Who has a PDF version of this book "Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men"
-
Anyone, pls upload? ;D
-
Sounds interesting.
-
This is the cover of the book http://nyupress.org/books/9781479825172/
-
I want it too, and an epub version will be better
-
I have read some reviews and the book doesn´t seem to be good. If you read it, try doing so with a pinch of salt and more like a sexual fantasy than an educational material :). I wish as much as you that my straight friend would do stuff with me but let them decide for themselves what´s good for them instead of trying to convince us/them through some books that they want to have sex with us ;D.
-
I have read some reviews and the book doesn´t seem to be good.
Review from Stephen Hemrick:
Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men
by Jane Ward
NYU Press. 238 pages, $25.The title of Jane Ward’s book is not meant to be ironic. Her argument is that while sexual activity between straight white men (SWM) does take place, it doesn’t mean that the participants are gay. The book is about exploring the circumstances under which this situation can be said to arise.
Notions of particular sexual acts fitting a dichotomy between hetero- and homosexual, or some version thereof—the whole notion of “sexual orientation”—is really a modern Western concept, and one that is currently in flux. Many young people today reject sexual labels of any kind. This lack of commitment to a fixed “identity,” in turn, is allowing people to be more open and experimental in their sexual behavior.
The concept of a continuum of sexual orientations started with Alfred Kinsey’s groundbreaking research. The “Kinsey Scale” assumed that sexual orientation forms a spectrum rather than a simple dichotomy, with 0 being completely straight and 6 completely gay. Somewhat surprisingly, Ward mentions Kinsey only in passing. Like Kinsey, she argues that sex between SWM is quite commonplace, but it tends to be confined to particular social situations. Indeed it is Ward’s contention that these situations are ones that have the paradoxical effect of affirming heterosexuality while distancing participants from the same-sex behavior. Thus, for example, hazing rituals that involve homosexual behavior implicitly assume that such performances are an ordeal that inductees will be disgusted by.
Ward identifies three broad categories of same-sex behavior among SWM. The first is “homosexual necessity,” or situational homosexuality, which includes everything from casual sex between dudes when their girlfriends are away to sex in prison or on seagoing vessels when no women are available. Doubtless such outlets have existed forever and have little bearing on our concept of sexual identity.
A more interesting category is “homosocial” activity in which sexual contact plays a role, and here the range of possibilities is vast. It’s surprising how many hazing rituals at fraternities involve homosexual play. One example is the so-called “elephant walk,” in which the naked inductees are forced to form a circle and insert a finger into the ass of the guy in front of them, and then walk in formation. Hazing in the U.S. Navy’s “crossing the line” ceremony involves anal penetration and analingus, among other unlikely activities for heterosexual men.
Ward’s “homosocial” performances in general are a form of social bonding, their origins wrapped up in tribal culture and puberty rites of yore. Whether it signifies a genuine longing for intimacy and bonding with other men is the question. Thus, for example, psychologist Joe Kort asserts that many men possess “a deep longing to experience physical intimacy with other men that they are denied in a sexist and homophobic world.” On the other hand, sociologist Michael Kimmel demotes homosexual longings to a developmental phase, a delayed coming-of-age process that some SWM will pass through. Despite her larger thesis, Ward allows that some straight men have a real desire to engage in homosexual sex, and that the rituals she observed provide a “script of necessity” that allows them to negotiate a heterosexual identity and a desire for sex with men.
The third group is what Ward calls “accidental homosexuality,” which is when guys end up in situations in which both parties are “intoxicated, dumb, or subject to other unusual conditions beyond their control.” This condition is depicted in movies in the so-called “bromance” films, or perhaps in parodies of such films, such as Blades of Glory (2007), in which two zany SWM figure skaters (Will Ferrell and Jon Heder) forge a friendship and “tenderly embrace each other—and each other’s crotches—on the skating rink.” In a very different vein, in the “Jackass” movies an all-male cast (often scantily clad) submits to physical abuse that can involve each others’ nipples or butts or testicles.
Ward devotes a chapter to the sociology of hooking up for SWM in the 1950s and ’60s. Outlets included the bike club Hell’s Angels for working-class men and a range of tearooms and public parks for middle-class men. And yet, at this point we’re talking about men who are actively seeking sex with other men; does there not come a point at which these “SWM” are in fact closeted gay men who’ve yet to come to terms with their sexuality? This question is of course at the core of this book: should these performances be seen as only the enactment of a social script or are they an outlet for authentic same-sex desires? Or are they something else? The prevalence of SM/BD scenarios, violence, and degradation suggests that there’s a strong element of power for its own sake. In other words, as always where sex is concerned, it’s complicated.[nb]Stephen Hemrick, "Review of 'Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men' by Jane Ward,
NYU Press," Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide 22, no. 6 (November 2015): 46, http://www.glreview.org/article/swm%E2%80%88looking-for-same [/nb] -
Bump because it caught my interest aswell
-
Anyone, pls upload? ;D
Until you find the kindle mobi version of her book, as a substitute there is an article that Ms. Ward wrote called Dude-Sex: White Masculinities and Authentic Heterosexuality Among Dudes Who Have Sex With Dudes ―which served as the basis for her book "Not Gay" and which explores a lot of the same themes. You can download it here.
-
I have read some reviews and the book doesn´t seem to be good.
