Reviews - Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

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1.09k reviews for:

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

Ben Miller, Huw Lemmey

3.62 AVERAGE

tastyspore's review against another edition

1.5

slow-paced

You know that guy you try to avoid at work that loves to hear himself talk but says absolutely nothing? Yeah, he could’ve written this book.

I love the idea of a book about less-known and complicated gay ancestors, but unfortunately the execution here is lacking. If you’re going to market a book as “a homosexual history,” then maybe you should dive into their sexuality well before the last few pages of the chapter. With a couple of exceptions, each chapter subject’s homosexuality is brought up sort of as an afterthought, as if the author just remembered the point of the book, and then barely mentioned again. If this was a collection of “villains of history” it would still be pretentious and boring, but at least it would sort of meet my expectations, although the authors have an unfortunate habit of going off on multiple-page tangents about people just barely related to the subject. I can’t tell you much about Jack Saul, but I learned plenty about (Thomas boulton) in the chapter allegedly about Saul.

I also question the label of “bad” for a lot of the subjects. Sure, if you’re only going to judge their actions through the lens of a westerner in 2022 then yeah, they’re bad, but that’s a very juvenile way of looking at history. We can acknowledge that historical figures held problematic views that were characteristic of their time while also acknowledging their contributions. Even if we looked at the book’s subjects in that lens, many of them would still be considered progressive and maybe even “good.” Some advocated and worked toward anti-colonialism and anti-racism, and while today we recognize their methods and reasoning are flawed, at the time they were influenced by the attitudes and information from imperialist powers and culture.

I appreciate that the authors addressed the trend of extreme misogyny in gay male spaces, but at the end of the day it wasn’t enough to save this book.

kristinistic's review against another edition

3.0

slow-paced

mettebusk's review against another edition

2.0

informative slow-paced

sarahcr8's review against another edition

3.0

informative slow-paced

reneetaillon's review against another edition

3.5

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

I wish there was more than one woman profiled but the deep dive into each person was great and I think it holds up a mirror to a lot of different narratives.