Public Sex
The Culture Of Radical Sex
Pat Califia
Among the beacons of sex radicalism–alongside Susie Bright, Carol Queen, Kate Bornstein, and very few others–Pat Califia has been writing angry, sex-positive essays and politically charged erotica since the late 1970s. The bulk of her many nonfiction pieces is collected in this reprint of a book first published in 1994, providing a lively, informal history of the sex wars of the ’80s and ’90s–from the absurd, puritanical Meese Commission Report to the antiporn feminists to the unexamined attitudes behind the popular Re/Search book Modern Primitives. The chief apologist for the S/M community and one of the strongest voices in the anticensorship fight, Califia is at her best when the subject is closest to home. Her peevish reflections on the stupidity and political shortsightedness of anti-S/M feminists and lesbians are a joy to read; you can hear the swish of her whip and the stamp of her boot heel. With its excellent introduction, this book should be on the shelf of every feminist, every lesbian, every sexual adventurer, and anyone who hopes to understand sexual politics in America. –Regina Marler
From Publishers Weekly
‘Today, at the amazing age of forty, I am trying to cause just as much trouble as I did when I was twenty-five,’ writes Califia, author of 12 books, including Macho Sluts and Sapphistry. Public Sex comprises 19 of Califia’s smartest essays on sex and politics from 1980 to the present. Always intelligent but never academic, Califia takes bold, unpopular stances on censorship and sexual freedom. She unequivocally supports NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association), sex clubs, pornography and kinky sex of all kinds. No aspect of sex is too forbidden or too undignified to merit Califia’s critical attention: she devotes an entire essay to rubber, and she doesn’t just mean safe sex equipment. The older articles are from popular gay-community newspapers and magazines, while the most recent are from academic journals, although the older pieces are no less theoretical and the newer pieces no less sexy. This comparison gives some credence to Califia’s claim that ‘the gay press has traded censorship by the chief of police or the postmaster general for a more subtle form of social control by Absolut Vodka.’
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Details
| ISBN | 9781573440967 |
| Genre | LGBT Studies/Social Sciences |
| Publication Date | 12-Jun-00 |
| Publisher | Cleis Press |
| Format | Trade Paperback |
| No. of Pages | 250 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | NotRated |
| BookID | 10205 |
