there. He employed oral histories as the main methodology because Southerners are known for storytelling, as well as gossiping over iced sweet tea, hence the name of the book. The men range in age from 18 to 83, and "represent an impressive range of educational and occupational levels". He noted that in contrast to Northern United States, his subjects spent much of their youth, and discovering their budding sexuality, outdoors in fields and parks. He said, "It was in the country, so you weren't under the watchful eye of an adult, and it provided opportunities to explore your sexuality that northern urban places don't allow you to do." Being Southern was impactful because of the "southerners' predilection for avoiding topics deemed impolite or unpleasant". In the repressively racial Deep South the men also have to navigate homophobia as a cultural norm. Part of the men's social structure was the Black church, although homophobic, was also a force of positivity, and ironically a place for gay sex and even gay identity with, for instance, musical directors and pastors who were closeted. The religious life of Black Americans plays a fundamental role in the development of their communities. Johnson "speculates that black church choirs have offered gay men a safe place to express outsized emotion and style." For the Black gay man the Black Church was a place of oppression but also nurturing, "sometimes condemned and sometimes celebrated". The subjects work through "taboos about racialized homosexuality" including "rampant homosex at HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities), in the military, and particularly (and sometimes literally) in the church pews", which proved that gay sex is in the institutions despite beliefs to the contrary. The book's chapters are organized by main themes from the subjects with the common theme to all being their coming out. Other main themes were religion, love, relationships, and sex. He interviewed at least one person from each of fifteen former Confederate States of America, and ranging from small towns to Atlanta, Georgia. Johnson published over sixty oral histories of both closeted and openly gay black men. He organized the stories thematically and "grounds them historiographically". Chapters are themed on childhood, coming out, gender identity, religion, sex, love, and generation. Reception In a 2009 review in Gender & Society, Harry Thomas states Johnson "wildly succeeds in demonstrating 'that there is no master narrative of Southern Black gay experience'", and that