$13.50
ISBN 0940208318
available through
Amazon
Reviewed by Jean Roberta
(10/22/03)
Carol Queen's erotica, like the woman herself, seems to
wear a perpetual smile. This is the queerest of queer
porn, including hot scenes of queenly males and butch dykes
getting it on with femmy vamps and macho men in every
conceivable combination. This is an erotic version of the
Peaceable Kingdom in which the lion lies down with the lamb
(who has a strap-on for special occasions). Queen's
stories could also be described as SM adventures with a
full quota of leather but no emotional sting. Hugging and
laughing seem like logical conclusions to her scenes, even
if the friendly aftermath is not explicitly described.
Queen, who has a Ph.D. from the Institute for Advanced
Study of Human Sexuality, describes herself as a formerly
politically-correct dyke who "came out" as a bisexual
leather activist, sex worker and sex educator. She has
written prolifically on sexual politics; in the anthology
PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and
Sexuality, she borrows the word "postmodern" from art and
literary criticism to describe the art of playing outside
of traditional sexual categories.
This art is demonstrated in her fiction. In The Leather
Daddy and the Femme, a gay "leather daddy," who resembles a
Tom of Finland icon, is seduced by a young woman in boy drag
who surprises him by changing outfits in the bathroom and
emerging as a chic chick. He finds her delightful, both as
"Randy" and as "Miranda." Their adventures continue as
Miranda recounts her lesbian affair with a male-to-female
transsexual as well as her butch-femme one with a dyke who
comes out as a female-to-male. The leather daddy is
revealed to have a daddy of his own who is still on
friendly terms with his ex-wife as well as the female pro
domme who brought him out -- as a gay man. The sexual
energy that links all the characters in these interrelated
stories is promiscuous in the best sense. It is fluid,
infectious, and not focused on differences in plumbing,
race or culture, loosely speaking.
The reprinted edition of this book apparently contains more
political discussion of erotic postmodernism than the
original one. In the introduction to the recent edition,
the author explains:
This is the principal difference between the first edition
of the book and this one -- the first publisher didn't think
talk of orientation and relationship would enhance a fuck
book. I disagree, and since most people fuck within the
context of relationships and sexualities, I've put that
material back in.
Dr. Queen illustrates the opposition of a p.c. dyke to
her heroine's sexual experiments in a chapter or story
named "Dyke Drama." Over lunch, a lesbian friend and
co-worker tells Miranda:
...you've really changed since you started hanging
around with those guys...I hardly ever see you in
women's spaces any more. Don't you think you'd better
spend a little time wondering why everybody you spend time
with these days has a penis?...I think you're just
going straight. You're sucking it, you're fucking it. It
all just sounds like straight sex to me.
Miranda responds: "Sue, my sex life is weirder than anyone
else's you know, and you're trying to tell me I can finally
write my mother and tell her I've gone straight." In
response to Sue's claim that Miranda has no right to call
herself "queer," Miranda explains:
"'Queer' isn't a synonym for 'lesbian,' Sue, it means a lot
more than that." Miranda concludes by telling her
ex-friend that the one predictable thing about her sex life
is that Sue is not invited to join it.
Despite the disapproval of a representative lesbian
separatist, Miranda continues her sexual odyssey, including
a session in "women's space" with a professional Mistress
to whom she is sent by her two daddies. Mistress Georgia's
effect on Miranda is described thus:
Today, for me, her gender seemed a null, a promise, a
projection screen; neither masculine nor feminine, or
perhaps both at once -- but no less erotically powerful or
compelling for the confusion I felt when I looked at her.
This description sums up the appeal of this quirky book,
which is not exactly a novel but which flows more
gracefully from scene to scene than a collection of
separate stories.
This book is a tribute to a certain psychic space which
seems to be Carol Queen's special domain, as well as to the
leather community of San Francisco, an actual neighborhood
which the author notes has changed since its heyday in the
early 1990s.
One of the charms of literature is that it can preserve a
moment forever, and Dr. Queen's vision of "South of Market"
as she recreates it is likely to have a long shelf-life.
You'll enjoy an imaginary visit to the city where the earth
really moves.
