My Washington Post essay on hoarding and love

I have a new essay up at The Washington Post's Post Everything section called "Old magazines, stuffed animals and sex toys: How hoarding shaped my relationship." I wrote the subtitle, they wrote the title, and I also included the photo below of my old Brooklyn apartment. Here's the thing: when you write personal essays, you need to go all in, in my opinion. Not just for your editor's sake, but for yours. I've struggled with writing about some of the worst of my hoarding, because I'd like to think I'm "past it," but as you'll see in the essay, I'm not. Also, this is one of my biggest bylines, so if you like the essay (or feel anything about it, or just want to support my writing career), I'd love it if you'd share it, either publicly or privately with someone who may get something out of it. Yes, I'm a hoarder, but I firmly believe hoarding doesn't only affect "hoarders," but all of us. It's about what we do with our stuff and how we value it, and even compulsively neat people are impacted by fear of becoming hoarders. Also, it's about love, and I am in love, big time.

How many books makes you a book hoarder?

I answer that question as well as whether you can own "too many books" in my latest essay at The Toast, which got picked up by the LA Times blog Jacket Copy! I also shouted out some of my favorite books by authors such as Dylan Landis, Matt Logelin, Mark Haskell Smith and Frank O'Hara. I'm always traveling with several print books as well as many on my Kindle, and it's a struggle sometimes to sit and enjoy one without wanting to immediately also start the next one. If only I had two heads and two sets of brains!

My hoarding essay "(Mostly) Not Ashamed" in Dancing at the Shame Prom

The anthology Dancing at the Shame Prom: Sharing the Stories That Kept Us Small, edited by Amy Ferris and Holly Dexter (Seal Press) is shipping now from Amazon and includes my essay "(Mostly) Not Ashamed," about hoarding, a follow-up to my Salon hoarding essay. The book will soon be in stores nationwide and I believe will be available as an ebook, but I'm not seeing that listed online right now. I will be reading from my essay on October 11th at 7 p.m. at the JCC in Manhattan at 334 Amsterdam Avenue at 76th Street (my name isn't listed on their site, but I am reading). It's $10 for members, $12 for non-members, with wine and cheese. Find out more at theshameprom.com and check out their Tumblr and share your own shame story at dancingattheshameprom.tumblr.com.

Here's the first three paragraphs of my essay, and please do check out the whole book. Aside from my participation, I'm truly eager to read the whole book as soon as I get my hands on it. Actually, I feel that way about all books by Seal Press, and plan to raid their offices tomorrow when I'm there (kidding, sortof).

I make a living writing about things that most people would find too private, personal and uncomfortable to reveal. I left law school for a career writing about sex and dating, in erotic fiction and first-person accounts. I've covered everything from my bukkake fantasies to hooking up with a Top Chef contestant to mommy play. I've posed nude and gotten hate mail. Being open about sex has never felt unnatural, but it took me a very long time to come to terms with the fact that I'm a hoarder, and even longer to share the word with others.

Hoarding, for most people, conjures up gruesome images. Mention it and you're likely to hear about the Collyer Brothers, who died trapped by their own stuff. Hoarding isn't something I take lightly, but I've finally learned that it's not something I can walk around feeling wracked by shame by or chained to my apartment, constantly sorting and cleaning and feeling guilty. Take me or leave me, but you can't take me without my stuff.

As I type this, I'm sitting in my "bed," which is now just a deconstructed mattress on the floor. The frame, which I've been meaning to throw out on the one designated day my Brooklyn apartment allows large items of trash, is tilted sideways against the wall in the middle of the room. Scattered around are hundreds of books and dozens of articles of clothing, along with random items like pillows and padded envelopes, an ironing board that used to support the mattress, an overturned chair, papers from the early 2000's, neatly placed in labeled files with names like "taxes" and "travel," from back when I made an attempt at organization.

"I'm a sex writer with a secret shame - hoarding"

I guess it's not a secret anymore, because I wrote about it for Salon! Read my essay "I'm a sex writer with a secret shame - hoarding" and if you like it, please, um, like it on Facebook if you do that sort of thing and/or pass it on to someone who might be interested. And please note that is an over two-year-old photo and my apartment is not "neat" but is in much better shape these days, but there's still a long way to go.



This is the piece I had it in my calendar to follow up on a month after submitting and turns out they were interested. I’m glad…and a little nervous. My editor, Sarah Hepola, helped me see the big connection between sex writing and hoarding, which was something I’d tacked on at the end. I think it hadn’t occurred to me sooner because sex writing is such an everyday, literally every day, part of my life that it doesn’t seem odd or unusual anymore. I’m very honored to be published at a site I’ve been reading for years and years, and inspired to keep writing about the challenging things, with Adair Lara’s words from Naked, Drunk and Writing in my head. Here’s the beginning:

Over the past decade as a writer specializing in sex, I've dished about my erotic escapades, from threesomes to kinky parties to a date gone wrong with a Top Chef. I've posed with a freshly spanked bottom for a sex blogger calendar, masturbated on HBO's "Real Sex" and edited books like "Best Bondage Erotica 2011." Writing about my intimate life has never felt awkward. I didn't grow up with shame around sex and didn't carry any of it into adulthood. Divulging those stories, as well as fictionalizing fantasies about bukkake or webcam exhibitionism, has been a way to understand and come to terms with my desires. Because I've been so open, though, some people think I have no skeletons in my closet. And I do -- or rather, I would if the two-bedroom Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment I've lived in for over 11 years had any closets.

Read the whole thing