CRUCIFAX: The Story Behind the Book

Back in the mid-1980s, I lived for a while in a tiny studio apartment in North Hollywood. That’s in southern California’s San Fernando Valley, where all the towns melt together in one long blur of strip malls, fast food joints, gas stations, doughnut shops and traffic lights. There was always a lot of traffic and it took forever to get anywhere. A simple outing to get some groceries felt like a long road trip.

To get out of my depressing apartment, I went for a lot of walks and spent late hours writing in an all-night coffee shop in nearby Studio City called Tiny Naylor’s. Sometimes writing was difficult because the people-watching at Tiny’s, which unfortunately no longer exists, was so distracting. Every Wednesday evening, a group of familiar character actors—the kind of actors whose faces you recognize but whose names you don’t know—came in together. The group always included Mark Lenard, who played Spock’s father Sarek on Star Trek, and Dave Madden, who used to play Reuben Kincaid on The Partridge Family and whose distinctive voice carried throughout the restaurant whenever he was there. They were the only two whose names I immediately knew, but the group included other familiar faces from movies, TV shows and commercials. Tracey Ullman and Jodie Foster came in frequently and most trips to Tiny’s included at least one celebrity sighting. The San Fernando Valley is probably the capital of the porn industry—it was back then, anyway—and Tiny’s got a lot of business from people I often didn’t immediately recognize with their clothes on. Down the street from Tiny’s was the famous Queen Mary night club, and after it closed at 2:00 a.m., the drag queens came in for coffee and breakfast. They were among my favorite regulars because they were so friendly and funny and they always seemed to be performing, even while they ate. One of them was a wiry little old guy who had to be at least 75, who always entered Tiny’s dancing.

But I digress.

There was some pretty interesting people-watching on the streets, too. I don’t know what North Hollywood is like now, but back then, it was rather seedy. On my walks, I encountered a lot of winos and drug dealers and hookers—the kind of background color that showed up in a lot of my fiction from those years. But mostly, there were kids. Teenagers whose dress and hairstyles reflected those seen on MTV at the time seemed to be everywhere. They wandered the streets, sat around in small groups, haunted the video games and pinball machines in convenience stores. I suppose that doesn’t sound too unusual, but it seemed odd to me at the time because there were so many of them. They didn’t go to school and they were around day and night, almost as if they had no homes to go to. I saw the same teenagers over and over again, and the creepy thing was...they watched me. They’d follow me with their eyes as if they were suspicious of me. Maybe it’s because they knew I was watching them. I’m an inveterate people-watcher and I try to be unobtrusive about it, but I think they caught on fast that they’d captured my attention.

Those kids weren’t the only ones who haunted the video games and pinball machines in the convenience stores—so did I. My apartment was lonely and depressing and never felt like any kind of home, so I spent as little time there as possible. When I was there, all I did was drink, so by staying out as much as I could, I probably saved my already tormented liver from further damage. I tried talking to a few of those teenagers at the video games in the 7-Eleven, but they weren’t interested in a conversation with me.

They seemed to have nothing better to do, no place to go, and I suspected there was no one wondering where they were. There was something very sad about them. They almost seemed to be waiting for something. I had no idea what that might be, but they were awfully patient about it. I wondered what would happen if they just didn’t go home again. Were their parents involved in their lives at all? How long would they have to be gone before their parents would become concerned? What if the thing or event or person they were waiting for finally came along and took them away?

These were the thoughts that led to Crucifax. After Live Girls, I wanted to write something that did not involve vampires, or the squirming black manifestations of evil from Darklings, or the seductive and hungry monsters from Seductions. I wanted to do something completely different. Those aimless, wandering North Hollywood teenagers gave me Mace, a kind of modern-day rock-and-roll Pied Piper. But instead of leading rats out of the village, he leads the teenagers of the San Fernando Valley out of their homes and schools and into his basement lair where he offers them all the sex and drugs and rock and roll and freedom they want. But it comes, of course, at a terrible price.

My agent submitted the novel to Simon and Schuster under the title Crucifax Autumn. My editor didn’t like that title, though—and that wasn’t all she didn’t like. There’s a particularly gruesome scene in the book involving a cunnilingual abortion. It’s cunnilingual because a character performs it with the aid of his three-foot-long tongue. Then he eats the fetus. The scene was long and extremely graphic, and my editor’s response was, “There is no way this book will be published with this scene as written!” I strongly disagreed with her and went to my agent, Richard Curtis, certain that he would back me up. I was wrong. He thought the scene was unnecessarily explicit, too long, and made the story grind to a halt. I was young, stupid and drunk, and this made me angry. I lost the battle with my editor and ended up watering the scene down. Then I fired my agent. This was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.

Crucifax, my fourth novel, was published as a paperback original by Pocket Books in 1988. But the unexpurgated Crucifax Autumn was published as a limited edition hardcover with beautiful cover art by the great Bob Eggleton. The story of the “censored chapter” in the book became quite famous in the horror genre, and that chapter was reprinted several times in magazines and collections, including Paul Sammon's Splatterpunks.

Some years later, I stopped drinking, sobered up, grew up and came to see that Richard Curtis had been right. The cunnilingual abortion scene was unnecessarily explicit and too long. I was guilty of doing something that I had always criticized in other writers—holding up the momentum of the story so I could go for the gross-out and make my reader squirm with disgust. I returned to Richard Curtis with my tail between my legs, and he was good enough to take me back. I'm still with him today. The trimmed chapter in Crucifax is the superior of the two editions, I think, and it is the one I’ve decided to stick with for all future editions of the book. And speaking of future editions of the book...

Crucifax is available from Open Road Media for Kindle from Amazon, for Nook from Barnes and Noble, in paperback, and as an audiobook from Audible. Now you can take a trip back to the San Fernando Valley of the late 1980s and find out what those little creatures are that lurk in the shadowy corners of Mace’s subterranean lair. To keep up with new releases and other information about my work, please visit my website at RayGartonOnline.com.

Cemetery Dance: One of the Good Guys

There haven’t been many constants in my life that are still constants today. Things change, relationships change, people come and go, there are ups, downs and in-betweens. Life is always in flux. But there are a few things that remain. I’ve been with my wife Dawn since 1988. I have books on my shelves that I’ve had for 40 years and probably won’t get rid of until they fall apart my in my hands and can’t be repaired. And then there’s Rich Chizmar and Cemetery Dance Publications.

Don’t ask me when my relationship began with Cemetery Dance. I couldn’t tell you without doing a lot of digging around in my office and, even worse, some math. I was still drinking when I hooked up with CD, and that probably has a lot to do with why I can’t remember. I haven’t been a drinker in a long time. The fact that Rich started dealing with me while I was a drinker makes it pretty amazing that we still have a relationship today. My stories have appeared in Cemetery Dance magazine and in some of their anthologies and Rich has published many of my novels, novellas and collections. There was a period in the 1990s when I would have disappeared completely had it not been for CD. Rich kept me writing. In some ways, he kept me alive.

Cemetery Dance Publications has become a mainstay in the horror genre. As much as it has grown, it remains a small independent publisher. The horror community tends to take it for granted. There’s a joke about CD. Maybe you’ve heard it.

“There’s Eastern Time, Central Time, Mountain Time, Pacific Time and Cemetery Dance Time.”

This joke refers to the fact that CD is not always punctual with its releases, does not always stick rigidly to its schedule. CD takes heat for this. Sometimes a check is late, and believe me, when that happens, we writers have the capacity to go completely monkeyfuck crazy in ways one does not often find in people of other professions. But like I said, we – all of us, fans and writers alike – tend to take the company for granted. Many are unaware of how the company is run.

