NONFICTION - June 30, 1996

LESBIANISM MADE EASY by Helen Eisenbach (Crown: $20; 192 pp.). You may not make it past the multiple-choice questionnaire in Chapter 1 entitled “How to be Homosexual,” with such intrusive questions as: “When in the presence of Uma Thurman, I usually feel . . .” or “When I bite into a nice juicy piece of fruit, I feel. . . .” If you’re tough enough, however, to make it through the questionnaire, you may want to move on to such chapters as “How to Pick Up Girls,” “How to Have Sex,” “How to Choose a Pet,” “Social Skills” and, finally, “Family Values.”

The information here is extremely practical, ranging from lesbian phone etiquette to how to reject someone to how to choose the appropriate religion once you have come out. For example, Catholicism (Pro: “heightened intensity of sexual pleasure.” Con: “Accompanying guilt/shame.”)

Eisenbach, a contributor to New York magazine and the Village Voice, answers the difficult questions. For example: “With a name like Lucinda, can I still be a lesbian?” And the easy ones, such as “Is there a direct correlation between ritualistic murders and female homosexuals?” Well, let’s see. We’d guess not.