, working at Waldenbooks, and my coworker/dear friend introduced me to Written on the Body.  When I saw it was called Frankissstein in bright pink lettering with a triple x on the cover I did get concerned about if I would enjoy it, but even that title could not put me off reading it.

In true Winterson form, she was fluid about time and gender.  Her characters were extreme representations and the writing would sometimes get extra lyrical.  I ended up enjoying this book much more than I thought I would, and it made me want to revisit the original Frankenstein and read up on Mary Shelly and her crew.  I felt that if I could remember more it might mean more, but I suppose it is possible that it might also take away.  I appreciated frankenstein's many reincarnations.

I was surprised by some reviewers outrage at Winterson for the book being transphobic.  I am not transgendered, unfortunately, and cannot say that this book should not or could not be offensive to someone else.  I am just reading more and grappling with it.  I am about to do that here so please feel free to stop reading if you need to.

The number one reason I saw for it was that being transgendered was represented as a choice the trans character made.  One person was emphatic that it was no more a choice than being a lesbian woman is a choice.  I have always wondered about the choice argument though.  Why should I not choose to be a lesbian?  Why would I not choose to do so?  Isn't it a heightened form of freedom if I could live in a society that allowed me to CHOOSE my sexuality?  Now, that being said, I do not feel like I ever did choose it.  As young as I can remember (and my mother too, for that point), I have been fascinated with women and have never felt drawn to a boy or a man.  I do think many people are "born that way," and I am one of them.  Other women I have dated, though, have fallen on a spectrum of sexuality, and the woman I have loved for the last 7 years only recounts being attracted to boys/men, but she was attracted to me and fell in love with me.  If there is more than one fish in the sea and if "the one" is not just one person then did she not sort of make a choice?  And is that not ok?  Many people are born trans and maybe some "would not choose it."  If given the choice nowadays, where I live, I would absolutely choose to be queer and not heterosexual.

Given that Winterson seems drawn to the middle, the grey, the ever-changing area no matter what her subject area is, makes me feel this was not an offensive representation of someone choosing their gender.  The trans character also describes feeling both masculine and feminine all their life and making different choices at different times given both those gender identities where embodied within them in different capacities.  Winterson writes, "I'm a woman. And I'm a man.  That's how it is for me.  I am in a body that I prefer.  But the past, my past, is not subject to surgery.  I didn't do it to distance myself from myself.  I did it to get nearer to myself."  Now, other characters do react in a transphobic way to them.  That happens and is representative of the transphobia we see in life.

I also read that the transgender character was overly sexualized, but the transgender character did not come across to me that way.  The most hyper-sexualized and potentially offensive character was Ron, the heterosexual male.  There was a lot of graphic description about sex bots, but sex bots are real and often advertised much like they were in the book.  It may be because I am hyper-sexualized myself, but I just did not see that.  There were some seriously grotesque and unappealing descriptions, but they were not geared towards being transgendered.

The sexual assault came out of nowhere, and I was not sure it really added to the book except that it is something that happens and the character it happens to fights there way out with a lot of luck, strength, and fight or flight mode kicking in.  If we are supposed to be making a comparison between humans, monsters, robots, time travellers. emotionally wounded and patched up people then the assault does show that the character is not a monster, nor a robot.  In my life, sexual assault has felt jarring and contrary to my experience, and I am jarred by depictions of it regularly.  I am okay with that.  I do not want it to ever feel normal or ordinary.

What did pull me really far out of the book was one word that I believe was maybe used twice to describe the character, Claire.  She was a "black" woman.  The only character given a racial identity, and I could not find the reason.  I do not think we have to ignore race, but it is problematic to only identify one person and no one else.  Does that mean I just assume everyone else is....white? Why?

The things that really drew me in were the fluidity of time and humanity repeating and existing in a multitude of forms and environments.  The past foreshadowing the present and the future.  The present fight to know the future.  Broken people being a patchwork piece--regular Frakenstein's monsters.  The obsession with mortality taking away life.  What is it that scares us about Artificial Intelligence and what should scare us?  What does it say about who we are when we say what we really, honestly want about our robots, our relationships with others, our monsters?

I guess there is a lot to think about and unpack here, and I do enjoy thinking and unpacking.

