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Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex
Public Sex collects the best of Pat Califia's work published over the past 20 years. Providing both a chronicle of the radical sex movement in the United States, as well as the definitive opinions of America's most consistent and trenchant sexual critic, Public Sex is must-read material for anyone interested in sexual practices, feminism, censorship, or simply the art of the political essay.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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1947 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Califia
66 books161 followersPatrick Califia, who formerly wrote under the names Pat Califia and Patrick Califia-Rice, is a writer of nonfiction (on men, gender, transgender identity, and sexuality) and fiction (erotica, poetry, and short stories).
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August 9, 2023At a certain point pedophilia apologism isn't really the right word and what youre looking for is actually more just the word pedophilia. By the end of the book my capacity for outrage had been fairly exhausted but never one to bore, right at the end califia actually busts out "in my utopia, there will collective brothels for us to work off our parking tickets or student loan debt". And then what??????!!!!!!
April 14, 2008
I really enjoyed this book, largely for the ways it traces the effects AIDS had on queer culture's relationship to sex.
An anecdote: I got this book out of the public library. I had it sent over to my local branch, and when I went to pick it up the librarian returned from the storage room slowly, staring at the front cover. When he got back to the desk, he held the book up to another employee and asked "Why do we have this?" The person shrugged and the librarian switched to reading the back cover, still not looking at me. Finally he held the book up to me and asked why I wanted it. I hesitated. "Is it a how-to?" he asked. "Are you doing research? Is it for school? Why are you interested in this?" "I just am," I stammered. "That's one reason I guess," he sneered, and then set the book before me. Couldn't have illustrated Califia's points more perfectly...
Honestly I'm shocked the public library had it. We'll see how long that lasts.
An anecdote: I got this book out of the public library. I had it sent over to my local branch, and when I went to pick it up the librarian returned from the storage room slowly, staring at the front cover. When he got back to the desk, he held the book up to another employee and asked "Why do we have this?" The person shrugged and the librarian switched to reading the back cover, still not looking at me. Finally he held the book up to me and asked why I wanted it. I hesitated. "Is it a how-to?" he asked. "Are you doing research? Is it for school? Why are you interested in this?" "I just am," I stammered. "That's one reason I guess," he sneered, and then set the book before me. Couldn't have illustrated Califia's points more perfectly...
Honestly I'm shocked the public library had it. We'll see how long that lasts.
March 17, 2024
boy, starting off with two essays defending child/adult sex (though those are not the only essays where it is defended) is certainly A Choice.
the bulk of this review is addressing the author’s view of child/adult sexual relationships, so major warning here for discussions of pedophilia, child sexual abuse, and related defense/apology and victim blaming.
throughout this book (mostly in the two aforementioned essays) the author:
➖ defends gay boy lovers, lesbian girl lovers, nambla (north american man/boy love association), and child/adult relationships in general; argues there is “nothing wrong” with a “more privileged adult” offering a young person sexual pleasure; actually quotes a fifteen year old in his argument for child/adult sex and the abolition of age of consent; slams american society for “rapidly becoming phobic about any sexual contact between adults and minors”; argues an inexperienced or unknowledgeable minor having their first sexual experience with an experienced adult would be better or less awkward than with an inexperienced or unknowledgeable peer (that imbalance, coupled with the age difference, having a negative result is not acknowledged).
➖ denies that adults have power over children, even while arguing that adults are oppressing and controlling children; argues children have power over adults because they can “send them to jail for half of their life” (which is just victim blaming. the consequences of an adult’s decision to have sex with a child is not a conscious, manipulative power play on the child’s part); nonsensically argues that if a child can decide if they want to “eat spinach, play with trucks, or wear shoes” then they are old enough to decide to have sex (children, the same ones who want to jump off the roof to see if they can fly or want to touch a burning stovetop, are somehow capable of understanding sex and its consequences and the nature of consent and power dynamics in order to be able to give informed consent to have sex with an adult. sure).
