Ritch C. Savin-Williams takes a collection of coming out stories and dissects them to the brink of insanity. If you are expecting to pick up a book that has full length coming out stories or even a good question and answer read this is NOT it. Many times the longest quoted entry is only a paragraph and that just gives Ritch more fodder to ramble on. He goes thru step by step and describes what percentages of his survey participants had the same feelings and how many of them didn't with no end result list. You are made to somewhat keep a running tally in your head of how many had sex with women and of those many how many didn't have a father and of those, how many cry when watching Old Yeller and out of those how many are now in a relationship blah blah blah. There is little or no way to extract significant useful information from this book. It is all anecdotal and dry.

This is a good book that should teach you a lot about the development and experiences of gay and bisexual young men, from childhood to young adulthood. The author interviewed a number gay and bisexual young men and throughout the text he includes exerpts from his interviews, which add more 'proof' and 'reality' to the text itself. The only bad thing might be that his sample was pretty limited - mostly college students at Cornell University. It's more of a textbook than anything else, but it still makes a very interesting read.

This is probably the best book on gay issues I have ever read! I do not buy those kind of books very often, but this was definitely worth the money.

Did I miss something? Heavy on the mood; plot was hard to follow; couldn't figure out why the characters did most of what they did. I wanted to like Blue, but I didn't understand him. At least Sam's story made some sense. Gilbert seemed much more like a poor plot device than a character. And I have no idea what happened at the end.

Henderson joins the ranks of Jim Grimsley, et al, who write in the self-conscious literary style of the immediate present tense; rather than showing the reader what happened, such writers show the reader what IS happening. In a sense this literary device makes reading Native like entering a dream, and at times what is happening is unclear, as dreams are vague and disquieting. But still, I grew to like Blue as he discovers himself and his relationship with Sam, though I was disturbed when Blue just leaves Sam to live or die without explanation--like dreams. --Ronald L. Donaghe, author of Common Sons

Henderson's writing is reminiscent of Faulkner. His story of Blue takes you completely into a journey where landscape, emotion, physicality and spirituality are woven together with an artistry that is both delicate and powerful in the same dimension. This is not a novel to think your way through. Rather it is a shamanic journey you must abandon yourself to.

Ho Hum. Another coming out of the closet tale. This one by a bloke who didn't give a darn about the church's teachings. After all, if they were in conflict with his personal desires, so much the worse for the church. One gets so tired of everyone rationalizing their restless sex lives with lame excuses. Is there anyone willing to put up with a bit of inconvenience for the greater good anymore?

I just finished reading "Courage To Love" for the SECOND time (not bad, considering that I only purchased my copy a week ago!), and I have been enthusiastically recommending it to gay and straight friends of all denominations on discussion boards all over the Internet. This is truly a love story. Not only in the "traditional" sense (though it is that too...the love between Leckie and Stopfel comes through loud and clear on every page), but also in a much broader sense. The love of two men for their God and their faith, the love of the Christian people who rallied around them, the love of God for ALL His children...it's all there, beautifully written in a style that makes all the players come alive for the reader. No longer are "Stopfel," "Leckie," "Righter" and "Spong" mere names on a piece of paper...they are real people with real emotions and strong convictions. This is also truly a book about courage...courage that goes beyond even the incredible courage it takes simply to live as an openly gay person in today's society. The stakes for all the players were unbelievably high...loss of love, loss of personal security, loss of faith, loss of power and position. I think that anyone who thinks he or she is alone in the struggle against prejudice and fear would draw strength from Stopfel and Leckie's story. Most of all, however, this is a book about integrity. Despite the seemingly unsurmountable obstacles, Stopfel refused to repudiate either his calling or his being. At any time, he could have left Leckie, or claimed to be celibate, and his ordination would have proceeded without comment. At any time, he could have denied his calling to the priesthood and fallen back on a fairly lucrative career. At any time, Spong and Righter could have done the safe thing and washed their hands of the whole "issue." Instead, all involved found that the need to be true to their convictions outweighed the need to "play it safe." Mostly, this is a book about rights...not civil rights, but God's rights. Specifically, it is about God's right to call whom He will...his right to love and employ all his children despite the box in which society would like to confine Him. As I said, I have recommended this book highly to a lot of people...but mostly to straight people who are still struggling, in spite of themselves, with issues of homophobia. It is hard to read this book and maintain an "us-and-them" sort of dichotomy. The overwhelming message is, all people love and are loved. All people are, when all is said and done, simply people. And God, who made us all, loves us all.

