Despite still looking almost like a pixieish teenager with a twinkle in his eye, Perry Brass is one of the wise old men of American gay culture. He's been around since the origin of the modern political/cultural movement in 1969. He co-edited Come Out!, the first gay liberation newspaper. In 1972, he helped start the first gay men's health clinic in New York (which still survives, now known as the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center). Brass has written some 19 books, half a dozen plays, several song cycles/libretti and, as his own publisher from before "self-publishing" as we know it became available, he's been a stalwart and founding father of the gay literary genre and of modern gay activism in general.

The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love is a book about the sexual and romantic and lustful side of gay life from the perspective of somebody who seems to have seen it all. He's lived most of his life in New York City and likely has. And his advice about it all is sensible, matter-of-fact, no-nonsense and deeply compassionate and heartfelt. Throughout the pieces of advice strung loosely together in fifty-nine short chapters again and again is the reminder to love yourself and that the deepest part of you really does love you and wants your life to be the best it can be. Be true to yourself and honest about your desires, and don't be guilty or shamed by desire--it's one of the finest parts of you and offers access to your inner life. What you desire and what turns you on is the clue to your fullest self. It is from desire that art and happiness and self-healing and love for others arises. And the suppression of desire closes you off from your soul.

As a writer myself about gay "spiritual" matters, I was particularly interested in Brass's term "Deeper Self" as the all-embracing term for the multiple and sometimes conflicting ideas of religion and myth. A lot of the advice in this book is about meeting other men for sex and maybe for love and long-lasting intimate relationship. Useful advice. But supporting all this is a gentle and tactful theory of religion, God and the sacred as manifestations of a larger consciousness all human beings participate in and arise out of. Brass demonstrates the ability and power of gay consciousness to transcend dualities and polarities and reveal the truth about being vitally alive that is coded in the religions and cultures we've all inherited.

Even if you wouldn't agree with all his suggestions and interpretations of how and why gay men are as we are, you'll likely find his discussions of the issues interesting, good-reading, and enlightening. I bet you'll discover you learned something. I did.


Toby Johnsonauthor, Gay Perspective, Secret Matter, The Myth of the Great Secret and more...tobyjohnson.com