Nobody in the genre has more genuine affection and respect for writers than Rich Chizmar. Rich is a writer himself and he knows what we do, how we do it and why we do it. He knows that writers are usually dysfunctional in one way or another, quite often damaged. And he likes us, anyway. He also does what he can to take care of us, to show us support when it will do the most good, throw work our way when it’s needed. But what you hear about is tardiness, grumblings from the fans, the usual complaints from writers. When a check is late, we writers sometimes fly off the handle, make angry phone calls, shoot off outraged emails, and all of this lands in Rich’s lap. I’ve done this myself. I’ve done this recently. We don’t know what’s going on at Rich’s end. Sometimes life gets in the way of things for publishers, too – a family crisis can pop up, illnesses occur, loved ones die, financial problems arise,and we’re quick to forget that this is not Simon & Schuster we’re dealing with, here, it’s still a relatively small, independent publisher with limited staff and funds. Most are also unaware that sometimes a check is late because a Cemetery Dance writer is in crisis and Rich has made an effort to do some shuffling to help him or her out. That’s the kind of person he is. But instead of getting the credit he deserves for that, he gets yelled at for something else.

Sometimes people in this business get credit they don’t deserve. Someone will come along and crow about his love of the genre and his great respect for writers when in fact he’s found a genre he knows nothing about filled with young, inexperienced writers so desperate to get published that they don’t care how hard a publisher fucks them and won’t complain either out of fear of reprisal or simply because they’re too dazzled by the sight of their book on a book store shelf. This is just a hypothetical example, of course. I’m not pointing fingers, just trying to make a point. The credit an undeserving person or company might get is often because most people are unaware of what’s really going on behind the scenes. Of course, the same can be said of criticism.

Rich Chizmar and Cemetery Dance deserve more credit than they get. They really do know and love the genre. They really do have great respect for writers. If that weren’t the case, I’m sure Rich would’ve thrown in the towel long ago. He certainly takes enough crap from us writers when we’re up against a wall and desperate for a check we’ve got coming. It happens. If writers were good business people and financial planners, they wouldn’t be writers. But in that desperation, we sometimes forget that the only check we’ve got coming at the time is from Cemetery Dance, because it’s still there, still buying our work, still supporting us, still producing fiction in one of the most disrespected genres in all of publishing, and in beautiful editions of which we can be proud.

I’m talking to myself here as much as anyone else because I’ve been guilty of this plenty of times. That’s why I’m writing this. I think it’s important for us to stop when those desperate times come, take a breath, and remember who we’re dealing with, who we’re about to shout at over the phone, who we’re about to send that angry, vitriolic email to in our blind desperation for money before we do it. This is Cemetery Dance we’re talking about. Rich has put up with us this long and he’s still around, still doing it. While CD has been successful, the guy could just as easily find the same success in some field where he’d have the luxury of dealing with more stable people. He doesn’t do that because, to paraphrase Sally Field’s old Oscar speech, he likes us, he really likes us.

So the next time you want to complain about a late release, or if you’re a writer, a late check, take just a moment to stop and think about this. Times are tough for everyone right now, and at some point they’ll get better, and then later, they’ll get tough again. Let’s hope when that happens that Cemetery Dance is still around, that Rich is still doing what he does so well, what he does with such affection. If a little tardiness is the worst thing you can complain about, then for crying out loud, be thankful. You want to hear some real horror stories about publishers? You want to hear about writers deliberately being ripped off? You want to hear about genuine contempt for writers hidden behind smiling public words of praise? How much time have you got?

On second thought ... nah. That’s not what I’m here for right now. But trust me, it happens. It hasn’t happened with Cemetery Dance. You don’t hear those stories about Rich Chizmar. Because they don’t exist. That’s one of the reasons he’s still around. He’s a good guy, a decent guy, and sometimes that alone gets in the way of efficiency.

So, a book is late? A check is late? Cry me a river. It could be worse. Trust me. Much worse. MUCH worse. And it has been. For many. But that sort of thing has never been done by Rich Chizmar. He’s on our side, and he’s one of the good guys. In all the years that I’ve had a relationship with Cemetery Dance – the longest and most fruitful professional relationship I've ever had – I’ve never met the man. But I think of him as a friend, and I’m grateful for CD. We could all be a little more grateful.

LOVELESS: The Story Behind the Book

“When are you going to write something nice, Ray? Something I can read? When you are you going to write a love story?”

This has been the mantra of my family for decades. None of them reads horror fiction. Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that none of them reads. To hear them tell it, the main reason they don’t read is that I have not yet written something nice that they can read. Something like a love story!

The fact is, I’ve written many love stories. Nearly every one of my novels contains a love story – even my horror novels, although Loveless: A Dark Love Story isn’t one of those. Of course, they’re not the kind of love stories my family would consider nice. The kind of love story they’re talking about is the kind of thing Nicholas Sparks writes. And if they’re waiting for me to write one of those ... well, all I’ve got to say is, pack a few sandwiches and get really, really comfortable, because it’s going to be a long wait.

My novel Loveless: A Dark Love Story is the kind of love story I write. I can’t help it. It’s out of my hands. Everything I write, even if it’s meant to be funny, takes a dark turn or two or three at one point or another. If it didn’t, it would feel dishonest to me. I think fiction should be a reflection of reality, not a distortion of it. In my horror fiction, things happen that have nothing to do with reality – people turn into werewolves, vaginas have fangs, spiders the size of Volkswagen Beetles eat people. But all of these things happen in an environment that is firmly grounded in reality.

Lots of good things happen in life. Wonderful things. They happen to all of us at one time or another. But bad things happen, too. They happen to good people for no other reason than ... well, for no reason. They just do. There’s a quote I love from Lawrence Kasdan’s sadly underrated 1991 film Grand Canyon. It’s delivered by Danny Glover:

“World’s a hard place. Sometimes you just get lucky. And, of course, sometimes you don’t. One thing’s for sure is that if you’re alive, some terrible shit’s gonna happen to you, and maybe some good things, too. But you can always count on the terrible. If it doesn’t kill you, you’re gonna be around to see it come down some other way.”

Some will say that’s an awfully pessimistic attitude. I think there’s a good chance those people enjoy the work of Nicholas Sparks. I think it’s an awfully realistic attitude. And a healthy one. I guess that’s reflected in my fiction. Bad things happen to good people for no reason. What’s wrong with facing up to that fact early on so you’re not surprised by it later? What’s important is how we deal with those bad things. Dealing with them is a lot easier when you have someone you love – and someone who loves you – by your side. And for me, that’s where the love stories come in.

Loveless is a love story about two lonely people. One of them is Amy Grady. For 16 years, she’s been married to her husband Roy, a man whose unpredictable anger and violence can explode at any moment, a man who slaps, punches and kicks her, and a man she no longer loves. Their teenage son Danny has been living with this tension all his life and it has taken a toll. The other lonely person is Walter Loveless, who has just moved in next door to Amy. He has been living a life of secrecy and isolation for so long that he is almost unaware of his loneliness anymore because it has become such a part of him.

Amy watches him – handsome, rugged – but is too shy to speak to him. But when they are finally brought together, electricity crackles between them and the attraction is instantaneous and powerful. But Loveless has secrets and a past that haunts him. Someone from that past – someone deadly – is still pursuing him. When Amy decides to escape her own past, she runs headlong into his.

