Best Sex Writing 2010

Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Cleis Press

As a fairly obsessive sex educator, S&M activist, and informal researcher, I didn't expect Best Sex Writing 2010 to make me think nearly as much as it did. I'd imagined it as an anthology that would hit all the usual bases and say the usual sex-positive things: Sex work should be decriminalized! Open relationships can work! Fetishes don't have to terrify us! Women deserve to be promiscuous, if that's what we really want, and we must be empowered to say no to sex too!

The first few essays struck me as par for the sex-positive course—though extremely well-written. Indeed, my favorite essay in the book is the sixth (of twenty-five), an absolutely brilliant work by gay escort Kirk Read that made me want to close the book and start selling sex on Craigslist. Still, it didn't actually challenge any of my current preconceptions, it just made me want to cheer.

But then the book surprised me. As editor Rachel Kramer Bussel explains on the anthology's website, "I want writing about sex that makes people think about it in a new way, that confronts sex and sexual stereotypes, that opens people's eyes, that says things people might find uncomfortable." This even applies to perverts like me, I suppose. The chapters that unsettled me most weren't the explicit ones, but rather the ones that don't align with my ideals of positive sexuality: as openly and carefully communicated, for example, or negotiated with an eye to egalitarian ideals. (No matter how extreme the power differential when a gentleman friend whips me, I approach the relationship itself on an equal footing.)

I felt most grossed out by Michelle Perrot's essay on her upcoming affair, in which she writes: "I don’t want an open marriage, where you and your partner agree that you can have sex with other people. I don’t want hurt feelings and jealousy, all the inevitable trouble that would come with such an arrangement..." but then notes that she's discussed the idea of cheating with her husband, and that "if one of us were to have sex—just sex—with another person, we’d just as soon not know."

In other words, Perrot refuses to style herself as one of those open relationship people—and let's not even get into the stereotypes in her description thereof—because having a tacit agreement with your husband that both of you can sleep quietly with other people isn't an open relationship. Huh? At the same time, Perrot published the essay under a pseudonym "to protect her marriage," which would seem to indicate that she's not actually sure about her husband's consent after all.

I don't mean to pick on Perrot, whose essay was quite well-written and gave me a lot to ponder. My point is that Best Sex Writing 2010 has something for everyone, including material to make a jaded sex theorist think twice. It lacks political sensibility by missing some important bases (e.g., trans people, polyamory, and people outside of the US) and makes one or two truly odd editorial choices. (Why on Earth is Mollena Williams' essay on race play, a fetish so transgressive that it unnerves most people even within permissive S&M communities, placed before Betty Dodson's much gentler memoir that could serve as an introduction to S&M? Are we trying to blindside and horrify the newbies?)

Still, lesbians and sex work and sex education and sex biology and safer sex all appear; S&M is comes up a surprising amount, and even manliness gets a mention. Most importantly, Best Sex Writing 2010 is a genuinely layered and challenging book.

Review by Clarisse Thorn

The Bradshaw Variations

By Rachel Cusk
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

In earlier times, a set of variations on a theme in classic art music was a chance for a composer to play around with a melody, try it on in various guises, and allow the audience to hear possibilities. Each variation was minute, an aural petit four to be savored briefly while one contemplated on the sweet yet temporal nature of life. Cusk’s novel The Bradshaw Variations is indeed a set of variations, each chapter holding their own like variations on the theme, offering a brief but blinding insight into life.

Questions of meaning within family, vocation, and sexuality arise as Cusk introduces her reader to the lives of Thomas Bradshaw, his wife Tonie, his daughter Alex, and his two brothers and their families. Thomas, the main character through which most of the action is understood, is taking piano lessons during his interim as a stay-at-home dad. His experiences practicing and learning works by Beethoven and Bach ground the entire novel in a specifically artistic linguistic; Cusk deftly uses musical metaphors throughout the work to create a story that is aural as well as visual and emotional, without succumbing to cliché or cheesy, florid prose.

