Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America - Softcover

Poulson-Bryant, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0767915550 ISBN 13: 9780767915557

Publisher: Broadway Books, 2006

Synopsis

Following in the footsteps of such bestselling, taboo-breaking books as Randall Kennedy’s Nigger and J. L. King’s On the Down Low, Hung brings a topic previously discussed only in intimate settings out into the open. In a brilliant, multilayered look at the pervasive belief that African American men are prodigiously endowed, Scott Poulson-Bryant interweaves his own experiences as a black man in America with witty analyses of how black male sexuality is expressed in books, film, television, sports, and pornography. “Hung” is a double entendre, referring not only to penis size but to the fact that black men were once literally hung from trees, often for their perceived sexual prowess and the supposed risk it posed to white women. As a poignant reminder, he begins his book with a letter to Emmett Till, the teenager who was lynched in Mississippi in the mid-1950s for whistling at a white woman.

For Poulson-Bryant and other men of his generation, society’s deep-seated obsession with the sexual powers of black men has had an enormous, if often deceptive, influence on how they perceive themselves and on the assumptions made by others. His tales of his sexual encounters with both sexes, along with anecdotes about the lives of various friends and colleagues, are wryly and at times shockingly revealing. Enduring racial perceptions have shaped popular culture as well, and Poulson-Bryant offers a thorough, thought-provoking look at media-created images of the “Well-Hung Black Male.” He deftly deconstructs movies like Mandingo and Shaft, articles in the popular press, and edgy works like Robert Mapplethorpe’s Black Book, while also providing distinctive profiles of icons like porn star Lexington Steele and rapper L.L. Cool J.

A mixture of memoir and cultural commentary, Hung is the first and only book to take on phallic fixation and uncover what lies below.

About this title

About the Author

SCOTT POULSON-BRYANT was a founding editor of the premiere urban magazine Vibe. Before the launch of Vibe, he worked at Spin, where his groundbreaking column “Dream America” made him the first African American columnist of a major music monthly. He is the coauthor of What’s Your Hi-Fi IQ? and has written articles and reviews for Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, The New York Times, The Source, Essence, New York magazine, and London’s The Guardian and The Face. He is currently senior editor of the quarterly fashion/lifestyle magazine America, and resides in New York City and Miami, Florida.

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadway Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0767915550
• ISBN 13: 9780767915557
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 212