One Yalie's grand, homoerotic adventure

Yale Herald: How did you become interested in writing and editing books about gay erotica?

Lawrence Schimel: I think sex is a natural part of our lives and should therefore be a natural part of our literature. I began writing and selling science fiction when I was still in high school. I continued to publish during my time as an undergraduate and began to make a "name" in the field—as much as someone who doesn't write novels can, anyway. My senior year at Yale, I was invited to write for an anthology of gay erotica science fiction—I was and remain one of few openly gay authors of sci-fi—and while the editor did publish a pseudonymous story of mine in that collection, the first piece I wrote was turned down. I thought it was a good story—it's since been reprinted a dozen times—so I started investigating other places to which I could sell it and haven't looked back. My first book was an anthology of homoerotic poetry, which I published under the pseudonym David Laurents—not very inventive, I.

My intention was to try and bring poetry out of academia and bring it to an audience of men who normally wouldn't pick up a book, but who were faithful readers of a mass-market paperback porn line called Badboy.

YH: Do you feel that gay erotica is under-appreciated as opposed to straight erotica?

LS: It would depend on the circles one travels in, I guess. I think that because the decision about who to have sex with is what separates gays from mainstream society, the simple fact of "coming out" brings one's private sexual activities into the public forum. Even though there is a wide range of activities that gays may or may not partake in, all fall under the rubric of homosexual sex. As a result, we're much more public about being sexual, and that would include being public about the consumption of representations of sex, be they visual or written. Much more emphasis falls on the visual, of course, because we are voyeurs, and there's a whole sub-industry now of related materials—magazines devoted to porn star gossip and filmographies, porn star biographies, etc.

YH: What prompted you to set one of the stories in your newest book at Yale?

LS: I like to write against the traditional (albeit unwritten) rules of pornography. So if a trope is that all porn stories are about a new encounter, writing about sex between men who are already in a relationship, and especially publishing such a story in skin magazines, is a radical act for the genre. A friend was editing an anthology of erotic stories about sports and I knew everyone else would be writing about baseball, football, etc. I'm not a big sports fan—the Saybrook Strip was always the best part of The Game for me—but I did play polo while at Yale, and I knew it would make for an offbeat background for a story that would attract a lot of attention, if only for being untraditional. Besides, writers are always advised to write about what they know.

YH: The quality of some erotica, whether its straight, gay or lesbian, leaves a lot to be desired. How do those who want to write more quality erotica distance themselves from garden-variety "porn?"

LS: The problem is that we live in a sex-negative society, and therefore representations of sex are not given much value. We don't think sex is worth spending time and energy on it; everything seems to be about getting off quick. And because we don't as a culture respect sex work in any of its forms, practioners don't respect themselves and their audience enough to go the extra mile.

It is also interesting to see how erotic literature is treated in other countries. One of the most prestigious literary prizes in Spain, for instance, is the Sonrisa Vertical, given out by Tusquets, [a prestigious publishing house]. While His Tounge was written in English, it was published in translation in Spain, Brazil, and Germany and sold to Russia before finally having an English-language edition, and it has been widely reviewed. The Brazilian newspapers made a big deal not about its erotic content but about the book being an alternative format for disseminating safe-sex information and reaching an audience that might disregard the more traditional pamphlets.

Also, keep in mind that good sex does not necessarily make good fiction or even good erotica.

An erotic story needs to have all of the craft elements of fiction in addition to whatever sensual or sexual action is taking place. Cover art courtesy of North Atlantic Books.

Interview by Dan Feder, Holly Kline, and George Weinberg.

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