Jesse Colton asked Brent Hartinger:

Is your character in Two-Thousand Pounds Per Square Inch more or less outgoing than you are? In other words, Brent in the story is very up front about sex and isn't shy about talking about it, are you that way in real life?

Brent Hartinger That's a really, really, really great question. I was raised Catholic, and sex was NEVER discussed when I was a kid. I mean, NEVER.

But then I started doing HIV/AIDS education back in the 90s, and it made me angry how back then no one wanted to talk openly about gay sex. I would think, "People are DYING. We need to talk about this!" It was like people would rather have kids get infected with HIV (or get pregnant) than give them honest information and facts about their own bodies. Really?

Plus, I was working with gay youth, who had lots of questions, and no one else to answer them (back then, there wasn't much info on the internet). So while I started out being pretty embarrassed, I got over it pretty quickly.

I don't openly talk about sex with people who haven't asked about it, or don't WANT to talk about it. But if people have questions, it doesn't really embarrass me anymore. Sex is such a normal part of being a healthy, adult human being, so what's to be embarrassed about? ;-)

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