From Public Sex to Phone Sex via Language

I recently joined goodreads.com. 'Another social networking site?', you might well ask: 'Aren’t there enough of the bloody things already?' This one has a specific purpose, though, which I rather appreciate – reviewing and discussing books. Rather than go overboard by cataloguing everything I’ve ever read, I focused instead on what I’d looked at recently. I reviewed Best Sex Writing 2008, and listed Skin Deep 2 and Jane Sexes It Up among books I’m currently reading. Actually, in the past week or so I’ve also dipped in to Public Sex by Pat Califia, Phone Sex by Miranda Austin, and Rent Girl by Michelle Tea, but I decided to overlook them for now, in the interests of not cluttering.

All this put me in mind of someone I was seeing a few years ago. She inspected my bookshelves and, putting them in the context of my work, my studies and my activism, asked rather timidly: “So basically everything in your life is about sex?” I don’t believe this to be the case, but when your sexuality is ostensibly displayed through your books, people sometimes draw certain conclusions. It’s tempting to protest that I have plenty of books on other subjects (I do!), but what interests me is the fact that sexuality stands out so much more. It’s generally assumed that most of us are having sex, so why shouldn’t we be reading about it?