For the Love of Women

Book excerpt: This extraordinary book opens up the strange world of the 'parea' - a lesbian secret society based in a small-town bar outside Athens, whose members meet clandestinely to drink, dance and flirt. Though conducting intense sexual affairs under the noses of other customers, the parea's members - many of whom are married with children and have perfectly conventional lives by Greek standards - do not identify themselves as gay and have very negative images of homosexuality. Based entirely on fieldwork within the parea, For The Love of Women weaves stories of women's lives and relationships into an intriguing and perceptive analysis