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Sir\Ma’am: A Southern Queer Zine Teaser Release
04 months ago
Front cover for SirMa’am A Southern Queer Zine Teaser Release
Published in 2011 by Sir\Ma’am
This teaser release is really short, so there isn’t much to review, but it does contain lots of art and short interviews focused on the transgendered community. While the art didn’t blow me away, it is nice.
The thing that caught my eye was the snippet from an interview with Ali Andwele. Asked about the Austin queer community’s acceptance of gender variance, Ali claims, “I don’t think they respect transgender and genderqueer people enough to know what pronouns to use and what nouns and verbs to use when it comes to talking about us.”
This seems an unfortunate position for Ali to take because it makes assumes that the ignorance is the result of a lack of respect rather than a lack of knowledge or experience. How much better would the world be if Ali, and others, looked at pronoun misusages as opportunities to educate instead of snubs? It takes little imagination to see that Ali’s attitude adds to the divisiveness between people. After all, if the first time someone has an encounter with a transgendered person and a potentially innocent language error is met with hostility or derision, it is reasonably to imagine that the next time they encounter a transgendered person they will be hesitant to initiate a conversation.
While I can appreciate that it would be burdensome to feel as though one had to explain their gender at length over and over again, how hard is it to correct someone’s mistake by simply saying, “It’s she, not he”? Also, while I would be the first to concede that my knowledge of transgendered people is limited, I cannot help but imagine they face much larger obstacles than being innocently referred to by the wrong pronoun. Working on addressing these larger issues seems far more likely to improve the lives of transgendered people, both individually and collectively, than assuming disrespect from incorrect pronoun usage.
At any rate, this is a teaser release of this zine, and it definitely piqued my interest enough to want to track down copies of future issues. If you are interested in learning more about Sir\Ma’am,visit http://www.sirmaam.com/, where you can download pages of this teaser.
Lesbianism Made Easy
11 year ago
Front cover for Lesbianism Made Easy
By Helen Eisenbach
Published in 1998 by Three Rivers Press
The first few pages of this book were funny. Then it just got mean spirited. In fact, I hate to even write this review. My only reason for doing so is that Daddy has asked me too. Granted, that may seem a poor reason to review a book, but it works for me. Don’t like it? Oh well, there are lots of things not to like in this world, hopefully I don’t top your list.
Back to the book, Helen Eisenbach’s book appears to be a comical parody looking at the follies of lesbians in America. It isn’t. It isn’t comical nor is it a fair parody. It actually ends up being a rather rude degradation of heterosexual women, heterosexual men, homosexual women, homosexual men, bisexual women, bisexual men, and, for good measure, asexual anyone. The punch line becomes the punch too often to ignore.
I was most directly offended by her chapter on BDSM. She clearly made no effort to understand her topic, did not approve of those who participate in it, and assumes that no one really enjoys that sort of thing. Her suggestion instead is that any woman who engages in BDSM is an abuse survivor with low intellectual ability repressed by the patriarchy. Her disdain for other people’s sexual preferences is too much to look past.
In fact, as I hated the book so much, I began to wonder if perhaps my view was skewed. I thought maybe other folks love this book. Maybe since I am just a bisexual woman and not a “real lesbian” I didn’t get it. A quick Google search found a great review of a different book that refers to Eisenbach’s book. Julie Felner’s review of “The Girls Next Door: Into the Heart of Lesbian America” by Lindsy Van Gelder and Pamela Robin Brandt (http://www.salon.com/weekly/books960708.html) sums up my feelings about Eisenbach’s book best by saying Eisenbach, “fails to grasp the distinction between making fun of people and being funny.” The review appears to recommend a great alternative in “The Girls Next Door.” I recommend skipping the frustration of trying to read Eisenbach and jumping to Van Gelder and Brandt. I haven’t read their book, but based on the review by Felner and the total suckage of Eisenbach’s book, I am willing to go out on a limb here.
First Hand: An Erotic Guide to Fisting
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Front cover for First Hand: An Erotic Guide to Fisting
By Tim Brough
Published in 2005 by the Nazca Plains Corporation
First Hand begins with Jack Fritscher’s fantastic introduction which is a history that discusses how fisting entered the “homo-masculine” mainstream in the 70s and early 80s. Fritscher mentions numerous books and magazines some of which I had never heard of, but now hope to add to my collection someday.
Tim Brough begins First Hand with a brief introduction to the anatomy of the anus. Following the anatomy lesson is an interview with a physician and his partner as they discuss fisting. While the discussion touches on a few medical aspects of fisting play, the conversation is mostly high praise for the virtue of fisting.
The third section is the most straightforward as it is a how-to on anal fisting. Beginning with the things one needs to have in their toybag for a fisting scene, the section talks about the fisting from the perspective of the top and bottom (or as the book describes it “pitching” and “catching”).
