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jojo's Reviews > At Your Own Risk
At Your Own Risk
by
by
Gah. This one is very difficult to review. Jarman is a great writer, fluid, vivid and with an eye for funny, lively text. I'd have given this 5 for his description of gay life in his era, especially for his account of the AIDS crisis, his friends, surroundings, and the inspiring way gay people shared information on the virus to protect themselves- their info network was far better than the nonsense peddled by the papers. In some ways he was very forward-thinking and independent, seeing labels as restrictive. He was a vibrant visual thinker, but was also good with text, which is an rare quality to have.
His bravery in being open about his HIV+ status was deeply admirable, and his political commitment to making queerness safer has a refreshing candour, joy in life and optimism. His examples of the poisonous cruelty towards HIV and AIDS victims in the 80s are both shocking and saddening to read. I feel the historical difficulties of gay men is often forgotten , and a lot of this book is a good reminder of what they endured. He doesn't ignore class discrimination- there were plenty of gay men embedded in the political, royal and religious establishment, but few out, and it was evidently easier to evade the system when you were a part of it. He also points out the hypocrisy of many straight 'moral crusaders' aptly.
But.
I was seriously pissed off by his one defence of older men screwing underage boys- it was seriously creepy at worst, and idiotically naiive at best. I strongly believe that consent laws are appropriate and that his cherry-picked examples ignore the vulnerability of young people and would harm young gay men infinitely more than it could help them. Hence the low review, as I can't give separate ratings for each bit of the book. It's always good to provoke discussion, but he seemed so blinkered on the subject in his own favour.
He conflates different issues, such as bracketing a contemporary child abuse court case with general persecution against gay men. This seems to me to be incredibly stupid, and lacking compassion for the young victim.
I say this as a bisexual woman- I strongly believe in support and visibility for queer/gay people, but
being an apologist for child abuse should never be a part of this, and gives a negative effect to the gay community at large, most of whom don't agree with it. Creepy fetishisation of youth has always annoyed me, so maybe I am not the target audience of this book! It doesn't help that Jarman followed the 80s scene habit of calling every below-25 year old a 'boy', which, taken with his ill-advised ideas, I found irritating and bothersome.
If you want to read something by Jarman, I'd suggest Chroma instead, which is beautifully-written, sensitive, evocative and more personal.
His bravery in being open about his HIV+ status was deeply admirable, and his political commitment to making queerness safer has a refreshing candour, joy in life and optimism. His examples of the poisonous cruelty towards HIV and AIDS victims in the 80s are both shocking and saddening to read. I feel the historical difficulties of gay men is often forgotten , and a lot of this book is a good reminder of what they endured. He doesn't ignore class discrimination- there were plenty of gay men embedded in the political, royal and religious establishment, but few out, and it was evidently easier to evade the system when you were a part of it. He also points out the hypocrisy of many straight 'moral crusaders' aptly.
But.
I was seriously pissed off by his one defence of older men screwing underage boys- it was seriously creepy at worst, and idiotically naiive at best. I strongly believe that consent laws are appropriate and that his cherry-picked examples ignore the vulnerability of young people and would harm young gay men infinitely more than it could help them. Hence the low review, as I can't give separate ratings for each bit of the book. It's always good to provoke discussion, but he seemed so blinkered on the subject in his own favour.
He conflates different issues, such as bracketing a contemporary child abuse court case with general persecution against gay men. This seems to me to be incredibly stupid, and lacking compassion for the young victim.
I say this as a bisexual woman- I strongly believe in support and visibility for queer/gay people, but
being an apologist for child abuse should never be a part of this, and gives a negative effect to the gay community at large, most of whom don't agree with it. Creepy fetishisation of youth has always annoyed me, so maybe I am not the target audience of this book! It doesn't help that Jarman followed the 80s scene habit of calling every below-25 year old a 'boy', which, taken with his ill-advised ideas, I found irritating and bothersome.
If you want to read something by Jarman, I'd suggest Chroma instead, which is beautifully-written, sensitive, evocative and more personal.
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