Loveless: A Dark Love Story was first published in 2008 with my novel Murder Was My Alibi in a single limited edition from Lonely Roads Books that has become known as the Arthur Darknell Double because it was published under a pseudonym I intended to use for crime fiction, an idea I have since abandoned. Now it is available from Open Road Media in paperback and as an ebook for Kindle and Nook, and as an audiobook from Audible.  For more information about my work and to keep up with new releases, visit my website at RayGartonOnline.

LIVE GIRLS: The Story Behind the Book

Live Girls was the result of my first visit to New York City. I was spending the day with my (then) editor in his office and he suggested I visit Times Square just a couple of blocks away. He told me to have fun ... just hang onto all my receipts and don’t make eye contact with anyone on the street.

“Eye contact?” I said. “Why not?”

“Because some people will misinterpret it, or take advantage of it. And don’t smile at people. You smile too much. That’ll make you look like an easy mark.”

Was I visiting Times Square or an institution for the criminally insane? I certainly wasn’t visiting the Times Square that exists today. This was early in 1986, before Mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaned up Times Square and moved Disney in, preparing the way for Mayor Michael Bloomberg to turn it into a family-friendly tourist destination. This was the old Times Square: dirty, gritty and a little dangerous.

I was 23 at the time and had led a pretty sheltered existence for most of my life. I’d grown up in a small town in a very protective religious family and had attended religious schools from grade one into my freshman year in college. My editor's warning made me nervous. For me, Times Square was an eye-opening experience.

As I strolled by the adult book stores and peep-show parlors and winos and hookers and guys selling drugs openly, I was often overcome, not unlike Davey Owen in Live Girls, with the irrational fear that one of my former bible teachers might spot me slowing down to get a better look at one of the posters outside an adult movie theater. It took a while, but I finally mustered the courage to go inside one of those dens of iniquity.

The establishment I entered is described, almost to the letter, in Live Girls. It was a dark little hole-in-the-wall peep-show with no posters or barkers out front like most of the others. There was only a single sign made up of three red neon words: LIVE NUDE GIRLS. The “I” in LIVE and the “DE” in NUDE flickered and buzzed. I purchased the minimum number of tokens and walked down a long, narrow corridor that turned to the right. There were doors on each side, some with men standing outside, waiting their turn.

I found an empty booth, went inside, closed the door and locked it. It was dark, humid and smelly in there. My heart was thundering. Although I’d never been inside such a place, I’d heard and read of them and knew that once I dropped my tokens in the slot beneath the red light, a panel would open and there would be a naked woman on the other side of the glass – a LIVE NUDE GIRL, just as the sputtering sign outside had promised.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed a small opening beneath the vague outline of the rectangular panel. Pale, gray light came through the opening, falling on the black, glistening, sticky floor beneath my feet and faintly illuminating a small plastic plaque next to the token slot that read: INSERT TIP THROUGH SLOT. I realized the opening below the window had indeed been a slot at one time, but the center of it had been expanded into a crude circular opening. Well ... perhaps “expanded” isn’t the right word. There were rough grooves in the edges of the wood, as if someone had used a makeshift tool to widen the slot, something like a pocket knife or a sharp-edged piece of metal. Or ... teeth? Yes, it looked almost as if it had been chewed open. That thought gave me a brief, enjoyable chill ... and then another that wasn’t so enjoyable when I noticed the opening was level with my crotch. But the real chills didn’t come until I dropped my tokens and the panel slid open.

The girl on the other side was nude ... but I had some doubt as to whether she was “live.”

She was the color of chalk and so horribly thin that I winced involuntarily when I saw her. Her dark hair was greasy and fell in limp strands past her shoulders. Her face was little more than a skull with yellowish-brown half-moons beneath her dead, sunken eyes. Her lips parted only once, briefly, during my short-lived stay in that booth, but when they did, I saw that her tiny, snaggled teeth were a dark gray color. There was an angry sore on her lower lip. Her neck appeared much too thin and frail to hold up her head. Her chest was a sharply-etched ribcage with two thin flaps of flesh hanging over it, mere ghosts of breasts. The flesh around her nipples was puckered, like skin left too long in a tepid bath. The left nipple was pierced, sported a small ring and was swollen and inflamed. Her arms and legs were jointed sticks that wore bruises the color of over-ripe bananas.

I stopped breathing, just held my breath for a long time, thinking that she should be in a hospital, not on the other side of that window exposing herself for tips. I was at once repulsed and fascinated as she closed her eyes and began to perform.

Her performance consisted of a zombie-like gynecological self-examination. Her movements were stilted and she leaned her head back limply, as if in a stupor. When she lay back on one elbow and spread her legs, I gasped. Her shaved pubis and inner thighs were covered with an oozing rash.

I left. As I passed the men in the corridor, I wondered why they were waiting. There were other unoccupied booths. Were they waiting for their favorite LIVE NUDE GIRLS? Or had they chosen to wait because they knew what they’d find in those unoccupied booths ... like the one from which I’d just made a quick exit? My imagination raced with possibilities.

I returned to my editor’s office and began to write. I already had my title, that was easy. And I had my premise; after seeing that pale, corpse-like girl in the booth, that was easy, too. Live Girls began as a short story about vampires that ran a peep-show in Times Square. But the story became a novel, which was published in January of 1987 by Pocket Books.

Live Girls received some very good reviews. Some critics were kind enough to give me more credit than I deserved. The idea of vampires in a sex-for-sale setting was seen by some as a metaphor for AIDS. To be honest, that had never crossed my mind. But, hey, if they wanted to credit me with some depth, who the hell was I to get in their way?

After the book was published, I received some mail and even a couple of phone calls (I have no idea how they got my number) from people who wanted to know how I’d found out about them, about their secret, nocturnal, bloodsucking activities. Vampires were contacting li’l ol’ me!

Yeah, right.

Live Girls made a couple of chain book store bestseller lists and was very popular in the UK. The New York Times called it “artful” and one veteran, award-winning writer of quiet horror (now deceased) claimed it marked the end of intelligent writing in horror fiction. Dean Koontz called it "gripping, original and sly," and Ramsey Campbell called it "The most nightmarish vampire story I have ever read." It was published in several different languages and has found readers all over the world. A few years after it went out of print, I learned that mint-condition copies of the Pocket paperback were selling for outrageous prices, and the UK hardcover was selling for twice that! It became collectible and garnered some respect. And you know what? That shocked the hell out of me.

In the years since its initial release, there have been a number of movie options. Some of the people who’ve optioned the book have had some rather unusual ideas about what to do with it. One wanted to set it in a Blade Runner-like future. Another wanted to turn it into a rap/hip-hop musical. My favorite was the genius plan to cast it with a Brat Pack reunion – Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, that whole crowd. Kind of a John Hughes movie with titties and fangs. Fortunately, none of those ideas ever came to fruition.

Since the original publication of Live Girls, I’ve written about 60 books. I’ve encountered a lot of people who’ve never heard of any of them – but they know Live Girls. The novel has been reborn in reprints and has been kept alive by used book stores, flea markets, garage sales and eBay. I’m very grateful to the many readers it’s had over the decades, especially to those who’ve been kind enough to write me flattering letters and emails.

Two years ago, I got an email from a young woman who told me the story of how she was named. While her mother was pregnant with her, she’d read Live Girls. Not only had she enjoyed the book, she'd fallen in love with the names of two of the vampires – Anya and Shideh. So she named her daughter Anya Shideh. Anya told me that people frequently complimented her on her names and she’d always appreciated them. She wanted to thank me for them. Frankly, that made me a little misty-eyed.

Now Live Girls is available as an ebook for Kindle and Nook.  For more information and to keep up on new releases, please visit my website.

