'Literature is a reflection of the culture that spawns it. As a queer teenager growing up in Sydney’s outer western suburbs, my access to literature was limited to the books we had at home—airport novels—and the small collection at my high school library, mostly classics. So far as I knew, old white men wrote books; Ruth Park, Ursula Le Guin, Virginia Andrews and Danielle Steele were the exceptions.' (Introduction)
'In the literature of the last few decades depiction of sex have become commonplace. The old taboos which made any allusion to these matters something daring or transgressive have disappeared, to the extent that the reader is surprised, and perhaps a little disappointed, when he or she fails to find any sexual descriptions in the novel. It would appear that the characters have as few inhibitions when it comes to having sex as the writers when it comes to describing it.' (p. 119)
'In the literature of the last few decades depiction of sex have become commonplace. The old taboos which made any allusion to these matters something daring or transgressive have disappeared, to the extent that the reader is surprised, and perhaps a little disappointed, when he or she fails to find any sexual descriptions in the novel. It would appear that the characters have as few inhibitions when it comes to having sex as the writers when it comes to describing it.' (p. 119)
