Dave White covered sex and the sad state of gay literacy for Richard Andreoli’s Mondo Homo: Your Essential Guide to Queer Pop Culture, out now from Alyson Publications.
1 Why a book about queer culture in this time of red states versus blue states? If someone says, “Hey here’s 250 bucks to write an essay,” you do it. And honestly, I don’t know what gay culture even is at the moment. All I know is that my own cultural affinities make me a bad gay most of the time.
2 Define “bad gay,” please. Someone who has Autopsy on his TiVo wish list. Someone who’s fat. Someone who hates Desperate Housewives. All of which describe me . . .
3 In Mondo Homo, you write very eloquently about books and the gays who love them. How can we save literacy? We can’t—short of each of us adopting a crystal-meth-addicted circuit boy and reading to him. Bookmobiles in gay neighborhoods, maybe?
4 Hot! So why should we have sex with you right now? According to my chapter of the same name in Mondo Homo, because I’m sexy and so are y’all, and sexy people should sex each other up.
5 The fundies won’t like that at all, Dave. What’s sexy? I don’t believe in their God, so what they like doesn’t make a fucking bit of difference to me. Sexy is what happens when you like your own body, even if you’re not what the mass of gays think of as “hot.” Or—like what happened to me recently—you discover that Marc Jacobs pants only go up to a 36-inch waist. Something like that can attack your brain and make you afraid for your own sexiness. If you can overcome that kind of shit, you’re on the road to sexy.
Dave White grew up to be a debaser. He lives in Los Angeles and has written for LA Weekly, Instinct, The Advocate, and Glue. Read his blog at livejournal.com/users/djmrswhite.