THE NEW NEIGHBOR: The Story Behind the Book

By 1990, I had kind of developed a reputation for writing erotic horror. I would say this was entirely unintentional ... but it wasn’t. I use sex in my writing for a reason. I’ve always felt that one of the things that makes horror fiction work is familiarity. Take a familiar situation, characters the readers can identify with, make your readers comfortable with those things and then throw in a supernatural or twisted threat that turns all of that upside down. How many of us have been to a beach in our lives, whether it was the ocean or a lake? How many of us have gotten into the water not knowing what else was swimming around in there? That is why Jaws was such a blockbuster success. After the release of the movie in 1975, people were terrified of getting into the water. I knew people who didn’t even want to get into the bathtub! Suddenly, something safe and familiar had become dangerous and frightening. That’s what the horror genre does when it works.

Things like vampires and werewolves and the other creatures that populate the horror genre don’t really exist (there are people who will argue that point – some quite vehemently – but I tend to avoid those people) and we never have to deal with those creatures in our daily lives. So in order to make them work in a story, I think it’s vital that they be surrounded by characters and situations that are familiar to all of us. We may not deal with vampires in our daily lives, but we all know what unemployment is like. Werewolves may not be a common problem, but relationship trouble is. We may never have to shoot a zombie in the head, but we may have to watch a loved one die a slow, agonizing death of cancer. The monsters are stand-ins for these horrors and others – real-life horrors. They are an entertaining way to release the tensions and anxieties created by these real horrors in our lives. But those monsters have no effect unless they are placed in a world we know that is populated by people like us, who have experiences, anxieties and feelings in common with us. What is the one thing we all have in common? Sex.

They say sex sells. And that’s true, of course. But it sells because sex is something we all want, need and participate in at one time or another. It is during sex that we are the most vulnerable – literally naked and defenseless. When I was writing my first novel, Seductions, which is a very sexual book, I thought to myself, Wouldn’t it be fun if I could do to sex what Jaws did to swimming? Obviously, I didn’t succeed, and I doubt anyone could – even the threat of AIDS didn’t do that, and that was pretty damned scary. But I keep trying. Hey ... a guy’s gotta have some goals.

When I wrote The New Neighbor in 1990, I wanted to inject more than a supernatural threat into a typical small-town neighborhood. I wanted to take a Leave it to Beaver neighborhood and turn it into a black orgy of lust, adultery and incest. I wanted to write a horror novel that was a porn novel -- a porn novel that was a horror novel. While I was working on the book, whenever anyone asked me what I was writing, I’d respond, “Penthouse Forum from hell.” But in 1990, nobody was interested in that. It was too graphic, too dark – just too much. Reading the book now, that seems odd, because all these years later, it doesn't seem quite that extreme. But in 1990, it was too extreme for the publishers who read it. Then I met Joe Stefko of Charnel House. Joe is a fascinating guy. An successful musician, he toured with John Cale of the Velvet Underground for two years in the 1970s until Cale chopped the head off a live chicken on stage in London. Joe, a vegetarian and animal-lover, had told him in advance that he would walk off if it happened, but Cale did it anyway. And Joe walked off. He was Meat Loaf’s drummer during the three years that Bat Out of Hell was such a raging success. But decades of Joe’s life have been spent with The Turtles, where he remains on the drums, quite happy. “I have played with a lot of other acts during these Turtle years but none have been as much fun,” Joe says in his bio on the band’s website. “I even turned Meat Loaf down to stay with them. Life is short and fun is at a premium.”

But Joe is also a publisher. He started Charnel House in 1989 with the idea that book craftsmanship was an art form, and he turned it into the country’s foremost publisher of finely bound and printed limited edition books in the horror and science fiction genres. The New Neighbor was the company’s second title. It was published in two extremely limited, expensive, drop-dead gorgeous editions. There were 500 copies of the numbered edition, 26 copies of the lettered edition. The illustrations are by JK Potter and they are stunning. It was an enormous honor to have my work illustrated by such a brilliant artist. Potter is the best, and his work in this book is, I think, among his best.

The lettered edition was hand-sewn, bound in crimson Morocco leather with a strip of lace stocking embedded down the front cover and a black silk garter strap and clip for a bookmark. Because of the graphic sex and violence in the book, the publisher’s lawyers advised that each customer state in writing that he or she was at least 21 years old. You might find a one of the Charnel House editions available for sale now and then, but they ain’t cheap. I’ve seen the lettered edition sell for as much as $1,500. I will always be extremely proud of the Charnel House editions of The New Neighbor, but it was so limited that very few people read the book.

The novel languished in obscurity for 14 years until it was reprinted by Cemetery Dance Publications in 2005. Once again, a beautiful edition was published (CD link) with a gorgeous cover by Caniglia. It was limited to 1,000 signed copies, 52 lettered. My only complaint was that the book was inaccurately called a “vampire novel” on the publisher’s website.
Now, more than 20 years after its original publication, The New Neighbor is available to a much wider audience. It’s not limited this time – in fact, it’s unlimited as a paperback and ebook.

The Pritchard family is living a life of familial contentment on Deerfield Avenue, a street where the neighbors are friendly and the yards are neat. Then Lorelle Dupree moves in across the street. She is uncommonly beautiful, warm and friendly ... and powerfully seductive. One by one, the Pritchard family succumbs to her advances. But they aren’t the only ones. Lorelle gets to know everyone on the street. The residents of Deerfield Avenue slowly become ill, exhibiting flu-like symptoms, and the better they get to know Lorelle, the sicker they get. And then ... the killings start.

The New Neighbor is available as an ebook for Kindle and Nook. To see my entire bibliography and keep up with new releases, please visit my website, RayGartonOnline.

'NIDS: Scary Spiders and the People Who Love to Hate Them

It seems everyone has at least one spider story. Here’s my favorite.

For a short time in 1989, Dawn and I lived in a house full of holes. It was rather old, hadn’t been put together too well in the first place and had no insulation. When I say it was full of holes, I’m not speaking figuratively. In several places, there were little holes in the walls through which one could see the yard outside. We sometimes referred to the place as Spider House, or Bug House. We couldn’t keep them out and they were everywhere. More than anything else, our home was invaded by wolf spiders. They’re very common, but that doesn't make them any less creepy. I’ve never been crazy about spiders. I’m not phobic, like some people I know, and I don’t fly into a panic when I see one, but I would prefer to get through my day without coming into contact with them. That was not possible in that house.

One night, I was ready to go to bed. I drank pretty heavily back in those days and was usually in some kind of inebriated state, so when I was ready to go bed, I was ready to go to bed! If I didn’t, I would end up sleeping wherever I happened to be in the house at the time, if you know what I mean. As Dirty Harry Callahan once said, “A man has got to know his limitations.” I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. As I was brushing, I smelled a strange odor. It was a grassy smell, like a freshly mown lawn. And then ... I tasted that odor. I spit into the sink. There were bits of something in the foamy gob of toothpaste. Little spider legs. I froze as I suddenly understood what I was smelling and tasting, as I became conscious of what I had just done.

In my boozy, bleary-eyed state, I had gone on automatic pilot as I went through the ingrained routine of removing my toothbrush from its holder, taking the toothpaste from the cabinet and squeezing some onto the brush. I’d paid no attention what was already on the brush at the time – a wolf spider. Then I had brushed my teeth.

New and improved Crest! Now with Wolf Spider!