Thomas, formerly a professional who commuted to work in London like so many other suited desk jockeys, has left his job to stay at home, while his wife Tonie has accepted a position as head of department at a university. Their nontraditional role-switching carries with it consequences for how their family members react and how they negotiate disapproval. Cusk weaves a believable narrative of these very human actors, creating a counterpoint of voices. Both Thomas and Tonie’s parents see the occupational switch as irresponsible and somehow wrong, but are unable to voice the exact nature of their disapproval; furthermore, Thomas feels as if he is in some tired and ambiguous rivalry with both of his brothers, whose temperaments are like night and day. Regardless of the parental disapproval, Thomas finds fulfillment in his days at home, looking after Alexa, playing the piano, and cooking meals. Questions of masculinity are never approached; however, Tonie begins to recognize her own yearning sexuality, and the effects of marriage, age, and work on her own fulfillment. A Freudian theme permeates the novel, apparent in both Thomas’s relationship with his daughter and Tonie’s sense of abandonment, and with Tonie’s own relationship with her father, as viewed through her mother’s eyes. This novel questions what it means to be a family, laying bare the hearts of one in particular and allowing the reader to see their struggles and their moments of connection.

Cusk’s tactile engagement with the characters and their surroundings, coupled with her brilliant use of musical vernacular, create a community of very human characters that I could relate to, over boundaries of class, country, and gender. I read this novel twice, during my morning commutes to work and found myself captivated despite the rush hour bustle.

Review by Cristin Colvin

The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage

By Roxana Shirazi
It Books

The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage, written by Iran native Roxana Shirazi, was a complete and utter waste of my time. The book was championed by writers Neil Strauss and Anthony Bozza, who met up with Shirazi one faithful day and immediately became enthralled by her tails of debauchery with bad up and coming rock ‘n’ roll bands, as well as some oldies, but not so goodies like Guns N’ Roses. Appetite for Destruction never did anything for me musically or otherwise, but apparently the mere appearance of Axl Rose was enough to give Shirazi “gushing orgasms” as a teenage girl and her sexual fantasies about him set her on her path to groupiedom.

I’m not surprised that two men would be impressed by a book in which an otherwise intelligent woman makes a fool of herself by revealing that she’s let musicians piss on her and has had sex while so wasted that she threw up on one of her many partners for the night. According to these boys, “This was a woman who was not a victim, but who made rock bands her victim—and she got off on pushing them to extremes that made them uncomfortable.” Did these guys read the book? From what I could tell, it didn’t take much coercing to convince the men to degrade her, and a person who’s completely at ease with their lifestyle isn’t prone to nervous breakdowns, depressive episodes, or the need to constantly be wasted, as was detailed by Shirazi.

It’s apparent that this book is meant to shock, but I found nothing shocking about it. Shirazi, who calls herself a feminist, defends her use of the word slut before her story begins. I don’t care about her use of slut; it’s not offensive to me in any way. What is offensive, however, is attempting to pass this book off as a heroic piece of writing by a fun and carefree young woman who happens to have a penchant for wild nights and rock stars. If anything, this book just verifies that being a groupie is a lifestyle often chosen by women with low self-esteem.

The first portion of the book details the author’s childhood in Iran where she was a “child basked in gunfire, Islamic law, and sexuality.” Raised mostly by her mother and grandmother, Shirazi was abandoned by her opium addict father, molested and raped by neighbors, and beaten by her step father. It seems to me that these are the kinds of things that shape a young woman.

Having suffered through similar circumstances, I can attest to the fact that burying the feelings that result from these occurrences only sets you up for disaster once your sexuality is blooming and your childhood has left you with the impression that men are supposed to hurt, yell, hit, and take anything they want from you—even when you say no. It seems absurd to me that Shirazi doesn’t make the connection in the book that her feelings as a child, a belief that the abuse she suffered at the hands of men was her own fault, was the most likely reason she grew up and allowed herself to be further taken advantage of, almost as if she felt like she deserved it and that it was her duty to be the thing that men used to get off.

What’s wrapped up to look like a fun package, a carefree romp in the hay, is actually a very depressing book that often reads like a bad romance novel. (“I don’t understand how Stuart found the energy and ability to fuck me so masterfully all night, nor how his testicles were able to produce such a huge amount of sperm.”) Shirazi is disparaging of other women, often only describing them in terms of their weight, makeup, clothing choices, and ability to be fucked by second rate rock stars. You get the impression that she’s the type of person who thinks calling another woman fat or ugly is the biggest insult that can be hurled.

If anything was shocking about The Last Living Slut, it was the author’s implication that the rockers she is sleeping with are fulfilling her “hunger for a free-spirited life, for breaking the rules, for laughing, for knowing the meaning of it.” If fucking teenage boys in bad bands and has-been rock stars in worse bands is the meaning of life—and the new face of feminism—I better bow out now.

