I
have always been fascinated by sex, I suppose as an extension
of my fascination with anything people pretend doesn't exist or whisper about. As a writer, I have come to the conclusion
that there
are varieties of sex: first, naturally occurring or evolutionary
sex, which occurs at a seemingly natural point in a narrative.
It can
be romantic, procreative, comforting, but it's generally positive,
upbeat, welcome, etc. Then there are the varieties that, frankly,
I find more interesting: habitual, addictive,
weird sex that comes out of the need to scratch some perverse
itch; sex for revenge; sex as a substitution for violence; sex
for "healing;" sex as part of a game.
There's nothing
sexier than reading something that turns you on — maybe
that's just a writer's point of view, but I find that words
are more provocative than photos. With language as the prompt,
you can use your imagination to make the images custom-fit
your fantasy. But whether one is writing good sex, bad sex,
weird
sex, surprising sex, sex without satisfaction, the greatest
sex in the world, it is incredibly difficult to do. The art
of writing seduction, the attempt
to make clear who did what to whom and to make it seem effortless
(without enormous premeditation, or perhaps with enormous
premeditation) is nearly impossible. I used to think that if
I weren't a novelist I would
become a sex therapist — think of how much you learn
about a person by hearing their sexual history.
This issue
is about the thing we all do, secretly love to talk about, but
dare not mention. It is about the humor of
sex, the drama of sex, the disappointment of sex, the darkness of the soul
that gets played out as sex. Among the pieces here are an excerpt
from Notice,
a novel by Heather Lewis, a
gifted writer who killed herself in 2002 (her despondency was exacerbated
by the fact that her publisher deemed the book too dark, unpublishable). Notice is
her best: it is brutal, it is raw, it is painfully honest in the way that
fiction can sometimes be more accurate than fact. It is an honor to have
a piece
of it here, to celebrate Heather's life and work. From Julia Slavin we
have a painfully funny wild romp in the land of what I'd call good bad
sex, while Will
Heinrich's "Stalin's Mustache" is
an adventure in the comic absurd. From Mark Jude Poirier comes a wonderfully
rich piece inspired by living in an old house above the landlord's grouchy,
bigoted father. Nelly Reifler, author of See Through, has given
us "Wakeup," a
beautiful, haunting story about love, memory and loss. Enjoy. — A.M.
Homes
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