Upon finishing this novel, I was almost offended at how boring and unbelievable the plot was. I read the entire thing only because I paid 10 bucks for it, and after awhile it became quite humorous. Like the scene where the two leads beat each other up and then end up kissing in the next paragraph. How much more pathetic can it get? And how are people supposed to believe the two characters love each other--by a black eye? I'm not sure what author's purpose was with this book, but it seriously gave me nightmares last night...

It really is not important how realistic this story is, or if it could Really happen, the point is it is an emotional, complex story that is certainly well-written and a satisfying read for a lazy afternoon or evening. The characters are believable, and the story is full of action and emotional turmoil for these two main characters that are on the brink of manhood.

High school senior Adrian drinks too much one night, and in a terrible car accident is paralyzed and his girlfriend is killed. In the meantime, high school senior Paul, speaks out in defense of another high school senior who was killed in a gay-bashing murder. Paul's fundamentalist father kicks him out and Paul ends up living with a local artist, named Steve, who helps him. Paul's growing awareness of his being gay, coupled with his attempt to deal with his fanatic father, and also deal with the town's gay bashers, is a lot to handle for this young man. Paul's being on his own leads to unexpected love, and emotional consequences he never expected. At the same time, Adrian is due to go on trial for manslaughter, and it's at this point in the story that Paul & Adrian's lives become more involved in ways they never expected.

This is a story of unexpected friendship, love, and the struggle to do what's right, no matter what the consequences. It's a short book, but there's a lot of story here. Taylor knows how to successfully bring the struggles of young people today to the written page.

Joe Hanssen

Those who order this book may be surprised at its relatively small size (the book is actually 198 pages long, instead of the 320 cited above). "21st Century Gay" manages to walk straight down the middle of the gulf between gay seperatists and gay mainstreamers by pointing out how both sides in the end truly need each other (even though they often find themselves thwarting each other). Pivotal events, such as the Shepard tragedy and Rock Hudson's AIDS revelation, are described in overtly practical terms that lends insight into the social climate that made these episodes turning points in gay america--in ways I never fully considered.

If you're looking for a book that endorses either mainstream or seperatist approaches in the continuing struggle for gay rights, you won't find it here. However, I believe the uncommonly balanced coverage in "21st Century Gay" makes it one of the most valuable primers of gay rights issues you'll ever find.

Among the traditional values activists who want to keep the hetero in sexuality, a consensus is developing that there is needed a "public philosophy," a theory to underlie their practice, and at least the appearance of a rationale to bring respectability to what - absent such an underpinning - are little more than near hysterical rants.

Insofar as quoting Scripture to their fellow citizens has proven pretty much ineffective when not just alienating (except for the small percentage of the populus describing itself as "Evangelical," people are suspicious of anything that looks like forcing one's religious opinions upon others) the writers contributing to this little volume have divided their efforts into two neat halves.

They're not - of course - giving up the ghost on scripture-flinging: the first half comprises the usual litany of Biblical "texts of terror" used to suppress, silence and mass-murder queer folk for millenia.

The second, a not particularly impressive set of intellectual acrobatics and somersaults of reason, comprises efforts at elaborating a socially utilitarian basis for homophobia and heterosexism to exist. It also provides an outline of legal strategies that could be employed to keep marriage and the adoption of children out of the hands of like-gendered couples and to keep our nation's armed forces completely and unalloyedly heterosexual.

The theses put forth by this book's authors and editors are so plainly flawed in their conceptions, so deeply stained by the taint of sectarian and sexual and even racial intolerance and so cartoonishly 'off the mark' when addressing objective issues of natural law, human biology and the social constitution that they are ensured a wide readership amongst Santorum-style Republicans, addle-pated members of the reactionary Roman Catholic and Evangelical Christian "intelligensia," proponents of creationism and the "flat Earth theory," and heterosexuals fearful of anything not clearly colored either pink or blue.

Had this compilation been published in the 19th rather than the 20th century, it's theme and title would undoubtedly have been "The Free Negro Peril: How and Why to Fight It."

None of this is to say this is not a useful book. It is, in that it affords a rare glimpse into the upside-down, sad-funny intellectual world of the homophobe and the bigot. There have been endless treatises published on the evils of homosexuality but this is rare for its patina of pseudo-scientific reflection.

This is by far the finest analysis of homosexuality I have ever read. It is gracious, kind, and compassionate to those with whom the authors disagree. It is also marked with scholarly rigor. I highly recommend it.

