Straight Jacket

Written by Matthew Todd, editor of Attitude, the UK's best-selling gay magazine, Straight Jacket is a revolutionary clarion call for gay men, the wider LGBT community, their friends and family. Part memoir, part ground-breaking polemic, it looks beneath the shiny facade of contemporary gay culture and asks if gay people are as happy as they could be - and if not, why not? In an attempt to find the answers to this and many other difficult questions, Matthew Todd explores why statistics show a disproportionate number of gay people suffer from mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, addiction, suicidal thoughts and behaviour, and why significant numbers experience difficulty in sustaining meaningful relationships.

'If God is too indifferent, or too non-existent to take care of His creation, then clearly it's up to Me.'Morgen Tanjenz is a lawyer with an overactive sense of justice. His mission in life is to reward the virtuous, punish the ignorant and avenge those who won't avenge themselves. His favourite pastime is 'life sculpture' - anonymously intervening in the lives of strangers to change their destiny in ways he thinks they deserve.But Morgen isn't the only one changing lives in the city. A serial killer is on the prowl and taunting the police in letters to the local rag. But, as the body count rises, Detective Sergeant Blacksnake Fowler can hardly focus on the job with so many distractions: his boss hates him, his deputy is trying to undermine him and the woman he loves is having an affair.In the cicada-throbbing heat of a Sydney summer, the threads of a strange story become entangled in a wild conclusion no one will see coming. 'a ripsnorter of a ride through the dark heart of the burbs... may just be Australia's answer to American Psycho.' Kirsten Krauth, just_a_girl 'Sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing, and always compelling... with a super-original premise and a one-of-a-kind protagonist'. Tony Wilson, Making News 'A disturbingly good read. Unnerving and darkly comic.' Stuart Quin, Ealing Studios Australia

The poems of Straight Jacket gather bravely at the intersection between LGBTQ identity and the politics of illness, speaking to the consequences of homophobia and social injustice, entering into the horrors of commitment, and doing fierce linguistic battle with the language of mental illness and stigma.

A comment from the author, "This book started as a dream. After I woke up, the idea of the murder of the psychic took shape and then the story started to enfold." Even if you are mildly interested or are curious about Metaphysics, you should enjoy this book. There are so many possibilities that one of them could even apply to you and your life. If you don't believe in the paranormal, you will enjoy this as a fantasy. Have you ever had a bad time in your life where you asked, Why me'? This book may answer your question. It's possible that there is such a thing as reincarnation and that could be the why' in your question. You could have done something in another life that caused that bad situation in this life. If you think you can get away with a crime, Ann Davis tells you, "You may think that some criminals have escaped from the justice system. I really believe that they have not escaped from the Higher Power and will be punished." We must all pay for the bad or negative things we do in whatever lives we live. If we live decent lives, we are rewarded with a decent next life. After all, do we really want to, possibly, live a miserable life; even if it is in a future life? We are given free will at birth. We have the choice to live positive or negative lives. Think about what you are doing to others, as well as to yourselves.

The book contains sixteen sermons from the book of Job. I take something as horrible as Jobs condition, and I compare it with something as totally constraining as a straitjacket. The book traces Job through the many seasons of his situation and will help people realize that, while they may indeed have some extremely difficult times, they too can find some hope and solace with God, as did Job.

Depictions of Asian American men as effeminate or asexual pervade popular movies. Hollywood has made clear that Asian American men lack the qualities inherent to the heroic heterosexual male. This restricting, circumscribed vision of masculinity—a straitjacketing, according to author Celine Parreñas Shimizu—aggravates Asian American male sexual problems both on and off screen. Straitjacket Sexualities: Unbinding Asian American Manhoods in the Movies looks to cinematic history to reveal the dynamic ways Asian American men, from Bruce Lee to Long Duk Dong, create and claim a variety of masculinities. Representations of love, romance, desire, and lovemaking show how Asian American men fashion manhoods that negotiate the dynamics of self and other, expanding our ideas of sexuality. The unique ways in which Asian American men express intimacy is powerfully represented onscreen, offering distinct portraits of individuals struggling with group identities. Rejecting "macho" men, these movies stake Asian American manhood on the notion of caring for, rather than dominating, others. Straitjacket Sexualities identifies a number of moments in the movies wherein masculinity is figured anew. By looking at intimate relations on screen, power as sexual prowess and brute masculinity is redefined, giving primacy to the diverse ways Asian American men experience complex, ambiguous, and ambivalent genders and sexualities.