Bike Lust: Harleys, Women, and American Society Bike Lust roars straight into the world of women bikers and offers us a ride. In this adventure story that is also an insider’s study of an American subculture, Barbara Joans enters as a passenger on the back of a bike, but soon learns to ride her own. As an anthropologist she untangles the rules, rituals, and rites of passage of the biker culture. As a new member of that culture, she struggles to overcome fear, physical weakness, and a tendency to shoot her mouth off-a tendency that very nearly gets her killed.
Bike Lust travels a landscape of contradictions. Outlaws still chase freedom on the highway, but so do thousands of riders of all classes, races, and colors. Joans introduces us to the women who ride the rear-the biker chick, the calendar slut straddling the hot engine, the back-seat Betty at the latest rally, or the underage groupie at the local run. But she also gives us the first close look at women who ride in their own right, on their own bikes, as well as a new understanding of the changing world of male bikers. These are ordinary women’s lives made extraordinary, adding a dimension of courage to the sport not experienced by males, risking life and limb for a glimpse of the very edge of existence. This community of riders exists as a primal tribute to humanity’s lust for freedom.
Customer Review: Finding your place in the world
This book is about identity and the various Harley sub-cultures. It has little to say about metric cruisers, sport-tourers, or any other type of motorcycling.
It is not a textbook. It is for riders or wanna-be riders. It is for fun, for personal enjoyment.
And I did enjoy the book. It helped me learn that I should not waste money on a Harley when I replace my metric cruiser. Apparently I belong with the sport touring folks who wear high-visibility protective gear and top-of-the-line full face helmets by choice, not law.
I enjoyed the book, although the author’s opinion of helmet comfort is misinformed and probably based on ill-fitting headgear.
I know I don’t want to be part of the culture she describes, but I recommend the book. I disagree with her on many points, but I recommend this book. It’s really a treat to read.
Customer Review: Participant-observation as Being There
BIKE LUST is a unique, forceful and informative ethnography in which Barbara Joans takes the reader inside the minds and hearts of an emergent, important and incompletely understood American subculture. She tells much of this story in the language and with the forcefulness of a cultural insider.
I know of no account of Harley culture like it. The examples are clear and cleanly and drawn, not only in the manner of a professional anthropologist but also as a storyteller with a sharp ear for language.
Joans comes to the task with particularly apt credentials, and the originality of her technique illuminates the character of the group she represents. An accomplished anthropologist with an established reputation in the field, Joans
has not written simply an anthropologist’s monograph, but by adopting the voice of her study population, she brings the reader inside the community; she makes the events and the people come alive. This combining professional precision with subcultural patoise, enhances the portrayal. You find yourself seeing through biker’s eyes, hearing and absorbing biker terminology and world view, and feeling the clamminess of water-soaked clothing after a stormy night’s ride.
Because of Joans’ highly accessible style, often invisible prose, and the intrinsic interest of the material, the work will have broad appeal. “Bike Lust” should find extensive readership among the general public because of its readability,
and because of the adventures it recounts. A significant part of Joans’ contribution to this literature is her use of both masculine and feminine perspectives in equally engaging ways. For this reason it might be argued that Joans’ work is the first effectively ethnographic study of this subculture.
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