Sex pervades this book. As I said, I’m a Christian. I’ve had my battles with the Christian community, mind you. I mean, in many Christian romance husbands and wives aren’t even shown sitting on the same bed. And God help them if they are caught dancing. But I have to admit I started skipping sections. I just didn’t want sex scenes in my mind – we Christians flee from temptation, you know.
Well, if it was tempting I'll take that as a compliment!
I figure your book is written for the gay community but – and I know you’ll understand this and you’ll probably get a laugh out of it—it’s not the kind of book I could give to any of my gay evangelical friends and my Gays-for-life friends. And it’s not as if they are assimilationists but well, you can understand. They would think the type of sexual situations in So Many Ways To Sleep Badly was either sinful or should be kept hidden. I wouldn’t call them assimilationists because they have fought their own battles but they definitely have an idea about purity. And in many ways, prig that I am, I agree with them.
Purity and sin are not ideas that I entertain — what I'm trying to do is to portray the reality of sex in my life and the lives of people around me — I love writing about sex because it illuminates so much about the dangerous intersections of desire, love, power, intimacy, loss, anger — so much can be conveyed in a few simple gestures of boom boom boom.
I understand. Honesty. And sex is an important part of human life. Supposedly we think about sex several times a day, more or less. But writing about sex is always pretty iffy. There are all these different standards: honest sexual exposition, eroticism, romance, pornography.
Well, I guess I’m in the "honest sexual exposition" category — what I'm most interested in conveying is the messiness.
I have read books by gay and lesbian writers, books such as Julien Green’s Diary for instance. But they are often books where religion, sexuality, and truth meet. But I haven’t read much queer lit per se. So two questions. The first: Is your book typical of the genre? Honestly, I think my Christian evangelical gay friends are waiting for the Christian Book Publishers to come up with a lovely Janet Oke type prairie gay romance. Is there any hope for them soon?
Oh my God — and I do mean oh my God — I hope I'm not typical of anything! As for the gay Christian evangelical classic, well that's my next book, So Many Ways to Sleep Gladly!
(laughing) As I said, I was in tears as I read. And I was very angry. There is this verse in the Bible: “One sinner destroys much good.” Honestly, I wanted to take your father and all abusers and choke him. I’m sorry. I know he was your father and all but so much of your book is about a wounded and damaged life – the sleep issue, the sexual woundedness, the emotional pain-- that well, I just got very upset. It’s a tough read and I keep wondering if I should finish it. But I like your writing style, and some parts are very funny. I’ll see if I can hold out to the end.
Oh, you can feel free to choke my father.
Do you realize how brave you actually were in this book? I mean the scene in which you described the overwhelming urge to have anal sex-masturbation sex in front of a mirror…. Even if some of us have had such sexual urges, no one I know would write it. Do you regret some of the honesty in the book?
Article comments