PUBLIC LIVES IN PRIVATE PLACES: More thoughts on vowed friendship. My Inside Catholic piece was advocacy; this is the place where I complicate that advocacy. This is where my head is at right now, when I think about renewing the Christian tradition of vowed same-sex friendship. I’m very open to criticism, especially critics who have alternative ideas for how to honor the loves I want to honor. But even if you’re basically like, “Don’t go that way!” rather than “Follow... Read more

DOWN ON MY KNEES–I WANT TO TAKE YOU THERE: It was genuinely odd reading the reactions to my “Romoeroticism” piece. Maybe the weirdest thing, for me, was the recurrence of the idea of “struggle.” People seemed to think I’d bared my heart, shown y’all my hardest fight. This is just not true, and I think maybe it’s important to say that. There are at least three reasons why maybe you shouldn’t assume that a gay Catholic’s gayness is her *~*struggle*~*.... Read more

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE POLS: Reviews of this and that. Christopher Bram, Gossip. A New Yorker and a Washingtonian meet in a gay chatroom. (We call them “Washingtonians” when they’re not from ’round here.) Their sex life flourishes even though one is a left-leaning ex-activist and one is a rising-star Young Republican type. But how long can you sleep with an enemy who doesn’t even know he’s the enemy? This is nearly perfect summer reading: just intelligent enough to... Read more

DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION: So due to one of the snafus with which freelance life is riddled, this review of Tom Stoppard’s Rock’n’Roll didn’t get placed in a timely fashion. I’ve decided to post it even though the show closed a while ago, because I think it may interest some of you all. I vacillated on whether or not to include the bits specific to this production, but ended up keeping them in, since this was not only the best Stoppard... Read more

Even requited, such love would be foolish, messy and brief. Unless it changed Bill’s politics. That fantasy was back, larger than before, giving value to lust, turning sex with a Republican from a self-betrayal to a good deed, a moral rescue. Bill went against his best interests by seeing me. Maybe he wanted to be changed. But what if love changed me? Could it rearrange and corrupt my identity? Oddly enough, that scenario wasn’t frightening, but produced a nasty thrill.... Read more

CAMILLA’S HAIR, SOAKED WITH BLOOD. Winners and runners-up in a contest to design a new cover for The Secret History. I like the top three (i.e. all the winners except Lucy Pritchett) and, among the runners-up, Pat Tierney, Harriet Beesley, Frida Delin, Helen Ashcroft, and Sara Mulvanny in about that order. I’d also totally buy the Rachel Lewis one, just because it’s what the book’s paperback cover would’ve been in 1967. (I admit Ashcroft’s isn’t that good unless you’ve already... Read more

DAY JOB FOLLIES: Now, at MarriageDebate: “Everyone’s Marriage Is Queer,” the recession vs. men, reasons people give for cohabiting, searching for one’s sperm donor father, and Russians pretending to be happy. And mooooooore! Remember that you, yes you, can send me links. Read more

Outside, in a little courtyard on the roof, in the rain, a small group of musicians were playing on home-made guitars. Jenkins explained that if Treece was interested in the breakdown of class boundaries the guitarist in the group was actually the Earl of… (he named a prominent scion of the English nobility) and the group was called the Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense Skiffle Group. “It would be,” said Treece.—Eating People Is Wrong Read more

“INSECURITY CAMERAS”: My review of the Czech avant-garde photo exhibit at the National Gallery of Art…. Read more

PASHERNATE LOVE: Camassia has a pretty fascinating response to my “Romoeroticism” column. Read more