cover image Ferocious Romance: My Search for Sex, God, Fury, and the Fire Within

Ferocious Romance: My Search for Sex, God, Fury, and the Fire Within

Donna Minkowitz. Free Press, $24 (192pp) ISBN 978-0-684-83322-4

Minkowitz, a lesbian activist, brings a refreshing lack of rancor and an appealing open-mindedness to encounters that would normally be fodder for the most extreme rhetoric of the culture wars. In pursuit of an article for the Village Voice, she set off to engage the religious right, her perceived enemy, mostly by infiltrating their ranks at rallies. To her surprise, she was almost wooed. In chapters alternating between experiences with Christian groups (e.g., the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, the Promise Keepers, Focus on the Family) and her life among her own set (S/M workshops, gay rights marches), Minkowitz details how she came to feel an affinity ""with people who cackle, ululate, and bray their praise of God."" Minkowitz, who calls herself ""Dionysian,"" feels at home with what she sees as the eroticism of charismatic Christianity (""my people, gays and lesbians, have been known to get pretty ecstatic themselves""). Her writing, never strident or polemical, is both earnest and breezy, and sometimes funny. After a while, however, it becomes clear that Minkowitz is content to keep her account subjective and impressionistic: she offers little contextual understanding of the differences among Christian groups or of the wider ramifications of their beliefs--or, for that matter, of her own. She concludes by offering a purely personal notion of virtue: ""I could see there was no redeemer. No enslaver. Only other people. I approached them with great joy."" Minkowitz's book is notable for its generosity of spirit more than for its depth. In the end, she seems to view conservative Christianity as just another a lifestyle choice. Agent, Jed Mattes. (Dec.)