A Fox in Heat

So, I am a literature scholar who loves horror. I write horror. I edit horror. I publish horror. I study horror. I even run a horror tabletop game every two weeks. But...I can't stand watching horror. This "can't stand" is very specific. Gore doesn't bother me too much (unless we're entering Saw or Human Centipede territory). Creepy things don't bother me. It's mostly just two things: suspense and cruelty. Regarding the first thing, I hate the walk up the hall with the music silent, knowing there's something right around the corner. You're just waiting for the "beat to drop." And that scares the shit out of me. I always hated jack-in-the-boxes too. Fuck those things. Regarding the second thing, I hate Quentin Tarantino. Even the famed Inglorious Basterds. I hated the jovial laughter of killing people, even the Nazis. I hated the smiles and jokes of being cruel to someone, even if they "deserve it." Some horror films are supe...

Sorry all for the delay in posting. My life has stayed busy with my PhD comprehensive exams, final papers, grading student work, and starting to help my boyfriend move up to Michigan. But a couple weeks ago, Absinthe and I had a long-distance date. I am surprised that even at the end of the 2010s people still wonder how that is possible. We play board or card games, watch movies, stream one of us playing a video game while the other watches, play 20 questions, and, one of my personal favorites, fuck. On this date, we started by playing an NSFW card game. I'd hold the cards up to my phone camera so he could see what he drew, and I wouldn't. And I wouldn't have to cheat or anything with that. It worked out surprisingly well. Then, Sin loaded up some horror video games I had planned for him. Some were serious. Some were glitchy. Some were campy. Some had spiders. It was a blast for me watching him go through all of them. It seemed like he had a lot of fun, and I like w...

For those who know me well, I am an open HIV activist and advocate. What does this mean exactly? It means that I promote specific values and politics around HIV: People with HIV are still worthy of their life, love, and even intimacy. People who are HIV-undetectable cannot spread their HIV, period. That info is not commonly known. Words like "clean" are serophobic and not exactly progressive. It implies a moral uncleanliness. It is not a medically used word. There are laws and policies that discriminate against people with HIV even if it is more treatable than things like herpes (for example). People often use HIV as a weapon against bareback sex practices, even though there is nothing inherently wrong with those practices. While it is "risky," any sex is a risk, and for some reason our current culture punishes people who are open about their undetectable status over people who don't get tested and assume they're negative. But of course, this mea...