In this episode, we kick off our occasional series on Gay Therapy Slop, in which we’ll talk about how therapy discourse has shaped modern gay self-understandings. What better place to start than with some gay self-help that's not slop, a book that’s simultaneously a sex manual, a political treatise, and a literary experiment: Charles Silverstein and Edmund White’s 1977 classic, The Joy of Gay Sex.

Organized A-Z as an encyclopedia of how to be gay, The Joy of Gay Sex is full of surprises, from its powerful introduction about the historical novelty of modern homosexuality to its entries on everything from cocksucking to how to make friends to why life is so hard for hot guys to Cosmo-style acrobatic sex positions no one has ever actually tried. It’s also a turning point in the career of Edmund White as he moves away from the fussy, coded style of his first two novels toward writing clearly, directly, and erotically about gay sex. Despite plenty of dated terms and hot takes to laugh at, we argue that The Joy of Gay Sex is anything but slop: it’s as relevant as ever and absolutely belongs in the modern gay canon.

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SOURCES

• Eva Illouz, Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help (2008)
• Charles Silverstein and Edmund White, The Joy of Gay Sex (1977)
• Edmund White, Interview in Christopher Street, December 1977.
• Edmund White, Forgetting Elena (1973)
• Edmund White, Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978)
• Edmund White, A Boy’s Own Story (1983)
• Edmund White, City Boy: My Life in New York in the 1960s and 1970s (2009)
• Wayne Hoffman, “On Its 40th Birthday, Revisiting the Powerful Communal Vision of The Joy of Gay Sex,” Slate, October 17, 2017.