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| Children’s Books: Family Circle A journey in pictures and verse from an unexplored beach to a busy music-filled family room and into a tranquil, moonlit night. feeds.nytimes.com |
What I know about men | Catherine Millet 60, writer, in a relationship Catherine Millet 60, writer, in a relationshipThe older I get, the younger I like my men. Young men have an energy that middle-aged ones don't. I live in artistic and intellectual circles, where the men are all a bit depressed and out of sorts with life. My generation of men have lost their belief in change, in utopia. With young men there's no such disillusionment. As the editor of Art Press, I work with more and more young men. I think their naivety is a good thing, something I hope to learn myself.My younger brother died in a car accident. He was very important in my life and I regret that there's no longer anyone to discuss my childhood with. It's important to be able to share these memories. Maybe my relationship with younger men is all about my brother.The lovers and close male friends I've made through my life have showed me the ropes, showed me how to live. For women of my age, men were always the sexual initiators and therefore the teachers. In my youth I always went for older men. When I was 25 my lovers were 45 and 50. Now the roles are reversed. As an older woman, I teach younger men – both in work and in sexual relations. I'm cool with that, and I'm cool with mixing sex and work.I was about 12 years old when I first became sexual. I was on holiday, and the grandfather of a friend felt me up. I became suddenly aware of my breasts. After that there was a long period of flirting, but I didn't have sex until I was much older. The first man I ever had sex with asked for a blow job. I understood what he meant, but I thought it wasn't normal. I learned quickly, but the learning of my own sexual pleasure? That came much later in life. The first man I lived with, at 20, was the one I entered the art world with. He helped me become who I am today, but the man with whom I now live brought me calm. Serenity. Except for the jealousy. When I found out about his affairs, and went through my crises, there was no way I could have spoken about it out loud, even to my closest friends. Now I've written it all down I have distanced myself.As a young girl I cut out photos of Rock Hudson and Anthony Perkins, and stuck them on my wall. I loved big American actors and people who played gangsters. It was their physical beauty, their obvious virility. The man I live with is not dissimilar to the hard men I liked then. He is stout. Stocky. He rides large bikes, but recently downgraded to a BMW because riding pillion on a Harley Davidson was not comfortable for me.I'm quite sure that the success of my book [The Sexual Life of Catherine M] is because I am a woman writer, but there are few men who have been as explicit as me. It was the first time a woman had written so honestly about her sexual life. I hid nothing, and wasn't scared to share. Women are more realistic in the way we write and paint about sexuality. Women and men read the book in different ways. Women read it recognising their own experiences and feelings, but men saw it as a come-on. They communicated with me as a possible sexual partner. I didn't take up their offers.As a teenager I didn't think I was very beautiful, so it was only by seeing myself through the eyes of the men I met that I learned I was desirable. I got reassurance from them. I think a deep relationship with a man allows you to express feelings you didn't know you had, as well as to find out who you really are.• Catherine Millet's Jealousy: The Other Life of Catherine M is published by Serpent's Tail, £10.99Eva Wisemanguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Harry Potter enters the Twilight zone Harry Potter is to get his kit off not once but twice in the next film – is he feeling the pressure from the Twilight hunks?If you had to pick one fault in the Harry Potter films, it would probably be their lack of sexual content. Sure, it's nice to see Harry and his chums lark about with Hagrid's pet hippogriff and all, but it goes without saying that the films would be much more popular if that aspect was balanced out with several gratuitous scenes of depraved wizard-on-wizard action.Luckily, your wishes are about to come true. David Yates, the director of the final two Harry Potter instalments, has been telling Spanish-language entertainment guide La Vibra about just how naked Harry Potter is going to be during the film, describing "a fascinating scene in which Harry and Ron are trying to destroy a horcrux. It tries to defend itself and creates an image of Voldemort's soul that has a series of images where Harry and Hermione are kissing and embracing". He goes on to mention "another scene in King's Cross Station where Harry almost dies. In that scene he will also be naked".The question here isn't why King's Cross was chosen as the location for the scene – in my experience King's Cross does appear to be the traditional home of the almost dead, naked young man, especially at weekends – but why Harry Potter needs to get naked at all.If you have read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, you won't be familiar with either of those scenes, because Yates has created them especially for the films. And it's not as if Deathly Hallows is a flimsy little pamphlet that needs to be padded out to fill a full-length movie: it's the size of a breeze block. The book is so gargantuan that reams and reams will have to be edited out to even squeeze it into two separate films. So what's the real reason behind this sudden outbreak of wizardy nakedness?Could it be Twilight? It would make sense. Next to the Twilight series, with its endless middle-distance stares and emo-pop soundtrack and, crucially, the fact that none of the principal male leads seem to understand what a shirt is for, Harry Potter runs the risk of looking a little staid, like James Bond standing next to Jason Bourne. This might sound cynical, but could Yates be trying to cash in on the Twilight dollar?It's not as if he needs to; although Twilight is the hot new thing, it's important to remember that Harry Potter films are more successful, plus they are based on better selling books, plus they have narked off the pope more than Twilight ever could. Is it really worth compromising the tone that's been carefully built up over the course of a decade just because some teenagers get a bit shrieky when they see Robert Pattinson's belly button?Let's hope not. Let's hope the new Harry Potter nude scenes are there to push the story on in a cinematic sense, and not because everybody under the age of 15 suddenly fancies Taylor Lautner now. Because if that's the case, Yates would be setting a dangerous precedent. In effect, he would be telling children's book writers that their movie adaptations will only succeed if they contain endless scenes of sexuality. And there can't be too many people desperate to know what the Very Hungry Caterpillar's nipples look like, can there?Harry PotterFilm adaptationsHarry PotterChildren and teenagersStuart Heritageguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Books of The Times: Falling, Falling, Falling for the Footlight Parade In “The Play That Changed My Life,” 21 of America’s best playwrights write knowingly and movingly about the ways that plays and theater gave them a calling. feeds.nytimes.com |
Children’s Books: Children’s Bookshelf More children’s books reviewed. feeds.nytimes.com |