My First Time, Vol. 2

"It’s called My First Time which is all about different people’s first gay experiences. I almost didn’t include it as a choice and you are the first person I have told that I’ve got it. But, despite all the secrecy it’s an important book for me. I brought it right before I went off to Iraq. I thought it was going to be some kind of racy novel, but actually it’s a collection of people talking about their first dating and sexual gay experiences. These people talk about all of the nervousness they have gone through, why it was such a big deal for them. And, by and large, it’s a story of their liberation because they can finally live their lives they way they want to, so I felt a real affinity with it. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter A lot of the characters in it have come through very oppressive and condemning environments. The book was really helpful to me because I had never been in a relationship before that, and it made me realise that there is so much more to being gay than just sex. Well I don’t want to take the job of the Censorship Bureau! You have to understand that I was at the point in my life where I was ready for a book like that. I was 24 years old. When I was at Junior High learning about sex education, there was no book like that. We were taught about heterosexuals, but they never mentioned what it means to be gay. So if you compare it to the type of thing that we were taught at school, My First Time wouldn’t be X-rated at all. But, I’m sure that there are still a lot of negative reactions to a book like this."