Cherry

Cherry by Mary Karr
2000
Weight: 12 oz
Method of Disposal: Lending Library

Coming of Age stories, like the previously written about coming out story, are hard because they are done by so many people in so many different ways.  It can feel like you have read them over and over again.  The time this is written is also important for context.  18 years ago. 

I was enjoying it but not overly blown away by it.  I totally appreciated the young narrator reveling in her sexual power, but I felt like I was watching her fall into low self-esteem, drugs, bad situations with little consequence and not a lot of insight into the reasons she was spiraling out.  We did get the impression that it was due to her parents not being overly concerned with her life, though they were there for her in very important and big ways when it counted.  Her dad is painted as having some anger issues, and her mom does at one point attempt to kill herself with both daughters begging her not to.

 It was not until the author, or maybe it was the letter at the front, someone anyway, pointed out that it was a sexual coming of age story written from a girl's perspective that I felt that old familiar rallying cry of pro-sex feminism rise up within me.  I had forgotten that we have for so long not been able to read young girl characters as sexual agents in their own story.  That we've had coming of ages stories for boys out the wazoo but not for girls.  So, I can respect it for that.  I don't know when life started ti improve enough that I forgot that, but I remember being a young girl now and hating Holden Caulfield and feeling like I could not relate to any coming of age story ever written.  Given, as a super lesbian teen, I probably would not have related so much to this one either, but I can appreciate it's importance.  I was busting with sexuality back then, but it was in a very different way, I think.

One complaint I did have was that I did not feel like there was a real ending, and I felt like the writing there was kind of rushed.  I wished for something more, but I am not sure what it was.  There was just this hippie, drug-induced, whatever whatever that ended in jail and then Mary's mom came to the rescue in a way that still made Mary feel angry and isolated.  I guess with it being a memoir, maybe that is just real life?  I don't know.

Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul

Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul: Inspirational Stories about Love and Relationships Edited by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Mark and Chrissy Donnelly, and Barbara De Angelis, Ph. D.
1999
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Donating

Do you remember when Chicken Soup for the Soul books were all the rage, and you couldn't go through a life milestone without getting one?  I remember being the depressed, lonely, lesbian kid in school.  An old friend and her friend took pity on me, despite being in a lower grade than me, and gave me a Chicken Soup workbook along with a really sweet letter that basically expressed their concerns that I might kill myself, and that they hoped I wouldn't, though we never really talked anymore.  It was a kind gesture, and it did mean something to me despite the fact that a Chicken Workbook could not have helped me on its own. 

There are a  million books in this series!  Okay, they say over 250.  They even make dog food!  It is a little bit re-dunk-u-lous.  The books are full of trite happy and oh-so-sad stories like you might find in a reader's digest or forwarded in a chain e-mail from your grandmother.  Some of them may make you cry despite your cold, dead, jaded heart, but it all feels very formulaic.  It also feels very white, hetronormative.  Don't worry!  They are Christian even when they aren't speaking about Christ, and you won't find a lesbian (or worse) in the  safe place that is in their pages.  At least not back then.  So much has changed since the 90's.  If we are fully included in Chicken Soup books will we have officially "made it????"  A quick Google search does find me one story about a girl who refused to disown her lesbian cousin causing a large rift between her and her Catholic family. She is very upset and nervous about an upcoming Thanksgiving dinner, and a teacher at her school warns her not to drive when upset.  She finds this bizarre.  Dinner does not go well.  She doesn't drive.  She assures the reader she is not a lesbian.  She survives.  The lesbian has an argument and dies in a car accident.  Thank goodness for that teacher!  I guess that is progress.

This particular book is inscribed to friends of mine who have recently gone through a divorce.  It looks like a wedding gift from 2002.  15 years.  I don't think their story would ever show up in a Chicken Soup book.  If it did it would need some SERIOUS editing.

Dick: A User's Guide

Dick: A User's Guide  by Dr. Michele Moore and Dr. Caroline de Costa
2003
Weight: 9.6 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating?

