Status
Publication
Description
When it was first published in 1988, Pat Califia's Macho Sluts, a collection of S/M stories set in San Francisco's dyke bathhouses, sex parties, and S/M gay bars, shocked the lesbian community and caused an upheaval in the field of queer publishing. Nobody had ever written so frankly about the kinky potential of woman-to-woman sex (and nobody has ever done it any better). If any book is responsible for the formation of the modern lesbian leather community, this one is it. Despite its graceful language, imaginative scenarios, and abundant humour, the lesbian press trashed Macho Sluts, and it became a focal point for the infamous legal battles between Canada Customs and Little Sister's, the gay and lesbian bookstore in Vancouver. But readers loved it, and to this day Macho Sluts remains a vital and moving classic that still has the power to educate, radicalize, and expand our notions of the body's potential to provide us with pleasure, pain, and love. This new edition, part of Arsenal's Little Sister's Classics series resurrecting classics of LGBT literature, includes a new foreword by the author, and an introduction by Wendy Chapkis, a Professor of Sociology and Women & Gender Studies at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. There are also essays by Jim Deva, co-owner of Little Sister's, and Joseph Arvay, chief counsel for the bookstore during its trial against Canada Customs.… (more)
User reviews
As for the actual short stories, they are quite out of the ordinary. Not only do the stories deal with S&M scenes, but they are hardcore scenes. It makes for some difficult reading if you aren't completely comfortable with the subject matter. However, each story goes beyond the physical aspects of the encounters and delves into the personalities, desires, politics and judgements of those who are involved. The stories also do an excellent job of questioning sexuality and the labels and compartments even the most liberal of groups want to place on others.
Macho Sluts is worth reading, but it's important to have an open mind and be able to reserve judgement against those things one might not be comfortable with and completely understand. It's not understanding a person or issue that causes hate and fear towards another, but if you delve into this writing wanting to learn, there are rewards to be gained.