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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE March 30, 2007

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Is it real, or not? Online tale defines 'perverse'

by Anthony Glassman

Some people are just plain disturbed. Case in point: Author Dennis Cooper, whose Frisk became a hit on the festival circuit when it was turned into an independent film with Parker Posey.

He's a busy man, writing and editing at a seemingly feverish pace and with his own Akashic Books imprint, Little House on the Bowery.

First and foremost, however, he is an author of fine, perverse gay literature. The word perverse is bandied about lightly today. Spanking can be perverse, eight years of a government whose idea of the truth is whatever they claim it is gets described as perverse, viewing Ann Coulter as anything but a standup comedian can definitely be called perverse, but there is a bottom line for perversity,

a trueness at the core that just makes one shake his or her head and ask, "What the hell was that?"

views. After that, someone else posts a comment on the website saying that he has taken Brad in.

The young rent boy is, apparently, going to die from a brain tumor, and this person has given him a place to live in comfort for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, according to the post, it won't be the tumor that kills him-Brad will succumb to the man's fantasy of killing someone during sex.

the sluts

From there, the same man starts contacting other hustlers, talking to them on the phone about wanting to test their claims that they have "no limits" for a large sum of money.

From there, the novel spirals uncontrollably into a web of half-truths, outright lies, propaganda and porn. It's not really all that smutty. There are fairly graphic descriptions of sex acts, but Anaïs Nin was just as naughty in Delta of Venus. However, the blending of sex and violence, the disregarding of the first two-thirds of "safe, sane and consensual" and the constant mind-blowing uncertainty over what is real and what is not, all contribute to the phantasmagoric nature of the narrative.

dennis cooper

It's into that last kind of perverse that Cooper's writing falls, and his novel The Sluts exemplifies it.

The Sluts delves into the world of the internet, that hazy, shadowy realm where truth and fiction mate so readily that schoolyard games of telephone pale in comparison.

It starts off with a series of customer reviews of a young street hustler named Brad, who seems to be 1) on many drugs; 2) mentally ill, or 3) both of the above.

Then some wrinkles start to come in when he receives a couple of negative re-

Marie G. Bielefeld, Ph.D.

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Hmmm. When things are described as perverse, it generally refers to a perversion of sexual "normality," although the everso-subtle critiques of the Bush administration take it out of the sexual milieu.

In Cooper's case, however, the perversion is one not of "normal" sexuality, nor of the truth, but almost of reality itself, illustrating that fundamental axiom behind the internet: Don't believe everything that you read.

Kendall Smith, LISW Tudrondual ssople and fritals, warseloning

Phone 440 473.9037 44046 1.1255 5564 Wilson Mills Road, Suite 201 Highland Heights, OH 44143.

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Avon Lake, Ohio 44012

440.933.3241 www.thealucc.org

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We all lead lives where we feel a need for something more. Join the CrossRoads Worship Community, Sunday evenings at 6:06pm for a worship celebration designed for contemporary life. Worship is centered around messages on topics that are relevant to our lives in today's world and uplifting music provided by a band led by singer/songwriter, Anne E. DeChant. Programming is available for children.

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