Friday, April 15, 2005
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com. Ames, our mentor at this website, has an excellent new book out called, Wake Up, Sir! and an even newer book out (he is the editor) called Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs.
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Looking back at a classic Investigation
As mentioned above our publisher here Jonathan Ames is the editor of a new book, Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs. To help celebrate this I am reposting one of my earliest cases, The Feathered Man (as opposed to the Painted Bird), which also features transsexuals.
Questions: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
Jerzy Kosinski and his obsession with transexuals, cavorting with them at fabled Plato's Retreat in Seventies.
bryan
Answer: From the research I’ve done, it seems that Jerzy Kosinski did have an interest in transsexuals, and it also appears that he visited sex clubs such as Plato’s Retreat during the 1970s. Whether or not he ever had direct contact with a transsexual while at Plato’s Retreat is a something I have been unable to substantiate conclusively.
Kosinski writes about transsexuals in Passion Play and Blind Date. In 1982, he spoke to Penthouse Magazine about his interest in transsexuals and in sex clubs.
Penthouse: You have both photographed transsexuals and written about them. Why?
Kosinski: All my fictional characters are seekers and questers, preoccupied with self-definition. A transsexual’s need for a new self-definition is far greater than most of us have. And the price a transsexual pays for redefinition is obviously very dramatic – and often irreversible. That’s why, at least twice, transsexuals have appeared among the protagonists of my fiction, and that’s why I’ve photographed some eighty of them at various stages of their metamorphosis. […]
Penthouse: Do you mind being recognized by your readers when you go to various sex clubs?
Kosinski: No more, no less than when I go any other place. Sex clubs are open to the public and profiled in Time and Newsweek and on prime-time television, and are aspects of our life. And as a writer I’m just as curious about them as I am about industrial exhibits or sports events. Most people at the sex clubs aren’t into recognizing others. Usually, they are there to seek inner recognition.
Penthouse: Do you ever visit the sex clubs in disguise?
Kosinksi: Once in a while. But when I want to remain anonymous, I also wear disguises to museums, industrial exhibits, or cinemas. In disguise, whether alone or accompanying someone in particular, I am more abandoned, as if an outer censorship has been lifted. After all, I don’t go to these places to discuss my novels, or my politics. I am there to be myself, to watch or even to do what interests me.
(Leaming, Barbara. Penthouse Magazine, July 1982: 128-130,167-171, 196-212. Rpt. in Conversations with Jerzy Kosinski. Ed. Tom Teicholz. Jackson, University of Press of Mississippi: 1993. p. 200-202)
While we cannot (based on the above) assert with total confidence that Jerzy Kosiniski cavorted with transsexuals at Plato’s Retreat in the 1970’s, the fact that he did go to sex clubs to “do what interests me” and given his curiosity towards transsexuals and the notoriously wild nature of sex clubs, it is my opinion that he probably did.
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com. Ames, our mentor at this website, has an excellent new book out called, Wake Up, Sir! and an even newer book out (he is the editor) called Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs.
-----------------------------------------------
Looking back at a classic Investigation
As mentioned above our publisher here Jonathan Ames is the editor of a new book, Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs. To help celebrate this I am reposting one of my earliest cases, The Feathered Man (as opposed to the Painted Bird), which also features transsexuals.
Questions: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
Jerzy Kosinski and his obsession with transexuals, cavorting with them at fabled Plato's Retreat in Seventies.
bryan
Answer: From the research I’ve done, it seems that Jerzy Kosinski did have an interest in transsexuals, and it also appears that he visited sex clubs such as Plato’s Retreat during the 1970s. Whether or not he ever had direct contact with a transsexual while at Plato’s Retreat is a something I have been unable to substantiate conclusively.
Kosinski writes about transsexuals in Passion Play and Blind Date. In 1982, he spoke to Penthouse Magazine about his interest in transsexuals and in sex clubs.
Penthouse: You have both photographed transsexuals and written about them. Why?
Kosinski: All my fictional characters are seekers and questers, preoccupied with self-definition. A transsexual’s need for a new self-definition is far greater than most of us have. And the price a transsexual pays for redefinition is obviously very dramatic – and often irreversible. That’s why, at least twice, transsexuals have appeared among the protagonists of my fiction, and that’s why I’ve photographed some eighty of them at various stages of their metamorphosis. […]
Penthouse: Do you mind being recognized by your readers when you go to various sex clubs?
Kosinski: No more, no less than when I go any other place. Sex clubs are open to the public and profiled in Time and Newsweek and on prime-time television, and are aspects of our life. And as a writer I’m just as curious about them as I am about industrial exhibits or sports events. Most people at the sex clubs aren’t into recognizing others. Usually, they are there to seek inner recognition.
Penthouse: Do you ever visit the sex clubs in disguise?
Kosinksi: Once in a while. But when I want to remain anonymous, I also wear disguises to museums, industrial exhibits, or cinemas. In disguise, whether alone or accompanying someone in particular, I am more abandoned, as if an outer censorship has been lifted. After all, I don’t go to these places to discuss my novels, or my politics. I am there to be myself, to watch or even to do what interests me.
(Leaming, Barbara. Penthouse Magazine, July 1982: 128-130,167-171, 196-212. Rpt. in Conversations with Jerzy Kosinski. Ed. Tom Teicholz. Jackson, University of Press of Mississippi: 1993. p. 200-202)
While we cannot (based on the above) assert with total confidence that Jerzy Kosiniski cavorted with transsexuals at Plato’s Retreat in the 1970’s, the fact that he did go to sex clubs to “do what interests me” and given his curiosity towards transsexuals and the notoriously wild nature of sex clubs, it is my opinion that he probably did.
