'Queers are students of sublimity'

And other moments from an interview with one of my all-time favorite writers, Wayne Koestenbaum….including this back and forth….

MS: I should have gotten to this earlier but I need to know this. Would you say that your work has a queer or gay sensibility? B) does that even exists? And C) what is it, if it does exist?

WK: A) Yes, my work does have it. B) It exists in a thousand different forms in every decade, every country, and C) my kind of queer sensibility concerns more elements than I can ever begin to name. Honestly. But you probably intuit some of these variables. The types of bodies that are desired. Adamant specificity in enumerating erotic urges. Love of performance and performers. Themes of silence and sequestration and confinement, combined with themes of explosiveness and volcanic eruption. Artificiality. Privileging of aesthetics over utility.