Following the how-to section are interviews with fisting fans and short blurbs where respondents describe their favorite scene and/or the appeal of fisting. Finishing out the book is a 45 page piece of fiction that I frankly did not bother to read.
The how-to section mentioned above consisted of only nine pages making First Hand the textbook example of BDSM writers’ tendency to pad their works, turning pamphlet length discussions into book length tomes. Unfortunately, this practice not only drives me nuts, the extra padding is a disservice to readers who want to learn more about a particular topic.
I have a suggestion for addressing this problem that I hope some enterprising BDSM publisher will steal and put into practice. Rather than having one author write a book devoted to a topic that can be covered in the space of a few pages, create an anthology where different writers can cover various topics using only the length necessary to discuss the topic. Not only would such a work solve the padding problem, the resulting book would become far more useful and indispensable. Alas, based on what I have seen of the BDSM publishing industry the only way such a book will ever see the light of day is if I do it myself.
As I try to review this book, I find myself stumped. On the one hand (pun intended), the book, especially Fritscher’s introduction, was fun to read, save for the fiction. On the other hand (pun intended), for a book subtitled “an erotic guide to fisting” it was not particularly informative and seemed lacking as a guide. Taken as a whole, while I enjoyed the enthusiasm evident in First Hand, there is not much else to recommend about it other than Fritscher’s introduction.
The Complete Enema Guide
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Front cover for The Complete Enema Guide
By Art Hamilton?
Published in 197? by Mark Distributors
The Complete Enema Guide is one of the hardest books I have chosen to read and review here on the site. It is complicated for a couple of reasons. First, there is scant information available about the book itself. I am unsure if I recorded the author and publisher information on this particular addition to the library. The inside front cover lists the copyright as belonging to Art Hamilton and Mark Distributors as the printer. While I did find an online reference to Art Hamilton as a supplier of enema-related toys, I have no idea if Art Hamilton is a company, a person, or both. Adding to the confusion, the inside back cover contains an ad with Art Hamilton above the address. In the end this is not a matter of much consequence save for the fact that it makes tracking down similar work much more difficult which is a shame since I really liked this book and would enjoy having more pieces like it in my collection.
The second reason that this has proven a difficult book to review is that while The Complete Enema Guide presents itself as how-to for enemas, as a how-to guide, The Complete Enema Guide is terrible. While I am averse to kinky sex books that read as safety manuals written by corporate attorneys, most of the information presented in this book about enemas is unclear, haphazard, and potentially dangerous. Despite this, The Complete Enema Guide is one of my favorite reads.
One might fairly ask how I can enjoy a book that does a terrible job of presenting its subject. The main reasons are that despite its spectacular failure as an instructional guide, the book provides an unvarnished view of 1970s gay New York at its zenith and the author’s contagious exuberance leaps off every page.
The author’s candor in discussing his enjoyment of enemas, anal fisting, rimming, poppers, and so on is entertaining and reminds modern readers of a time before there was any such concept as safe-sex.
Written in a conversation style, the book presents personal stories to provide examples to educate the reader. One story in the middle of the book is told from a third person perspective, but the majority of the stories are portrayed as the author’s personal experiences. Unfortunately, the stories are disjointed and unorganized and as previously mentioned fail to provide any useful advice for starting enema play. Inside the text there is a mention of T.A.I.L. (if anyone has information about T.A.I.L., please drop me a line) which suggest that the book was originally written as a series of magazine articles which were later cobbled together as a booklet. If that is the case, it would explain the haphazard nature of the text.
While the text is interesting, it suffers from multiple typesetting and/or editing errors. I did not count a single page that was without an error; however these errors tended to be missing letters or obvious words so they proved to be not major distractions. Also frustrating is the lack of illustrations in the book to help explain the enema equipment being used or how it might be set up.
My favorite part of the book was its final section which is dedicated to the rarely discussed topic of golden enemas. A golden enema is, simply put, urinating directly into the anal cavity, and it can be a highly erotic experience for both parties. I am not completely certain why the subject of golden enemas remains so under-discussed, but I suspect that it has something to do with the taboo nature of the act and the fact that it tends to not lend itself to being filmed.
At any rate, the author’s discussion of the finer points of a golden enema does well to explain its appeal as a sex act. As he puts it, “No other act of friendship between two males can be as intimate as that except for cock-sucking and, perhaps, ass-fucking.” (Am I the only one that thinks once you piss into someone’s anus the two of you are a bit more than just friends?) As fun as a golden enema is all by itself, post-golden enema coitus is simply amazing, but be prepared for a bit of a mess. As the author explains, “After you’ve injected…with your piss, you may just leave your cock in place and proceed to fuck him. Some piss will dribble out around your plunging cock, and make it a really juicy lust fuck. ”
Despite suffering from a number of problems that would make a modern book unreadable, The Complete Enema Guide is an amazing book that serves to not only discuss a topic that remains taboo over thirty years after its publication, but also documents the sexual mores of a time and place that many would willfully ignore.