➖ says boy lovers and girl lovers are “the only people offering a hand to help young women and men cross the difficult terrain between straight society and the gay community” (dismissing all the work and community building queer adults do to make the lives of young queer people better and safer in favor of adults who have sex with kids is vile); literally says “gay men who have sexual relationships with boys are the real victims” (author’s own emphasis. because all the implied victim blaming wasn’t enough); equates not supporting child/adult sex in the gay community with turning your back on gay youth and further oppressing them; criticizes “restricting” the gay movement to protecting the rights of “consenting adults” because it will leave child/adult relationships “vulnerable to persecution”; says it was “wrong” for queer adults turn down his advances when he was a minor and hopes other queer adults won’t make the same “mistake”; suggests the gay community support pedophiles, who “need us badly,” because “forty years [in prison] for what? for experiencing pleasure?” is indicative of a “very sad society with some very sick attitudes towards sex.”
➖ takes issue with using the word “child” to mean anyone from an infant to a teenager (the criticism is most often levied at calling teenagers children, usually in reference to an adult having a sexual relationship with a 16-17 year old); puts statutory rape in quotes and calls it a “dubious crime”; repeatedly mocks the belief that child sexual abuse is more than or even just as damaging as child physical abuse and generally seems to dismiss the trauma of child sexual abuse; thinks it’s a “mistake to characterize all child porn as a record of child abuse”; believes accepting child/adult sex would allow us to “protect children from abuse and exploitation” (of course ignoring the fact that an adult having sex with a child is in itself abuse and exploitation)
➖ and while i understand various kink dynamics and i’m not one to yuck someone’s yum or kink shame when all parties are consenting adults, given the author’s stance on child/adult relationships, him saying his lover being shaved reminds her that he “owns her genitals and reinforces her role as my child” is questionable to me.
i’m just gonna say, i agree that minors need sex education and a safe space to learn about their bodies, sex, safe sex, consent, power dynamics, how to differentiate healthy loving relationships/behaviors and abusive/coercive/etc. relationships/behaviors and that there’s nothing wrong with adults providing that education or safe space. however, adults should not have sexual contact with minors. minors who want to explore or experiment with their sexuality should do so with themselves or their peers, not with adults. an adult having a sexual relationship with a minor is not a right or experience of an oppressed minority that should be protected. the idea that queer kids struggling to find other queer kids to experiment sexually with should be able to turn to queer adults for that, and positioning queer adults as “wrong,” making a “mistake,” and further marginalizing queer teens for not doing so, is horrifyingly absurd. those kids are vulnerable and without community or peers, and you think being preyed upon and taken advantage of by an adult is what they need? and i think it’s very telling that “cross generational relationship” in this book is used interchangeably and exclusively to mean child/adult relationship. y’all know adults from different generations can have relationships, right?
note: while the author claims to have changed his views on child/adult relationships in the 2000 second edition of this book (the essays in the first edition are from 1979-1994), in that essay the author still compares child/adult sexual relationships to interracial and same-sex relationships (as in, people engage in those relationships despite the “taboo,” so who’s to say the “taboo” surrounding child/adult relationships is any different), argues if neither party in a child/adult sexual relationship has “complained” then there is no legal cause to interfere (because a child not understanding why the relationship is wrong definitely means the relationship isn’t wrong), expresses believing that minors are just as capable of sexual manipulation and coercion as adults are (which is just run of the mill victim blaming and sexual abuse apology. for example, how much media have you seen that depicts a student/teacher relationship as a helpless teacher being relentlessly pursued by a sexually aggressive manipulative student?), argues relationships between peers can be just as heartbreaking as child/adult relationships (suggesting the argument for minor/minor relationships rather than child/adult relationships is that there is no potential for heartbreak...?), and defends nambla.
other notes:
i definitely don’t care much for the first section of the book that focuses on legislation, oppression, law enforcement, court cases and trials. thus i thought i would like the other sections, but there is less analysis and exploration of radical sex, identity, community, etc. and more explicit, detailed descriptions of sex. and while i’m interested in reading about the identities, lives, and experiences of people in the kink community, pages and pages of scene descriptions isn’t what i’m looking for. the author says the thought of him going off with someone else “certainly makes [his partner] think twice about using her safe word too quickly.” threatening, even in a tongue in cheek manner, to have sex with someone else to manipulate your partner into not using their safe word is abusive as fuck, actually. he describes disabled people as lacking “charm or social skill to woo a partner,” “unattractive people” “without the ability or interest to give as good as they get,” and needing to rely on sex workers who “don’t discriminate” against them, which is ableist as fuck.
some quotes:
“the butler decision has had almost no visible impact on the straight-porn industry. instead, it has been used to impede the circulation of gay literature. it is part of a legal apparatus that seems bent on closing down gay and feminist bookstores in canada. hustler, playboy, penthouse, and other straight erotic magazines are still available for sale in canada. the joy of sex, which has more information about butt-fucking in it than advocate men, is allowed to circulate, but the joy of gay sex was initially banned. the first obscenity case under butler was a prosecution of glad day bookstore, a gay business in toronto, for selling the lesbian s/m magazine, bad attitude. madonna’s sex, however, heated up canadian cash registers with impunity.”