Review by Tina Vasquez

Tea on the Axis of Evil

Directed by Jean Marie Offenbacher
Reorient Films



After two years of providing security intelligence about the activities of Al Qaeda to the United States government in the wake of 9/11, the Bush Administration publicly dubbed Syria a threat to democracy by including it in the so-called Axis of Evil. Knowing very little about the secular republic, filmmaker Jean Marie Offenbacher decided to spend a year in Damascus in order to offer a look at everyday citizens of Syria and combat stereotypical depictions put forth in the mainstream media.

Though the U.S. Embassy warned the director that Syrian folks would be too afraid to talk to her, Offenbacher found enough subjects to fill the hour-long film. She highlights the stories of a few Bedouin people, the family of a taxi driver, and a couple of impressively quintilingual teenage boys who sell rugs at a souq in Aleppo, but the film focuses on people most Americans will find quite palatable: liberal, middle-class, educated Syrians who speak English and whose lifestyles mimic those in the Western world. There are several students of literature, sociology, and journalism, as well as a fashion designer, an actress, a weaver, a painter, and a businesswoman. In an interview with New America Media, Offenbacher explains this choice by saying she chose people she believed Americans could identify with; unfortunately, tactic undercuts her claim of and desire for authenticity, as the film’s characters are hardly representative of the general population (Syria’s lower classes, political conservatives, and the religiously dogmatic are conspicuously absent from the interviews) and simply become a counter-stereotype themselves.

This bumble heightens the well-intended, if naïve, thesis of the film: Syrians are just like us! They dance to 50 Cent in pubs. They swoon over movie stars like Antonio Banderas. The women struggle with feeling beautiful, and with sexist double standards regarding female sexuality. They worry about how to balance the need for childcare with their demanding careers. They learn to reconcile their religious practices and beliefs with newly emerging desires. The version of Syria presented in Tea on the Axis of Evil is, indeed, very much like urban America, but just as one should not forget that urban America comprises more than latte-sipping, New York Times readers, it is equally necessary to understand that Syria is not America—nor should it be—and, in a film about countering false depictions, present the complex diversity of Syrians’ lived reality.

Review by Mandy Van Deven

Originally published in Bitch Magazine

Happiness Runs

Directed by Adam Sherman
Strand Releasing



I sat through this eighty-eight minute monstrosity two and half times. And the question that I’m still asking myself is, “What the fuck?”

Set sometimes during the eighties, Happiness Runs is the semi-autobiographical story of its tyro director. Happiness Runs centers on Victor (Mark L. Young), a teen who is desperate to escape from the hippie commune that he was born into. His terminally ill, inexplicably wealthy, and utterly disinterested mother (Andie MacDowell) has been brainwashed into single-handedly supporting the commune by Insley (Rutger Hauer), a creepy self-proclaimed “guru” who has impregnated most of the women on the compound. When Insley isn’t hypnotizing his narcissistic adherents into complete submission, he is training Becky (Hannah Hall) to serve as a sex slave. Due to Insley’s indoctrination, Becky has become a drug-addicted promiscuous mess, having sex with nearly all the boys in the group.

Victor, deeply in love with Becky, resents her naïve embrace of “free love” and repeatedly begs her to run away with him. To complicate matters, Victor’s mother absolutely refuses to give him any money. Because Victor doesn’t seem to understand that he can support himself by finding a job, he drifts from wild party to wild party with the other children in the cult, even half-heartedly drug-dealing, an enterprise which the adults hypocritically disapprove of. Due to their early exposure to drugs and sex, the children are all incredibly damaged, escaping the anger over parental neglect with varying forms of self-destructive behavior.

Just like a lot of movies with a “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll” theme, the women of Happiness Runs are routinely objectified. There are several instances of full frontal female nudity—the exposed female bodies juxtaposed with male bodies that are always covered with at least boxer shorts, if they aren’t completely clothed. The men and boys routinely use the women sexually, an attitude that the women seem to encourage. Becky is referred to as “everybody’s girlfriend,” not seeming to understand that the males in the commune aren’t automatically entitled to access to her body. She even goes so far as to climb into Victor’s bed, saying, “You can do whatever you want to me.” The fact that Rachel (Laura Peters), the only girl in the bunch inclined to call the boys out on their disrespectful attitudes, is the “ugly” one that none of the boys seem to want is another slap at the women’s liberation movement.

