Customer Reviews

The Sexual State of the Union

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This thought provoking and sometimes shocking book came highly recommended and I pass on the same sentiments. Though always interested in expanding my consciousness, I was little prepared for the giant leap I would take with each page. Susie Bright speaks intelligently from personal experience about such topics as pornography, gender, and sexuality. She provides the reader with radical yet believable interpretations that make you want to go out and explore for yourself. She brings together the human experience to which we are born, with the secret desires and fantasies we all possess, slowly unveiling the masks we hide behind. A must read if you are ready to explore your own sexual identity and biases.

This book was interesting, provocative, in some places well-researched and in some places utterly fluffy. Don't get me wrong. I Love Susie Bright. I just felt like it needed more editing to make it a more cohesive piece.

But the writing is excellent, and what could possibly be more interesting as subject matter? It was fun, and her conversation with a trans friend will certainly shake up a few readers (I couldn't decide if she was being insightful or wildly insensitive).

Recommended further reading: For a solid, well-researched history of sex in America this century, read Heidenry's "What Wild Ecstasy: The Rise and Fall of the Sexual Revolution". For utter provocative gall, amazing insight and some very surprising facts, read Levine's "Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex". Both of these were riveting, less fluffy and better edited than "Sexual State of the Union". But they all seem to speak from the same base: a fundamental understanding of the importance of both sex and free speech in our society.

The first half of this book is an excellent and frank discussion of sexual and gendered politics in America, punctuated by the authors real life experiances. Witty and insightful, it asks the classic question: Why are Americans so sexually screwed up, and what can we do to fix it? It's also a book pointedly aimed at debunking certain right wing Christian sexual myths, and does a wonderful job of that.

However, towards the end of the book (last chapter or two) she talks about being a lesbian and friends with transexuals, it seems that she is speaking too much about her own experiances, and she isn't trying them into any broader concept. While her experiances are interesting, the title of the book is "Sexual State of the Union", so one expects a little more discourse on how her experiances relate to America on a whole.

Terrific, funny, and irreverant