Abstract

Gayness Becomes You

This article presents information on several books "The Soul Beneath the Skin: The Unseen Hearts and Habits of Gay Men," by David Nimmons, "Can Love Last? The Fate of Romance Over Time," by Stephen A. Mitchell and "Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man," by Daniel Boyarin. David Nimmons' focus is on precisely those privileged urban gay white men who, judged by outward demeanor, closely resemble stereotypical heterosexual males, they don't look or act at all like those phantasmagoric renegades, the transgendered. The towering figure in Talmudic studies these days is Daniel Boyarin of the University of California, Berkeley. His 1997 book "Unheroic Conduct" is a work of immense importance, all at once astonishingly erudite, witty, playful and boldly speculative. Mitchell's new, posthumously published book, "Can Love Last? The Fate of Romance Over Time," is not aimed at a gay audience, but the questions it raises assuredly apply.