Book review of Paul Robinson, Queer Wars: The New Gay Right and Its Critics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. $25.00 hardcover

Mallon, Gerald P.

English

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The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare Volume 33 Issue 2 June Article 15 2006 Review of Queer Wars: The New Gay Right and Its Critics. Paul Robinson. Reviewed by Greg Mallon. Gerald P. Mallon Hunter College Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw  Part of the Gender and Sexuality Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, and the Social Work Commons Recommended Citation Mallon, Gerald P. (2006) "Review of Queer Wars: The New Gay Right and Its Critics. Paul Robinson. Reviewed by Greg Mallon.," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 33 : Iss. 2 , Article 15. Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol33/iss2/15 This Book Review is brought to you by the Western Michigan University School of Social Work. For more information, please contact wmu-scholarworks@wmich.edu. Book Reviews 161cemed social groups can take place in the public sphere." Thisconcept begs the consideration and inclusion of patients andclients as experts of their own lived experiences. The author'sacknowledgement of "reflection to bring our own productiondevices to the surface" is a refreshing, needed and affirmingstance if not directive.The style in which the topic of AIDS is presented byPreda seems best suited for academicians interested in devel-oping theory and logic models for AIDS prevention, educationand advocacy. The theoretical framework of the text might beless appealing to direct service workers involved in practiceand would be more helpful to those designing the theory thatdrives practice. Rhetoric is helpful in campaigns on AIDS pre-vention, but the question remains on how to communicate ef-fectively. This book illustrates how important culture is withinprevention and health policies and with respect to how scien-tific research is organized and funded.Cudore L. SnellHoward UniversityPaul Robinson, Queer Wars: The New Gay Right and Its Critics.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. $25.00hardcover.Paul Robinson's Queer Wars is the first attempt topresent and to critically analyze the rise of gay conservatismin the United States. Measuring conservatism along threeaxes: (1) politics - gay conservatives repudiate the gay move-ment's affiliation with the left; (2) gender - gay conservativesseek to rescue gays from their association with "gender de-viance" namely, from effeminate men and mannish women(although lesbians are hardly mentioned at all in any of theirwork) and finally, (3) sexual license - urging gay men in theirwriting to restrain their erotic behavior. Robinson reviews thework of four gay, privileged, white, Christian, and conserva-tive authors (Bruce Bawer; Andrew Sullivan, Michelangelo162 Journal of Sociology & Social WelfareSignorile and Gabriel Rotello) who have largely framed theconservative gay dialogue. While acknowledging their dif-ferences, Robinson notes that "they share enough ideologicalground to justify grouping them together under the label con-servative." Robinson acknowledges, writing about this groupchallenges one's tolerance. To his great credit, he does a excel-lent job at balancing his own personal distaste for their per-spectives, with a skillful analysis of their work grounded ingood reasoning and fairness.Robinson's book - a very succinct 162 pages - is writtenin three chapters reviewing the work of these four conserva-tive authors. In Chapter One, Robinson reviews the work ofBruce Bower and his friends but primarily focuses on Bower'sA Place at the Table. Bower's book, notes Robinson, has as itscentral premise that the gay movement has been hijacked bygay radicals and it has embraced alliance politics - those whobelieve that the oppression of gays is linked to the oppressionof other groups, namely women, trans folks, and people ofcolor communities. Bawer, says Robinson, prefers his gay mento be invisible, and well behaved. Effeminate gay men he be-lieves impedes the acceptance of the larger heterosexual culturefrom accepting gay men. Bawer's willingness to say unpopu-lar things, and his skill as a storyteller, notes Robinson, makeshim an effective advocate for his cause of conservatism.Andrew Sullivan is the subject of the second chapter.Arguably the best known of these four, he is a more visibleintellectual with, as Robinson notes, "greater intellectual pre-tensions". In his book, Virtually Normal - An Argument aboutHomosexuality Sullivan proposes that the reader think abouthomosexuality in four distinct ways: which he calls the pro-hibitionists, the conservatives, the liberals, and the liberation-ists. The remainder of this work consists of examining eachof these categories, which Robinson does a remarkable job ofsynthesizing in his book. Robinson identifies Sullivan as themost political of the gay conservatives examined in his bookwhen viewed through his three axes identified earlier and con-firms that like Bawer, Sullivan is critical of the alliance politicsmentioned earlier. In his opinions about sex, Sullivan is clearlymore to the left of his colleagues. With respect to gender he issomewhere in the middle.Book Reviews 163Michelangelo Signorile and Gabriel Rotello are ex-amined together in the third chapter of Robinson's book.Signorile first made a name for himself by "outing" closetedcelebrities and politicians, but yet, Signorile is a conservativeby Robinson's standard. Drugs, steroids, gay male body imageand crystal methamphetamines are all explored in Signorile'swork. He is, as Robinson suggests, primarily concerned withthe hedonism of the gay movement - particularly the gay malecircuit parties - at the expense of abandoning gay politics. Notethat women are again completely excluded from this discus-sion. Although Robinson acknowledges that Signorile wouldreject his assertion that he is hostile to sex, many would agreethat he is. His moral perspective, as defined by Robinson in hisanalysis, is apparent in both of his works and he is particularlyvehement in his discussions about bare backing - the practiceof engaging in anal intercourse without a protective condom.Gabriel Rotello (1994) a journalist for a New York basednewspaper, Newsday, is the author of Sexual Ecology. Rotello'scentral theme, as explained by Robinson is that the AIDS pan-demic was caused by what he calls "anal multipartnerism"- suggesting that the pandemic was the "predictable result ofchanges in the sexual behavior of gay men. Rotello's work is, asRobinson says, "a work of prescription as analysis." The mostcontroversial aspect of Rotello's book is that gay men cannotrely on condoms as our sole defense against HIV transmission- offering instead that gay liberation must give way to a morerestrained style of sexual partnering. Rotello suggests, thatgay men need to practice the sort of serial monogamy prac-ticed by lesbians - a self sustaining culture in which peoplefeel socially supported within their identities as gay men tosettle down with individual partners for significant periods oftime. Embracing a form of monogamy and shunning anal in-tercourse, unprotected oral sex as alternatives says Robinson,is clearly an argument that is conservative in nature, but none-theless compelling.While Robinson's book is highly recommended readingfor those interested in the development of the gay movement,my only criticism of it is his conclusion. In the Epilogue to hisbook, Robinson extols the virtues of the Showtime TV series"Queer as Folk". This is a show that chronicles the lives of164 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfareseveral openly gay friends in Pittsburgh. While I was not oneof the fans of this show, (and perhaps that is why I was dis-appointed in Robinson's use of it as a conclusion), I wishedsomehow after reading this wonderful book that he had tiedtogether his sharp and clear cut analysis by some other means.Using a TV show to do that seemed to me to cheapen his ac-complishment. Despite this however, Paul Robinson's bookQueer Wars is excellent reading.Gerald P. MallonHunter College School of Social Work

Review of \u3cem\u3eQueer Wars: The New Gay Right and Its Critics.\u3c/em\u3e Paul Robinson. Reviewed by Greg Mallon.

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3171&amp;context=jssw

Review of \u3cem\u3eQueer Wars: The New Gay Right and Its Critics.\u3c/em\u3e Paul Robinson. Reviewed by Greg Mallon.

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