As you may know (or not), I recently came out as genderqueer and transmasculine. Due to my interest, I have been looking for more books about the intersection of witchcraft, Wicca, and being queer. I know there are many out there, but the first one I had to have was All Acts of Love & Pleasure: Inclusive Wicca by Yvonne Aburrow.
I was excited about a book that, at first blush, seemed to be about being more inclusive of queer people (and other marginalized people) in all aspects of Wicca, including ritual, ethics, group dynamics, etc.
I was a little disappointed to find out that it was actually only a little bit about queer Paganism, and that it was mainly was a collection of essays about those topics with no intersection.
A lot of it was Wicca 101, which was also disappointing (I’ve been Wiccan for almost a decade, so I really don’t need Wicca 101 books anymore). Even more disappointing was that it didn’t go into much depth with any of the topics. At only 254 pages of actual content (not including the index and bibliography), having a list of topics that ranged from Gender and Sexuality to the Nature of Truth to Mythology for Wiccans to Running a Coven meant that each topic only got a few pages. (Considering I’ve read books that qualify as Tomes on many of those subjects, having only a few pages dedicated to a subject is not helpful.)
Even the “Wicca 201” parts didn’t really go much into depth and so will only be of limited use.
Not a lot of it was about being inclusive either, and the Introduction even admitted that it was not meant to be a how-to guide. This is abundantly clear since there isn’t depth enough for anyone to use this as a how-to guide. That’s fine, but for someone like me, not especially helpful.
However, the bits and pieces that were about queer Paganism and inclusiveness were good. The Wicca 101 parts were also good, though probably not in depth enough to be helpful to anyone who actually needs a Wicca 101 book. So if you’re looking for a supplemental text as a more advanced witch or Wiccan, this will likely be helpful.
The cover art was worth the price of the book alone, though.
Three stars
Windy City Witch 