That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation [Paperback]

Matt Bernstein Sycamore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2004

A THEORETICAL BLUEPRINT THAT BRINGS THE POST-IDENTITY POLITIC OF ANGRY QUEERS TO THE PUBLIC As the gay mainstream prioritizes the attainment of straight privilege over all else, it drains queer identity of any meaning, relevance, or cultural value, writes Matt Bernstein Sycamore, aka Mattilda. This timely collection of essays by writers such as Patrick Califia, Kate Bornstein, Carol Queen, Charlie Anders, Benjamin Shepard, and others shows what the new queer resistance looks like. Intended as a fistful of rocks to throw at the glass house of Gaylandia, the book challenges the commercialized, commoditized, and hyper objectified view of gay/queer identity projected by the mainstream (straight and gay) media by exploring queer struggles to transform gender, revolutionize sexuality, and build community and family outside of traditional models. Essays include "Dr. Laura, Sit on My Face," "Gay Art Guerrillas," "Legalized Sodomy Is Political Foreplay," and "Queer Parents: An Oxymoron or Just Plain Moronic?" THAT'S REVOLTING! Shows us what the new queer resistance looks like. It uses queer identity and struggle as a starting point from which to reframe, reclaim and re-shape the world.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Matt Bernstein Sycamore is also the author of Pulling Taffy and the editor of Tricks and Treats and Dangerous Families (all available from Turnaround). His other writing has been published widely in places as diverse as Best American Erotica, Women and Performance and Slingshot.

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press (September 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932360565
• ISBN-13: 978-1932360561
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 7.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,327,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is most recently the editor of Why Are Faggots so Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform (AK Press 2012), and the author of So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights 2008). Mattilda is the editor of Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (Seal 2007) and an expanded second edition of That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Soft Skull 2008). She's also the author of Pulling Taffy (Suspect Thoughts 2003), and the editor of Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving (Haworth 2004; now Routledge) and Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients (Haworth 2000; now Routledge). Sycamore recently finished a memoir, The End of San Francisco.

Mattilda's home page is mattildabernsteinsycamore.com, which includes a delicious blog.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Radical, Not Liberal, November 12, 2009

By 

susan e. wiget "Susan E. Wigget" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Paperback)

The word "radical" does not mean "extreme" but rather "going to the root." That is, being radical is about going to the root of the problem, the root of our patriarchal a.k.a. dominator society, finding solutions for overthrowing it, and living as much as possible outside of the dominant system. During the same-sex marriage debate, I kept reflecting on how marriage was invented for the purpose of enslaving women. I kept signing petitions in favor of gay marriage while feeling apprehensive and wondering why lesbians, especially, would want to participate in such a patriarchal establishment.

Reading the anthology That's Revolting was a great relief, because it proves that many people see things the same way I do, from a radical point of view rather than a liberal point of view. That's Revolting is for those who want a nonviolent revolution, not a white picket fence and a house in suburbia. It is for those who question the American dream rather than gobble up capitalism, respectability, or the nuclear family lifestyle. It is for those who wish to overthrown marriage and the military, not participate in them. This diverse anthology is social criticism, inspiration, words of reassurance that radical activism continues, and a call to action.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is what has been missing., February 14, 2005

By 

G. A. Stanley - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Paperback)

This is the book I had always dreamed they would use in my queer classes at school!!! Activism, cultural analysis and personal narratives help push what has been understood as "gay and lesbian studies" from the now "safe" grounds of identity to the terrain of revolution. From racism in queer organizing to hilarious direct action That's Revolting is a radical a re-thinking of all that we through we knew about social change, gender, class and race.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent, January 28, 2005

By 

Austin (Columbia, Missouri) - See all my reviews

This review is from: That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Paperback)

Nowhere have I seen such an amazing range of essays about the complexities of queer lives. The book is fiery, exciting, and full of wisdom. I especially liked "Gay Art Guerrillas," where Sarah Schulman and Jim Hubbard detail the rise and fall of downtown New York in the eighties with lively anecdotes and cutting wit. "Calling All Restroom Revolutionaries" offers a step-by-step plan for making public bathrooms gender neutral and accessible, and offers a stunning critique of identity politics in the process. And the opening essay, "Dr. Laura, Sit on My Face," I've read over and over again, even once to a friend over the telephone. I live outside of the major gay destination cities, so this book was a welcome breath of fresh air -- Queer Eye for the Straight GIRL isn't exactly speaking to me, if you know what I mean. I recommend this book to anyone with a brain.