The essays by Satinover, Arkes, George, and Coolidge are alone worth the price of the book.

Many in American society today struggle with issues involving sexuality, and sadly reap the whirlwind of their choices. The homosexual population (including our own friends and family members) unfortunately involves an aggressive element, one more concerned with license than liberty, and with generating heat rather than light. With this preamble, -Homosexuality and American Public Life- enters the debate and seeks to restore a rightful understanding of human sexuality, one more easily grasped by the common man just a few generations ago.

Because of limited space, I'll restrict my comments to the moral and legal sections of the book. In Part II, Moral Norms, Robert George deals with the ideas of neutrality (which turns out to be not-so-neutral after all) and the naturally-derived definition of marriage as a "one-flesh communion" of persons unique and uniquely important in our experience. He goes on to articulate the assumption of a controversial philosophical dualism within the homosexual position that necessarily intrumentalizes the body, and therefore the person.

Part III on the legal aspects of the controversy was actually the most interesting to me, partly because I was unfamiliar with the authors (except for Arkes), who are certainly notable in their own right, but mostly because of the substantial arguments they marshal in defense of traditional marriage. I thought that some of this material might have been incorporated into the rather short (two chapter) section on Moral Norms. In III, Hadley Arkes serves up the reasoning behind the Defense of Marriage Act, articulating well the flaw inherent to the notion of "homosexual marriage": namely, that it cannot help but render marriage as a relatively meaningless and socially constructed convention, one open to nearly any relationship (e.g., polygamy) imaginable.

Philosopher Michael Pakaluk brings a welcome addition with his arguments about homosexuality and its effects on the Common Good; He asks, exactly what harms can we expect if the homosexual movement is afforded the acceptance it desires? Pakaluk notes Arkes' point above, but then turns to another concern that often goes unmentioned: the moral relationship between parents and children. Severing the institution of marriage from its procreative aspects constitutes not an extension to marriage, but rather a radical redefinition thereof. Indeed, it represents the loss of an institution (or at least the societal recognition or understanding of such) connecting parents to their biological children. If there is any difficulty in seeing the implications of this disconnect (or even believing that such implications are worth considering), it is only because we have already lost a great deal in terms of understanding parental duty and the nurturing of our children. This is an important and often neglected aspect of the debate - one that deserves greater attention.

Finally, David Coolidge opens with a useful catalog of marriage models: Commitment ("radical but appealing"), Choice ("just plain radical"), and Complementarity (traditional). He argues that the Commitment model embraced in the public sphere by homosexual advocates degenerates, in practice and in principle, to the Choice model. He addresses a number of arguments for and against traditional marriage, and fills his commentary with many gems worth holding onto; for example, "We question the view that sexual desires are the key to identifying one's sexual identity. We question the view that 'sexual orientation' is as significant as being male or female." He writes with superb common sense, the kind of sense missing in many moral discussions today.

This is a book written, I think, with some reluctance, but out of a greater measure of duty to loved ones within the homosexual movement, to those who might be involved without such argumentation, and to all of us who need to reclaim an understanding of human nature - the same nature providing a ground for the rights we cherish. Many will object vehemently to the content of this volume, but if they do, I challenge them to do so with reasoned arguments, and without heated and divisive language aimed at ending the debate before it can begin. For a more complete study, I recommend coupling this book with Beckwith and Koukl's -Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air- and the essays of Harry V. Jaffa of the Claremont Institute. ....

THIS BOOK IS MOSTLY [not true]....IF YOU ARE GAY THAN DREAM AND IMAGINE ,BUT NOT EVERYONE IN THE BOOK IS GAY NAMELY CARY GRANT
.I AM SURE ALOT OF GAY MEN WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THIS FANTASY ,HOWEVER READ //IN HIS OWN WORDS//OR SOMEOTHER GREAT BOOKS OF THE REAL DEAL"MR CARY GRANT".HE WAS NOT GAY....SORRY
TO SPOIL THE FUN...OH WELL

