Lustful solace / Faraway fellowship
Today: Talia Lavin, author of Wild Faith; and Brian Hioe, Taipei-based editor, translator, activist, DJ, and co-founder of New Bloom.
Issue No. 371
Gay Smut Salvation
Talia Lavin
Suspect Solidarities
Brian Hioe
Gay Smut Salvation
by Talia Lavin
Problem: You are a writer who has spent most of the last ten years writing about very evil people, and you are witnessing their triumph, and you don’t have any money, and you don’t have any leads, and you don’t have any institutional clout, and it feels like you are taking on a Panzer tank with nail scissors or even a feather, and the thought is paralyzing.
Compare it to this problem: you are the estranged son of a duke, and find yourself irresistibly attracted to the handsome, moustachioed jewel thief you’ve hired to steal your wicked stepmother’s diamond parure, a symbol of your stolen inheritance.
Problem: You wake up feeling like your throat is full of dust. You don’t know what to do with yourself. The words get all knotted up and feel so futile in the first place that bringing on a conniption by writing them down feels hardly worthwhile. It’s so hot that going outside feels like a bad idea, and it’s too expensive to get out of the city. Every day is the same. Even the bronze-sealed sky. Which always seems to be bursting with rain that never falls. This is why you can’t stop reading smutty gay romance novels.
Keep us breathing fire!
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