All I'm gonna say about this thing that's going on is that I'm embarrassed to be a sex writer. Not long ago, I posted something saying that I had resigned from the sex writer community, which was sort of tongue-in-cheek and sort of true. I'm pretty over it. Here's the thing about writing about sex--you have to go out into the world and cover it--that is, if you're a real writer, and if you had to take a minute to think about that, you're not. When you write about sex, you find that you engage in a kind of intimate pact with your subjects. When people get naked and fuck in front of you, whether it's on a Porn Valley set or in a New York City penthouse, you become keenly aware that you have entered into a kind of unspoken agreement with those who are doing whatever they're doing while you're standing there watching them do it. It may be unsaid, but it's there, in the room, and if you're not stupid, you can feel it. So you write about what they give you, but you understand there's a line, and if you cross it, you're fucked. You can't betray your subjects and expect them to keep exposing themselves to you. So you write about what you see, but sometimes you don't write all of it. You write what you know, but sometimes you don't write everything you know. In a way, you're like a whore. You hustle, you take the money, you do your job. And the thing about whores--good whores, that is--and writers--real writers, that is--is that they know when to shut the fuck up. And if you don't? You're a hack.
