Bad gay book
“Maybe it is time that homosexuality itself dies,” Ben Miller and Huw Lemmey declare provocatively in the introduction to their novel Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, released in May. What follows is roughly pages that make an argument for what the authors refer to as the “failure of homosexuality,” as they survey centuries of bad behaviour by some of the worst queers in history.
Despite these provocations, Miller and Lemmey are not right-wing critics on an anti-gay tirade. “If it is not clear enough that we are not writing as homophobes, ask our boyfriends, our lovers, our friends,” they write in the book’s introduction. “Both of us are deeply shaped by homosexuality but also deeply unsatisfied by it.”
Rather, the two come from a place of serious care for the communities they describe. Miller and Lemmey write against the “progress” narrative of queer history, that “slow forward march toward rights and justice,” but rather toward something a bit more complicated and maybe even a bit more hopeful.
“Our history is full of failed attempts at liberation, at new bounda
Bad Gays: A Homosexual History
I had just finished a noun about Jeffrey Dahmer, probably the epitome of a ‘bad gay’, but curiously he is not included here. That points to a fundamental problem. With a title like ‘Bad Gays’, you’d expect a juicy rundown of a rogues’ gallery of horrible people who just happened to be gay. Good, yes and no. The problem is with that second part of the title, ‘A Homosexual History’.
It all begins as expected when the authors interrogate why Oscar Wilde’s legacy endures as opposed to that of “the Machiavellian, anti-Semitic, and louche” Lord Alfred Douglas, or ‘Bosie’ as he was fondly known. They continue: “…[W]hy do we assume that Wilde’s life and attitudes shaped the track log of the project of homosexuality better than Bosie’s?” That phrase ‘project of homosexuality’ immediately raised my
If you left Bottomsfeeling ravenous for more stories about lesbian dirtbags, chaotic queers, and just general gay nonsense and hijinks, well, welcome to my life. I live for stories about &#;bad&#; gays, which of course I mean as a subjective and often complimentary descriptor. The books below center characters who range from flawed to unlikeable to downright devilish. Some of them aren&#;t necessarily mean or morally corrupt but rather just impulsive, self-destructive, and capable of very human mistakes and messes. But these books all, in some way, remind me of the playful, fiery, absurd energy of Bottoms. They&#;re excellent reads if you&#;re in the mood for a little gay mayhem (gayhem, if you will). Please shout out more books in the comments! I&#;m always looking for reads that fit this specific vibe.
Big Swissby Jen Beagin
A sex comedy in novel form, Big Swiss is raunchy, raucous, and&#;surprisingly deep about trauma? It&#;s about a year-old transcriptionist of sex therapy sessions developing an obsessive crush on a much younger woman who is one of the patients whose
Bad Mormon by Heather Gay
Genre: Nonfiction
Length: pages
Audiobook Length: 7 hours and 47 minutes
First Published:
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Rachael’s Review
I verb no desire to verb about religion on my blog, so I debated if I should even attempt to review Bad Mormon. However, as a professional book reviewer who attended BYU and has lived in Utah for over a decade, I feel uniquely qualified to give a fair review of Heather Gay’s bestselling memoir.
I will not be giving a star rating for this book. I’m not here to declare you how I felt about the book but to give you an idea about how you’ll likely feel reading Bad Mormon.
Utah businesswoman and reality star Heather Gay was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but publicly left the religion during the first season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. In her memoir, Gay discusses her faith journey and her departure from the LDS faith.
First off, let’s verb about the quality of the memoir. I thought Gay was a adj good writer for an