“dworkin and many other members of the antipornography movement define violence as a male phenomenon and maleness as violence. as dworkin said in her speech, ‘sex and murder are fused in the male consciousness, so that the one without the imminent possibility of the other is unthinkable and impossible...the annihilation of women is the source of meaning and identity for men.’ thus the fact that pornography is aimed at a male audience is sufficient to justify calling it violent. in fact, pornography depicts a wide variety of sexual acts. very little of it shows violence or implies that any physical damage is being done to the models. only if one thinks of sex itself as a degrading act can one believe that all pornography degrades and harms women. it is true that pornography is marketed for a male audience, but there are women who enjoy it. i do not think it sufficient to say these women are brainwashed by the patriarchy, since women are socialized not to use erotic materials.”
“do people have value only if they go about in pairs? it’s wonderful when health insurance, for example, is extended to a domestic partner. but people should not have to be in a relationship to qualify for health care.”
“one of the dominant myths of our culture is that everybody longs to participate in romantic heterosexual love; that it is romance which gives life meaning and purpose; and that sex is better when you do it with somebody you love. we are also taught to assume that romance and money are mutually exclusive, even though the heroes of romance novels and neogothics are almost always as wealthy as they are handsome. it would be foolish to deny the existence of romantic passion and lust, but it would be equally foolish to ignore the people who prefer to fuck as far away as possible from the trappings of valentine’s day. these people don’t enjoy the roller coaster ride of romantic love. and there will always be people who simply don’t get turned on in the context of an ongoing, committed relationship. some of these people make trustworthy and affectionate, permanent or long-term partners as long as they're not expected to radiate a lot of sexual heat. but in a more sex-positive society, these folks might be able to have both marriage and paid sex without the guilt and stigma of being diagnosed as psychologically ‘immature’ or ‘incomplete.’”
content/trigger warnings; discussions of homophobia, lesbophobia, biphobia, transphobia, amatonormativity, toxic monogamy, police brutality, hate crimes/gay bashings, homophobia in law enforcement, hiv/aids, ableism, addiction, sex, kink, puritanism, anti-pornography, anti-sex work, anti-kink, sex trafficking, pedophilia, child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, incest, classism. instances of pedophilia apologia, ableism, racism, n word, f slur, lesbophobic slur, acephobia,
the bulk of this review is addressing the author’s view of child/adult sexual relationships, so major warning here for discussions of pedophilia, child sexual abuse, and related defense/apology and victim blaming.
throughout this book (mostly in the two aforementioned essays) the author:
➖ defends gay boy lovers, lesbian girl lovers, nambla (north american man/boy love association), and child/adult relationships in general; argues there is “nothing wrong” with a “more privileged adult” offering a young person sexual pleasure; actually quotes a fifteen year old in his argument for child/adult sex and the abolition of age of consent; slams american society for “rapidly becoming phobic about any sexual contact between adults and minors”; argues an inexperienced or unknowledgeable minor having their first sexual experience with an experienced adult would be better or less awkward than with an inexperienced or unknowledgeable peer (that imbalance, coupled with the age difference, having a negative result is not acknowledged).
➖ denies that adults have power over children, even while arguing that adults are oppressing and controlling children; argues children have power over adults because they can “send them to jail for half of their life” (which is just victim blaming. the consequences of an adult’s decision to have sex with a child is not a conscious, manipulative power play on the child’s part); nonsensically argues that if a child can decide if they want to “eat spinach, play with trucks, or wear shoes” then they are old enough to decide to have sex (children, the same ones who want to jump off the roof to see if they can fly or want to touch a burning stovetop, are somehow capable of understanding sex and its consequences and the nature of consent and power dynamics in order to be able to give informed consent to have sex with an adult. sure).
