Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Ben Miller, Huw Lemmey

11 reviews

abiiba's review against another edition

funny informative

3.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Genocide, Homophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Colonisation, War, and Classism

emg3's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

Good: I learnt a lot and found the ideas built through this story really interesting. It made me want to listen to the podcast 

Not so good: The writing style was dense and hard to focus on. The structure was sometimes confusing. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Suicide, and Islamophobia

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

the_vegan_bookworm's review against another edition

informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

I feel like this book sets out with a really interesting thesis and then proceeds to not be able to address it adequately at all. It seems to me to be a problem of trying to tackle too many angles, which leads to not adequately discussing any of them well. On one hand, this book seeks to go through history from a queer perspective, which is interesting but falls apart when trying to deep dive into the "bad gays" it is profiling. The chosen profiles don't really fit into the chosen narrative arc of homosexuality throughout history, so it feels muddled as a focus. This is not helped by the run-on sentences and lack of overarching reflections for the thesis statement.

The book also tries to look at queers who are evil or bad throughout history, but it doesn't provide enough context on any of them to really substantiate these claims of evilness. For many, the individuals just seem to be participants in a colonial/imperial/racist system rather than people actively enacting harm. For individuals with whom I was familiar (such as J. Edgar Hoover), I felt that the details were far too light on the very real and active harm perpetuated by the individual. If you go into this story without the background knowledge on the people profiled, I don't feel the authors really provide it or justify it enough for you to think "ah yes, this is a person who could be seen as truly evil". They also have a very white and male selection of individuals that they profile, which they don't address at any time. 

They might have had better results if they chose fewer individuals and really dived into their respective backgrounds, while making stronger points and analysis related to the thesis they set out to discuss. With the great number of people profiled, the biographies feel very disjointed and not cohesive as a book.

This is still 4-star for me, since I learned a lot of interesting things about homosexuality throughout history and the figures highlighted in the book. If you're really interested in history, I think there are some great historical nuggets buried in here that still make it an interesting read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Racism, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Colonisation

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Sexual content

Minor: Genocide and Hate crime

vagaybond's review against another edition

informative reflective

4.25

I love when books exist about queer culture, people, theory, sociology etc that use the word f

aggot

and refer to people as racist with the knowledge and fair assumption that I would not first need to be convinced racism exists. It's like a friend and comrade is infodumping to me in the alley outside a drag show while they're having a cigarette. It's writing that talks to me like a peer and a queer.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

This book profiles several different historical figures who have done a variety of different things which are by and large, horrifying. Some of these figures have died by suicide or assassination. There is a fair bit in the book which talks about older gay men being into young boys, but it doesn't outright state what exactly that means or what the age gap is, or how young these boys are. It's unclear if they merely mean adult twinks or actual minors. (I may be misremembering details, but this is my best recollection after listening to the audiobook.)

mermaidsherbet's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Racism, Transphobia, Violence, Antisemitism, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, and War

alexiconic's review against another edition

informative inspiring lighthearted slow-paced

4.0

An interesting, well researched and passionately written example of how to do popular history right. Would have loved to see a bit more reflection on the choice of selected “bad gays” throughout the book as well, after a while the reader doesn’t remember as well what was detailed in the introduction. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, Child abuse, Death, Homophobia, Transphobia, Antisemitism, and Colonisation

mackenzienoelle's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny informative lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

3.0

It was too easy for me to get zoned out. And also they didn’t include nearly enough female bad gays. Audiobook has big errors in certain spots but it fixes itself and no information is lost.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Sexual content

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

queerloras's review against another edition

funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.75

I thought this was a really interesting look at queer history, focusing not on the familiar heroes - Marsha P. Johnson, Harvey Milk, Oscar Wilde, etc. - but the messy types who we are less keen to claim as "one of us". The section on Magnus Hirschfeld was particularly interesting, and I liked how global the history was  admittedly generally the Global North, but the people covered were from everywhere between the USA and Japan.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and Classism

ishouldreadthat's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

4.0

A great survey of some of the major figures in history who would be identified as LGBTQ today. They're often villainous and not exactly nice people, so it sounds odd to say but it would have been great to have a more diverse set of figures (the book documents almost exclusively white men).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, and Transphobia

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Colonisation

anxiousnachos's review against another edition

informative

4.0

A fascinating look at some famous figures from history prone to a bit of a villainy alongside their queerness. It was eye-opening to get a much closer look at figures and events from history that I knew of.

I also very much appreciated the emphasis and exploration of how our understanding and the concept of homosexuality and queerness has adapted and changed over the years, but how it can still be linked back to the understandings of the Greeks and Romans, the Weimar Republic, the colonial anthropologists et al. It was so interesting to see our current understanding of queerness directly linked back to these individuals and periods.

Most importantly, I thought it excellent the way the authors chose to directly address the historic suffering caused by white (usually male) queers against more marginalised queer people in society. I won’t lie, I find it a bit odd so many reviews have complained about the lack of diversity in the 14 chosen individuals to discuss when the entire thesis of the book is basically to examine and critique the white male model of homosexuality. And I think they do this very well - from the AIDS crisis to racist anthropology to the Congo to far right politics, the authors raise again and again the awful harm white queerness has caused, and it’s legacy continues to cause, across the world.

I thought this was a fascinating read, it showed such a different side to queer culture and a side that I think it is vitally important we remember now as we draw ever closer to fascism.

Content warnings: pedastry, racism, homophobia and homophobic violence, conversion therapy, colonisation, slavery, fascism, anti-semitism, Nazism, Islamophobia, sex

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Cultural appropriation, and Colonisation