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Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt by Jon Jon Goulian


I picked this book up because it was on an NPR list of 'Funny Books to Beat the Heat' this summer. Not funny is how I would characterize this. It is passive aggressive kind of humor, which is more angry than mature, but that didn't bother me. I can laugh at that, even though I am not particularly proud of it. Not wasn't it. I found the book perplexing in a way that no other review of it mentions.
So first off, the author really can wear a skirt well. I am not sure how I feel about out-there cross dressing, but I definitely don't hate it, and unlike so many people, he can really pull this off. He looks good.
He describes a life long love of female clothing, make up, and has had concomitant life long questions about his sexual orientation--he says he is straight. Great. But he never has sex. He claims a woman he had sex with over the course of two weeks is the person who he had the most sex with ever. And that wasn't his idea, it was hers. She was convinced she could convert him to a more age-appropriate sexual appetite. She failed at that but probably wouldn't have predicted her actual accomplishment. What is up with that?
The thing that jumps to mind is childhood sexual abuse. Not to sound like too much of a shrink, but if the shoe fits....what I can't figure out is why none of the reviews I read thought it was odd. It is as if burying it amidst all kinds of titillating revelations would hide it, and if no one noticed that it would go away, or at least be ok. Well, it's not. I just wanted to scream "Get help! Life can be so much better than this!"

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