➖ says boy lovers and girl lovers are “the only people offering a hand to help young women and men cross the difficult terrain between straight society and the gay community” (dismissing all the work and community building queer adults do to make the lives of young queer people better and safer in favor of adults who have sex with kids is vile); literally says “gay men who have sexual relationships with boys are the real victims” (author’s own emphasis. because all the implied victim blaming wasn’t enough); equates not supporting child/adult sex in the gay community with turning your back on gay youth and further oppressing them; criticizes “restricting” the gay movement to protecting the rights of “consenting adults” because it will leave child/adult relationships “vulnerable to persecution”; says it was “wrong” for queer adults turn down his advances when he was a minor and hopes other queer adults won’t make the same “mistake”; suggests the gay community support pedophiles, who “need us badly,” because “forty years [in prison] for what? for experiencing pleasure?” is indicative of a “very sad society with some very sick attitudes towards sex.”
➖ takes issue with using the word “child” to mean anyone from an infant to a teenager (the criticism is most often levied at calling teenagers children, usually in reference to an adult having a sexual relationship with a 16-17 year old); puts statutory rape in quotes and calls it a “dubious crime”; repeatedly mocks the belief that child sexual abuse is more than or even just as damaging as child physical abuse and generally seems to dismiss the trauma of child sexual abuse; thinks it’s a “mistake to characterize all child porn as a record of child abuse”; believes accepting child/adult sex would allow us to “protect children from abuse and exploitation” (of course ignoring the fact that an adult having sex with a child is in itself abuse and exploitation)
➖ and while i understand various kink dynamics and i’m not one to yuck someone’s yum or kink shame when all parties are consenting adults, given the author’s stance on child/adult relationships, him saying his lover being shaved reminds her that he “owns her genitals and reinforces her role as my child” is questionable to me.
i’m just gonna say, i agree that minors need sex education and a safe space to learn about their bodies, sex, safe sex, consent, power dynamics, how to differentiate healthy loving relationships/behaviors and abusive/coercive/etc. relationships/behaviors and that there’s nothing wrong with adults providing that education or safe space. however, adults should not have sexual contact with minors. minors who want to explore or experiment with their sexuality should do so with themselves or their peers, not with adults. an adult having a sexual relationship with a minor is not a right or experience of an oppressed minority that should be protected. the idea that queer kids struggling to find other queer kids to experiment sexually with should be able to turn to queer adults for that, and positioning queer adults as “wrong,” making a “mistake,” and further marginalizing queer teens for not doing so, is horrifyingly absurd. those kids are vulnerable and without community or peers, and you think being preyed upon and taken advantage of by an adult is what they need? and i think it’s very telling that “cross generational relationship” in this book is used interchangeably and exclusively to mean child/adult relationship. y’all know adults from different generations can have relationships, right?
note: while the author claims to have changed his views on child/adult relationships in the 2000 second edition of this book (the essays in the first edition are from 1979-1994), in that essay the author still compares child/adult sexual relationships to interracial and same-sex relationships (as in, people engage in those relationships despite the “taboo,” so who’s to say the “taboo” surrounding child/adult relationships is any different), argues if neither party in a child/adult sexual relationship has “complained” then there is no legal cause to interfere (because a child not understanding why the relationship is wrong definitely means the relationship isn’t wrong), expresses believing that minors are just as capable of sexual manipulation and coercion as adults are (which is just run of the mill victim blaming and sexual abuse apology. for example, how much media have you seen that depicts a student/teacher relationship as a helpless teacher being relentlessly pursued by a sexually aggressive manipulative student?), argues relationships between peers can be just as heartbreaking as child/adult relationships (suggesting the argument for minor/minor relationships rather than child/adult relationships is that there is no potential for heartbreak...?), and defends nambla.
other notes:
i definitely don’t care much for the first section of the book that focuses on legislation, oppression, law enforcement, court cases and trials. thus i thought i would like the other sections, but there is less analysis and exploration of radical sex, identity, community, etc. and more explicit, detailed descriptions of sex. and while i’m interested in reading about the identities, lives, and experiences of people in the kink community, pages and pages of scene descriptions isn’t what i’m looking for. the author says the thought of him going off with someone else “certainly makes [his partner] think twice about using her safe word too quickly.” threatening, even in a tongue in cheek manner, to have sex with someone else to manipulate your partner into not using their safe word is abusive as fuck, actually. he describes disabled people as lacking “charm or social skill to woo a partner,” “unattractive people” “without the ability or interest to give as good as they get,” and needing to rely on sex workers who “don’t discriminate” against them, which is ableist as fuck.