Just got done with my Dick book.  I was hoping to learn a lot but, for better or worse, I, apparently (somehow) knew a decent amount already.  One thing that threw me for a loop was the idea that, on average, healthy adult men have 2-5 erections in a night.  They last about 30 minutes and take up about 40% of sleep time.  Young boys of course have this happen more and are far more likely to have theirs end in ejaculation.  As men get older they decrease (pg.22).I knew that men got erect at night, and I had heard about the morning erection many times, despite the fact that I somehow missed noticing it in that year plus I use to fall asleep and wake up next to a teenage boy (for real).  I immediately called my girlfriend.  "5 times?!"  She tried not to act disturbed, "uhh, yeah, maybe.  Not Five times probably..."  I talked to friends, lesbian and heterosexual, "5 times?!"  I considered the possibilities of this.  I maybe got too enthusiastic because my girlfriend actually asked me if I needed to go experiment with a man.  Uhhh, no.  I just get excited about sex, sexuality, and, apparently, hard-ons. 

In other news, I enjoyed the discussion about water tests on condoms in the U.S. and the U.K.  The authors write, "In the United States this means that the condom must withstand one and a quarter cups of water and not leak (the amount in Britain is twelve and a half cups--we're not sure what this implies about English men)(pg70)."  Kinda hilarious.

Overall, it was a decent book, but it felt rushed and often the authors jokes fell flat with me.  Things would be tacked on at the end of certain chapters that did not seem to fit at all.  The authors were aware and noted that the book was geared to heterosexual men and women more than anything, though they mentioned that they hoped gay men would also find it beneficial.  It was fun!

How The Grinch Stole Christmas!

How the Grinch Stole Christmas!  Dr. Suess
Year: Unknown
Weight: 1 1b
Method of Disposal: Left at Joe's Coffee Shop in EAV

 

I am a huge fan of Dr. Suess.  I hate to get rid of any of his books, but I have most of them memorized so, at this point in my life, I suppose I should let them go.  This one is amusing because I bought it for a girl I dated in high school.  We were together for maybe a month--if that.  We actually broke up before I could give her the book.  Despite our super brief relationship, we packed in the drama.  Her parents found out and, in fury, called my mother to inform her at 2am one morning.  My mom was pissed!  At them.  She already knew about my sexuality, of course.  Things spiraled out of control from there.  We had a lot of obstacles in our path, and we did not actually care a lot about each other.  I remember telling her that I was not over my ex, Heather, and was unsure is I would be a good girlfriend.  She said she understood and then two days later said to me on the phone, "What would you say if I asked you to marry me?"  I said, "I would say no."
P.S. She was NOT an adult.  She was a child.  As was I. 

Unexpected Pleasures

Unexpected Pleasures: Leaving Heterosexuality for a Lesbian Life  by Tamsin Wilton
2002
Weight: 1.2 lbs
Method of Disposal: Leaving in Decatur, GA

This book was given to me by a woman who chose to leave heterosexuality behind while in college.  She was very vocal about it being her choice, which I thought/think was/is great.  There is some discussion about sexuality as choice in this book, which makes me happy.  It is not just nature vs nurture.  In case you were wondering, I think it is nature, nurture, and/or choice that makes someone's sexuality.  I think everyone has their unique mix up.  I believe I have always felt more intimate and bonded with women and that there is, possibly, a biological, hormonal, genetic cause.  I also know that if given the choice to be heterosexual I would say hell no.  I love loving women.  And, as I got older, I realized that if I felt compelled to I could choose to have sex with men, but I also knew I would never want a relationship with one.  I have never felt a strong bond with a man, with the exception of my high school best friend, Chris, and I was never sexually attracted to him.  I also just don't think I could deal with the outcome of male socialization.  I have no interest in a power struggle or a lack of communication/emotion.  I am aware that there are millions of sensitive, caring, feminist men out there that would probably make wonderful partners, but I do not want to sift through them all when I know I prefer women up front.  I would rather try to find a wonderfully sensitive, feminist woman.  And, while I was a lesbian long before my sexual assault, I do think that being raped will forever inhibit and decrease any interest I might have in being intimate with a man. 

That being said, I am frequently attracted to women whose sexuality is less defined and more fluid.  It is an incredibly sexy quality to have.  There is a certain courage and acceptance that seems to go along with it but, more importantly, I feel like these women have less rigid rules and unfortunate judgements/stereotypes about other women (and men),as a whole.  It is unfortunate that the lesbian community can be so naively dismissive and unaccepting of women with what might seem to them to be a less clear cut, defined sexuality.  I feel like it is getting better with the younger generation, but I still see it affecting women's lives in strong ways.  I was glad that this was discussed in this book.

