Customer Reviews

Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings

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This collection of Vidal's essays (and a few interviews) on sex and sexuality is both timely and welcome, since, as he states, sex is never far from public consciousness in the ever-repressed U.S.A. Essays like "Sex is Politics" are as fresh today as they were when first published, and is there another writer alive with a more authentic knowledge of American history and a more genuine understanding of American culture and political thought? I think not. Combine these assets with, as always, exqusite writing, and you have one utterly irresistible book.

Contrary to what certain "gender absolutists" would have us all think, Vidal's opinions on sexuality are more trenchant than ever before at a time when more men and women are transgressing the false boundaries of gender to explore sex with whoever we please. This collection is a happy defiance of those who would try to neatly categorize all of us based on our sexual acts or even our preferences (a difficult feat indeed when one considers women like me, who perform with men acts that might be considered, ahem, decidedly queer...)

... Environmental Consciousness, Political Awareness and generally not succumbing to the mindless morass of pedestrian thought and values -- which are neither thought-through nor truly valuable. Gore Vidal's compiled essays on sexuality -- both in terms of the act as well as gender and sexual orientation -- is an invaluable comfort to anyone whose rejection of "The American Dream" has been met with resistance and criticism.

Read Vidal, and then remember that being who you are is more important than succumbing to who other people try to convince you to be.

It is axiomatic that Gore Vidal has long been one of the more underrated American literary masters of the 20th century. It is brilliant compilations like SEXUALLY SPEAKING that do battle with this oversight. Not often do books emerge that contain such wit, history and a chilling timeliness, that can be both enlightening and serve as a puckish summer read. The supplemental commentary is piercing, poignant and vulgar. This is the book that archeologists will dig up in two hundred years, to see how sexual identity in the 20th century was both confused and triumphant

"Sexually Speaking" in these times is risky business, as Clinton, Starr, Lewinsky, and Tripp et al have more than shown us. Whereas with politicians sex becomes cloistered in the beltway and below the belt, in the hands of the esteemed Mr. Vidal's "Sexually Speaking", sex *is* politics and political.

And since when has it not been?

Ribald? No. Illuminating? Yes. Funny? Hell yes! Pounding down the nails of repression and hypocrisy, Vidal arms us all with intellectual firepower and in the process unlocks one more shackle, much to the dismay of those who would not have it that way... you all know who you are.

A brave work.

An excellent collection of Vidal pieces on sexuality which made for an interesting afternoon's read. Some reservations, however: why is a dry memoir of Eleanor Roosevelt included here when there is nothing within the essay that touches upon her sexuality? It is little more than a fond remembrance of a single meeting with the great lady (and Vidal has milked many a single and brief meeting with the famous for more than they were worth more times than can be remembered). Perhaps she was gay, but nowhere does Vidal suggest this or discuss it, so its inclusion seems pointless. Another reservation is that it is time that Vidal stop insisting that everyone is bisexual and that exclusive homosexuality does not exist when he himself has been exclusively homosexual for several generations. Rather than admit that he was wrong about this proclamation which he made back in the sixties, Vidal plows ahead, sounding more and more absurd each time he says it. Vidal's viewpoint on sexuality is pragmatic and free of guilt and superstition. He is very much in line with the rationalist/utilitarian school of Western philosophy.

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Gore Vidal is one of my favourite USA writers, because we share some ideas, which is logical and it explains why he lives in Europe, USA is very rightish this years...But it is a country where critics to the system could be thought and published (think of Chomsky, for instance), and that's good, although I'm not sure if Gore Vidal has got many readers in his own country. Anyway, he talks about sexuallity in USA, specially homosexuality, with a high sense of humour -very entertaining, indeed. And listen, the idea that there're not "gays" and "straights" is not his, you can also read it in Marvin Harris books: our Western society is the only one that qualifies somebody because of his/her sexual tendencies.

14 essays and three rare, vintage interviews published over the past four decades tackle hot button issues such as gay American founding fathers, sex and the Catholic church, gay-bashing in the US Congress, and bedding Jack Kerouac.

This is one of the most insightful books I have ever read. Once I got started reading I couldn't stop. Gore Vidal has proven himself to be one of the greatest essayist/satirist in the business, if not of all time. The way he writes and the subjects he writes about all prove to be relevant today. My favoite articles were the Larry Kramer interview and the Sex is Politics. These show Vidal at his smartest and funniest. This is a must read for any Gore Vidal fan or just about anyone interested in reading at all.

Equally, Donald Weise must be praised for putting together one of the smartest collections from one of America's venerated thinkers and writers, Gore Vidal. A brave, funny, sometimes eye-opening peeks into the mind of Gore Vidal and his ever controversial takes on queerness. Bravo Sexually Speaking!