some quotes:
“the butler decision has had almost no visible impact on the straight-porn industry. instead, it has been used to impede the circulation of gay literature. it is part of a legal apparatus that seems bent on closing down gay and feminist bookstores in canada. hustler, playboy, penthouse, and other straight erotic magazines are still available for sale in canada. the joy of sex, which has more information about butt-fucking in it than advocate men, is allowed to circulate, but the joy of gay sex was initially banned. the first obscenity case under butler was a prosecution of glad day bookstore, a gay business in toronto, for selling the lesbian s/m magazine, bad attitude. madonna’s sex, however, heated up canadian cash registers with impunity.”
“dworkin and many other members of the antipornography movement define violence as a male phenomenon and maleness as violence. as dworkin said in her speech, ‘sex and murder are fused in the male consciousness, so that the one without the imminent possibility of the other is unthinkable and impossible...the annihilation of women is the source of meaning and identity for men.’ thus the fact that pornography is aimed at a male audience is sufficient to justify calling it violent. in fact, pornography depicts a wide variety of sexual acts. very little of it shows violence or implies that any physical damage is being done to the models. only if one thinks of sex itself as a degrading act can one believe that all pornography degrades and harms women. it is true that pornography is marketed for a male audience, but there are women who enjoy it. i do not think it sufficient to say these women are brainwashed by the patriarchy, since women are socialized not to use erotic materials.”
“do people have value only if they go about in pairs? it’s wonderful when health insurance, for example, is extended to a domestic partner. but people should not have to be in a relationship to qualify for health care.”
“one of the dominant myths of our culture is that everybody longs to participate in romantic heterosexual love; that it is romance which gives life meaning and purpose; and that sex is better when you do it with somebody you love. we are also taught to assume that romance and money are mutually exclusive, even though the heroes of romance novels and neogothics are almost always as wealthy as they are handsome. it would be foolish to deny the existence of romantic passion and lust, but it would be equally foolish to ignore the people who prefer to fuck as far away as possible from the trappings of valentine’s day. these people don’t enjoy the roller coaster ride of romantic love. and there will always be people who simply don’t get turned on in the context of an ongoing, committed relationship. some of these people make trustworthy and affectionate, permanent or long-term partners as long as they're not expected to radiate a lot of sexual heat. but in a more sex-positive society, these folks might be able to have both marriage and paid sex without the guilt and stigma of being diagnosed as psychologically ‘immature’ or ‘incomplete.’”
content/trigger warnings; discussions of homophobia, lesbophobia, biphobia, transphobia, amatonormativity, toxic monogamy, police brutality, hate crimes/gay bashings, homophobia in law enforcement, hiv/aids, ableism, addiction, sex, kink, puritanism, anti-pornography, anti-sex work, anti-kink, sex trafficking, pedophilia, child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, incest, classism. instances of pedophilia apologia, ableism, racism, n word, f slur, lesbophobic slur, acephobia,
July 7, 2008
This book is not only good, but important.
Which is different than saying that I agree with every single thing the author says in the entire book. But I love the unfettered intelligent argumentation in here, and I will fight like hell to have the chance to read it. Califia's opinions themselves evolved as time progresses. I most admired his candor, ability to cut through the baloney in discussion of sexual politics, and writing that neither panders to right or left but aims to create definition and clarity in a fraught field.
Truly radical.
Which is different than saying that I agree with every single thing the author says in the entire book. But I love the unfettered intelligent argumentation in here, and I will fight like hell to have the chance to read it. Califia's opinions themselves evolved as time progresses. I most admired his candor, ability to cut through the baloney in discussion of sexual politics, and writing that neither panders to right or left but aims to create definition and clarity in a fraught field.
Truly radical.
July 11, 2010
whip-smart, fearless and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, this book is a collection of essays mostly published in the 80's and early 90's, which still ring true today. the essay, "unmonogamy: loving tricks and tricking lovers" changed my life, i think. pretty much everything in here is a gem. i also thought it was hilarious when califia mentioned making their own dildo harness and then said, "velcro makes it adjustable--i love technology!" oh, the 80's.
