Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #159584 in Books
• Published on: 1992-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 502 pages

From Library Journal
This anthology of stories, poems, and nonfiction accounts pays homage to a host of femme and butch lesbian relationships that have flourished over four decades. The narrators recount their experiences, describing how they met, how they took care of one another, and how they tried--or defiantly tried not--to fit in. The selections themselves bubble with passion and pain. Some dive beneath the surface to explore the varied meanings of gender roles, but most describe highly ritualistic manners of dress, hairstyle, and gesture that at times left the protagonist open to ridicule. In collecting these pieces into one volume, Nestle ( A Restricted Country , Firebrand Bks., 1987) has made sure that the integrity and diversity of femme-butch relationships will not be lost. She has included narratives from women of many backgrounds and ethnic groups and from outside the United States. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries.
- Lisa Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Must-read for human beings
This astonishing collection never ceases to surprise me.There really is nothing less politically correct than the Butch/Femme dynamic, and nothing, as she says, as persistent.
The piece by Leslie Feinberg is one of the most radiant pieces of writing, ever.

Could not be happier to have this book

Classic book that is strangely out of print. I had no idea how Huge the volume of essays, stories, pictures and poems this book contains.

So many fantastic selections: from Lee Lynch's short story `Jacky and the Femme' followed by her poem `Stone Butch', to the concluding work from Joan Nestle `Our Gift of Touch'.

A partial list of the many contributors -

Dorothy Allison
Pat Califia
Barbara Smith
Arlene Stein
Jewelle L. Gomez
Christine Cassidy
Amber Hollibaugh
Cherrie Moraga
Donna Allegra
Rita Laporte
Carolyn Gammon
Ina Rimpau
Merril Mushroom
Audre Lorde
Elly Bulkin
Leslie Feinberg
Judy Lederer
Lisa E. Davis
Radclyffe Hall
William Cullen Bryant

Do not skip the excellent introduction by Joan Nestle with the touching postscript.

This is a keeper from beginning to end!

Desire that Burns
After a recent submersion into what is passing for lesbian erotica these days -- and feeling as if I just wasn't perverse enough to be a "real" lesbian -- I revisited this classic.

After finishing it, and being once again intrigued, informed, aroused and delighted, I realized what it has that so many more recent anthologies lack: it has human contact based on emotion. The women in it are real and their feelings have true context. Instead of cold and sterile sex acts between people portrayed as obsessed with looks and their own image, this anthology overflows with the fluid nature of human sexuality and genuine human warmth.

Some may read for the historical perspective and others may miss the explicit-anything-for-shock-value gender games and power plays that are required it seems in all of the "best of" lesbian erotica out there now. I read it for the emotional impact because when it comes to erotica I need the emotional tie. Given how many lesbians (whether they admit it or not) read lesbian romance novels, I don't think I'm alone.