Do You Want Sex With That?

When I picked up freelance writer and author Claire Halliday’s new book, Do You Want Sex With That? I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Would it be a fly-on-the-wall account of single-sex groups discussing the opposite sex’s odd-looking private bits over coffee? Or maybe a humorous look at sex in the 21st century? Or, perhaps, or a grown-up version of the kid's classic, Where did I come from?

What I did get from Claire's book was not only surprising, partly because of the occasional tingle it sent through my body, it was also informative and intriguing.

I did get the fly-on-the-wall account, but not of conversations about sex. I got accounts of the real thing: a swinger’s party, a domination session at a brothel, a sex addicts’ meeting and an insight into how sex helped shape one woman's life.

Now, as a former news reporter for a number of Australian tabloids, I have been trained to go for the jugular, to zero in on the attention-grabbing headline, to use the meatiest topic of a story to hook the readers into the promise of a sensational story.

So, it would be natural for me to lead into this story with Claire's straight-talking, visual accounts of these usually taboo topics of group and paid sex, or with discussion of some of the more personal sexual encounters Claire has experienced.

But this book – which is part reportage and part memoir - and its author are so much more than any gritty headline I could conjure up from my days on the subs desk. So, I am not going to recount Claire’s accounts of blokes and women on women and blokes – you can buy the book for that.

I am more interested in introducing you to the woman behind the book: a mother of four young children who writes articles for some of Australia’s biggest publications in the precious few hours while her children sleep; a woman whose career has been her access-all-areas key through the many locked doors of life; a woman whose writing skills were so sought-after that she was approached by Penguin to pen a book; a woman who talks openly and honestly about what sex means to her; a woman who fears that so many of our choices surrounding sex have been taken away from us forever.

Here, Claire Halliday talks about her career, her book and, of course, sex.

As a freelance writer... one of the joys of the job is that you can come up with wacky ideas and explore something you wouldn’t normally explore.

I can go into a hospital and watch an operation if I am writing a story about it. If I am writing about what it's like to be a pilot, I get to sit in the jumpseat.

It is that thrill of being able to open doors that are normally closed and telling interesting stories.

With sex, I was curious about some things, but I just wanted to discover myself. So I had written a few articles about different aspects of sexuality and had become known, a little, as the writer who did wacky sex stories.

I was approached by Penguin… because they had read one story in particular, about a swingers’ party, which appeared in The Age, and they asked if I was interested in writing a book about Australians’ attitudes towards sex.

It was great (to be approached by Penguin, but) I had it built up in my head as this enormous thing that I couldn’t write a word because I was so conscious of stuffing it up. In the end I wrote what came naturally.

Sex is a topic... that has been explored in many different ways by many different writers, but I think it is particularly timely at the moment.

Sexually, there seems to be so many things going on. We are getting, more than ever, this whole debate about the sexualisation of children (and) sex in advertising. It is certainly something that is being spoken about; have we gone too far, what is too far?

I am not easily shocked, in terms of seeing these wacky things around you, like going to a domination session at a brothel or a swingers’ party.

I like to think I was honest in saying that elements of this are kind of horny. I was watching naked people making love and it was turning me on, but after a while I became aware that it was this turn-taking process and it lost any sparkle for me.

But I did feel something fleetingly.

I started to put myself in the story… and think, ‘How can I tell what attitudes about sex are unless I explore my own?' So I thought about the different ways sex had been introduced into my life and how those experiences had impacted on the way I see it in society today.

I am not meant to be giving any answers of what Australians' attitudes are. It is just my own take on it because of the different things that had happened to me.

In one review, a male reviewer plucked out details of how I had sex with three men in 24 hours, which made me look like a certain kind of person. But if you read it in context, the only reason I did that was because it was something that happened to me and I measured my self-esteem with my sexuality.

I am not particularly proud of that and I wouldn’t do it again because I no longer have my self-esteem so wrapped up in my need to be seen as sexually desirable, but at the time that’s how I felt because of things that had happened to me, like being raped.

I didn’t deliberately set out to write something shocking… nor did I want to censor myself.

There are no blow-by-blow descriptions of particular sex acts or anything. It’s not that kind of book. I wouldn’t have done that, not as a mother of children.

(But) maybe it wasn’t as tough as it should have been (writing about things such as being raped and having a threesome). I wonder now if I should have considered things more.

At the time, I just started thinking, ‘Well I’ll write about sex in my own life.’ That was just what it was.

Revealing something of yourself… allows the reader a context of what your attitudes are.

I think people always like reading about other people’s lives. That is just human curiosity.

With the reportage side of it, I think people like the opportunity to see a side of life they normally wouldn’t see.

So if I can give a visual description of what it’s like to be at a swingers' party, or in a brothel, or to see strippers performing, they can get a sense of what that might be like.

Memoirs have become quite popular... and you read them and realise people have made whole memoirs out of very small moments in their lives.

I like small moments; to me you don’t have to have been raped, or have grown up in an orphanage village, or been abused by your father to have a memoir.

Good memoirs can come from small moments; it's just knowing the way to tell the story and making those small moments really sing on the page.

Some people’s lives may not be that interesting, (so) you need to have the talent to write it.

Photo by Shannon Morris
Claire Halliday is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in a variety of national and international newspapers and magazines for over a decade. Her previous books include two collections of interviews with important Australians, Unsung Heroes and The World At Their Feet. She lives in Melbourne with her partner and four children.

For more information about Pamela Wilson or WriteSmart, log on to http://www.writesmart.com.au/