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Books

Forms of Desire

Dahlian Kirby reviews Forms of Desire, edited by Edward Stein.

This book has nothing to do with desire, being instead a debate between a group of intelligent folk on whether or not the social constructionist theory is the business. Recovering from my initial disappointment I read the book, even learnt things.

The central argument of Forms of Desire is about whether homosexuality is a product of the society in which we live (‘socially constructed’) and therefore relatively recent in origin, or whether it has always been with us. The argument seems to take place between (not surprisingly) those who believe in social construction and ‘essentialists’. Essentialists are a much maligned group of people who don’t seem to really exist, or at least no one writing in this book will admit to being one, although some say they aren’t as bad as people make out, and some seem to think they are very right wing and not the sort of people one would like to mix with.

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