Yeah I’ve slept with a man. Course I have. In my younger days. Was okay, but I prefer women. I’ve had threesomes and group sex. I’ve shared a girl with a mate, or my wife with a girlfriend. There were seven of us at it once. If two men are going to share a woman they’ll have to like each other not only cos of the trust but also cos there’s bound to be some form of physical contact between the two. Doesn’t mean you’re gay, though. And a woman, I reckon she’ll have to have some latent lesbian tendencies if she’ll sleep with another woman. Sometimes they say they do, and that they will, but they’re just lying. Women lie. Men lie. That’s life.
One of my wives wanted to try a threesome with another woman but I couldn’t find anyone who’d fit the bill so in the end I took her on holiday to North Africa and we paid a beautiful whore to go with the two of us. First she took us to a bar. Fair enough, we thought. But then she dragged us to another one and another one. And another one… it got to 3 in the morning and I was plastered, and my wife tired, which was probably what the crafty bitch was after anyway, so we paid her and told her to go home. She had the cheek to get greedy: what do you think this is, she shouted at the money we’d given her. I could’ve had a whole load of other clients during this time instead of wasting my time in bars with you two! Well, if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s when a person gets ungrateful. Now you listen to me, you greedy conniving bitch, you’re the one who dragged us off into all these bars so take your money and fuck off! That’s the way you have to speak to these people. Think all Europeans are sitting ducks? Think again. Well, she got the message and backed off. So I didn’t manage to arrange this thing for my wife, who is now my ex-ex-wife, but that’s another story. She might’ve had her experiences in that direction in the meantime. Or maybe she too was just lying all along.
(from Verses Nature, forthcoming)
Joan Barbara Simon Author 
The first person voice works well. Need more to comment more.
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Hi Paul,
Thanks for your comment. This is an excerpt from a novel I’m working on, Verses Nature, which is also part of my PhD in Creative Writing. The protagonist, Tatar, is a man with views so far from my own (inspired by a real encounter) that I took up the challenge to elaborate the figure. I not only want to make him credible, but likeable. He enjoys being controversial and as several people have already told me, he does indeed make you think twice about your own values.
After spending years in academia and being bored stiff by much of the discourse, I became increasingly attracted to a no messin’, straight up way of speaking. Tatar isn’t vulgar (at least I don’t think so!) and during the course of the novel, his direct way to speaking is my main vehicle for presenting a whole range of views reaching far beyond his main preoccupation: sex.
Writing in the first person is also a means for me to explore theoretical aspects of my thesis e.g.:
does author voice overlap destabilize the notion of authoritarian text? if so, how/why?
I’m interested in multiple voices/genres, heteroglossia, and will be taking a closer look at Faulkner, Derrida and Bakhtin (among others).
The novel is my main concern for this year of my thesis and selected passages are uploaded on my blog. The final product will have a totally different layout that doesn’t work well on WordPress, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. You’ll all be in for a big surprise 🙂
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So sorry, Joan, for this delay. I’ve only now stumbled across your reply. From my recent experience reading a work in the first person, it seems to work powerfully when the narrator whether weak, strong, or existentially conflicted – as in The Humanitarian that I’ve just reviewed on theliteraryreader.com – is authoritative in expression, that is, the world of the narrative is his/her world. Apologies once again and I’ll “follow” in order not to offend our amicability – my form of “straight talking” – again.
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Hi Paul. We’re both too busy to keep an eye on the clock, so no worries. ‘Existentially conflicted’. I like that. Add to logbook. Consider its relevance for (certain) female characters in my novel. Thanks!
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