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Asexuality and B.S. Johnson


drnick

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A little background first. I've just finished reading (for the second time) a book called 'Like a Fiery Elephant', which is a biography of the poet / novelist B. S. Johnson. If you've never heard of Johnson (which I'm guessing is most people, he's a bit obscure now) he was a very experimental novelist in the 60s and 70s. His last novel, 'Christie Malry's Own Double Entry' is a very funny and very dark comedy and I would heartily recommend it.

Anyway, one of the things the biography gets into is what might have led to his eventual suicide. And in doing so it transpires that on the night he died Johnson met up with an old friend with whom he may had some of sort homosexual experience a long time earlier (he was otherwise apparently straight). To support this a long section is quoted which was in the draft of his novel 'Albert Angelo' but later cut out. Here's a short extract that really struck me - this essentially is about the story of Samuel, who is (without quite realising it) in love with his best friend:

"Graham hated women: it was not that he was homosexual, for he was not. He just hated women. He loved his mother. He told Samuel that he was impotent. The closeness of their relationship was always of the mind. Indeed, their bodies touched only twice. The first time when they sat back to back on a hot summer evening in the arena at a prom and the points of contact seemed to burn together so that they thought they might never come apart; and the second time when, crossing a road, Graham caught at Samuel's hand to save him from stepping in front of a lorry and an intense feeling transmitted itself to them both, at once exhilarating and terrifying. It was as though God had made another ballsup and had made Samuel's other half almost a man instead of wholly a woman. But Graham was not homosexual, just neuter.

That is why it was so funny when [their boss] hauled Graham over the coals for his allegedly adulterous relationship with a married woman on the staff. Graham defended with spirit his right to true love and adultery with whomsoever he pleased, as long as it was not in the company's time, and only Samuel knew how impossible it was. Graham was friendly with the woman only because she was a neuter like himself, and needed his friendship."

This seems to be a description of an asexual character - "he was not homosexual, just neuter". I think this is fascinating, and actually a very interesting literary depiction of asexuality (even if it didn't make it to the final novel). I'd be really interested in other people's reactions.

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