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July 25, 2018When we read this book for book club I googled Pat Califia and like the first thing that came up was a gofundme or something about how he needed money for medical care because he was old and sick and basically living in poverty, and it felt shocking because he was someone so influential and canonical to me in youth, and I think also in a weird way bc of his like power-projecting sexual bravado, but also somehow makes sense that ppl who are kind of out there pushing the margins with their work, which I think he definitely did at the time this was first published, and in some ways even more so now in our times that are in some ways even more sexually conservative, end up in these kind of marginal positions. Like why doesn't he have tenure at like Berkeley or somewhere but also of course he doesn't. It's so weird how things have changed now where the s&m stuff seems kind of sweet and definitely innocuous but the age/consent stuff is like way farther over line. And honestly I'm still kind of shook by the way he breaks down how part of the pedophilia societal panic was about the idea that children's parents should be able to own/control them which is an attitude that probably does more to enable sexual abuse than any. I can't really come around to thinking it's ok for children to be in consenting relationships with adults, but it is important to keep in mind also how much traditional family structure acts as a cover for abuse. As someone with a deep fear of being caught out having a wrong thought or opinion, I found it inspiring how willing he was to be wrong and make mistakes in public and learn and change over time. Actually I just remembered I initially really wanted to read this because Morgan Page tweeted something about how it would be a controversial convo-starter for queers of today, and she was really right!
September 9, 2017
Five stars in recognition of its immense contributions to queer and feminist sexual politics; though I'd go for four on the basis of reading experience -- it's pretty one-note in terms of voice/form/tone. Califia is an incisive writer whose critiques of institutional hypocrisy are forceful and persuasive; this reads as an important historical document of the sex wars and a reminder of how (almost) totally cultural mores have changed within feminism in the past two decades--and, too, how attitudes towards BDSM/kink have shifted within queer sex cultures. I especially appreciated how fervently Califia defends all those in Gayle Rubin's "outer circle" of sexual deviance -- as well as other marginalized communities such as drug users -- and how transparently he addresses having changed his own positions over time (particularly around child-adult relationships and age of consent; and his former stance as a terf-y lesbian separatist).
August 29, 2007
Pat/rick is one of my favorite writers on any subject, let alone difficult issues of sexuality. This book will challenge everyone on some level, I would imagine (perhaps you are already all right with leathersex, but can you get down with a defense of NAMBLA?) but Pat/rick's wit and wisdom made me examine my prejudices in a way that few other writers have.
January 3, 2008
Even if I didn't always agree with his analysis (for instance, I wish he would have gone further around with the race analysis -- he does pay lip service, but I wanted more specifics, but maybe that's for another author & another book), I'm glad I read this book. Interesting, thought-provoking essays on sex (especially focusing on the subcultures of S/M, sex work, queer culture).
January 2, 2008
This is an amazing book. I had to read it for a Gender Studies Class in college and I got addicted to Pat Califia. (Who i was in love with until she becamse he) Its thought provoking, educational, contreversial, and it times it pissed me off. At times I hated the author and thought he was crazy. But I came out of it wanting to experience a new world, and now I have all of his books.
March 28, 2011
A good, if slightly outdated read on harm reduction, sex, and the state. I really hope Pat has it in him to write a revised edition sometime soon, I'd love to read a more current edition. Or just sit down with my hero over a coffee/beer :)
July 26, 2016
patrick califia has a really good analysis of some of the ways sexual expression is repressed, particularly through legal sanction and control of public space, and a really shallow analysis of everything else. It's incredibly frustrating.
December 12, 2008
incredible essays on leatherdaddys and sadomasochistic feminism
April 1, 2009
These essays were incredibly well-written and thought-provoking.
February 6, 2019
I encountered this quote a few months ago and couldn't get it out of my head: "If I had a choice between being shipwrecked on a desert island with a vanilla lesbian and a hot male masochist, I'd pick the boy" (159). So I figured I should read the essay it came from and a book of the author's writing.
It's interesting to read a bunch of articles written from the perspective of a lesbian by someone who now identifies as a man.
The first edition of Public Sex came out in 1994, collecting work as far back as 1979. The second edition includes some new material, and it came in 2000. There's a lot of important historical stuff in here about culture around sex in the 80s/90s, and it's interesting to see how someone in '94/2000 looks back on those events, but a few things definitely just felt dated and not particularly helpful towards forming an informed opinion about these topics in 2019.
