The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide articles from January 2008

The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide archives from January 2008

January-February '08: the science of homo-sex.(Editorial)
January 1, 2008... Perhaps this issue's title should be followed by a question mark: is there a "science" of homosexuality? If so, what exactly is its object of study, and what is it trying to explain? Some scholars would argue that what we call "homosexuality"...

Whether it's a 'choice' or not is irrelevant.(GUEST OPINION)
January 1, 2008... Is homosexuality a choice or a biological imperative? The debate rages as science looks for an explanation, and many gay people applaud each new study that points to a biological cause. But it shouldn't matter. There's nothing fundamentally...

Scholarship on Jesus and the centurion.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Editor's Note: There was a lively response to Jack Clark Robinson's piece in the Nov.-Dec. 07 issue on the biblical account of Jesus healing the servant of a Roman centurion, possibly his lover. The critiques focus on the originality of the...

Poetry and the small presses.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Dear Poetry Editor: We were delighted by your warm and enthusiastic review of Joan Larkin's "My Body." I'd been hoping for years to get a collection like this from her and she really came through. The book has been a very satisfying...

The Shelleys' secret is safe.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... To the Editor: I just finished reading Douglas Sadownick's review of "The Man Who Loved Frankenstein" in the September-October issue with great interest and much appreciation. One of my Harvard professors, Dean Sue Weaver Schopf, is...

Passages 2007.(IN MEMORIAM)(In memoriam)
January 1, 2008... Every year, we recount the lives and works of members of the GLBT community and allies that we have lost. Here are some of those who made made a difference who passed away over the last year. Max (nee Maxine) Feldman died suddenly on August...

Inquirium interruptus.(BTW)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... That homosexuality flourishes in that all-male klatch that is the Roman Catholic clergy is no longer a shocking revelation, if it ever truly was. Nevertheless, the busting of a priest for such behavior still has the power to shock--not so much...

Record law falls.(BTW)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... It was just a year ago that photographer Tom Bianchi wrote a piece in these pages deploring a law familiarly known as "2257" that required producers of erotic art to keep detailed records of all the models who ever appeared in their work. One...

Over there.(BTW)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... How far the rest of the English-speaking world has leapt ahead of the US of A was on display in two stories: First, this from Telegraph.co.uk: "Four firemen who disturbed an outdoor gay sex session have been reprimanded and heavily fined...

Science prances on.(BTW)
January 1, 2008... The following "propositions" are keyed to the theme of this issue and report on a few studies of homosexuality from the labs of biologists and other scientists. Prop 1. The more older brothers you have, the more likely it is that you're...

Japan's out-of-the-way gay world.(INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM)
January 1, 2008... IN THE WESTERN IMAGINATION, Japan has often been a place of mystery, a locus of the exotic. Before the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and Japan's embrace of things Western, Japan had been literally closed to most of the world, so an air of mystery...

'Nature abhors a category': the author of Evolution's Rainbow on sex and diversity.(Joan Roughgarden)(Interview)
January 1, 2008... JOAN ROUGHGARDEN threw down the gauntlet at the feet of the evolutionary biology establishment a few years ago when she published Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People (UC Press, 2004). The book challenged...

Brief history of a recurring nightmare.(ESSAY)
January 1, 2008... WHEN the American Psychiatric Association drew up its list of disorders in 1952, it described homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disorder. Many therapists were far ahead of that formality: they were already trying to cure homosexual men...

The Lion's Mane.(Poem)
January 1, 2008... Rust growing in complex patterns on my stolen bike. Koans in the headlines, fortune cookies better read In bed. Or, a tragedy in every pocket. Choose your own Adventure. I've grown accustomed to the phrase It's going to be slightly more...

Genes, hormones, and sexuality.(ESSAY)
January 1, 2008... AS A WOMAN and a scientist, I am disturbed by careless over-interpretations of some of the scientific literature about the "math" gene, or the "female" brain vs. the "male" brain, or the "genetic" basis of intelligence. The comments made in...

Compound--Complex.(Poem)
January 1, 2008... Tall, lean, and muscular, my lover looks Exactly like the jock he used to be But has a flair for domesticity-- He does the laundry, cleans the house, and cooks-- Lifts heavy weights instead of reading books, Runs sprints and swims each...

Harry Hay's essentialism.(ESSAY)(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... "We are a Separate People, with, in several measurable respects, a rather different window on the world, a different consciousness which may be triggered into being by our lovely sexuality." Harry Hay, 1983 HARRY HAY'S FIRST FORAY...

Can biology vanquish bigotry?(ESSAY)
January 1, 2008... THE "NATURE-NURTURE" DEBATE has always been more about politics than about science. Notwithstanding the appealing alliteration, the two terms of this opposition go back to an ancient debate between biology and social learning. When applied to...

