Califia, a champion of pornography as a key to adequately realized sexuality, is probably the most skilled writer of pornography working today if one measures talent by appeal across genders.
―Joseph W. Slade,
Pornography and Sexual Representation (
Joseph W. Slade 20090324)
Califia is in the tradition of philosophers Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse, the gay pioneer Harry Hay, the poet Allen Ginsberg, the journalist Ellen Willis, and the novelist Dorothy Allison, who calls Califia's essays ‘lucid, intelligent, brave, and true.’
―
The Progressive (
The Progressive 20090325)
Finally! The girl’s version of Straight to Hell, the written equivalent of Tom of Finland. No more nights spent appropriating gay or straight male porn because you thought women would never write that way.
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The Village Voice (
Village Voice 20090325)
Califia’s stories are intriguing, erotic, exhilarating, and unnerving. The sheer power of
Macho Sluts in undeniable.
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Bay Area Reporter (
Bay Area Reporter 20090325)
Macho Sluts will make you rethink what you thought you knew about lesbian sex.
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Windy City Times (
Windy City Times 20090325)
Macho Sluts breaks through the veils of silence that define, limit, and deny women's erotic possibilities. Califia is more than just an author. She is a political rebel as well.
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San Francisco Sentinel (
San Francisco Sentinel 20091006)
No matter what your sexual orientation, fetishes or fantasies, the work offers important cultural and historical lessons that are still very much relevant in a post-Proposition 8 fight for human understanding and equality.
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EDGE Publications (
EDGE Publications 20091125)
If nothing else, in a world full of smirky poseurs, Patrick Califia is a genuinely challenging writer, and we just don't have enough of those these days.
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Liberty Press (
Liberty Press 20090902)
This new edition is worth the purchase if only for the incredible new foreword from Patrick Califia himself.... By itself, [the foreword] is a piece of biography vibrant with strength and colour, but it comes attached to a collection of erotic tales that to this day remain a fabulous portrait of the complex joys of sex.
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Ottawa XPress (
Ottawa XPress 20100115)
Macho Sluts became the focal point of the most famous censorship battles between Little Sister's bookstore in Vancouver and Canada Customs. Which is why this new edition is still such an important read. It has a magnificent new foreword by Califia.... Reading it again, I was reminded of how 20 years ago, the book was more than porn---it radicalized and appropriated pleasure and became a canon in the lesbian sex wars.... Dorothy Allison called Califia's work "lucid, intelligent, brave, and true." A more accurate assessment is hard to find.
―
Curve (
Curve )
Patrick Califia?s writing and activism have revolutionized the concept of queer sex. He has written over a dozen books, including Coming to Power, Melting Point, No Mercy, and Speaking Sex to Power; his work has been translated into six other languages. He lives in San Francisco. Wendy Chapkis is a Professor of Sociology and Women & Gender Studies at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. She is also the co-author of Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine (New York University Press, 2008).