Anyway, some of the pieces were stronger than others, and some didn't impress me that much, but some were pretty great.
Also I was a little disappointed that the article with that quote doesn't actually say all that much more about that particular topic of BDSM-role being more important than gender for some people. If you're really interested in that subject, I recommend Brandy Simula's article Does Bisexuality ‘Undo’ Gender? Gender, Sexuality, and Bisexual Behavior Among BDSM Participants, which is available for free on ResearchGate
It's interesting to read a bunch of articles written from the perspective of a lesbian by someone who now identifies as a man.
The first edition of Public Sex came out in 1994, collecting work as far back as 1979. The second edition includes some new material, and it came in 2000. There's a lot of important historical stuff in here about culture around sex in the 80s/90s, and it's interesting to see how someone in '94/2000 looks back on those events, but a few things definitely just felt dated and not particularly helpful towards forming an informed opinion about these topics in 2019.
Anyway, some of the pieces were stronger than others, and some didn't impress me that much, but some were pretty great.
Also I was a little disappointed that the article with that quote doesn't actually say all that much more about that particular topic of BDSM-role being more important than gender for some people. If you're really interested in that subject, I recommend Brandy Simula's article Does Bisexuality ‘Undo’ Gender? Gender, Sexuality, and Bisexual Behavior Among BDSM Participants, which is available for free on ResearchGate
May 4, 2018
an excellent book for anyone thinking about sexuality, gender and the possibility of living outside or at least expanding those roles and boxes. well thought out work .
December 9, 2012
there was a time period in my life that I couldn't focus long enough on any one thing to read an actual book. any book. fact or fiction. somehow THIS BOOK cut through all of the heavy brain fog that was weighing my mind down and I was actually able to read it through to completion. Perhaps it was just the realist escape that I needed. Perhaps it was just because it was one of the few radical queer books I could get my hands on at the time. Whatever it may have been.. I will always remember this book more for that fucked up time period in my life, and it breaking my mental block, than anything else.
February 26, 2015
Read for the East Bay Queer Theory bookgroup. I was so engaged! It reads more like a historical text than a current political analysis (at least, the 1st edition from 1994 does—I hear the updated 2nd edition is a little different). I got a little bored with the political details, but I'm just not that into politics. I loved reading about the culture and tone from the 80s and 90s around activism and interconnected issues (pornography, IV drug users, age of consent laws). I respect Califia's work deeply, and even moreso after re-reading this.
July 27, 2015
Pat Califia's journalistic collection is radical, regardless of the title. Califia is emboldened by a queer future that envisions sex positivity; to be sure, Califia is that visionary. Her writing is explicit; don't be shocked upon first reading. Califia is an essential member of the S/M community and advocate for the trans community(ies). A must read for LGBT scholars of all variations.
April 10, 2007
Totally changed the way I think about sexuality, gender, politics, and the media. I find myself evaluating certain contemporary social issues against some of Califia's well-articulated theories presented in his book.
October 20, 2007
Pat is a serious author addressing seriously taboo subjects. Her insight reveals aspects of our modern culture rarely talked about and typically hidden away. Recommended for anyone interested in sexual politics.
May 15, 2007
Some darling essays about the development of s/m/leather sex in the United States. Lovely nightime reading, if you can ignore the not so bad erotica that slips in from time to time.
June 20, 2007
Yet another book that Keith turned me on to. His recommendation was that even Pat Califia could make anal sex sound pretty. He was right.
June 23, 2007
This book was very uninviting to read once I got it home. Surprising for a book with the word sex in the title.
January 13, 2008
Certainly an interesting book, Califia doesn't censor or hold himself back in the least. Sometimes I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement, and sometimes I was deeply disturbed.
March 24, 2008
Probably the best introduction to Califia's non-fiction writing. Thought-provoking, witty, very human, and one of the first sex books I read where I found msyelf nodding along to it quite a bit.
September 22, 2008
my mom found this in my room and read it for a paper in her psych class. it was totally weird.
June 2, 2010
Pat Califia covers a lot of ground in this book of essays. Eloquent, down to earth and entertaining, it is also a good blend of racey and political.
January 29, 2016
"The name of the ride is "Rock the Boat," not "Pretend You're Dead Already" (156).
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