Horrified, I dropped to my knees and began retching and spitting pieces of the spider into the sink. Having heard my cry of alarm, Dawn came into the bathroom and asked what was wrong. I couldn’t speak. I could only spit and gag and spit. And gag some more.

We human beings have a love/hate relationship with spiders. Well, not all of us. Some of us just love them and keep them as pets. But they’re the minority. We love to hate spiders. That’s made obvious by the long list of popular movies made about them over the decades – all movies in the horror and science fiction genres ... especially horror. The arachnid has become inextricably associated with the horror genre.

My writing has been just as influenced by movies as it has by literature, and that is especially evident in my new book 'Nids, which is now available as a paperback and ebook. ’Nids comes from some of the movies that gave me the creeps when I was little boy, sitting on the floor in front of the TV watching Creature Features on Saturday nights with one hand placed near my eyes so I could cover them quickly if necessary. There were a lot of spiders in those movies. Sometimes they had small roles – they clung to the cobwebs strung through creepy sets inhabited by Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing or Vincent Price. But sometimes, they got strong supporting roles, or even starring roles. Three childhood favorites come to mind.

In the 1950s, vampires and big, lumbering monsters made of corpse parts were nudged aside by giant, rampaging insects. One of the earliest was the 1955 Jack Arnold classic Tarantula. It made a huge impression on me with its convincing special effects – a real tarantula was steered over miniature sets using air jets. The first time I saw it, my eyes ached from being open so wide for so long. Leo G. Carroll is the obligatory scientist who has cooked up a growth formula that really works. John Agar is the manly hero and Mara Corday the appropriately submissive and helpless romantic interest (remember, it’s 1955). And if you look closely near the end, you’ll see a young Clint Eastwood piloting a jet. But when I was that little boy sitting on the floor, the real star of this movie was that big tarantula that slowly crept across the desert landscape.

In the 1957 science fiction classic The Incredible Shrinking Man, based on Richard Matheson’s novel, Scott Carey is exposed to an eerie cloud made up of radiation and insecticide and begins to shrink rapidly. Soon, he’s living in a doll house and sitting on thimbles. But a tarantula has a scene-stealing role in a memorable sequence in which Scott battles the relatively gigantic arachnid. Once again, I was delightfully traumatized by this as a boy as my mother said, “You’re not going to sleep tonight and it’ll be your own fault!”

Then there was Bert I. Gordon’s giant spider entry, The Spider aka Earth vs. the Spider from 1958. Bert was a master of low-budget schlock and specialized in giant bugs and animals in movies like Beginning of the End, The Amazing Colossal Man, Attack of the Puppet People, The Food of the Gods, Empire of the Ants and others. Forrest J. Ackerman, the grandfather of genre fandom, dubbed him “Mr. B.I.G.” The Spider was a perfect blend of classic drive-in monster java – a giant spider, teenagers and rock and roll. Bert was known for his low-rent special effects, and The Spider was no improvement. But even so, it was still a giant spider.

Hollywood’s fascination with arachnids didn’t end in the 1950s, though – they’re just not as big as they used to be. The Giant Spider Invasion clunked embarrassingly across drive-in screens in 1975. There was Kingdom of the Spiders in 1977, a movie for which I still have great affection. It’s definitely drive-in fare, but I love the very ‘70s downer ending. And it stars William Shatner! Spiders and the Shat! What’s not to love? 1990 brought us Frank Marshall’s Arachnophobia, which is a damned creepy movie that still holds up beautifully more than twenty years later. I dare you to watch it without squirming. There was the low-budget, straight-to-video Spiders in 2000. A respectable budget made 2002's Eight Legged Freaks watchable, but it still wasn’t very good – kind of a moron movie with spiders. The made-very-quickly-and-cheaply-for-TV-movie crap factory that used to be SciFi but is now SyFy gave us Ice Spiders in 2007. Spiders – like horror movies themselves – will always be a cinema staple.

I don’t remember encountering many spiders in horror fiction, but they show up now and then. I recall how exciting I found the H.G. Wells story “Valley of the Spiders” as a boy. There’s an unbelievably horrifying scene in Peter Straub’s novel Floating Dragon that involves little red spiders and a rather unpleasant bowel movement that made it necessary for me to put the book down for a while.

What is one of the most common decorations at Halloween? The spider – usually clinging to or dangling from a large web.

Whether they’re big enough to stomp on buildings or small enough to take a nap on your toothbrush, spiders are scary and we love to hate them. They never fail to get a reaction from us.

During the years that I was mostly housebound -- hell, I was mostly chairbound -- with a bad hip that required three operations and kept me doped up on the finest mind-altering painkillers the pharmaceutical industry has to offer, I pampered myself by returning to some of the things I loved as a boy. For example, I went through a period during which I immersed myself in the pulpy, swashbuckling science fiction of writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs and E.E. “Doc” Smith and Robert Heinlein in his early work, then for the first – and only – time, I tried my hand at writing in that genre. For better or worse, the result was my novella Death Hunt on Ervoon. Then for a while, I watched a lot of big bug movies, which got me on a spider kick – Tarantula, The Spider, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and even a string of really bad spider movies. That resulted in my book ’Nids, which has just been released as a paperback and ebook.

’Nids takes place in the small town of Hope Valley, which is the home of BioGenTech, a sprawling medical research facility on the edge of town. One night, an explosion occurs at BioGenTech which is witnessed by some horny teenagers parked at nearby Lovers’ Lookout. When one of those teenagers is horribly killed in the dark woods a little later, an “unidentified animal” is blamed. But Hope Valley doesn’t have an “unidentified animal” problem – it has a spider problem. And no one has any idea just how big that problem is.

This is a book for everyone who has at least one spider story to tell, for everyone who has fond memories of horror movies about spiders, for everyone who find spiders creepy, and even for those who love spiders. Does that cover just about everyone?

’Nids is available from E-Reads in paperback and as an ebook for Kindle and other formats. E-Reads is in the process of releasing all of my novels, novellas and short stories. To see what’s available and keep track of new releases, drop in on my E-Reads page.

Notes From A Recently Deflowered Vagina Virgin

The cast and director of California State University, Sacramento's 2011 V-Day production of The Vagina Monologues. Top row (from left): Jaimie Davis, Sadie Jeffries, Katherine Williams, Jasmine Wyrick, Divya Goconda, Carolina Mendoza, Elizabeth Johnson, Rochelle Robinson, Charity King. Middle row (from left): Liz Rowell (director), Macellina Amonoo, Julie Tan, Natasha Tricoche, Linda Bean. Bottom row (from left): Ariana Lozano, Keyko Torres, Liz Redford, Michelle So, Meredith Carey, Megan Brubaker, Chelsea Castillo, Jamie Jackson.

Until Saturday, February 19, I was a vagina virgin. The Vagina Monologues has been around since 1996 and it has been widely performed and celebrated, but it’s taken me this long to see it. Dawn and I attended the final performance of Sacramento State’s annual V-Day production of the play. Our friend Liz Rowell has been involved in the production for the past six years, but this year – her final year – she was the director, which made our first time even more enjoyable. It was a vibrant show with a cast of talented students who dove head-first into their roles and made the popping of my Vagina cherry a memorable experience.

It was originally my intention to write a review of the production, but first, I decided to do a little research and soak up some of the play’s history. This led me to some things with which I disagreed, and that led me to forming opinions and that led to – well, my point is that this isn’t the blog I intended to write and it’s probably longer than it would have been otherwise. Just so you know.

Here’s a little history of the play for those who might still be unfamiliar with it – although that seems unlikely because it has become a feminist phenomenon. The monologues are drawn from interviews Eve Ensler first conducted with friends about relationships, sex, and violence against women. But these friends referred her to other women who had other stories to tell. In an interview on Women.com, Ensler said, “It was like this great vagina trail I was sucked into.” The initial reluctance of the interviewees soon gave way to an enthusiastic outpouring of stories and feelings, all of which went into the monologues. The play opened at HERE Arts Center in New York City on October 3, 1996, and has remained an evolving, living thing ever since.

In the Women.com interview, Ensler was asked, “Why do you think you've become so impassioned by vaginas as opposed to, say, breasts? Or giving birth? Or other women-only experiences?” She responded:

“I was drawn to vaginas because of my own personal history, because of sexuality, because women's empowerment is deeply connected to their sexuality. And, I'm obsessed with women being violated and raped, and with incest. All of these things are deeply connected to our vaginas. ... I think growing up in a violent society is a big part of it. I lived in a very brutal household, so all that deeply shaped this.”

That obsession moved Ensler and a group of other women to establish V-Day in 1998, a non-profit movement that raises money to increase awareness of and work toward stopping violence against women. Every February, colleges and communities across the country perform The Vagina Monologues to benefit the movement. Each year, V-Day spotlights a specific group of women who are being victimized by violence somewhere in the world, and a new monologue is written about that group. In 2008, the spotlight was on the women of New Orleans, in 2009 and 2010 it was on the women and girls of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and this year it was on the women of Haiti. It’s easy for those of us who live in the United States to forget the fact that in other parts of the world, violence against women is an everyday part of life – rape as warfare, female genital mutilation and the oppression of women by religion are as common in other parts of the globe as sporting events and yard sales are in America. V-Day passionately points this out. It demands that attention be paid and steps be taken to stop violence against women wherever it occurs.

Over the years, both The Vagina Monologues and V-Day have been the target of a good deal of criticism. I see that as a good sign because I’m of the opinion that if you aren’t pissing somebody off or at least being criticized, then you’re not getting anything done. Unsurprisingly, much of that criticism has come from religious conservatives, but some of it has come from other feminists, as well.

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) – a hell of a mouthful that I do not recommend swallowing – has urged people to protest the play because it is “a piece replete with sexual encounters, lust, graphic descriptions of masturbation and lesbian behavior.” On TFP’s website, references to the play’s title are written like this: “The V***** Monologues.”

Typically, words are censored because they are considered obscene or offensive. “Vagina” is neither. It’s the actual name of a part of the female anatomy. But the people at TFP have censored it as if it is an obscenity. Why? Well, it looks to me like they think it is an obscenity. It is this kind of thinking that makes The Vagina Monologues absolutely necessary.

The Network of Enlightened Women is a conservative organization that, judging by its title, thinks rather highly of itself. It was founded at the University of Virginia in 2004 and has leveled severe criticism at the play for being vulgar and demeaning to women. In a 2006 article titled "V is for Vulgar," organization president Meredith Ramsey writes, “First and foremost, The Vagina Monologues effectively reduces women to their vaginas.” She claims the play “is demeaning to women, degrading to men, dangerous for children and uncouth.”

While I must credit Ramsey with being enough of a fucking grownup to actually write out the full word “vagina,” I have to dismiss her criticism along with TFP’s. They reveal far more about the critics than about Ensler’s play. These are people who do not see the world as most people see it. They believe that sex is shameful, genitals are naughty, women should behave a certain way, and we simply should not talk about any of the things discussed in the play no matter how many women are being hurt because that would be ... well, uncouth. Again, it is this kind of thinking that makes The Vagina Monologues absolutely necessary.

In America these days, the words “conservative” and “christian” are virtually synonymous. American conservatives champion the rules and regulations of Christianity whether individual conservatives are religious or not. As I’ve said many times before, the Republican party is no longer a political party – it is now the political arm of the Christian religion. Prominent among conservative values is the idea that women just shouldn’t get too damned uppity. They are wives and mothers, dammit, and they need to remember that! (Sometimes, of course, they have to be reminded.) They’re supposed to stay home where they belong, be subservient to their husbands, and if they decide not to have children, well, then, they’re just not hooked up right. And if they decide not to get married, they must be lesbians, and we all know that's a sin and an abomination unto the lord – unless, of course, a man is allowed to watch and then join in when he’s ready, in which case the lord doesn’t seem to mind so much as long as everyone involved isn't so uncouth as to talk about it. Genitals are dirty things. They became dirty as soon as the first woman screwed up everything for everybody by listening to the talking snake in the magic garden, eating the forbidden fruit, and then seducing the first man – who was perfectly innocent in all of this, mind you – into doing the same thing. Before that happened, there was no naughty sex and genitals were mostly for urinating and all was right with the lord. God had told the first man and woman to “be fruitful and multiply,” so obviously, there was sex going on, but nobody called it fucking and they only did it in the missionary position, so it was okay. But then along came that talking snake and Eve wanted a snack, so everything went to hell. That’s why women bleed every month, don’tcha know. God’s punishing them for throwing a wrench into everything. And now we have to make sure that women stay in line and act as man's “help meet,” as the bible instructed. Merriam-Webster defines “help meet” as, “A woman who keeps her mouth shut, her legs open and the kitchen clean.”

Okay, okay, I admit it, that’s not how Merriam-Webster defines “help meet” – mostly because the phrase “help meet,” like the ridiculous beliefs described above, is archaic and has no place in the modern world. But organizations like TFP and the Network of Enlightened Women cling to that archaic way of thinking and apply it to everything around them – including The Vagina Monologues, which TFP can’t even write without censoring itself because this archaic way of thinking makes the vagina a bad, dirty thing that must be hidden away and never discussed.

But conservatives aren’t the only ones who criticize the play and V-Day.

Betty Dodson is a pioneer in sexual liberation. She is a sex educator, author, feminist, artist, and is a well-known champion of positive attitudes toward female sexuality and masturbation. For 25 years, she ran Bodysex groups in which women learned about and discussed their bodies and sexual pleasure and learned to reach orgasm through self stimulation. You might think that’s something that everyone naturally knows and can do, but if that were the case, people like Betty Dodson would not be necessary and we wouldn’t be living in a world filled with the shame and self-loathing that has been the generous gift of religion. I’ve always been a great admirer of Dodson’s work – I think what she does is important, even vital, in a culture that’s obsessed with and hungry for sex but ashamed and afraid of it and wildly confused about it. Dodson has been an outspoken critic of The Vagina Monologues and V-Day for what she sees as an emphasis on sexual violence rather than sexual pleasure. In an article on her website, Dodson writes about a production of the play she attended at Madison Square Garden:

“Goddess forbid people would be sent home happy with new information about women's sexual pleasure. Instead, this powerful venue, Madison Square Garden, sends us home feeling guilty about all the women in Africa, Bosnia and Afghanistan who are being raped, tortured and genitally mutilated. Many leave with the false belief that all the millions raised will actually end sexual violence against women. This becomes a bad joke when we realize that American women must continue the struggle to preserve our right to choose abortion, have easy access to birth control and sex information now that the religious right controls the White House. ...

“That's the main problem with V-Day. Women end up with a false idea that V-day will end violence against women and girls. Ending violence is a worthy cause and I'm all for it, but consistently equating sex with violence offers no real solution. V-Day promises us that awareness plus education equals prevention. I can only hope that by the time they get to the education phase, a group of orgasmic women will replace The Vagina Monologues with Clit Conversations that will teach women how to take sexual pleasure into their own hands.”

I understand the point Dodson makes, but I don’t agree with it. I’ve only seen the play once, and if I were to sit down and read it and sit through multiple performances, I might find things about it that don’t quite sit right with me. But the production I saw was exhilarating, disturbing and eye-opening, and that’s what art should do – make you feel things and think things. I admire what it does, and I think it is successful in doing it. The Vagina Monologues is not meant to send people “home happy with new information about women’s sexual pleasure.” If that’s what you want, then I strongly recommend Dodson’s work. She does that beautifully, and I think it’s a very important thing to do. Among other great things, her work points out double standards, the obstacles that stand in the way of sexual pleasure, and then sweeps them aside to embrace that pleasure. That is what Dodson does, and she does it better than anybody.

I think it’s a mistake for Dodson to expect Ensler’s play to do the same thing, because that’s simply not what it intends to do. Ensler has other things on her mind and The Vagina Monologues is about those things. The play does not focus only on women in other countries “being raped, tortured and genitally mutilated.” It includes that, yes, but it also talks about Native American women on reservations in the United States, where violence and rape occur three times more often than anywhere else in the country (something I didn't know before I saw the play). It talks about a little girl here in America who is raped and brutalized. At no point did I get the impression that the play arrogantly believes it will single-handedly end violence against women, but it seems to know that the only way it will end – if it ever does – will be through an angry refusal to remain silent while it goes on. Yes, awareness and education are extremely important, but I saw nothing in the play to suggest that they are the only solution. Without awareness and education, however, nothing will happen.

If you want to see a film that tells a dramatic, emotional story that will move you, it might not be a good idea to see a film written and directed by, say, Judd Apatow or Mel Brooks. If you do see a film written and directed by Apatow or Brooks, it’s really not fair to complain that it did not tell a dramatic, emotional, moving story because it didn’t intend to – it intended to make you laugh with jokes about farts and boobs. The problem is not the movie you saw but the fact that you saw that movie when you were in the mood to see another. If a movie by Apatow or Brooks fails to accomplish its goal of making you laugh with jokes about farts and boobs, then criticizing it for that is appropriate. But it’s unfair to criticize it for what it isn’t.

We are all shaped by our experiences and by how we process those experiences. Eve Ensler has said that “growing up in a violent society” and living “in a very brutal household” were part of what “deeply shaped” The Vagina Monologues. As a victim of brutality herself, Ensler is angered by the brutality against women that she sees around her. Her work is an expression of that anger and she has tried to channel that anger in a way that will raise awareness in others and work toward stopping the brutality. I can’t find anything to criticize in that.

Dodson refers to Ensler as “an evangelical minister” in the way Ensler focuses on the subject of violence against women. She thinks The Vagina Monologues is hateful toward men and heterosexuality and blames them both for this problem. This makes me scratch my head. Did we see the same play? I didn’t come away with that feeling at all. Dodson writes:

“It's very difficult to criticize V Day without sounding anti-woman or pro-violence. Dare we ask why so many feminists think women have cornered the market on being victimized by violence? Will we sound too insensitive in mentioning the violence caused by poverty, hunger, and wars that affect women, men and children of every gender? Are we to ignore all the wives who verbally abuse and dominate husbands? It's almost as if feminists insist on ignoring the power that many mothers wield in the home to preserve the image that all woman are helpless victims incapable of violence. ... Could we cut to the chase and say that the source of violence against women comes from the extreme fundamentalists in all the major religions including Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims? That all forms of authoritarianism exercised by both women and men are the source of violence along with ignorance and prejudice?”

Those are excellent points and in a sense, I agree with them. For example, I wish there were more plays (and movies and novels) that expressed anger about the violence and sexual abuse committed against young boys, because so much of the violence against women is the result of young boys being violently abused and molested and growing up to be violent abusers because that's what they know, the environment in which they developed. But while these are good points, I'm not sure they’re entirely fair. If this play were to tackle all of those things, it would no longer be The Vagina Monologues – it would be something else entirely. Again, I think it’s wrong to criticize any piece of art for what it isn’t, for what it doesn’t do. Yes, all of the things Dodson lists above are very real problems. No, violence against women is not the only problem in the world and it's certainly not the only kind of violence out there. And yes, dropping the blame on individual men is a mistake when the problem really stems from institutions that have set themselves up as unquestionable and beyond criticism – in other words, religion. That’s usually my target.

I do a lot of writing about the many ways religion has damaged – and continues to damage – our world and the ways in which it has resulted in bad government, hateful bigotry and sexism, the rejection of science and knowledge, a kind of institutionalized and dehumanizing self-loathing, both physical and psychological child abuse, wars and widespread willful ignorance. Every time I write or speak about this subject, someone – usually several someones – accuse me of being an “evangelical minister.” They claim I’m no different than Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell condemning homosexuality or feminism or Harry Potter. This, of course, is mind-numbingly ridiculous because it ignores one major fact: I am not condemning homosexuality or feminism or Harry Potter. If I were, then I would be like an evangelist minister, but I’m not. Does the fact that I’m passionate about my subject mean that I’m like an “evangelical minister?” I can't understand how. Lots of people are passionate about lots of things – they are not all evangelical ministers. This is a nonsensical criticism. In fact, it’s not a criticism at all – it is a deliberate insult meant to discredit me disguised as a criticism. They also point out that religion is not the only source of bad things, that bad things come from all kinds of places. This usually makes my head explode. Does the fact that bad things come from other sources justify or absolve the evil that religion does? Of course not. But that’s what these someones are saying, whether they’re aware of it or not. When I talk about the evil that religion does, I’m talking about the evil that religion does. What these someones are saying is, “Don’t talk about that, Ray! We don’t like it! Talk about something else or shut up!” My response is, if you don’t like it, don’t listen to or read it. I’m not shutting up.

The Vagina Monologues addresses violence against women and girls. If for some reason you don’t want to hear about or be aware of violence against women, then don’t’ see The Vagina Monologues, because that’s what it’s about. Go see something else. Because Eve Ensler isn’t shutting up. And she shouldn’t.

I don’t mean to suggest that Betty Dodson is the only critic of The Vagina Monologues, or that her criticisms are unreasonable. She’s not and they’re not. I’ve spent this much time on her comments because she’s reasonable, and because I’m familiar with and admire her. There has been a good deal of criticism of the play from other feminists, as well, and while I don’t have the room to focus on all of it, two points in particular stand out because they deal with things to which I am very sensitive. They are articulated well by feminist author Wendy McElroy in a 2002 article on her website (link).

“A play that claims to unveil the truth about vaginas but, somehow, overlooks the salutary role men play in most women's sexuality has no credibility. Worse than this, The Vagina Monologues equates men with ‘the enemy’ and heterosexual love with violence.”

Once again, it’s hard for me to believe that we’re talking about the same play. I saw nothing in The Vagina Monologues that struck me that way – and I’m a man! I get prickly when I hear a woman complain that “all men” are insensitive or violent or unfaithful or ... anything. It simply isn’t true – just as it’s not true that all women are anything. Men and women have one thing in common – they’re human beings. And human beings inhabit a vast spectrum of behavior ranging from good to abhorrent. However, I never cease to be amazed by the insensitive, cruel, shocking, stupid and ugly things that many members of my sex do on a fairly regular basis, and I know there are a lot of double standards that allow men to get away with behavior for which women are vilified. It’s just that I’m sensitive about the “all men” qualification. It simply isn’t true that all men engage in these bad behaviors and I resent the accusation that they do. I didn’t see that accusation in The Vagina Monologues.

