How the sex talk came into the easy town story

Originally, I only wanted a fun opening for book 2, travelling, and eventually I settled on: ‘We need to talk about sex.’

I couldn’t make the opening work.

But by then, I had a lot more on sex than expected, both in the book and in my notes. And I thought, well, sex isn’t going anywhere, and it’s all over the place already, so I might as well use the material, plus ‘We need to talk about sex’ could become the subtitle for book 2. And it did.

In fact, the sex talk, as the team in the story calls it, has its own journey within the journey.

I usually treat the subject with curiosity and bluntness, or to quote Alice:

‘No, Leo. This whole fuss about our sexuality is one of the major things that screws with us. We have to dig in bluntly to unearth everything we humans have made weird.’

book 2/1, travelling, San Francisco

And it probably helps that I am interested in a lot of other subjects as well, or to quote Alice:

‘You know,’ Alice said, suddenly sombre. ‘I wish we could just face all the sex issues and then move on. So many things are more important than our sexuality. But our sexuality fucking fucks with us.’

book 2/2, travelling, Russia

On the other hand:

‘I’ve been thinking about sex on and off for some years. And I can’t help feeling that somewhere in all of this mess, beauty and horror, is an important key. Sex makes up so much of our lives and cultures.’

book 2/1, travelling, San Francisco