Is the Rectum a Grave?: and Other Essays Book

Really good argument on the relationship b/w sex and power, pretty key in understanding sado/masochism studies and important to read in its original text rather than just others' summaries. hilarious read with a lot of polemical statements (sometimes hilarious in a way that can compensate for me disagreeing with him), good take on the stakes of queer assimilation and the de-sexualization of queerness. he really likes foucault
BUT bersani disagrees so much with judith butler it's annoying--he really does not buy into parody, subversion and gender insubordination. this is a real quote: "gays and lesbians play subversively--a word I've come to distrust, since it doesn't seem to mean much more than engaging in naughty parodies--with normative identities" (41), which he argues, only functions to contribute to gay assimilation. this seems to rely on an originary myth of heteronormativity that doesn't seem to fully tarry with butler's argument that heteronormativity may very well be constituted by opposition to homosexuality, and that it is not productive to imagine one as oppositional byproduct of the other.
also, he claims to be writing about all kinds of homosexuals/sometimes queer people but in practice is v gay male centric even when critiquing the centricity of gay men (like so many queer theorists tho tbh). he can be v essentialist and gender binary- seriously buys into and riffs on the idea of the perpetual "war of the sexes" which relies on originary myths. iffy with race/racism, often seems to take up black and white as umbrella terms for social power.