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Girlfag: A Life Told in Sex and Musicals
Announcing the long-awaited memoir/exploration by internationally famed Ethical Slut author Janet W. Hardy: Girlfag: A Life Told in Sex and Musicals!
Girlfags - women who love, are attracted to, and identify with gay men - are a growing community with a growing voice. Girlfags are not fag hags - fag hags enjoy gay men as company; girlfags enjoy them as bedmates and peers. Girlfags are everywhere.
Janet notes, "I get much the same reaction when I mention 'girlfags' as I used to when I talked about 'ethical sluts' - a sudden lighting up of the eyes, a giggle, and a startled 'Hey, that's *me*!"' And Facebook groups, Yahoo groups, a Wikipedia entry, a LiveJournal blog, and a television series called Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys offer signs that The Age of the Girlfag is at hand.
Janet's book is a memoir and much more. It visits girlfags past and present (from Pharaoh Hatshepsut through Mary Renault), it meanders through the shifting meanings of gender and orientation, and it spends a whole lot of time at the theater (Janet is not just a girlfag, she's also a showtune queen).
Girlfags - women who love, are attracted to, and identify with gay men - are a growing community with a growing voice. Girlfags are not fag hags - fag hags enjoy gay men as company; girlfags enjoy them as bedmates and peers. Girlfags are everywhere.
Janet notes, "I get much the same reaction when I mention 'girlfags' as I used to when I talked about 'ethical sluts' - a sudden lighting up of the eyes, a giggle, and a startled 'Hey, that's *me*!"' And Facebook groups, Yahoo groups, a Wikipedia entry, a LiveJournal blog, and a television series called Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys offer signs that The Age of the Girlfag is at hand.
Janet's book is a memoir and much more. It visits girlfags past and present (from Pharaoh Hatshepsut through Mary Renault), it meanders through the shifting meanings of gender and orientation, and it spends a whole lot of time at the theater (Janet is not just a girlfag, she's also a showtune queen).
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2012
6 people are currently reading
191 people want to read
About the author
Janet W. Hardy
20 books98 followersAlso published under pseudonyms Catherine A. Liszt and Lady Green.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 31, 2015
This was a memoir written by the woman who wrote The Ethical Slut and, truthfully, given that she opened the book with saying she's with her third and fourth long term partners, I had figured that there would be more to do with her polyamorous experiences herein.
That wasn't what I got, but that doesn't mean it wasn't interesting. I had no idea that this author identified as genderqueer and a whole lot of other things, not the least of which is the name of this book: Girlfag. While that might sound like an extremely aggressive way to express one's identity initially, having read through the book, it actually makes a lot of sense.
Not only does Janet write her story through sex and musicals, as described in the subtitle, but there is also a lot of literary content for those interested (me!!). This memoir is told through a series of fragments that I suspect are wholly biographical, and sometimes even in order as these things are. She skips through a number of years and only tells the story of her life in relevance to the title of this book and how she came to understand this as her identity. i suspect that if she had written a book titled 'My polyamorous life', then it would have been more in line with what I was expecting.
That wasn't what I got, but that doesn't mean it wasn't interesting. I had no idea that this author identified as genderqueer and a whole lot of other things, not the least of which is the name of this book: Girlfag. While that might sound like an extremely aggressive way to express one's identity initially, having read through the book, it actually makes a lot of sense.
Not only does Janet write her story through sex and musicals, as described in the subtitle, but there is also a lot of literary content for those interested (me!!). This memoir is told through a series of fragments that I suspect are wholly biographical, and sometimes even in order as these things are. She skips through a number of years and only tells the story of her life in relevance to the title of this book and how she came to understand this as her identity. i suspect that if she had written a book titled 'My polyamorous life', then it would have been more in line with what I was expecting.
June 18, 2019
Homophobic garbage.
June 23, 2023
- witty in your face humor
- anecdotes in paragraphs
- super funny, sex positive
- making the sex life of middle-aged women / not so femme women visible
- anecdotes in paragraphs
- super funny, sex positive
- making the sex life of middle-aged women / not so femme women visible
December 30, 2013
Written in a sort of artsy stream of consciousness fashion Janet We. Hardy's latest book, "Girlfag: A life told in Sex and Musicals," is both enlightening and frustrating to read. Before I get further into this review let me state clearly that Janet has been my editor/publisher on two previous books and that I have had a small number of conversations with her on the telephone as well as more numerous email exchanges over the years. However I treat all of the books I review the same and I do not believe I have been positively biased though my expectations may have been higher.
The layout of this book is lovely, purposeful, and it may through a less prepared reader for loop. The chapters are more like vignettes ranging from one to around six pages with a lot of white space. There is also a two page (62-63) spread laying out four ways of looking at the world that may be how Janet has looked at the world (that is unclear) that is laid out entirely differently so that the reader can easily compare them.