Unexpected Pleasures is kind of like an intro too and a self-help book for women coming out as lesbians later in life.  I wish it had been slightly more fluid, but the woman who wrote it was a researcher and so I understand she had to narrow her focus.  I would like to read a similar book that included lesbian women who have come out as heterosexual later in life and lot more women who did not identify as one way or another.  There were some components like lesbian sex being better than heterosexual sex as a whole that rubbed me the wrong way, and I had so much I wanted to put forth to argue my points.  We do not have to tear down one to enjoy another.

Overall, though, it was a good introductory, supportive, positive book, and it relied heavily on actual interviews with women, which I appreciated.  I also liked the sources offered in the back of the book. The book was written based on British women's experiences and so the sources were geared to them too, though the author had a few US sources as well.

Full Exposure

Full Exposure: Opening Up to Your Sexual Creativity and Erotic Expression by Susie Bright
2000
Weight: 11.2 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving in a book box in Decatur

 

I just finished Full Exposure, and I loved it!  Thank you again, Susie Bright.  I love sex positivity and talking/reading about sex.  I particularly enjoyed her writing about jealousy.  She writes:

 

You also have to face jealousy head-on; your own baby will show you soon enough what that's all about, even if you're still in denial.  With kids, your mission is to show them that there's enough love to go around, that when you go away you will come back, and that they need to respect your privacy as well as their own.  They will get jealous when they see you paying attention to someone else.  When your infant howls or your toddler throws a fit, you'll see how natural jealousy is--but you'll also see the "natural" wisdom of separating yourself, with love, from those you love (108).

 

AND!

 

I don't believe you can purge jealousy from your soul, but you do have to put it in its place.  I get jealous as easily as I feel any of my babyish feelings, and I recognize them for that.  Sometimes I'll ask for my lover for reassurance, but often I'll tease him or make fun of myself.  I'll shout my most paranoid fantasy, because just saying it out loud makes me laugh at its absurdity: "You're leaving me for the Girl Scout Cookie Delivery Bitch!"  Being a jealous vixen is very cathartic as long as you declaw before the performance begins (109).

 

The whole book was a positive experience though, and the jealousy part was a very tiny component.  You should check it out.  See what it is about.  Let me know if you want this copy, and I can bring it to you instead of the book box!

 

Am I Blue?

2 X   Am I Blue?: Coming Out From the Silence Edited by Marion Dane Bauer

1994

Weight: 1.8 lbs

Method of Disposal: Donating the one with a cover, leaving the one without somewhere someone can find it

This is an anthology of gay/lesbian young adult fiction that I loved when I was in the right age bracket for it.  I remember reading it and trying to get my father to read it too, though he was nervous about carrying it on a plane.  He traveled a lot for work.  

The author opens the book with these words:

         Ten years ago, an anthology of short stories dealing with gay and lesbian themes

         probably would not be considered by any major young adult publisher.  It is my dream

         that ten years from now an anthology will not be needed, that gay and lesbian

         characters will be as integrated into juvenile literature as they are in life….

         one out of ten teenagers attempts suicide.  One out of three of those does so

         because of concern about being homosexual.  That means that in every

         statistical classroom across the country there is a young person in danger of dying for lack                    of information and support concerning his or her sexuality.

I probably bought this book about 4 years after it was published, and I was thankful for it.  It has now been 17 years since it was published.  I worked in the children’s/young adult department of a bookstore for years, and I remember what it felt like—long after I quit reading exclusively young adult fiction, as I was an adult—and finding all the new gay/lesbian books.  There was a handful, maybe two or three, of fiction books.  I think there were two books about being transgendered.  I was stunned.  It was not that many , but it was a huge increase.  They kept coming.  I read them all, one after the other.  I love YA fiction anyway, but this was huge to me.  It was unexpected.  As booksellers, we would have to scan the books and send the ones that weren’t selling back to the publisher.  I always made sure to keep a couple books on the shelf no matter what the scanner said.  I fought to get that section, instead of one of my coworkers.  I knew that teenagers would still read them, but might be too ashamed to bring them home to their parents or might need their parents financial support to buy them.  There are many good reasons, including a child’s safety, that they may not want their family or friends to figure out about their questions and/or sexuality.  The big chain bookstore might not have cared about that, but I did.  

