April
20
An 'Our Bodies, Our Selves' for men
Men Like Us
The GMHC Complete Guide to Gay Men's Sexual, Physical and Emotional Well-Being
by Daniel Wolfe
Ballantine, $39.95 hard, $24 trade
Reviewed by Anthony Glassman
In the past thirty years, there have been two seminal, if very different, books on sexuality and health. The Joy of Gay Sex, as the name implies, dealt with gay sex, from positions to sexually transmitted diseases and sexual dysfunction. Our Bodies, Our Selves covered women's physical and emotional health. Daniel Wolfe has taken the two, put them in a blender, and poured out Men Like Us.
The book, a compendium of information on everything from sexual positions and pickup lines to illegal drugs' effects on people with AIDS and how to pick a psychiatrist, is published under the aegis of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, a New York City non-profit AIDS service organization. As such, it is written with an eye towards life in the age of AIDS as a manageable illness. It is possibly the first text of this scope to do so; most of the books from the eighties and early nineties saw the disease with the eyes of those living in the holocaust it brought about.
All of the subjects are dealt with in a slightly tongue-in-cheek manner, one of the volume's saving graces. Had everything been shown in a strictly dry, scientific way, this book would probably never be picked up by anyone outside of the medical field. But with topics like "How to be a gay porn robot" and "Open wide and say 'Uh..." this book is very readable and accessible to the layper-
son.
Everything is centered around the new reality of gay life: HIV infection. All sexual activities are examined for infection risks and other maladies' treatments are studied for their effects on those who are HIV positive. Which is not to say that the book harps on it, or is a one-trick pony; instead, the
THE
GMIC
COMPLETE GUIDE TO GAY MEN'S SEXUAL, PHYSICAL, AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING
book shows throughout that adjustments must be made, but there is life after AIDS.
For those who lived through the early years of the epidemic, when the GMHC made its name, this book proves a validation of their years of care. For those who came out more recently, to whom AIDS is less real, more the bogeyman hiding under the bed, it is a wake-up call and how-to manual all in
one.
いいい
Sexual Pleasure
• Body Basics--Exercise and Diet
• Relationships and Intimacy Medical Care-Prevention and Healing Mental Health and Therapy
•Spirituality and Community
WOLFE
Illustrations in the "Piercing" chapter drawn by
bisexual cartoonist Ellen Forney.