Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto

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All in all, a worthy read for anyone interested in the ways sex affects our lives, our society, and our relationship with each other (all the ways), but especially if you like you some dude-on-dude action. Nonbinary people transcend gender stereotypes, so there’s no place for them in conversations among those who perpetuate the idea that “men are from Mars” and “women are from Venus. Is it all about your pleasure, your validation of your right to sexual pleasure, and your reliance on easy medical fixes for STIs? From stories of play sessions with a neighbor at age six to the first explorations of Zane’s bisexuality in college, as well as sex parties, orgies, and fun with butt plugs, Boyslut is reassuring and often painfully funny―and most potently, it is a testimony that we can all learn to live healthier lives unburdened by stigma.

As a bisexual woman I couldn't not notice what the author said about how people react when someone comes out as bisexual, if it’s a woman – it’s hot, if it’s a man – it’s gay, or in some cases people just don’t believe you and just give you that “all knowing smile”, meaning – no, you’re not.Through the lens of his bisexuality and much self-described sluttiness, Zane breaks down exactly how this sexual shame negatively impacts the sex and relationships in our lives and, through personal experience, shares how we can unlearn the harmful, entrenched messages that society imparts to us. After years of doling out advice as a weekly sex and relationship advice columnist at Men’s Health and monthly ‘Navigating Non-Monogamy’ columnist at Cosmopolitan, Zach has come to the rescue by finally penning the story of his own life to represent an oft-invisible identity: the bisexual man. In contrast, when discussing the judgment he feels about his decision to have unprotected sex, he spends pages explaining why the AIDS epidemic, gay bashing, and a variety of other historical factors justify his decision.

He has a unique ability to balance humour with a deep appreciation for the vulnerability and humanity of his subjects. That aside, I do commend the effort put in this book to destigmatize sex, STI's, sexualities and relationship types.The author reads, and I really appreciated his absolute refusal to abandon his embrace of being a slut. It wouldn’t have gone amiss to offer tips for how to identify porn producers who treat their actors well, for example. I agree that even though we're all "out and proud" now, there's still A LOT of shame around sex and hookup culture.

There is an entire chapter discussing how STIs are no big deal and that while they aren't fun they ought not to be stigmatized. Yes, there's a lot of talk about random hookups and one-night stands, but there are also feelings and emotions to navigate. Boyslut is largely Zach’s personal story (with lots of sex scenes) interwoven with a kind of owner’s manual for living without guilt as a non-monogamous bi person in today’s society. At 10 years old, he confessed this to his therapist, whom, of course, he pictured naked: “his penis flanked by a big ol’ pair of saggy balls […]'Don’t think of his balls. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Boyslut zine, which publishes real sex stories from kinksters worldwide.For the first time in centuries, I think the world is ready for the communicative, openly sexual, nontoxic Boyslut. Even the one acknowledgement of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is flippantly dismissed with the reasoning "If (or when) we start to see major outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, I'll start wrapping it up, but until then, I'm going to keep raw-dogging it" (160). htm), and every avoidable infection now being treated with cephalosporins represents another tiny increment toward resistance to those as well.

The book has some interesting tidbits about concepts I didn’t know about - “top privileges” for example, but it was riddled with personal anecdotes described in such detail that I wasn’t expecting. The rest of this review will consist of one example which I've picked out to demonstrate this negative messaging. Despite all the negative thoughts, I think this book could be really beneficial to some and for that I can't say it was awful.I’ll take it a step further and say that it is not helpful to think of gender as a thing that needs to be abolished.