So, in a way, her dream has partially come true a decade later.  There are not quite as many books as I believe there should be, but they are coming.  There are more and more every year.  Tides are changing.  She did not mention transgendered literature, and YA fiction is truly lacking in that department--hell all fiction is.  The books I do find are good, but they are very basic and do not support a real continuum of gender.  There are still a lot of traps and simplicities.  I feel the young adults and teenagers are ready for some more complicated themes.  Not only can they handle it, but they need it.

Almost two decades later, we have the “It Gets Better” Campaign.  Queer youth is still struggling and suicide is still of huge importance to the sexual minority population.  The more information we can get out there the better.  We all need safe places and access to information and support. 

 In some ways, I am sad to see that the editor’s wishes have not been completely fulfilled to their fullest extent in almost twice as long as she had hoped.  But then I think about what I expected when I was at the age when I found this book, and I am so pleasantly surprised by how far we have come.  How different life is for me now than it was then.  How different it seems to be for the younger generations I have been lucky enough to talk to and interact with.  At least, when it comes to gay and lesbian progression.   

We still need a lot more information on bisexuality and queerness.  We need more information on transgenderism.  We also need information about being intersexed and, please, rush it on to the youth.  Most adults I know have no concept of what that word even means.  And, let me clarify here, that being transgender is not a sexuality.  Being intersex is not a sexuality and it is not directly linked to being transgender.  I include these groups because we are all dealing with problems that are created and exacerbated by a gender, sex, and sexuality binary system, and we are considered a minority because of it.

Thank you, Marion Dane Bauer, for your work and let us all continue doing this work together.  I hope these books fall into hands that need them.

Not Appropriate For Work

The Guide to Lesbian Sex by Jude Schell
2005
Weight: 1.3 lbs
Method of disposal: Selling

I am ending my second day of not smoking, and it does not feel great. I swing back and forth between being confident and cocky about how easy it is to quit, and then regretting that I have gone this long without a cigarette and questioning my reasons for quitting. There is one potential upside though. I have had a huge increase in my sex drive, though I fear it will be temporary and is more connected with the edginess and anxiety of quitting than anything else. I am slightly hopeful that the extra energy boost and increased health you get from not smoking will carry it forward past these first few weeks. I have always loved sex, and I never really stopped, but ever since I was raped in my senior year of college things have been a little off. I have been on a quest to get my old sex drive back since then, despite the fact that it may not be possible and is becoming less and less important to me.

In honor of day 2, I want to sell one of my beloved sex books. Up until now I have left that section of my library untouched. Given, I am not getting rid of one of my favorites, but I still consider this a huge step. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to let any of them go. I bought this one as a bargain book for $4.99 at a Borders long ago. I am tempted to say this book is not a great one, but I think it just depends on the situation. The pictures have been described as “tasteful” and the information as “helpful.” This seems to be true. The pictures are almost too tasteful and the information is basic. This would probably be a great book for someone who is just beginning to explore lesbianism or is just thinking about it. It would be most helpful in the hands of someone who is less in touch with or just starting to understand their sexuality and/or has less experience with sexual encounters. The author writes about the importance of flirting, what women taste like and how it is different and changing, how to use touch throughout sex, and affirms that lesbians do fuck.

"The Lesbians Will Define Who is Lesbian."

POMOSEXUALS: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality
Edited by Carol Queen and Lawrence Schimel
1997
Weight: 9.3 oz
Method of Disposal: Giving to Tracy



I hate to be giving Tracy yet another book about gender and sexuality that I did not enjoy all that much, but here I am doing it again. The good news is that a book about pomosexuals, no matter how much it disappoints, is still better than just any kind of reading. I am also, apparently, the only one who got bored while reading this book. It seems as if it received 12 five star reviews on Amazon and on Urban Dictionary the first definition for “pomosexual” that comes up is the exact subtitle of this book.

I guess I am starting to feel the same way about people’s sexual escapades as I do about coming out stories. I use to find them enthralling, empowering, and rejuvenating. Now, I just get bored. I love sex, filth, and fucking. I love bliss, passion, and safe words. I like sex in bathrooms, on buses, and in bedrooms. BDSM, role playing, polyamory, kissing, cuddling, sex toys, serial monogamy, and pornography. Throw it at me. I will probably like it. But a book needs to be more than that unless I am just trying to masturbate for awhile. I want to learn something! I don’t want to deal with everyone’s egos and bragging rights. I have seen enough dirt brushed off other people’s shoulders. It has a place in the world, and it is important, this book, but it has no place in my hands. I am over it.