And Happiness Runs marries sexuality and violence in an especially disturbing way, with no fewer than three shots of Becky’s nude body covered in blood. (Becky also gets her hip thrown out during a bout of passionate sex; an event that amuses the boys to no end.) It’s been a long time since a film managed to offend most of my feminist sensibilities. Then again, it’s been a long time since I saw a movie this bad.

I know I’ve spent entirely too much time critiquing the lifestyle choices of the characters. Unfortunately, this movie is so threadbare that I can’t adopt the Oscar Wilde standpoint of not concerning myself with the morality of the characters. The plot and character development are virtually non-existent. The pacing is slack with performances ranging from anemic to downright wooden; none of the actors are skilled or experienced enough to convincingly play world-weary addicts. The dialogue is so vapid and elliptical that it will put even the most committed viewer to sleep. And the cinematography is uninspired. And, like many movies centered on impressionable drug-addled subjects, Happiness Runs repeatedly sinks into surrealistic dream sequences, over-relying on the visions’ hallucinogenic quality to drive the story.

Please don’t waste your time with this one, kids. This movie sucked.

Review by Ebony Edwards-Ellis

Christina Aguilera - Bionic

RCA Records

Christina Aguilera has been a polemic figure since her breakthrough hit "Genie in a Bottle". She has a sexual aesthetic similar to a young Madonna’s, fashion sense like Cher’s, and raw vocal power comparable to a younger Whitney Houston’s. Her albums contain raunchy sexed-up tracks that appeal to sexually blossoming young adults and stately ballads that appeal to their post-menopausal mothers. Power pop, pop rock, R&B, hip-hop, dance, and even a little alt-rock have been found in some form on her albums. It’s a curse and a blessing for Christina that she can sound like anyone and sing almost anything. She’s always been difficult to categorize. Her ability to be so many things has caused critics to chastise her for not having her own unique presence.

The campaign for the collaboration-heavy Bionic began in the blogosphere with the declaration “Aguilera goes indie.” Ladytron, Le Tigre, Goldfrapp, M.I.A., Santigold, John Hill, and Sia all stepped up to the plate when an apprehensive Aguilera (convinced by her husband) reached out to them. The end result is an album that finds Christina caught between two worlds. Before, she seemed to be making the choice between being a serious singer or a pop star. Now, Christina Aguilera must chose between either being an “indie” darling or being the radio star. In the end, she is seemingly much more interesting doing “indie” impersonations than she is making radio ready pop.

The mainstream songs dominate the eighteen-track standard edition of the album and are, unfortunately, the weakest offerings from the Bionic sessions. Tricky Stewart never really replicates his production magic on his hits like “Umbrella” or “Single Ladies.” The Spanglish “Desnudate” sounds as if J.Lo, Pitbull, and Gloria Estefan went on an all night coke binge and decided to log some studio time in the process. The clunky Spanish translations, which seem to have been lifted directly from an online search engine, cause the track to sink even further. "Glam," touted as a modern "Vogue," is a cute but innocuous gay-friendly track that brings to mind Paris is Burning and Sex and the City. “Prima Donna” is slinky, urban, club fodder salvaged only by a confident hood delivery from Xtina, whose singing eerily sounds more and more like Michael Jackson by the bridge of the track.

Polow Da don’s tracks don’t fare much better. “Woo Hoo” (feat. Nicki Minaj), an ode to Christina’s lady parts, is fun, but the production is too sparse and predictable. “I Hate Boys” is a bratty, juvenile kiss-off that is the biggest stylistic misstep for Christina. It’s whooshing, grating production and taunting melody make it seem as if she’s trying to bite at the heels of Katy Perry and Ke$ha. But, this is a Christina Aguilera album, and with a deluxe version boasting twenty-four tracks in total there is still much more here to be examined.

A feel good collaboration with Le Tigre, “My Girls” is delightfully similar in its levity and playfulness. It combines Le Tigre’s penchant for female assertiveness and Christina’s stiletto wearing, ruby-lipped brand of third wave feminism. The product is a funky, lo-fi, disco-y, '90s, Girl Power pop with a Peaches feature and an adorable riot grrrrl shout-out to her collaborators.

With many of these collaborations Aguilera has been criticized for lacking a true identity and “ripping off” these artists, which I think is somewhat unfair. Can you call it “ripping off” if there is a consensual collaboration involved? In my opinion Xtina has been unable to maintain a clear musical identity out of sheer boredom and dynamic virtuosity. Yes, her voice is the only distinguishing feature that ties her albums together, but in her defense, why do one thing when you can do everything?

