Masturbation, literary and otherwise

Though the idiom phrases it as "reinventing the wheel," people have definitely been having sex longer than they've been making wheels. Which is the criticism porn and erotica qua art inevitably comes under: invention is reinvention, so how many ways can you talk about what we've been doing since the Precambrian Age? Ironically, this is also the reason porn and erotica qua porn and erotica constitute a multi-billion dollar industry. Goddammit, we like what we've been doing since the Precambrian Age.

Lawrence Schimel, author of His Tongue, like any honest homo sapiens, likes sex. Oh, yes he does, and he likes to write about it.

A few "money sentences" manage to distinguish themselves based on the unusual nature of their metaphors—as when recounting a mutual voyerism-masturbation session with the resident of the apartment across the alley in "Season's Greetings." ("And then suddenly there was a second shadow lower down, a series of white splotches that together made a sort of Rorshach blot image of a dove before they began to drip to the floor.") Unfortunately, he swiftly follows with a painfully heavy-handed metaphor worthy of a high-school lit mag: "The gulf that separates us—both the physical chasm between our buildings and the emotional anonymity that cloaks New York City."

Oof! To be sure, Schimel is the Patrick O'Brien of the male body; he avails himself of all the appropriate "technical" terms, and he knows how to render the mechanics of sex faultlessly. Unfortunately, too often Schimel's language falls back on easy tropes and phrasings: the "afterglow" of orgasm, "spasming" cocks, and the effect of a cock on the gag reflex are mentioned, um, ad nauseum. But just as often he calls a spade a spade, settling on "jism" and "cumming" as the spellings for these orthographically ambiguous words.

But erotica's not just about sex, cry its champions; it's about sex as an integral part of the human psyche and condition, about accepting the physical consummation of desire as a proper and necessary literary subject.

Granted. But the fact remains: Schimel's stories, if read as quality literature and not spank-fodder, are mediocre at best. Cum cum Rorshach blot, unfortunately, is the collection's most subtle and inventive metaphor; most other attempts at imagery and allusion are dull and amateurish. Remembering that "setting the mood" is equally important in literature and seduction, one has to hope that Schimel is better with candles and Marvin Gaye than he is with the short story. Most stories heavyhandedly link the encounter to some exotic locale (Berlin, the Cloisters, Payne-Whitney) or mood-setting event (Wigstock, a Gay Pride Festival on a Barcelona beach, and two, count 'em, two Christmas stories). The rest occur in an idealized New York that hits the checklist of gay culture: Chelsea gym, Keith Haring calendar, and "the quick peck on the lips that is the standard fag greeting these days."

"A Queer Christmas Carol," excusing the fact that Schimel regurgitates not just Dickens' own cloying cliché but every sitcom's cloying version of this cliché, offers the most probing and challenging depiction of gay life; we see a man tormented by mourning, AIDS, and the past. In this nth re-telling, Scott is Scrooge because he has fallen prey to repression and depression, and with the help of Oscar Wilde, a "bottom" porn star, and a panoply of former lovers, he overcomes his miserable, life-hating ways.

In all fairness, Schimel has the deck stacked against him. With the notable exceptions of utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill and satanist Anton LeVey, no one spends much ink justifying pleasure. In literature, a few luminaries such as Whitman, Rimbaud, Miller, and Nin have managed to combine lyrical grace with physical thrill and left us with complex books that sing the triumphs of the flesh without seeming laughably superficial. Unless Schimel gets his head out of his ass, he has little hope of joining their esteemed ranks.

Would 13 gripping accounts of chess matches enthrall you? Not if you don't play chess.

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