Books like The Celluloid Closet and Hollywood Babylon abound with rumors about the sexual appetites of Hollywood stars. Boze Hadleigh's Gays in Hollywood, however, seeks to provide first-hand reports. An entertainment journalist since the 1960's, Hadleigh conducted volumes of off-the-record interviews with celebrities reputed to be gay or bisexual such as Cary Grant, Paul Lynde and Anthony Perkins, as well as less well-remembered actors like Randolph Scott and William Haines. In these interviews, often given only with the understanding that they would not be published during the star's life, Hadleigh attempts to get normally secretive actors to speak about their guarded sexual lives. The results vary widely, but even the "unsuccessful" interviews can be fascinating. Some stars like Paul Lynde, James Coco and Cesar Romero, speak freely and provide valuable accounts of what it was like to be gay in an industry filled with double lives and convenience marriages. Others like Cary Grant and Anthony Perkins are more elusive, but not without revelations about co-workers and peers. And one in particular is not so kind: at the end of his interview, an exceptionally ruffled Liberace expels Hadleigh from his mansion with imperial fury. Like his earlier volumes Conversations With My Elders and Lesbians in Hollywood, Hadleigh's work is somewhat journalistically suspect. He claims that for most of these interviews, he was not allowed to tape record or take notes, and frequently the questions seems stiltedly reconstructed and retroactively self-righteous. Still, the interviews are highly entertaining and provide an important alternative view of the film industry's social history. Recommended for both general readers and scholars of gay history / film studies.

Many reviewers seem quite upset by Grant's "out-ing," but if he wasn't at least bisexual, then PLEASE let me know why he lived with Randolph Scott--rather than his wives--throughout all five of his marriages (Only one of which lasted more than 5 years). He shared a house with his (male) lover fom 1933, a year before his first marriage, until his death in 1986--most straight pairings don't last that long--his didn't! And, while you're at it, explain photos of the two topless men hanging all over each other by their swimming pool. Being gay was as much of a career-booster as being communist in his Hollywood. There's a reason the man has two Oscars....

"Grave Passions" could have been better -- much better. Though the collected short stories of horror and suspense all do have a decidedly LBG cast to them, they all seem to have been wearily written by the contributing authors, some of whom are personal favorites of mine. Writers who can captivate with the imagery of their description, like porn star/writer/publisher Scott O'Hara and author Felice Picano, are really only just going through the motions of trying to scare the reader. For those looking for something scary to read in bed, you'd do better to cross over to the "straight" side and read all of the "Hot Blood" erotic horror anthologies that continue to be published -- and continue to be successful. "Grave Passions" is lacking that spark of magic that "Hot Blood" appears to have -- so much so, it can't even claw its way out of a dull and dreary grave if its (un)life depended on it

The fact is: it's easier to set up a gay and lesbian literature course than it is to set up such a course in any other discipline. The fact is: gay literary ancestors left more about their existence than did gay royalty, gay militarists, or gay scientists. The fact is: even today, there is still a gross generalization that all of every school's gay and lesbian faculty are in the English department. Thus, a book that interrogates the intersections between English studies and gay studies is terribly timely and necessary. Spurlin has compiled a diverse anthology that not only should gay and lesbian studies scholars, but all gay and lesbian faculty anywhere, should read. The authors included are quite diverse in terms of race and gender. There are two amazing pieces here. First, DiGangi discusses the importance behind debates regarding Shakespeare's sexual orientation. Second, Ruth Vanita has an outstanding article about homophobia among postcolonial literary critics and why her book on historical gay South Asia was so needed. With the exception of these two essays, every other submission left me disappointed in one way or another. The most disgusting, practically nefarious, example comes from Jay Ken Lorenz. In his article, he discusses the life lessons he learned by hosting a gay and lesbian film studies course at a conservative university (Georgetown); however, he ends with an unnecessary, capricious, stupid, naive, and downright racist anecdote about how he threw a dodgeball at a young Asian-American "sissy" boy and ended up breaking his nose. Susan Talbert's piece is this pessimistic diatribe about why lesbian teachers should NOT come out. Jody Norton's essay on transgender issues in English classes was so obtuse that I could not read past three pages or so. tatiana de la tierra's article says it's "from the US-Mexico border." However, instead of getting the sense of border-crossing in Anzaldua's or Gomez-Pena's way, de la tierra is merely speaking about working at an American college that happens to be kinda near the border. Marcia Blumberg's chapter about the AIDS quilt said nothing about English courses. My critiques can go on. Further, most of the authors had an axe to grind. Of course, gay men and lesbians, and particularly teachers from our community, have much over which to be angry. However, that anger, when written, is usually meant to motivate people to bring about change. Here, the authors just sound surly with no purpose in their meanness. This book has left me quite frustrated. I am clueless as to the author's vision. I am waiting for a better book on this crucial topic to come along.