Melissa Hackman, Desire Work: Ex-Gay and Pentecostal Masculinity in South Africa. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. xvi + 195 pages. Paperback, $23.95.

• Date: 01 December 2020
• Author: Ritt-Coulter, Edith

In post-apartheid South Africa, Cape Town became the perceived epicenter of sexual liberation. Like most African countries during the turn of the twenty-first century, South Africa experienced political and cultural pushback against the protection of members of the LGBTQ+ community. Melissa Hackman, a cultural anthropologist, examined the ex-gay movement in South Africa by working with the "Healing Revelation Ministries" from 2004 to 2013 and subsequently published her observation in Desire Work: Ex-Gay and Pentecostal Masculinity in South Africa. Hackman's fieldwork revealed a complex process of masculine identity formation within religious space that sought to suppress same-sex desire through spirituality and constant self-development. She argued that the political uncertainty that emerged in post-apartheid South Africa resulted in a crisis in the perception of masculinity that resulted in the desire to obtain sexual and gender identity aligned with traditional notions of heterosexuality. This cultural shift allowed religious organizations, particularly Pentecostal, to establish therapeutic spaces where men and women could participate in what Hackman calls "desire work."

Hackman's approachable narrative introduces readers to Brian, a white American man, who founded Healing...