I am bound in pink vinyl

I'm pleased to report that an essay of mine is included in the new Nerve anthology "Nerve: The First Ten Years," just out from Chronicle Books and worthy of a space-age hooker's coffee table.

As my editor pointed out, it's a honor to be chosen - 49 essays, by Spalding Gray and Jonathan Lethem among others, made it into the book out of more than 5000 published on Nerve in the first ten years. My only regret is that the comments, so rich with praise and vitriol, couldn't have fit between the pink vinyl slipcased covers.

Nerve birthday essay: No End In Sight

The white tennies and bald spot in the clip art I can live with,
but what on earth is that thing hanging from the doorknob?

To celebrate my birthday, I filed this Nerve story on the joys of becoming a middle-aged gay man. To read, click the picture.

Best Sex Writing 2008

I've just found out that my Nerve essay "How Insensitive," about my participation in a study to determine sensitivity loss in the circumcised penis, is going to be included in the anthology Best Sex Writing 2008, which you can pre-order on Amazon now (buying it through that link will get me a small commission). Release is scheduled for December 2007.

Foresight: Can recent studies about the health benefits of circumcision be trusted?

Check out my latest story on Nerve:

http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/festa/foresight/
Foresight: Can recent studies about the health benefits of circumcision be trusted?


My favorite part of the story is the first comment: "I'd take this guy's analysis of medical literature a lot more seriously if his bio picture had hair and a shirt."

There's something special about the puritanism of a sex magazine readership. In any case, I long ago gave Nerve this lovely picture of me by Greg Gorman, not because it has both hair and shirt (see lower right corner), but because it is about a decade fresher than the one on file:

Portrait of the essayist with hair and shirt.