The Furies #1
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The Furies #1 front cover
Edited by the Furies Collective
Published in 1972 by the Furies Collective
Most of the materials I find and review on this site come into my possession in a rather ordinary way – I either purchase them online or at a bookstore. Not so with this radical lesbian feminist newspaper.
After several hours of driving back home from a much needed vacation, I decided that visiting the roadside antique store would be a nice respite from the otherwise dreary drive. By chance, the store we stopped at was going out of business and had everything on sale for half off. The store’s inventory was the ordinary collection of old furniture, miscellaneous household items, and so on that make antique shopping a rather rote activity. As I looked through the miscellany, I did not expect there would be anything that would raise the ire of even the most devoted Pentecostal, so I was completely surprised when I came across this yellowed newspaper. I couldn’t help but wonder how the paper made the journey through the years and miles to be in my hands. I came up with no fewer than a dozen possible scenarios some of which bordered on conspiracy theories.
Imagining the newspaper’s journey reminded of the cheesy soft core movie Secrets of the Satin Blues. I saw it on late night cable many years ago. The movie’s premise is that there is a magical pair of blue panties that turn any woman wearing them into a sex-crazed nymphet. The movie follows the panties as they change from woman to woman. Thinking back on that movie, I can’t help but wonder what sort of woman upon finding a mysterious pair of panties decides to try them on? I have never seen a used pair of underwear and wondered what they might feel like on. My thought upon finding used underwear is usually “gross.”
Whether or not The Furies followed a path similar to the skanky panties of Secrets of the Satin Blues I will never know, but I am inclined to imagine the route they took was more than likely rather boring.
But I digress. The Furies newspaper was published by the Furies collective. In many ways a product of its time, the collective lived communally. According to one account I read, the collective practiced a unique form of free love where everyone in the collective had sex with each other. The collective also strove to be at the vanguard of a new lesbian feminist movement that rejected middle class hetero-centric patriarchal values.
One of the more interesting things about The Furies is that it is undeniably the product of all the values its creators strove to reject. While the tone should rightly be regarded as a reaction against the prevalent culture of women’s magazine, the content mirrors women’s magazines throughout time. For instance, the article “Women: Weak or Strong” while starting out as advocating self-defense for women quickly descends into championing the beauty of what is commonly known as a butch look. It really isn’t too far afield from the beauty tips a traditional women’s magazine might offer for attracting men. The article devoted to gossip is similarly predictable.
One very interesting thing about The Furies is how it affirmed (and doubtlessly helped form) many negative stereotypes lesbians and feminists as man-hating crazies. Consider for instance the following from the article “Such a Nice Girl”:
Only after I had kicked out my husband did I see how much heterosexuality had blocked my real understanding of men and male supremacy. I could let myself remember the disgust I had initially felt about fucking. I realized that every fuck is a rape even if it feels nice because every man has power and privilege over women, whether he uses it blatantly or subtly. My “liberated” husband kept me down not by violence but by making me feel guilty. He wanted me to be a strong woman as long as my main worries were about his feelings, problems, and “oppression”. In a conversation, when the guilt tactic no longer worked on me, he sat in disbelief, and I saw him consider whether to fall back on the male power which he had always had in reserve. As a heterosexual I had always had to double-think, “well, my man is an exception” every time I got close to the truth, that male supremacy is the source of all oppression, and that every man benefits from it. As a lesbian I have begun to experience how it will be fundamentally different as women begin to build our own world. As long as I gave energies to my man, I had not experienced that tremendous difference.
“Every fuck is a rape”!? Really? There are so many levels of lunacy in that statement that it’s hard to figure out where to begin. The good news for sick fucks like me is that if every sex act between a man and a woman is a rape, my own predilection for fusing sex with violence is completely normal. Actually I find the idea of being normal far more disconcerting than I find the idea of being a freak but….
The notion that all sex between men and women is rape raises all sorts of troubling questions. If a woman cannot have the freedom to make poor decisions how can she ever hope to have any sort of self-determination? This is really the crux of the problem with The Furies: rather than subverting the paternalism the contributors condemn, they merely want to replace the paternalists with themselves. One cannot help but be reminded of the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm wearing the farmer’s clothes.
Nonetheless, if you can set aside these shortcomings and read The Furies as primary source that documents the history of the gay and lesbian movement there is much to appreciate. If you would like to read this issue of The Furies, it and several other issues are available online from the Rainbow History Project at http://www.rainbowhistory.org/furies.htm