Dykes With Baggage [Paperback]

Riggin Waugh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2000

Some day you will look back on all this and laugh. If you never thought you would hear that phrase applied to the usually agonizing process of psychoanalysis, think again! Among the very skewed sessions in this hilarious collection you will find "Affirmations in Action" by Ellen Orleans, "Serial Therapy (or What to Do When Your Therapist Is Seeing Someone Else)" by G.L. Morrison, 'Case History of a Warrior Princess" by Julia Willis, "What Do You Say to a Naked Therapist?" by Lesla Newman, and cartoons by Kris Kovick. No matter if you are as well-balanced as a scale or should be in analysis for 18 hours a day, these stories will leave you in stitches!

Riggin Waugh is the author of Homo Neurotica and the editor of the Lambda Literary Award finalist Ex-Love Weird Shit.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Not likely to end up next to the April 1974 National Geographic in your psychologist's waiting room, this irreverent collection of cartoons, personal essays, and short stories about the torments of therapy goes down well with half a Paxil and a glass of orange juice. In Ivy Burrowes's "Therapeutic Insurrection," two women in group therapy break the rules and begin an affair with each other. Leslea Newman displays an obsessive streak in "What Do You Say to a Naked Therapist?" and in C.C. Carter's "On Becoming a Woman," a full-figured lesbian finally rejects her "food counselor" and embraces her own size 14 beauty. Although the book is not always as funny as its jacket copy suggests, there are a few gems, including editor Debra Riggin Waugh's brief sketch of a couples' counseling session with a new therapist, in which the main character, suffering from a bad cold, fails to hear the crucial first two words of the sentence, "Do you tell her what you like in bed?" and launches into a graphic description of their lovemaking. This is antidepressive reading; keep out of reach of therapists. --Regina Marler

About the Author

Riggin Waugh is the author of Homo Neurotica and the editor of Ex-Love Weird Shit, which was a Lambda Literary Award finalist in 19XX.

Product Details

• Paperback: 309 pages
• Publisher: Alyson Books (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555835686
• ISBN-13: 978-1555835682
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,675,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh, cry, schedule an emergency session, November 18, 2000

By 

Kate Warner (New York City, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dykes With Baggage (Paperback)

Finally a book that deals tongue-in-cheek with our Issues with a capital "I."

Meredith Cohen ("Ms. Behavior") once wrote about the pesky boundary situations that can occur between lesbians and their (oftentimes) lesbian therapists and this book provides ample evidence of this. From one woman (oops womyn? :) seeing her therapist naked at the gym, to a client who uses a therapist's home bathroom and has to have the therapist pass toilet paper through the cracked door..well, you get the picture.

This book will definitely make you laugh, so buy one for the next time your therapist is on a vacation. Until prozac goes generic, it's the next best thing....

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh all the way to your next appointment, January 23, 2001

By 

Marcy L. Thompson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dykes With Baggage (Paperback)

Ever wonder what you would do if you ran smack into your therapist in the dressing room at the 'Y'? Need advice on how to select a therapist? Or an object lesson on what happens when you choose badly?

This book is full of amusing and insightful stories about lesbians in therapy, and lesbian therapists doing therapy, and lesbians who should be doing therapy. Most of the stories are well-written and fluent.

This book is a great deal of fun, offers some real food for thought and is a good way to tide you over your therapist's four-week trip to Aruba.

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely entertaining tongue-in-cheek anthology, September 24, 2006

By 

E. B. MULLIGAN "Bronwyn" (Tampa, Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dykes With Baggage (Paperback)

I bought this for the laugh out loud funny story by Julia Willis `Case History of a Warrior Princess'.

The book has 69 short-short stories from a host of fabulous authors including Alison Bechdel, Leslea Newman, Anna Seale and many more.

This is a Keeper!