There were a few interesting essays, and I love several of the writers. Their other books are great. I am glad to hear about so many people busting out of the rigid gay/lesbian binary and even the bisexual trianary. I like the gender fucking and the fun. I JUST WANT MORE. Is that so much to ask?! I am starting to think that it is.

I hope that I am wrong about this book, and that it will find a more compatible companion in Tracy who will hopefully be able to dig out the components I missed in my irritation. We shall see…

Lesbianism, Masturbation, Rape, and Gillian Anderson (Agent Dana Scully)

ALL of my X-Files books

Method of Disposal: Donate. I know. I know. Should I really donate all my old, over-used X-Files books? Is there anyone out there who would want them or am I just wasting some person’s time who has to unpack them all? I cannot help it. I cannot throw them away, and I am convinced a nerd like me will meander into the thrift store, find them, and proclaim that day as the luckiest in their life. I am. I told you, I cannot help it!

Weight: 21 lbs and possibly some tears. Please note that when stacked up they are almost the same height as my pit bull.



I am donating my entire X-Files book collection--at least I hope I found them all. I have been collecting them since mid-1990, and they have lived with me in a variety of different places. They have been hidden away in condos, pushed aside in apartments, and—surprisingly—put on the main display bookshelf at my current house. They are episode guides, Gillian Anderson biographies, a complete set of young adult books, and so and so forth. They are fiction and non-fiction. They are mostly awful and some are, secretly, really good. Or they were ten years ago.

I feel a special affection for the X-Files still. I believe it to be my first full-blown obsession. It is strange since I rarely watch tv, hate almost all television series, and struggle to overcome my disdain for most science fiction. Except when something catches me off-guard, as it does from time to time, like the X-Files. I am into the X-files because I find it entertaining, but I also have key points in my life that are tied to my fascination. I will tell you just a few.

Gillian Anderson not only helped me realize I am a lesbian, but she also helped me discover the joys of masturbation—through no fault of her own, of course. I was in the bath one day when I was a “pre-teenager”, and I thought about something I had done as a young child that felt really good. I tried to remember exactly what it was and, as I was figuring it out, here comes Agent Dana Scully waltzing into my brain. I had a fantastic orgasm. Got out of the bath tub, put some puzzle pieces together, compared those pieces to other pieces of my life at the time, and made two of the largest and most important realizations I had ever made and possibly ever will make. I love that woman to this day, and I will love her when she is much older, wrinkled, and beautifully-aged. I am loyal to her for always, despite the fact that I do not know her at all.

I also learned that while I have no desire to turn on the television I have in my living room I can watch The X-Files for days on end, weeks even, without a moment of boredom. I have the complete set of DVDS, which I do not plan to give away. I had surgery on my nose the summer in between graduating from high school and going to college. It had been shattered by a stranger at the neighborhood pool several years before. He did not like that I was a lesbian and, though he was several years older than me, he took it out on my face. The recovery period was a month with no heavy-lifting and no masturbation/sex. It was awful. My only saving grace was the pain medication and the constant X-Files marathon I had going.

At the end of my senior year in college I was raped by a stranger and had to go to the emergency room for a rape kit. As the doctor performed my pelvic exam and as I waited and waited and waited for a number of tests, words, and questions I was allowed to watch whatever I wanted on television. I did not care, but the friend who brought me turned it on anyway and there she was. Agent Dana Scully. I laughed. I watched it until we were done, and I was allowed to go home. I remember being so happy that life was like that or at least tv was—with all its reruns. I felt transported.

What is even sadder is that I can think of a couple other moments where The X-Files played some role in my life, but I have listed the important ones. I have embarrassed myself enough. Except I am not that embarrassed, not really, just loyal. Loyal, amused, and sometimes in love.

These books weigh 21 lbs when set on a scale. Before this entry, all of the books I had let go of only added up to around 30 lbs. I have almost doubled my number. I am sad to see them go, but I am trying really hard not to think about it anymore. I can feel myself starting to change my mind, but I won’t. I am determined.

"At First Women Were Reluctant to Talk"

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
2001
Weight: 9 oz.
Method of disposal: Attempting to give it away through a social networking site. If I cannot I will move on to plan B.




