Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations by Serena Nanda

This was a very readable book about the idea of gender and how it's not as black and white as some would love to make it. It basically takes a look at different cultures and documents how they view gender. When we think gender, in the Westernized society we live in (that I am sometimes not that happy about being a part of) we think of only two possibilities, male and female. Homosexuals are still men or women if they like someone of the same gender, they're just weird *dripping with sarcasm*. However, what we fail to realize (when I say we I mean main stream society, the mob, the collective) is that the concept of gender is a mental construction. What we see as fact and set in stone, is about as whimsically held together as a kite made out of feathers, it can fall apart at any time. As nature doesn't provide only two types of human beings, society must come to see that more than two types of human beings exist. Some cultures take this better than others and that is the point of this book. In some cultures there are three or four genders, and in some cultures other manifestations of sexual preference or gender are revered.

This book looks at various cultures around the world and how they deal with the issue of gender. It's a short read, but a fun one.

Luna: A Novel by Julie Ann Peters

This was a phenomenal story about struggle and rebirth. The story focuses on a transgendered guy through the eyes of his sister. And quite honestly I didn't go to sleep last night as I read it from start to finish.

The whole story is about how Luna (Liam's true self) is trapped within Liam, and Liam is a construction what the most acceptable way he can exist without revealing his true self turns out to be, which throughout the book we are told is like a shell of a person. Regan, the sister, has known from a young age that her brother is really a sister and devotes her entire life to keeping up the facade of Liam and dealing with Luna's problems. As a result Regan doesn't really have an identity. Both she and Luna are repressed 'Liam' Liam being society's rejection of transgendered individuals, and 'Liam' stifles those who know the truth to the point where the death of the individual wouldn't matter because the spirit, their soul, is already dead, crushed by society's rigid rejection. As depressing as that sounds however, this book is a phoenix rising out of the ashes story. For most of the novel everyone rejects Luna, even Regan and Liam as they are more embarrassed and wanting to keep Luna underground more than anything else. As the story progresses however, Luna decides that she needs to make herself known, she needs to break free, so she hesitantly goes about doing this, at first just recognizing this fact, than taking ever growing steps toward freedom. People accept or reject her as this process takes shape, but the only viewpoints the readers focus in on are Luna/ Liam's and Regan's. We never hear the final conclusion the other characters come to, which is appropriate as we can fill in our own selves or those we know into those characters, because this is very much an unfinished story as sexism still exists in a huge way today.

For most of the book Regan is just used as a lense through which the reader can learn about Luna and has no personality or character of her own, but she along with Luna, comes to the realization that she has no 'self' because of 'Liam' and though she doesn't act on it the way Luna does, she gets proddings from the outside world (in the shape of a new guy in school) to bring attention to her own life and not focus everything on Luna.

I teared up a few times reading this. Everyone has an inner self to let out, it's a struggle we all go through, some more so than others.

Politics Of Lust by John Ince

I found this book to be very educational. Usually we don't tend to note our reactions to situations or ideas unless we are paying attention to it, and I have never really looked at the erotiphobia in our society. It's kind of funny because we live a more liberal lifestyle here than people do in other places in the world, but we seem almost afraid of our sexuality. Of course I'm a novice in the subject, but this seemed to be a pretty good study on the sexuality in our society and more importantly, on our (almost) rejection of it. It's worth checking out in any case.

Kinky Boots (2006)

I love this movie. It's about a guy who owns a shoe factory, but the shoe factory is about to go under, so he strikes a bargain with this cross-dresser names Lola to make high heeled boots for men. Lola's such a flamboyant character and stands up to all of the crap people give her and keeps on going. She has such a strength of character that I guess I want to see from someone facing such adversity. Gender identity is such a delicate issue and I'm glad that there are such main stream movies as this that address the issue. It's a really touching movie and its both feel good and sad... if that makes sense, but I enjoy watching it every time its on.

The Little Black Book for Girlz: A Book on Healthy Sexuality by St.Stephen’s Community House

This book addressed many issues and should be read by all young girls with questions. Especially at a time when talking about sex in a positive way and introducing sex and sexual relationships properly is so important. Sadly not many people, that I know of at least, get down to the bare bones of sex and sexual relationships with young girls and alot of these girls are left with no one but their peers to talk to about the issues they are stuggling with in their lives, both sexual and with relationships. Parents may not readily discuss their child's sex life in a positive light, or at all to their child, leaving the media and their peers to educate them (because lets be honest, they don't learn anything in school other than the basic biology, which won't help them physically or emotionally). How are the young girls of today supposed to know how to react to certain situations if they have no knowledge of possible ways to act. People were meant to have sex, there won't be any stopping of that, but we can provide our girls with the knowledge of safe sex and healthy relationships. In some other reviews I was reading, some people didn't like this book because it promoted homosexuality. Of course my usual response to this is welcome to the 2000's where we're attempting to stop hating people for sexual preference, but beyond social structure, the fact that homosexuality is mentioned in a book about sexuality doesn't mean that homosexuality is being forced upon the reader. What discussing homosexuality does is #1, includes homosexuals in the education process, because no one deserves to be abused, and #2 it (hopefully not for the first time) introduces homosexuality to those who are heterosexual and will perhaps allow them to not fear homosexuality, but embrace the people that are homosexuals, for there is no difference between hetero and homosexuals, except to whom they give their love.

Young People Fucking (2008)

I came across this film on IMDb through Sarah Polley oddly enough (she got a thanks for it) so decided to watch it and I'd have to say it was pretty good. The title suggests that there will be a lot of sex, and while that's true in theory, it's not so much about the sex as it is the relationship between the couples. It actually skipped over the sex at points to move from one couple to the next. It was more about the relationships. 

The movie followed 5 couples through one sexual experience. The couples were named according to status 'the couple', 'the friends', etc. and the movie was cut up into the stages a couple goes through when they have sex. In each part we'd get to see how the stereotypical type of couple would react to each other in that stage of the process. All of the couples go about it differently and they have problems... it's very 'real'. I was kind of surprised watching it because in a lot of movies the sex scene is always smooth and.. well, sexy, but in this movie the couples talked to each other a lot throughout the whole movie. There was a lot of doubt on both sides and for every situation there was at least one point where you thought it wasn't going to happen. They made mistakes, or it was weird and they had to fix it. Basically it was a movie about the social aspect of sex. It wasn't as contrived as the big Hollywood, action movie, sex scene. It was a story about how different people who love each other in different ways wanted to get together, and how they did. But as I say, there wasn't any more nudity in it than you'd find in a contemporary teen comedy, and it has a substantial story line that's actually trying to say something about the romantic life of sex.

It was funny and it was romantic. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone age appropriate. Most of the movies coming out today with sex scenes idealize and stereotype sex, but don't actually go beyond the physical. Because of this it could be said that sex in the media is poorly represented and is cheapened by either the desire to draw people to a movie as a selling point, or to keep the story line going because the plot is sorely lacking in anything worth telling a story about. This movie takes apart the sex we see on TV and goes beyond the physical, makes it relatable to real life, actually has something decent to say.