My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Reading reviews of this book online, I find few reviews by men. I think it’s difficult for gay men to accept female sexuality, at least it is for me. I am not a woman, I am not attracted to women, and the idea of female sexuality is one I’d rather not explore. Not to say I’m against it, not in the least. I am a staunch feminist, through and through. It’s just difficult for me.
Some other things difficult for me include religion, S & M, and the concept of people not putting labels on themselves. I was able to be happy being a gay man when I was able to fully accept the label, to be the label, to wear it and live it. So the idea of rejecting labels is not something I’m familiar with.
There’s many things though I’m not familiar with in this warm and open memoir by Kate Bornstein. I wanted to read this as I heard it was good and I want to know more about transgendered people. I don’t feel its enough to be supportive of the trans community, I feel you need to learn a bit about them and try going for a walk in their shoes.
Kate is so DIFFERENT from me, with her tattoos and cutting and religion and everything, the book was always interesting. I felt it got a bit too much into the Scientology in parts, but I was able to get though it. What I wasn’t able to get through was the sex, the cutting, the S & M, the blood, I couldn’t take it. What was nice is that in the ebook version Kate included a link so you could skip over the worst of it, which I happily did without a glance back. Still, I really could have skipped more. I realize you can’t write a memoir without talking about what you do in the bedroom, but I honestly didn’t need to know. I may have nightmares.
All this being said, the book was enjoyable, Kate writes well and you can tell it’s from the heart. I was glad to read a person’s experience that’s so different from mine, but I feel like parts were read looking between my fingers out of fear, which kept me a little detached.
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