Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan by Lou Sullivan

4 reviews

imrereads's review

emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

I don't even know where to begin talking about this. For the days I've been reading this book, I feel I've been thinking about Lou Sullivan for all the hours I put the book down. I don't know if I can give this a review, but I have so many thoughts that I need to spend some time compiling. Here some fragmented thoughts:

It made me think about how much has changed in terms of trans rights and how we're virwed in society – and how much hasn't changed. It was so interesting to see how the terminology changed throughout his diaries, not only his personal way of identifying, but also the standard terms.

For a while I was thinking I wish I could have read this when I was younger, to have had this role model earlier, but I've concluded with being glad I read it as an adult. Lou Sullivan was by no means a perfect man, there are many instances of misogyny to give an example, and I'm glad I read it at a point were it's easy to be reflective and not romanticising.

I love the way he describes the beauty of men. I thought a lot about how he in his younger years especially spoke about wanting to be the men he loved.

This is a beautiful example of a supportive family, standing by him and loving him for who he was. It saddens me that he didn't have uncondintional support in his romantic relationships, rather dealing with men who didn't see him as a man or wanted to restrict the ways he transitioned. I just wanted to yell back through time "you deserve so much better!"

In the end, I cried. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Terminal illness

Minor: Incest

chuckyinspace's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Medical content, Death of parent, and Sexual content

Moderate: Hate crime, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Homophobia

Minor: Incest, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Drug use, and Sexism

jainabee's review

challenging inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0

What a gift to the world, my heart is bursting with so many feelings. Phenomenal. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Homophobia, Medical content, Medical trauma, Transphobia, Body shaming, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Alcohol, Car accident, Deadnaming, Death of parent, Incest, Outing, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Excrement, Fatphobia, Grief, Misogyny, Racism, and Self harm

Minor: Biphobia and Cursing

These are the diaries of a queer white person who lived through the 60's, 70's and 80's, and the language and attitudes are of the time. The editors have done a great job to not bowdlerize the life of a complex person facing the traumatic experience of trying to live authentically in the face of so much oppression and ignorance. Not for the squeamish, and full of rich insights and wisdom for those who can handle it.

brnineworms's review

dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

“They told me at the gender clinic that I could not live as a gay man, but it looks like I will die as one.”

I’m not sure how to review a book of diary entries – it feels so wrong rating somebody’s life. I know it would be cliché to call this book inspiring, but it really is. I don’t mean that in a cis “wow, you’re so brave” way. Lou Sullivan himself is inspiring, not only as a gay trans man or even as a queer activist, but as a human being.

It’s also really interesting to see how trans terminology and, more than that, our very understanding of what it means to be trans has changed over the decades. Sullivan describes transness as “a sexual minority (TV/TS) within a sexual minority (homosexual)” and as a disability (due to him being born without a penis), and though this isn’t how I or most other trans people would think of transness today, it’s an honest expression of how Sullivan felt about his own identity.

Another passage I want to highlight is this:

“I can never be a man until my body is whole and I can use it freely and without shame. I may appear in all outward ways to be a man and I may feel in my heart all that a man feels, yet my spirit is hampered and my dreams of being a whole man will always be just dreams... I will always have to back down...my shortcomings will always be a factor. I do not mean that I am not a man, that my living as a man is a lie. I mean that I cannot even fool myself when I stand face-to-face with another man and he is full of pride + privilege + confidence that has been his birthright.”

Again the phrasing is a little clumsy, but his attempt to express abstract thoughts and feelings of otherness comes from the heart.

This book reminded me to be tolerant (though I dislike that word) and to engage with curiosity instead of the impulse to police and to “correct.” Honestly, it’s foolish to think the way we view transness today is somehow the “right” way, to think the vocabulary we use now is the vocabulary that will be used ten, twenty, fifty years from now. It’s all fluid and socially constructed.

We Both Laughed In Pleasure is an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. Tragedy is punctuated with humour, and vice versa. There’s a lot of sex. A lot of death. And it has a great deal of value as a piece of queer history. An important read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Homophobia, Sexual content, Grief, Medical content, Death of parent, Drug use, Car accident, Cursing, Death, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Alcoholism, Ableism, Acephobia/Arophobia, Sexual violence, Incest, Misogyny, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, and Police brutality

Minor: Abortion, Lesbophobia, Mental illness, Vomit, Addiction, Blood, Cancer, Murder, Suicide, and Violence