Is It A Choice?

Eric Marcus’s book Is It a Choice? Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Gay & Lesbian People is a very accessible Q&A book about gay issues. (Including all the silly questions, like the one used in the title.)

It is the ideal book to give or loan to parents, siblings, friends etc if you are gay because it is so accessible, friendly, matter-of-fact and informative.

It is obviously based on lots of experience garnered from doing the rounds publicising his other books on gay issues. Marcus explains writing the book as being motivated by having a spray about all the stupid questions he gets asked to a sophisticated straight couple who he had known for years. When he got to the silly question he got asked most, is it a choice?, one went red and said they didn’t sound like stupid questions and the other said it isn’t a choice? (No, no, we minimise our range of possible partners, put up with not being treated as legal equals and maximise our chance of being treated with hatred and contempt just for the fun of it. Now, tell me all about the moment when you chose to be heterosexual.)

Hence the book. Which, by the way, is never anywhere near as snarky as I have just been.

It is organised into sensible chapter groupings that cover the full gamut of life. At no point did I cringe or strongly disagree. Much in it I found informative. Recommended.