Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Why 'Horny Stories' Are Important (Even When They Make Us Squirm)
Sexual desire is innate to human experience - so why do we squirm when we see it reflected to us in art and media?
It's a question playwright Nathan Joe has wrestled with over the years.
From the rawly honest production 'Like Sex', to the deeply confronting 'Scenes from a Yellow Peril', Joe's themes of sexual and cultural identity have brought forward an interesting provocation on what it means to be a young, queer, Asian-New Zealander today.
Throughout it all, one declaration has prevailed: to be horny is to be human.
"So much of my existence as a person on this planet has been contending with sexual desire, it would be strange not to engage with that part of myself," Joe says.
"By proxy, my plays, my poetry, is about what it means to be a person, what it means to be me, and sharing that with others. There are all these dimensions to us and it's interesting that horniness is deemed a slightly abject or taboo subject, when we're often the product of it."
"As a Chinese-New Zealander, Joe says his cultural identity and the subject matter of his work is sometimes at odds.
"Culturally speaking, there's always this tension between being a writer who wants to honour yourself and also honour your community. Sometimes you think doing one might be a disservice to the other; like, by being my most horny, honest self, I'm embarrassing the category of an Asian writer.
"I don't think those things have to be the case, but in the way that writing requires you to be brave, you're always going to be faced with a sense of, are people still going to like it? Am I going too far? Is this culturally acceptable?"
With the cultural appetite for sexual storytelling constantly shifting, the answers to those questions would probably vary over time.
In the early 2010s, HBO's Game of Thrones had viewers captivated by high-fantasy scenarios and no-holds-barred portrayals of sex and nudity. That is, until that same unrestricted storytelling devolved into something violent and needlessly graphic. What once had viewers hooked had them running for the hills at the show's tail end.
A decade later and the pendulum has swung once more: in 2022, the screen adaptation of Sally Rooney's novel Normal People aired more than 40 minutes of sex across the show's first season. In 2024, it's Luca Guadagnino's Challengers that has everyone hooked.
Joe says the reception to popular media can give us an insight into "the social temperature of horniness" at any given time.
"It's never on a linear trajectory, there's always ebbs and flows," he says.
"I think one of HBO's earliest successors was Sex and the City, which was just free about unabashedly portraying these women's lives as sex-positive and raucous, which is a very different social temperature to Game of Thrones where sex almost feels dangerous constantly. These are both pieces of media that populated the popular imagination for such a long time, and what it reminds me of is the power of media to tell us how we're feeling at any given time, whether it's through desensitisation or positive representation.
"Right now, Challengers is quite an exciting thing for the discourse, even though fundamentally on paper, if you zoom out, it's relatively banal. A homoerotic love triangle with two men isn't anything new, but for whatever reason it sort of spins people out. The notion that this could happen, or that people desire this, it throws a mirror to our own desires, and people get squeamish when they're confronted with what they might secretly want or find tantalising."
Joe says the canvas of horny storytelling is vast, and engaging with it as a reader or writer can help people connect more authentically with themselves.
"I think culturally we are prudes, despite the advent of phenomena like OnlyFans and pornography. We're raised in environments where we're not allowed to express or engage, we're taught to be ashamed of things that make us human, but these stories can teach us how to be in the world.
"Teaching human beings, whether they're adults or young people, to engage with themselves through this writing can develop a stronger sense of emotional intelligence and media literacy and the nuances of the human experience. It gives you permission to take a walk in someone else's shoes, or wear someone else's panties, so to speak."
For Joe, the most liberating part of writing horny stories has been its ability to expand the canvas of Asian storytelling too.
"It's more socially acceptable for Asian stories to be horny now, which is a big one for me. It helps us step out of a historical Asian narrative, which is so tied to the immigrant experience and familial dynamics. The shift towards more, what does it mean to be a Kiwi-Asian living in New Zealand right now means, well, what does it mean to be a person living in society with love and sex and romance and all the usual trappings?"
Joe is set to further this conversation at the Auckland Writers Festival event, Let's Get Physical: The Importance of Horny Stories, on Saturday 18 May.
RNZ
New Zealand's public broadcaster, providing comprehensive NZ news and current affairs, specialist audio features and documentaries.
Radio New Zealand is a Crown entity established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995. Radio New Zealand News are vital elements in our programming, providing impartial news and information to New Zealanders every day. Radio New Zealand (RNZ) provides listeners with exciting and independent radio programmes in accordance with the Radio New Zealand Charter.
Te Matatini: Biggest Investment In Kapa Haka Announced In Today’s Budget
Kindergartens Aotearoa: Budget Funding Delivers An Effective Cut To Early Childhood Education
Amie Richardson: Dunedin Artist Finalist In Archibald Prize With Portrait Of NZ Photographer Fiona Pardington
Te Wananga o Aotearoa: To Sell Tokoroa Site With Lease-back Condition
Whakarongorau Aotearoa: Get Support To Quit Smoking & Vaping In The Lead Up To World Smokefree Day
NZ On Screen: Celebrating Trailblazing Filmmaker Merata Mita