Author and sex advice columnist Dan Savage is often right, but not when it comes to sex addiction. Check out our recent radio debate on Michelangelo Signorile’s radio program.
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I’m grateful to Booklist for its review of American Voyeur: Dispatches From the Far Reaches of Modern Life:
American Voyeur: Dispatches from the Far Reaches of Modern Life.
Denizet-Lewis deftly combines journalism and sociology in these 16 articles originally published in such sources as New York Times Magazine, Spin, and Slate. Focusing on youth culture, sex, and sexual identity (often gay and lesbian), the thirtysomething reporter demonstrates a flair for what he calls “immersion journalism” or “wait(ing) around for people to be themselves.” In practice, this means patiently establishing an emotional rapport with people as disparate as homeless gay teens in San Francisco’s Castro District and prepubescent extreme-sport athletes who are fielding more commercial endorsements than they can count. The resulting reports are insightful, entertaining, and often thought provoking, especially those that most nearly approach sociology, e.g., the author’s investigation of the “Down Low” subculture (African American men living as heterosexuals while secretly having sex with other men), the lives of young gay married couples in Massachusetts, and contemporary teen dating habits and sexual practices. Whether his subjects are occasionally superficial or (more often) substantive, Denizet-Lewis himself is always an engaging and well-informed guide to some of the farther reaches of contemporary American culture.
My new book, AMERICAN VOYEUR: DISPATCHES FROM THE FAR REACHES OF MODERN LIFE, comes out in January. The book is a collection of my previously published writing. You can pre-order the book at a heavy discount here.
From the publisher… ”Benoit Denizet-Lewis, one of the most perceptive and interesting journalists writing today, takes us into some unusual precincts of American society in American Voyeur.
Denizet-Lewis made news with his New York Times Magazine cover story “Double Lives on the Down Low,” included here, which ignited a firestorm by revealing a subculture of African-American men who have sex with other men but who don’t consider themselves gay. In American Voyeur, he also takes us inside a summer camp for pro-life teenagers, a New Hampshire town where two young brothers committed suicide, a social group for lipstick lesbians, a middle school where a girl secretly lives as a boy, a college where fraternity boys face the daunting prospect of sobriety, a state where legally married young gay men are turning out to be more like their parents than anyone might have suspected, a high school where dating has been replaced by “hooking up,” and other intersections of youth culture and sexuality. Peer behind the curtain of modern American life with this remarkable collection.”
Here are some early reviews:
“I expected reading American Voyeur to be a guilty pleasure, but Denizet-Lewis’s compassion and involvement swept all the guilt away and left the pleasure!” — Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America
“Thank God for Benoit Denizet-Lewis’s insatiable curiosity. It has resulted in a fascinating book. American Voyeur is about the big issues — sex, identity, religion, death — but is told through small, compelling corners of culture.”– A. J. Jacobs, author of The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment
“In American Voyeur, Benoit Denizet-Lewis takes us on a riveting, sometimes uncomfortable, always thought-provoking trip through worlds we think we know about — and others we’ve not heard of before. He slips in and out with seeming ease, coming back with sparkling details and observations, challenging our ideas about sexuality, secrets, gender, and relationships. Whatever you believed before will be stirred after reading this book.”– Michelangelo Signorile, Sirius XM Radio host and author of Queer in
America.
“Benoit Denizet-Lewis is a tremendous talent and one of the best journalists of his generation.”–Jon Barrett, editor of The Advocate.
Pre-order the book here.
The Advocate recently named me to its list of the most influential gays and lesbians under 40. I’m honored, although the above cartoon of me makes me look a bit like a serial killer. =) Check out the magazine’s brief profile of me here.
The Australian magazine DNA interviews me about sex addiction for its current issue. You can check that out here.
*Ohio man arrested for driving drunk on his motorized bar stool.
* A study by Jon Grant (who I interviewed for my book) at the University of Minnesota found that naltrexone, a medication that helps some curb their dependence on alcohol and drugs, also works to help some compulsive shoplifters stop stealing.
*DEA agents are headed to Afghanistan to try to cripple the country’s terror-narcotics networks.
*Some lawmakers want welfare recipients to be regularly drug-tested.
*Obama says “no” to marijuana legalization.
I’ve been interviewed on some great radio programs in the last few months to talk about my book, but rarely have I enjoyed one more than Robin Young’s Here & Now on NPR. The segment is only fifteen minutes, but Robin asked great questions and fostered a fascinating dialogue. Joining us on the show was Jody Pegram, one of the eight addicts I write about in the book. I hope you’ll have a listen.
Reuters reports today that increasing numbers of bankers and business executives—stressed and traumatized by the financial collapse—are seeking treatment for addiction.
“We absolutely do see more people coming in naming either a job loss or huge financial reversals or big investments with Bernie Madoff,” said Sigurd Ackerman, medical director at Silver Hill Hospital rehabilitation facility in New Canaan, Connecticut. “They’re being admitted with depression or increases in substance abuse, or both.”
Robert Curry, founder of Turning Point for Leaders, a coaching and consulting firm in New Canaan that creates treatment programs for senior executives, told Reuters that the financial crisis was clearly a factor in more drink and drug use. ”We’ve got more than fifty homes in foreclosure in this town and that’s unheard of,” Curry said. “Domestic violence incidents have spiked, and that is very closely tied to substance abuse.”
(And in a related story, it’s not only alcohol and drug use that’s on the rise during this crisis. Americans are also eating more sugar, which should only further cement our position as the world’s most overweight people.)
There’s an interesting piece in the Baltimore Sun today about how acupuncture is helping some inmates in the Baltimore City Detention Center get and stay sober. ”I’ve done buprenorphine and methadone, but neither one of them could compare to those needles,” said Derrick Brooks, 42, who’s battled heroin his entire adult life. “Those needles put you in touch with stuff that’s within you that no pill or nothing else could do.”
District Judge Jamey H. Hueston thinks every addict should try it. “I am a huge fan of acupuncture,” said Hueston, who presides over the city’s drug court. “I have sent people in there kicking and screaming, resentful and scowling at me. And later they say, ‘Judge, thank you.’”
In a Yale University study published in the August 14 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, cocaine addicts who received auricular acupuncture—needles inserted into specific parts of the outer ear—were significantly more likely to have cocaine-negative urine screens over the course of the study compared to those in control groups. Still, like just about every other tool to combat addiction, acupuncture doesn’t appear to work for everyone.
(Since I don’t get to write a post about acupuncture every day, I’ll take this time to plug the work of my stepmother, a terrific acupuncturist in Scottsdale, Arizona.) =)
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