Musicals are interwoven into her memories of growing up and living life for five decades but not quite as much as I was expecting given the subtitle. When they were they are used to drive home a memory or feeling.
There is a very loosen chronology in the book that is sometimes clarified by section titles or textual information but often wasn't. There are also huge gaps in her life simply missing for example she mentions "Jay" in passing as a husband but where he came from and how their relationship worked is really not touched upon nearly as much as her first marriage and multiple boyfriends and girlfriends of her young adult life. Nor is her involvement in the kink communities really dealt with at length though this is how most of us first learned of her and why we stared reading her work and the works of those she published. Her profession as a publisher is barely mentioned and even her relationship with Dossie isn't expanded upon much.
The result is that this touches upon some real gender and sexuality issues but also had major gaps that could have filled in more information but also allowed us the reader to feel more connected (or disconnected perhaps) from her experiences. I walked away feeling that I had only learned a little bit more about Janet and I really, really wanted to learn so much more.
I hope that future versions will be expanded a great deal because for all of her self-depreciation she has offered us so much through the decades but this book hints that she has so much more to teach us.
The layout of this book is lovely, purposeful, and it may through a less prepared reader for loop. The chapters are more like vignettes ranging from one to around six pages with a lot of white space. There is also a two page (62-63) spread laying out four ways of looking at the world that may be how Janet has looked at the world (that is unclear) that is laid out entirely differently so that the reader can easily compare them.
Musicals are interwoven into her memories of growing up and living life for five decades but not quite as much as I was expecting given the subtitle. When they were they are used to drive home a memory or feeling.
There is a very loosen chronology in the book that is sometimes clarified by section titles or textual information but often wasn't. There are also huge gaps in her life simply missing for example she mentions "Jay" in passing as a husband but where he came from and how their relationship worked is really not touched upon nearly as much as her first marriage and multiple boyfriends and girlfriends of her young adult life. Nor is her involvement in the kink communities really dealt with at length though this is how most of us first learned of her and why we stared reading her work and the works of those she published. Her profession as a publisher is barely mentioned and even her relationship with Dossie isn't expanded upon much.
The result is that this touches upon some real gender and sexuality issues but also had major gaps that could have filled in more information but also allowed us the reader to feel more connected (or disconnected perhaps) from her experiences. I walked away feeling that I had only learned a little bit more about Janet and I really, really wanted to learn so much more.
I hope that future versions will be expanded a great deal because for all of her self-depreciation she has offered us so much through the decades but this book hints that she has so much more to teach us.
February 1, 2018
I liked that this was an autobiographical, mostly chronological collection of stories and thoughts that have shaped Hardy’s identities rather than a theoretical construction of what “girlfag” means; admittedly, being only passably familiar with her name before this, I was on guard in case it turned out to be a story by a poly, kinky, but still cishet woman trying to ~queer~ her life (it’s not). I was struck by how little I related to Hardy, a “female-bodied person who loves and identifies with gay men,” even as many of our experiences and experiments (e.g. with female masculinity) are adjacent to each other. This is testament to the boundless possibilities under the banner of “queer” as well as the power of a well-written memoir to bring you into a world that is not your own.
October 27, 2012
This auto-biographical book about sexuality and gender is written as a series of vignettes. I enjoyed the first person POV story about Hapshepsut. I'm sure my fellow kemetics would be as comfortable. There are a number of other vignettes about unusual women in history. I'm not entirely sure what the uniting idea of the book was other than broadly speaking the author's experience of being genderqueer. I think I missed something but I did enjoy it.
December 30, 2021
3.5 stars, but I'll round it to 4 because it takes balls to commit a story this personal to print.
May 2, 2024
As a fellow girlfag, I had high hopes for this book ... illumination, perhaps, or at least enjoyment and engagement. Although there were moments of beauty, this book simply didn't resonate with me.
October 16, 2012
Girlfag by Janet Hardy is fun, easy and entertaining to read. It gave me a peek inside the life of a woman who has the courage to be herself and offered me insight into what it means to be a Girlfag. The following passage describes my reading experience perfectly, “….a softening of edges, the loss of boundaries, the point where the lump of sugar becomes smaller and smaller, and then the sugar is liquid, and the water is sweet”.
June 8, 2012
A fantastic book looking at fluid gender and sexuality developing over life experience and relationships. I sat down and read it in one sitting. I plan on rereading and writing a more coherent review.
June 6, 2013
I stayed up to finish it, and while this isn't my first time posponing sleep to finish a book, it is my first time doing so for a work of nonfiction, nevermind an autobiography. Some lives are more compelling than the best fiction, I suppose. Beautifully done.
January 28, 2013
Brilliant!
March 27, 2013
Very interesting, if a tad superficial and rushed toward the end.
September 10, 2013
review is forthcoming. this one requires extra thoughtfulness.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews