Thirst Inventory #2: R.O. Kwon
a novelist's inner world
Welcome to Thirst Inventory, a series wherein I’ll ask guests all about their sexual origins and plumb the depths of their erotic minds. It’s like the Ask A Sub version of The Proust Questionnaire… but filthy!
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This week I sat down with the one and only R.O. Kwon, whose new book EXHIBIT delves into the lived experience of deep desire. See me, Lina, in bold, and R.O. in regular font below.
Tell us about your work and the role of sexuality therein.
Exhibit, my second novel, just published. My nationally bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, has been translated into seven languages and was named a best book of the year by over forty publications. The Incendiaries was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award. With Garth Greenwell, I co-edited the bestselling anthology Kink. My writing has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, New Yorker, and elsewhere.
Exhibit, my second novel, explores what you might risk to pursue your core desires, what you’d give up for what you want most. I was thinking, as I wrote Exhibit, of the ways so many people feel tremendous pressure to hide, suppress, and kill our appetites for what we truly want, whether it be sex, ambition, or food — really, and very often, anything for ourselves. So, in Exhibit, I brought together three women — a photographer, ballerina, and a courtesan — who want a whole lot, to see what happens when they run, at full tilt, after what they desire.
How do you identify?
I’m a queer Korean American woman. More specifically, I’m bisexual, or pansexual — either term works for me.
What does “desire” mean to you? How do you access this feeling and connect to what excites you?
Desire, for me, is at the heart of what it means to be alive. I think often of something my friend Ingrid Rojas Contreras says in her splendid memoir, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, that what the ghosts miss most about being alive is the act of wanting. The ghosts miss their hunger, which resonates with me — as a novelist, I’m always pleasantly surprised to hear that my fiction is propulsive, as I don’t think about plot or story. Instead, I follow the characters’ desires, asking them, with every line, every phrase, what they want, and what else on top of that. I do this because, every minute of my life, I seem to seethe with desires — and so, to date, I haven’t had to do much to access this feeling, as it’s so present. (Knocking on wood, since I’m superstitious!)
At what age did you first come online as a sexual being? What happened?
I’ve known sexual desire since as far back as I can recall wanting anything. It’s confusing to me that this can be a controversial statement, but it is. I know I’ll probably get shit for saying this, but since I used to feel odd, and deeply ashamed, for being this way, I’ll say it anyway: from a very young age, I’ve been aware of sexual desire, which isn’t at all uncommon.
What's a memory from your own erotic life that you can feel in your body when you recall it? Why do you think it still has that charge?
This is embarrassing to admit, and I had terrible romantic taste when I was a kid, but one of my first desperate crushes was on a fictional character, on Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. Good lord! Why him? I mean, I know why. I’ve evolved since then, thank god. But even when I was little, I was avid for control, and so, when it came to crushes, I wanted someone who might be willing to take charge.
Do you have a 'type'? What is it and who perfectly exemplifies it? Can be a famous person, fictional person, imaginary person, or someone you know.