Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform [Paperback]

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2012

"You may have thought you understood human nature before you read this book; after reading it you will be humbled by all you failed to grasp until now."--Edmund White

"These essays come like a plunge into a forest pool of revitalizing joy, honesty, and common sense. Read them. Now. No--not tomorrow. Now!"--Samuel R. Delany

Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it's an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into "straight-acting dudes hangin' out," what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? challenges not just the violence of straight homophobia but the hypocrisy of mainstream gay norms that say the only way to stay safe is to act straight: get married, join the military, adopt kids! Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore reinvokes the anger, flamboyance, and subversion once thriving in gay subcultures in order to create something dangerous and lovely: an exploration of the perils of assimilation; a call for accountability; a vision for change.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"These essays--alternately moving and sprightly, contemplative and outraged--display the power of presenting an alternative to the mainstream: a world of greater tolerance, acceptance, support, and creativity." -- Publishers Weekly

From the Inside Flap

This book plumbs the most important question facing queers in the 21st century: how the hell did we go from forming a crucial part of the '60s 'lib' rainbow, and from mastering, refining, and successfully deploying nonviolent resistance with ACT UP, only to end up creating for ourselves a world of martial and marital law every bit as sterile, constricting, and amoral as the world we once fled like the plague?
--Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: AK Press (January 31, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1849350884
• ISBN-13: 978-1849350884
• Product Dimensions: 0.6 x 5.8 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,204 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's first memoir, The End of San Francisco, will be published by City Lights in April 2013.

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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I've Been Waiting All My Life For This Book To Be Written January 29, 2012

By wildflowerboy

Format:Paperback

Never before have I had such a visceral reaction from reading a book. To say that I was moved by this multicultural anthology of essays by radical queers is a major understatement. Indeed, these essays punched me in the stomach with their profound insights, raw honesty, and deep humanity. As a fat, femme, working-class, HIV+, radical queer, I often feel alienated by the mainstream capitalist gay establishment with its pervasive consumerism, sizeism, ableism, hyper-masculinity and other oppressions; so reading this anthology reminds me that I'm not alone. Tackling issues like racism, classism, ageism, sexism, internalized homophobia, body fascism, substance abuse, sexual assault, militarism, and the prison industrial complex, this book insists on an intersectional approach to queer liberation in contradistinction to the right-wing agenda of single-issue gay rights organizations like HRC and the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce. For example, Larry Goldsmith, in his brilliant essay, "Rich Man's War, Poor (Gay) Man's Fight", shows how the aforementioned organizations, which have invested millions lobbying for "gays in the military", have refused to defend Bradley Manning, a courageous gay political prisoner accused of blowing the whistle on U.S. imperialist war crimes in Iraq. Similarly, South Asian gay immigrant, Debanuj DasGupta, in his essay, "Trans/Nationally Femme", exposes the effects of white supremacy and neoliberal economic regimes on LGBTQ people of color. Without a doubt, this is one of the most important and urgent queer anthologies I've ever read. So, please, please, please read it and do what you can to undermine and dismantle the racist, capitalist hetero-patriarchy.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars this is the book i've been waiting for! January 15, 2012

By gina

Format:Paperback

there's so much variety in this book. intensely personal, emotional, analytical essays on every topic of faggotry and from every perspective you can imagine-- and more! as with all mattilda bernstein sycamore books, i particularly like all the complicated takes-- internet cruising, race stereotyping, gender self-expression, public sex, growing up, homophobia, body image, aging and sexuality. i was particularly impressed by several provocative pieces about barebacking, several eloquent and touching stories about trans identity in the gay world, as well as a wide range of perspectives on AIDS, gay identity and sexual safety. somehow mattilda bernstein sycamore always manages to bring it all together and tear it all apart, all at the same time.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a much needed fabulous intervention January 16, 2012

By jessica lawless

Format:Paperback

I was at the book launch for this exciting, sassy, smart, new anthology edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. The essays complied here are a much needed antidote to the mainstream agenda of marriage, military, religion and adoption. The question, 'why are faggots so afraid of faggots?" is so spot on and answered through a vast array of compelling stories and essays. This lens also allows for the broader question of "why is the current LGBT movement so afraid of radical queers?" to be considered. The book is both both specific and open, an impressive feat. Throw on your best boa, put on those glittery false eyelashes and read this book!