Review: Lisa Tillmann-Healy (2001). Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship Across Sexual Orientation

Abstract

Lisa TILLMANN-HEALY provides a journey into a world that is foreign to many people and looks at the elements that make it foreign. The book is an account and discussion of getting to know a group of gay men from her perspective as a heterosexual woman. It is predominantly conversational, with accounts of interviews, casual encounters, social gatherings and outings. TILLMANN-HEALY takes friendship as the paradigm for her study, allowing the meanings operating within and between sexual categories to be considered. The extent to which these meanings are able to be shared is limited, but the understandings that are offered are valuable. The approach taken is an important one in developing ways to look at shared meanings between disparate groups. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0204491