Ode to 'Joy': a classic crosses a milestone.(ART MEMO)(The Joy of Gay Sex)(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... MOST PEOPLE probably remember 1977 as the year of Star Wars, the Son of Sam slayings, and the death of Elvis, but for many gay men the year's most notable event was the October publication of The Joy of Gay Sex, by Charles Silverstein and...

Activism in the Harlem Renaissance.(ESSAY)(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... THAT MANY OR MOST of the prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance were gay or bisexual has become such a commonplace that Henry Louis Gates, Jr. could assert in 1993 that the Harlem Renaissance "was surely as gay as it was black, not that it...

The art of conspiracy.(ESSAY)(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy by Michael S. Sherry University of North Carolina Press 304 pages, $29.95 THE SO-CALLED "HOMINTERN" was an imagined conspiracy of mid- to late-20th-century gay artists...

In Defense of Marriage.(Poem)
January 1, 2008... There's no security in two men together, no guaranteed payment, no signatures, no witnesses besides the lady next door who suspects our apartment is a one bed- room like hers. We buy a dog for insurance, have one bank account, and...

How Stein and Toklas waited out the war.(Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice by Janet Malcolm Yale University Press 229 pages, $25. THIS COLLECTION of three stand-alone essays--not to be confused with Gertrude Stein's 1936 novel, Three Lives--is a handsomely produced volume...

Be butch or be bashed.(Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School by C. J. Pascoe University of California Press 227 pages, $19.95 "CHEERING STUDENTS filled River High's gymnasium. Packed tightly in bleachers, they sang, hollered, and...

The summer of '69.(Taking Woodstock)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Taking Woodstock by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte Square One Publishers 215 pages, $24.95 AT ONE POINT in the "true story" of the early years of his life, Elliot Tiber describes meeting Marlon Brando and Wally Cox in the San Remo...

Attractive numbers.(The Indian Clerk)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt Bloomsbury. 496 pages, $24.95 DAVID LEAVITT'S NEW NOVEL, The Indian Clerk, is his second historical novel. His first, While England Sleeps (1993), explored the troubled romance of two young men in...

Narrative downshift.(The New Kid)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The New Kid by Eliot Schrefer Simon & Schuster. 288 pages, $25. THE NEW KID opens with Humphrey--named after the Casablanca actor, he explains--experiencing the dread of being "the new kid" in town and school. Fifteen years old...

Prosody and footfalls.(Honorable Bandit: A Walk Across Corsica)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Honorable Bandit: A Walk Across Corsica by Brian Bouldrey University of Wisconsin Press. 296 pages $26.95 THIS DEEPLY FELT, humorous, and extremely wise book is a remarkable achievement. In Honorable Bandit: A Walk Across Corsica,...

Coming out invisible.(When You Don't See Me)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... When You Don't See Me by Timothy James Beck Kensington Books. 304 pages, $15. NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD Nick Dunhill felt that his parents never noticed him, but maybe that was just as well. Hiding in plain sight is easy to do when your...

Pathologizing unsafe sex.(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... What Do Gay Men Want? An Essay on Sex, Risk, and Subjectivity by David M. Halperin University of Michigan Press. 167 pages, $22.95 DAVID HALPERIN has a distinguished history of setting aside accepted ways of thinking about gay...

Eytan Fox: outside the Israeli 'Bubble'.(NOW PLAYING)(Interview)
January 1, 2008... Bodies of land, flesh, politics and families collide in The Bubble, the latest film by Israeli's most accomplished film director to date, Eytan Fox. Born in New York City and raised from an early age in Israel, Fox has experienced huge...

Inside This House.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Inside This House by Pam Crow Main Street Rag Press. 57 pages, $12. Pam Crow's poems are a smooth, subtle combination of craft, technical skill, and accessible language. The poems in Inside This House are divided into two...

Chain of Fools: A Donald Strachey Mystery.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Chain of Fools: A Donald Strachey Mystery by Richard Stevenson Harrington Park Press. 184 pages, $10.95 In light of media mogul Rupert Murdoch's recent acquisition of the venerable Wall Street Journal, Donald Strachey's latest...

Darren Hayes sings of that open book, his life.(ARTIST'S PROFILE)(Interview)
January 1, 2008... Chances are good you've heard the voice of Darren Hayes, even if you don't immediately recognize his name. Best known as the singing half of the popular Australian boy band Savage Garden, which scored a string of radio hits around the globe in...

Conferences/events.(Bulletin Board)(Brief article)(Calendar)
January 1, 2008... The Sex Tech Conf. "Focus on Youth" will take place January 22-23 at San Francisco State Univ. This is the inaugural STD/HIV prevention conf. focusing on youth and technology. For more info, visit: www.sxtechconference.org. Creating...

A tribute to Louise Nevelson, 20 years gone.
January 1, 2008... The sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing A Legend The Jewish Museum, New York City and Fine Museum of San Francisco AUDRE LORDE said it as well as anyone could in 1977: "We all shared a war against the tyrannies of silence." For...