One burning question remains. How does one listen to such an album with such extreme stylistic differences from song to song? I’d say treat it like a mix-tape. With this number of tracks, various styles, and collaborators it’s safe to say that Christina Aguilera has made an album for the digital age. There are multiple ten-fifteen track albums that can be created from this lot for everyone to enjoy.

Review by Javi

This is an excerpt from a much longer, more detailed review that can be found at Electroqueer.

Wetlands

By Charlotte Roche
Grove Press

Originally written for the German public, Wetlands has made its way west to shock some freedom into the views of female sexuality and feminism. Wetlands could be the placid story of Helen, a girl using her hospital stay to get her parents back together. Yet this very outspoken character makes it anything but placid.

From the moment you start reading, you are stunned by how little this character hides. At first, we know very personal details without even knowing her name. You’ll read eleven full pages about how her hemorrhoid problem doesn’t stop her from liking sex. All this before you know exactly who's speaking to you.

No matter how hard you try, you won't be able to keep your mind's eye from seeing the vivid descriptions. At some points, I couldn't decide if Wetlands should keep its rating as slightly racy general fiction or be rated as erotica. While Helen's sexual exploits are described for us in the same manner as the rest of the book, Roche manages to do it in a non-pornographic way that makes you laugh at times. That's the thing about this book: No matter how gross it can be, somehow you still find yourself laughing.

Sometimes you have to ask if Helen is in the correct department of the hospital. She has very random thoughts, and often talks to herself. “Top patient for the psyche ward” popped into my head so many times. She has no inhibitions, which means any and every topic is spoken about in detail. You may even feel sorry for the unfortunate male nurse, who finds himself the center of her sexually driven attentions.

Helen is a one woman wrecking ball who knocks down the sexist double standards have been erected by society. With musings about other women’s tampons and an affinity for public restrooms, Wetlands is interesting in the most uncomfortable ways.

Review by Nina Lopez-Ortiz

Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible

Edited by Gregg Drinkwater, Joshua Lesser, and David Shneer
New York University Press

Torah Queeries is a compilation of sixty drashot, short exegetical essays, each of which addresses one of the parshiyot, segments of the Torah that comprise the yearly cycle of the reading of the Five Books of Moses. The reason there are sixty drashot rather than the usual fifty-four is because six additional ones are included, each dealing with one of the major Jewish holidays. Each drash engages the pertinent sacred text from a particular queer perspective—whether by exploring passages traditionally assumed to prohibit homosexuality (such as Elliot Dorff’s “How Flexible Can Jewish Law Be?”), by “updating” the story so it speaks to some aspect of the modern-day quest for a more just community (such as Steve Gutow’s “Setting the Stage for Pluralistic Judaism“), or by uncovering the presence of queer gender or queer desire in the Torah itself (such as Sarra Lev‘s “Esau’s Gender Crossing”).

On one hand, the book is an attempt to queer the act of Torah interpretation itself in a variety of ways: reading against the grain, turning traditional interpretations on their heads, reading with an eye to the margins of the stories, and claiming the right (as queer people and other outcasts) to interpret Torah in the first place. On the other hand, as the editors are careful to point out, there is absolutely nothing new about approaching Torah interpretation in this way. Although this is sometimes forgotten, Torah interpretation has always been fundamentally creative, confrontational, and revolutionary.

One need only read a single page of Talmud to understand that contradiction, upheaval, and the search for a more just and inclusive Jewish society are at the sacred core of textual interpretation and generation in (at least rabbinic) Jewish tradition. Thus, Torah Queeries is both boundary-crossing and radical and squarely traditional. As its focus on, and profound respect for, the Torah suggests, the book seeks to root itself firmly in history while simultaneously contributing to the continued dynamism of a modern, evolving Judaism.

Torah Queeries is close to my heart, and I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in the project in its first incarnation as a weekly queer Torah commentary blog. I’m also fortunate to be able to say that many of the authors in the anthology are my colleagues and friends. I’ve experienced firsthand the amazing community that has accrued around a shared love of Torah, as well as a shared belief in the value and dignity of queer people in all our forms.

Torah Queeries and related queer Jewish projects are creating venues for queer Jewish scholarship, creativity, and community. This is precious, powerful work.

Review by Ri J. Turner