Tim Barrus New York Times Magazine
I am a pornographer. My books have sex in them. I make it up. It isn’t real. I am also told it isn’t writing. I am here to tell you that if I write something – anything – I will hear from a steady stream of readers who will claim that what I am writing is about me, or a pseudonym I created, or I am writing about them.
The truth is that I am writing about you, me, them, us, community, the fatherland, the State, the neighborhood, the stomping ground, the body politic. Every single time I sit down to write, I take a deep breath.
All writing IS about what you can get away with.
The First Amendment is both a leash and you take the leash off the dog. The goal is to return home alive and in one piece.
The aristocracy still interprets the Constitution. That has never changed. Gender is irrelevant. Corporations are now individuals, but the court has yet to rule if individuals are corporations. It’s about the money. It’s always about the money. These days, it is also about the health care. The rich have it. The Supreme Court has it, too.
The real pornography is to write the truth about the rich.
Bazelon has it right. She nails naked power for what it is. It is an onslaught. I feel assaulted just turning the computer on. It is not enough anymore to turn the machines off. I have to unplug them and put them on the front porch and close the curtains. They are the devil and I am addicted.
I am a junkie pornographer who takes refuge in cynicism. Everything I write gathers flies.