Review from Stephen Hemrick:
Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men
by Jane Ward
NYU Press. 238 pages, $25.The title of Jane Ward’s book is not meant to be ironic. Her argument is that while sexual activity between straight white men (SWM) does take place, it doesn’t mean that the participants are gay. The book is about exploring the circumstances under which this situation can be said to arise.
http://www.glreview.org/article/swm%E2%80%88looking-for-same [/nb]
Okay, that´s a very nice review. I have read plenty of shorter reviews and most people don´t like that book that much. But the author of the review said it himself. This books is unlikely to give us "closure" on the matter. It´s just complicated.
-
most people don´t like that book that much.
I'm kind of curious what it was that they didn't like about it. Was it Ms. Ward's argument that those who identify as straight are not straight in a sexual sense but only because they want to appropriate the idea of straight in order to have sex?
Was it her argument that by distancing themselves from homosexuality, those that occupy the straight stance actually get closer to it?
Or maybe they didn't like her assertion that being gay is about how sex is done – the language that is used, the type of ‘porn’ films that are watched, the beverages consumed, and the motivation that drives the sex itself.
Perhaps they just didn't care for her references to the heterosexual costumes, scripts, and codes like ‘being chill bros’ and ‘male bonding’ which are used to help those who identify as straight to reframe sex as the kind that bolsters, rather than threatens, the heterosexual masculinity of its participants.
I have read plenty of shorter reviews
But don't those reviews feel as if they're half-done–like half the review was left out? I mean, they say that they didn't like it, but they didn't say why they didn't like it, and I guess it's kind of a shame that we'll never know…being that those shorter reviews probably didn't have much room to explain a whole lot, since they were shorter.
But then again, the book was written as an academic discourse, meaning that unlike 50 Shades of Grey, it wasn't meant to evoke the kind of response that one would characterize as 'liking'. People should no more 'like' this book than they should like a book discussing the taxonomy of benthic fauna.
Which, by the way, seems to be what Ms. Ward is doing....albeit above water, on dry land.
;D
-
Hatrick: But the author of the review said it himself.
Actually, that would be Jane Ward, female.
Thus, an excuse to keep this topic alive by recusitating it from the old-and-moldy category. Maybe someone will respond by posting an electronic copy as requested. Or perhaps someone will continue the discussion of what men do together in spite of possible labels.
Long ago, the Playboy Advisor handled a query (heheh, he said "query") from a young self-proclaimed str8 man who said he and his college roomie had sex together and liked it, and have kept it up on an occasional basis in the years since, when both have spent all their other time with a sex partner only with women.
Dude wanted to know what the Advisor thought, which means that like most people who write to advice columnists, he wanted permission to do what he already wanted to do and was, in fact, doing. Naturally, he was told that there was nothing actually wrong with this, but it would be best to cut it out. I forget why.
In the great gay-friendly science fiction series Torchwood, where sex with aliens is allowed as much as sex with any gender of interest, the Dr. Who character played by openly gay singer/actor John Barrowman (currently on view in the US as a major character on "Arrow," where hunks abound) is having an ongoing affair with Ianto, a male member (heheheh, he said "male member") of the team fighting aliens and other threats relating to a breach in some sort of standard-cliche type dimensional portal (cf Stargate, The Librarians, The Flash, among other series on the electronic telly machine.).
Ianto says he is str8, only queer for one man. Maybe there are people right here on this very forum site who have had experiences with someone who is "straight but not narrow," and who is only interested in, only chases, and only even fantasizes about females… with one single exception.
Astonishes me the number of people right here in River City who insist that means the one-offer is in fact pulling the wool over his own eyes and hiding in his own closet. Or, of course, actually gay.
WWI soldier love poetry involving what Walt called "the dear love of comrades" and some of the WWII photos of military buddies at ease while on the front lines is evidence enough for Some to accept that sexuality is fluid and, as generally considered for millennia until maybe a century and a quarter ago, too complex and variable (depending on age, time, place, availability, and other factors) to be reduced to a single narrow label.
Until the 1960s, what men did with each other was not discussed, esp. in mixed company. Gloryholes were not advertised, not dinner table conversation even when women were not present. No sailor went on a second long sea voyage propelled by wind power without knowing what went on comme d'habitude. What happens in all male prisons is also widely known, and when rape is involved, for some reason is considered a hilariously appropriate subject for jokes because what convicted blackmailer or tax cheat doesn't deserve violent sexual assault, right? So what could be wrong with smirking dialogue about "don't drop the soap," or "I hope he gets a roommate named Bubba." Ahahaha. These victims deserve what they get. (Like all victims of sexual assault?)
It really was not until Boyd MacDonald began soliciting and publishing true tales of m/m encounters that even within the gay community the true range of possibilities and options began to be known.
Anyway, a book like this one can at least start a major conversation that might proceed to overcome lots of troglodyte attitudes and help the human race evolve toward tolerance. And then when some dude wants some action, the only thing holding him back is not possible self-loathing or fear of what others will think, but something other than irrational limitations or thoroughly inculcated proscriptions based on popular mythology.
-
It's honestly kind of interesting how this phenomenon is seen strictly in the realms of a sexual relationship and nothing further.
Just..putting this out there.
I'm honestly skeptical but at the same time I recognize that labels are social construct– even 'gay' and 'bisexual' are but social construct.
Sexuality as in, hormonal attraction and social-emotional-romantic attachment might be a very colorful palette in reality. -
If anyone's still looking for it, I uploaded it at http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=41191881101712351081.
-
If anyone's still looking for it, I uploaded it at http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=41191881101712351081.
Maybe you don't realize but it has been posted here since June of this year.
https://www.gaytorrent.ru/details.php?id=06fe80e27137090fac2aeb60fd392c68aa5c06635cc673a9
