Dirty writing

Firstly, thank you to Luke Ford, Gram Ponante, the always adorable Mindy Raf and Naked Loft Party for linking to my latest column.

"Hot." "Dirty." "Yow." "I feel a little sweaty and need a drink and a cigarette." I have gotten more comments in one day about this new column than I have in a while. I kindof like that people don’t know what to say. It’s funny when porn people tell me I make them feel dirty, it’s just like what?? Yet I understand it cause I get flustered so so easily. Certain people make me blush almost every time I talk to them, probably not helped cause they seem me falling on the floor drunk. I like it when people make me blush. I don’t necessarily like being embarrassed but it’s a good reminder to me that I’m human. I actually blush really easily under the right circumstances, and it doesn’t even have to be something dirty, just something that makes me feel like someone maybe knows something about me I didn’t intend for them to know, like they read my dirty mind.

I know I often write really explicitly, but that comes so naturally to me. I feel like I can pretty much write anything at this point, and I guess in a certain way as I’m physically writing, I am not thinking about anything beyond the present moment. When I can really do that, I do get sucked in, my mind fixates on putting the words in the right order, on getting the feeling or scene I see in my head into words. It’s not always a perfect translation though. I have plenty of great ideas that never quite work out, and they are so much better in gestation than in stark Times New Roman in front of me that I don’t do anything with them. I feel sometimes it’s like play-doh and I’m mushing it around and pushing and pressing and fondling and trying to get it so precisely. And when it works, it just works. I feel good about it, I feel like I’ve done something right. And when it doesn’t, well, it just doesn’t. I think that’s why I suck at revising and editing my own work. In part, it’s cause I’m lazy, but in part it’s from this belief that the first time is either right or should be discarded. I think that impulse, though, is a good one—to go for it, to just be in the moment of whatever piece of writing it is. My brain is usually way too muddled with 10 other to do list items clamoring for attention that I can’t focus so intently. I’m writing this one’s interview questions while replying to that one’s email, thinking about this ex while trying to write about some fictional character.

Sometimes I have to write things in odd formats that go against my natural style and I just chafe at those restrictions. I can kindof laugh about it now, but way back in the day, when I was 19 and looking at grad schools, I wanted to write, but was interested in law, and felt like I couldn’t hack journalism school. I didn’t want to be a “who what when where why” kind of writer, feigning some mythical objectivity. I wanted to write about my opinions, but not just my opinions. I wanted to explore cultural issues, and at the time I was probably a lot less open-minded than I am now. So anytime I log into Sallie Mae and freak out over the numbers there, I think back on that, because I get to do pretty much everything I ever wanted to, writingwise. I mean, I have a blog and can say whatever I want here, but writing the Voice column has opened up so many doors for me. It’s not just that I get to have an opinion, but I get to be totally nosy and ask people’s opinions, and make connections. Like this upcoming one is about gay men and straight women who are into women’s breasts, and to me, it’s fascinating, but wouldn’t be as interesting with only gay men or straight women. Bringing either likeminded or contrasting people’s ideas together, figuring out where I fit into that, and exploring cultural issues having to do with sex and dating is really my dream job.

I have a lot I want to cover in this book I’m working on, and I know my recent writing about it has been a little ranty and angry, because I am angry and feel like the more sexual boundaries get pushed, the more those threatened by that boundary-pushing push back. But I never want to see sex as just an “issue.” There is always the human element in it for me and I don’t want to lose sight of that diving into this culture war. I also think the term “political correctness” is so overdone I don’t even want to mention it, yet it is undeniably an element when you have people saying some things (like rape fantasies) “shouldn’t be talked about.”I want to examine these issues and why we have this “my sex is better than your sex” mentality, why we take sex so very, very personally. On the one hand, it makes sense to me. It’s very easy to fall into the seductive lull of sexual one-upsmanship, but it’s so dangerous to do so and I just have to laugh when people act like we’re living in the freest sexual era around. We’re just not. We do have a lot of freedom but there is still a huge stigma to stepping outside the bounds of sexual conformity. If there weren’t, half the people I read wouldn’t have to use pseudonyms. If there weren’t, sex could be something we could talk about with people in a more casual way, without making each other blush. If there weren’t this stigma, people would have a better idea of how much sexual perversion goes on in bedrooms all over the country, and the world. Not that I think quantity matters—I think in some ways that’s part of the problem, we only want to do things if we think they’re “normal” or other people are doing them, not because we truly get off on them. I think a lot of people don’t really know what turns them on, or might turn them on. Or they have some idea but have certain fantasies lurking or images seared in their minds or things they tried once and just haven’t been able to connect with again. That’s the human element I want to look at and how the sexually repressive elements of our culture

Meaning that what goes into the column is never all there is. It’s a snapshot, a moment in time, and the recent one is that, but at the same time, part of me is past that heady excitement. Long story short, someone basically asked me recently why I didn’t want to sleep with this one person and it was this really odd, stilted conversation, because to me, sex for an hour with someone I don’t even know and will never talk to again—so not worth it. Not even a chance. For me, it’s not just about that very moment. It’s about after. I want to sleep with people I not only can, but will, have conversations with before and after. I want to sleep with people who want to fuck me, but don’t just want to fuck me. Who I can be geeky and dorky and giggly and cupcakey with, and also serious and intense and sad and everything else with. It’s not an either/or proposition, which I think a lot of people don’t get. There are always going to be private moments, private emotions that I couldn’t even convey in writing if I tried. There is always more going on that doesn’t make it into the story, and I’m not saying it’s a reader’s job to know that; you put down what you want people to read and take away. I just mean for myself there’s more, perhaps too much. I know I overthink almost everything. But sometimes I meet people who I don’t have to overthink with. Actually, quite often I do, people who I just click with on whatever level, whether it’s talking about our families or about fucking rock stars. People who I don't feel the need to weigh every word and its impact, because I know they get me, on whatever level we connect with. That's what I look for in friends and lovers and when I can be both with someone, rather just all lovelorn and geeked out because omg they like me! it means so much to me. But in the meantime, I'm happy to know that I have fabulous friends who I can go to the park on a sunny day with and go ga-ga over babies and have long conversations with, who don't have to read any of the above to get that, shockingly enough, I'm a multifaceted person. I'm dirty sometimes, yes, but more often I'm passing out cupcakes, sending thank you notes, friend requesting on MySpace and generally being a dork. I don't really think sexiness and dorkiness are mutually exclusive, and I mean both in the best possible way.