If Ensler's play truly equated men with "the enemy," then it would not include the monologue titled "Because He Liked to Look at It," about a woman who meets and becomes involved with a man who is kind and tender and loves the pussy so much that the first time they're together, he sits and stares at it and talks about it for an hour. It's a wonderful piece that does not contain an ounce of hatred for men or heterosexuality. Why doesn't McElroy mention it?

I felt the play was pointing out not so much the violence of individual men but the violence against women that is inherent in a culture and a system that is favorable toward men – because for so long it has been dominated by men – but subjugates women. Despite all of the advances we’ve made since the cultural explosion of the 1960s, that culture and system still exist.

I don’t think all violence toward women is physical. I think things are done in our society that can result in women being physically harmed, and I see those things as a kind of violence against women. There are a couple of excellent examples that occurred recently.

In January 2011, New Jersey Republican Chris Smith introduced H.R. 3 into the House, a bill that attempted to redefine “rape.” It proposed making the Hyde Amendment permanent. That’s the amendment that prohibits government-funded healthcare programs from funding abortions except in the case of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. H.R. 3 added the word “forcible” – it proposed that abortions be funded only in the case of “forcible rape.” As far as I’m concerned, Smith’s proposal was an act of violence toward women because essentially, it’s saying, “Were you really raped? We’re not so sure. Does your definition of rape match our definition of rape? Let’s check first, because if we don’t think you were raped, you’re on your own, honey.”

Then there’s the Pence Amendment. Mike Pence, a Republican congressman who represents Indiana’s 6th district, is an evangelical Christian who, in 2007, staunchly opposed a hate crime bill because he feared it would endanger Christians who condemn homosexuality. In other words, the bill might get in the way of a Christian’s right to discriminate against, mistreat or persecute homosexuals with impunity. This year, Pence proposed an amendment that would strip Planned Parenthood of all government funding because Planned Parenthood provides abortions. The amendment passed with a vote of 240 to 185, with 11 Democrats voting for it and seven Republicans against. None of the government funding that Planned Parenthood receives goes toward abortions, but supporters of the amendment claim that the money indirectly funds abortions. Because these supporters are opposed to abortion – which, by the way, remains legal – they want to remove all of Planned Parenthood’s funding, which would bring a halt to the things it provides – like birth control, medical exams, screenings for breast and cervical cancer, family planning information and HIV testing, among other valuable, even lifesaving, services. That is violence against women. This congress has voted to throw a whole lot of women under the bus – make no mistake, women will die if Planned Parenthood disappears – because some people disapprove of a controversial but perfectly legal and, most importantly, extremely personal procedure that is received only by women.

Like I said, despite all the advances we’ve made, we still live in a culture that is systematically biased against women – mostly because of Christians who want to legislate their personal religious beliefs for everyone so that everyone must live by them.

I give these two examples to illustrate the fact that violence against women is not just some guy beating the crap out of his wife or girlfriend. It doesn’t take place only in foreign lands. It’s part of the fabric of life in America. It’s an attitude as well as a physical act. Pointing that out, trying to raise awareness of it and get people to feel something about it does not “equate men with ‘the enemy’ and heterosexual love with violence.”

This is not like a typical play that is imagined from beginning to end by the author, populated by fictional characters who do things that didn’t really happen. This is made up of the personal experiences of individual women. When one of the women says of her first sexual experience with a woman, “I’ll never need to rely on a man,” neither her words nor her sexuality are meant to apply to all women. This is her experience and it is included with the stories of other women who shared their experiences. If you take this to mean that all women should have the same experiences or feel and think the same things, then you are missing the point of the play. (Also, you're just a little bit odd, if I may say so.) Nothing about the play suggests that all men are violent rapists or that heterosexual love is a bad thing. Some of the stories involve violent men who rape and homosexual relationships, yes, that’s true. But to say that it’s making a general statement about these things that applies to everyone is like saying the story of Helen Keller is an insult to all blind and deaf mutes who do not accomplish precisely all of the things Keller accomplished in her lifetime.

By far, the most criticized part of the play is a monologue titled “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could.” A grown woman tells of the abuses she suffered early in life, and then recounts her first sexual experience at the age of 16 with a 24-year-old woman who gives her alcohol and gets her into bed. Originally, the woman’s age was 13 at the time of the sexual encounter. This has upset a lot of people. Wendy McElroy writes:

“Both by statute and by feminist definition, the ‘seduction’ scene is rape. Nevertheless, the Coochi Snorcher declares, ‘ ... if it was rape, it was a good rape.’

“Such idealization of child molestation would have created a firestorm of outrage if the offending character had been male. But the molester was female, so The Vagina Monologues won an OBIE Award on Broadway and noted actresses clamored to be included in the cast. When the New York Times reported the buzz about Ensler, it called her ‘the messiah heralding the second wave of feminism.'

“However, audiences probably won't hear the Coochi Snorcher speaking of ‘good rape’ in the 2002 performances. In past years, some sections of The Vagina Monologues have caused embarrassment to the organizers and university officials who have backed V-Day performances. The script has been changed.”

McElroy is right – if the 24-year-old woman had been a man, there would have been a lot of outrage. That’s a prevalent double standard in our society that usually sends me into a rant – and it’s a double standard that favors women. If The Vagina Monologues were a straight play that told a fictional story that put a positive spin on the statutory rape of a 13- or 16-year-old girl, this probably would be a very different blog. I qualify that with “probably” because, to be honest, it would depend on the tone of the play. I don’t like making hypothetical generalizations, especially when it comes to plays or movies or novels, because fiction can depict all kinds of acts and behaviors that, in reality, are wrong but do it in a way that does not condone those acts or behaviors. But this isn’t that kind of play.

Ensler took these monologues from real people who were sharing their own personal experiences. The Coochie Snorcher herself saw this as a positive experience. Yes, it was statutory rape, and yes, the 24-year-old woman was wrong. Got that? I’m saying she was wrong. But compared to the abuses suffered by the Coochie Snorcher previous to this experience, she saw it as her “salvation,” as she put it. It was her experience, and that was how she processed it. If she saw it as a good experience, if she claims it opened her eyes to positive things and changed her life in a good way, no one is in any position to tell her she’s wrong. We don’t have to approve of what that woman did and there’s nothing wrong with expressing our disapproval. But to condemn the entire play because of one woman’s interpretation of something that happened to her is a big reach.

In a 2000 article about V-Day, McElroy refers to The Vagina Monologues as “pro-rape.” Wow. That’s pretty mind-blowing. I admit, I learned all of this only while researching this article. I don’t know who’s who in feminism and which factions are clashing with which other factions over what, but like any movement, I know there are differing opinions involved and some of the disagreements can get ... well, heated. This sure looks to me like there’s more going on here than just an opinion of a play – know what I mean? Calling The Vagina Monologues “pro-rape” is like calling E.T. anti-extraterrestrial. And it makes it a little difficult to take McElroy seriously.

Here’s what I think of The Vagina Monologues. It addresses a problem that needs to be addressed and does it in a way that is entertaining and moving. It encourages women to value and nurture their sexuality rather than be ashamed of it. It embraces women and denounces sexism, violence and oppression. And it raises money for a worthy cause. I can’t see any negatives in that.

The production I saw at California State University, Sacramento, featured a rainbow of enthusiastic and talented women who were passionate about what they were doing and wholeheartedly believed in it. And it was brilliantly directed by my friend Liz Rowell.

If The Vagina Monologues comes to a college or community near you next February, go see it. If you’ve never seen it before, I think you will find it a wonderful experience. If you’ve seen it before and found in it the same value I found, see it again to support the cause.