The Buenos Aires International Literature Festival (FILBA) invited me to participate in their panel on sexuality. To be precise, the panel is about “sexuality understood as a source of eroticism, but also as a fertile field of perversions and social problems.”

The reason that I was counted as an expert on perversion and the “politics of sexuality” was a small book which I wrote under a pseudonym, and which was published in 2002 in the Netherlands. It has only recently come out in Spanish.
The book is titled Monogamous. It is about addiction to unfulfilled desire more than it is a quest to understand perversion.

But then again, authors are not always the best readers of their own work. While I disagreed with the FILBA reading of Monogamous, I wanted very much to visit Buenos Aires, so I happily accepted the invitation.

In the first days of September, I arrived in Buenos Aires. It was raining and cold. I had only been to Buenos Aires in the summertime, and I wasn’t prepared to be so cold when I got there.

My mother has family in Buenos Aires. The first night of my short visit was reserved for a family gathering.

At the end of the dinner party, my great-niece said, “I read that you’re going to speak about sex tomorrow. I’ll come and listen to you.”

My great-niece, who is a lively octogenarian, has never read any of my books, as far as I know. You should never force your novels upon family members. That is one of the most important things I’ve learned in the 15 years I’ve been a published author.

“I’m not going to speak about sex,” I said. “It’s a discussion about the politics of sexuality.”

I tried to emphasize the word “politics.” I didn’t want my great-niece to think that I was a producer of filth.

“Anyhow,” she said. “I will come and listen to you.”

It was then that I remembered that I had been asked to prepare a short statement on the politics of sexuality. The other two panelists, the Argentinian author Gabriela Cabézon Cámara and the Uruguayan author Roberto Echavarren, would do the same.

It’s a common nightmare. You’re on stage, you’re asked to comment on an important social issue and you start speaking gibberish.

That night I decided I would not improvise, but instead write something about the politics of sexuality.

I quoted the philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who said that enjoyment could never be an obligation. The moment something becomes an obligation, its enjoyment disappears.

The next day while I was reading my statement, I clearly saw my great-niece sitting in the audience.

After the discussion, we had a cup of coffee. She thanked me twice for the roses I had given her the night before, but she was silent about the politics of sexuality.