November 21, 201312 yr Active Members I just finished this book and I liked it a lot. It's a sexual biography of sorts and chronicles Gore Vidal's sexual life. Like many guys on here, Gore Vidal never met a hustler he didn't like. For him, hustlers were a useful outlet for his voracious sexual appetite. As a young man he was very handsome and slept with a number of Hollywood stars such as Rock Hudson, Fred Astaire and Charles Laughton (who was into scat and piss). He described himself as bisexual, but was 99 44/100s homosexual. In his view there was no such thing as a homosexual just homosexual acts (i.e., sucking and fucking). It seems he harboured internalized homophobic self-loathing which is understandable being raised by a mad alcoholic and homophobic mother. He lived with his partner Howard Austen for 53 years, but never really acknowledged him until Austen died (Vidal was devastated). Austen never minded this and enjoyed being Vidal's "chatelaine". Vidal was brilliant, argumentative and contrarian. He avoided being a spokesperson for the gay rights movement, but defended the rights of LGBT people in many of his essays and novels. He wanted society to understand that same sex desire is as normal as heterosexual desire. I've never read Vidal's groundbreaking novel, "The Pillar and the City", but now I may just have to. He live his life by his own rules; and "what a life she had!" It's a good read.
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