What We Write About When We Write About Sex

My book and other perversions

Depending on whom you ask, my forthcoming book (seen above), Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, has either too much sex in it or not enough. Since the book is a memoir (the story of my life) and since I have been writing professionally about sex for a long time (since 1997), it stands to reason there would be sex in it, both personal and professional. For example, there’s an anecdote about the first time I saw a porn movie (me: a teenager, at a girlfriend’s house, agog at John Holmes), a list of various guys I’ve had sex with (including the famous guy who had all the sex dolls), and how seeing two porn stars dancing at a San Francisco strip club led me to move to Los Angeles and start writing about sex (predominantly about the porn industry). In fact, Data Baby is to some degree an investigation of how my being a research subject in a well-known 30-year University of California, Berkeley study of personality from the time I was a child until I was an adult played a role in my becoming a writer (the child who was studied intimately grows up to be a writer who studies intimacy). When I was writing the book, I was mindful that the sex stuff, while not the sole focus of the book, might be a bit much for some readers. Generally, that does not seem to be the case thus far for those who have read an Advance Reader Copy. But there has been one exception. On NetGalley, a reader wrote: “the graphic sex work stuff was a huge turn off, (pun intended), and definitely requires a warning. It’s graphic and goes on and on and on.” But one reader’s turn off is another reader’s turn on. Either way, there won’t be a warning on the cover. You’ll have to read it at your peril. In any case, my book is out November 7. Preorder it on Amazon or pretty much anywhere else.

Buy My Book | Hire Me | About | Blog | Forbes | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | Email