https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/podcasts/the-daily/tony-tulathimutte-feminist.html#permid=136977606

Take notes. There is no such thing as identity. Identity is a cultural concept of the self at war with society. I have had many windmills in my life. Those things we shake our swords at. What comes around, goes around. I lied. I said I was someone (I made him up) I was not. I knew I would be busted, that was the point. It was not identity theft because I created him. There is no such person, and I am not him. Cagey autobiographical – pain – is a dimension that most writers can flirt with, but they fail to sustain the far reaching impact that pain has on everyone in your life. Especially sexual partners. I cannot even know writers. I tried. It’s self-defeating. If you meet a writer, run. I am currently in love with a character who has red hair. I don’t know anyone with red hair. I love her. She’s a soldier and does very bad things to her enemies. You see plot. I see desire. Desire is not unlike a mouse. You never know what’s coming. We rarely even mentioned it, and it is not touched upon here. It’s often a message we dance around. We do not claim it. My red head is named Hecuba, and she does claim it. Desire is the prowling animal of the night, and so is Hecuba. As someone who is autistic, I do not identify with prowling animals of the night in search of lust. A sense of lust is what – pornographers – do. I am a pornographer because my palette of desire is my mask, and I do not care what you, the reader, wants. You are only there for the performance.