Today, I am parting with my copy of The Vagina Monologues, complete with the highlighting of the fifteen year old I was when I bought it. I saw it on a shelf in the drama section at Waldenbooks when I worked there, and I bought it because of the title. I read the book that same night and loved it. It started a sort of-affair. I went to see college productions of it on a regular basis throughout the years and one time I went with my friend Sarah to see it done by Eve Ensler herself. Later, I would volunteer at an event that hosted Ms. Ensler and Jane Fonda. A whole group of us took a picture I have never seen. I remember Eve Ensler’s hand on my shoulder. Even later, I would go to Charis with a very attractive queer preacher to see her talk about her publication, The Good Body. This is yet another time when I will be disbanding a book from a complete collection of all the books written by an author.
I use to be in awe of Eve Ensler. Can you tell? There has been a gradual letting go of that awe over the last six years and now I have a dull curiosity when I see her name in print. I will continue to read about her and her work. But I also think about that initial collection where a father buys his daughter a vagina—the only intersex narrative in the book—with dismay. She has spoken with students about it for years and compromises have been worked out, but it lingers in my copy and thousands of others. I think of Jakarta, Warsaw, Kenya, and other places where The Vagina Monologues has traveled and the mixture of emotions about it expressed in the feedback—the validity of the feelings of those who loved it and those who hated it. I love talking about sex, bodies, and sexuality. I also recoil from gynocentrism, and its effects on our beliefs about gender and sex as binary systems.
There is a lot good about Eve Ensler and about The Vagina Monologues, and I will never forget my initial love for it. It is time for me to move on now. Looking at my highlights, “My Angry Vagina” was my favorite piece in the collection when I first read it. In hindsight, it is hard to imagine growing up without it. I found this book at the perfect time. It did what, I think, it was intended to do. It helped me fall in love and/or maintain my love for my genitalia—though I do not think my vagina is the truly important component of my anatomy. It pales in comparison to my clitoris, my ears, my neck, and my back.

The Homes Collection

Jack by A.M. Homes
1989
Weight: 9. 6 oz.
Method of Disposal: Left in a public place

I have decided to challenge my dedication to my personal cause today by leaving behind a book written by one of my favorite authors, A.M. Homes. I made a special effort to own every novel, collection of short stories, and sliver of writing I could find that was written by this woman. The first novel of hers that I read was The End of Alice, which is a novel narrated by a pedophile and the murderer of a child. I was eating broccoli while reading it in the living room of my father’s house, and I remember that I could not eat broccoli for months after finishing the book. The memory of the story seemed interwoven with the food, and it made me sick. That is one of my absolute favorite novels. But this entry is about Jack.
Jack is the story of a teenage boy coming to terms with the fact that his father is gay. It was the first book published by A.M. Homes, and it became a major motion picture. It is not my favorite by the author, but it is still difficult to see it departed from its brethren. I feel like I am missing a part of myself and a huge chunk of the library.
I believe that Jack is a novel that did not come to me at the right time. I read it after savoring several other Homes novels, and I felt it did not compare to them. I think that if it had stood alone I would have appreciated it more. I also “came out” as a queer woman when I was 13 and spent many hours, days, weeks scrounging up all the gay/lesbian literature I could find. I read too many coming out stories, some horrible short fiction, and a lot of traumatic personal narratives. I loved them until I ran out of love and then I grew resentful. Was there nothing I could read that was lesbian-focused, lesbian-directed, but not tacky/trite/terrible? I was bored. I believe that Jack stands as a great story and as a gay story, but I wanted more than that by the time I got my hands on it. I was completely sick of movies, books, and academic journal articles dedicated to gay men. Where were the ladies?! The transgender folk?! I needed more.
Even now, years later, I get on Netflix to rent a gay/lesbian movie and dread what will appear on the screen. I enjoy movies about gay/bisexual men, but I crave something else. I sift through pages of pictures of half-naked men and all sorts of penis innuendo to find a handful of lesbian movies which usually include multiple clichés and flat characters that are often plumbers with “good hands,” drug addicts, and/or dancers of some sort.
Any who, I guess what I am trying to say is this: I love A.M. Homes because she is talented and, yes, somewhat shocking. Jack is wonderful but feels a little too mundane and too much like what I am bombarded with in my everyday life. I think this book should be given to teenagers everywhere. I think that is where it will do its best work. I wish my own book luck on its travels, and I hope it ends up with someone who loves it even more than I did. Goodbye little Jack Jack.