Category: Leone Ross

Season 5 | Double Dippin' | S1, E1.5 | The Turn On x Leone Ross

7/20/2022

Book, "Come Let Us Sing Anyway": Bookshop| Amazon
Author, Leone Ross: Website | Instagram | Twitter
Peepal Tree Press
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TRANSCRIPT
Kenrya: Kenrya: Hey, y'all, cause I didn't take notes.

Kenrya: I can tell by your eyes.

Erica: Erica and Killa, your two favorite hoe hosts.

Kenrya: Hey.

Erica: So as you know, we're on a between season break and as per usual, we will not leave you with dry dusty gooches. So here we come. That's quenching a gooch.

Kenrya: That sounds so nasty.

Erica: So we're quenching your gooch today with a Double Dippin, which is...

Kenrya: Oh, you mean like exactly what is it? Oh, okay. Season one, episode one and a half.

Erica: Oh, not the spot. No, you were...

Kenrya: Oh, I was on the right track. So a double dippin is when you want that old thing back, you dip back. Maybe you shouldn't have, but in this case you absolutely should. We going back to old episodes, we actually listened to them again, which, it's been a long time.

Erica: A long time, but you know?

Kenrya: Yeah. So like we listen to them again and now we have notes on how those quotes.

Erica: Someone has notes, so.

Kenrya: I'm sure you have thoughts, even if you didn't have thoughts.

Erica: I have thoughts, just not notes.

Kenrya: Notes and thoughts. It's all the same. It's just I can't remember shit so, I have to write it down.

Erica: Whatever you need.

Kenrya: Yes. So this week we're doing season one, episode one and a half, which was, okay I loved it.

Erica: This is why Kenrya wanted to do this episode. Because.

Kenrya: Why? Because I love Leone so much?

Erica: This episode was you interviewing yourself.

Kenrya: You said that at some point during the interview.

Erica: Because pre-production meetings, is that what we call them? Pre-production meetings…

Kenrya: Yeah, I guess so. That sounds fancy.

Erica: Are let's figure out...

Kenrya: That sounds fancy.

Erica: What we're going to do. And Kenrya was like "one and a half" and I'm like, okay. And then I'm listened to, I was like this bitch is like, this is the audio equivalent of Kenrya staring in a mirror.

Kenrya: What's funny is I have the...

Erica: Leone is great, right?

Kenrya: I just remember how much I love her and every time she pops up on my timeline, I'm like, “I love Leone.” So I wanted to listen to it again.

Erica: Yeah, no she's great. It was a great episode. And I was like duh, when she was like, "Yeah, I go to the beach and read because it's, I can, imagine waves being blue and pink and purple," and I was just like, yep.

Kenrya: Because you more than anyone else has sat next to me while I've done that.

Erica: Yeah. Like, yep. Well, okay.

Kenrya: Yeah. I mean that never really occurred to me, but I love her writing and I love her. And I figure, in season four when we did Double Dippings, we did episode one, which our very first, our pilot episode. And so I thought it'd be nice to revisit our first interview and see how things have changed.

Erica: Yeah cause it was very, Bella Noche.

Kenrya: No.

Erica: So, I always referenced the Bella Noche, you know that video, YouTube. It was, "If you was beefing at that wedding, you should have stayed at that wedding because if you can't go to Belle Noche, where the hell can you go?" So, when we do interviews, Kenrya tends to be Hazel London, which is the young lady that was telling the news, "If you was beefing at Bella Noche, where the hell can you go?" And then I tend to be her home girl, whose name I don't even know. But she just sitting on the side, like, "That's sad." So we—I've—gotten better at interviewing early on.

Kenrya: You have.

Erica: You can tell that Kenrya was like, "If you was beefing at that wedding and you should have stayed at that wedding." And I was like, "That's sad." So, yeah.

Kenrya: Well I do. But in listening to this, I had some moments that felt cringey for me. And things that I said or did or didn't. So the first, so this was before we started asking folks their pronouns, but I also didn't want to misgender anybody. So I started out, I read everybody's bio with no pronouns and I just kept hearing myself say. “Leone, Leone, Leone.”

Erica: But didn't you ask her, what are your pronouns?

Kenrya: I did after the bio. And that's what we did the first season. I read the bio with no pronouns and then I would ask their pronouns. Yes, and then when I asked, I said preferred pronouns, which is not the way that we should do it because, and we've talked about this, saying preferred pronouns asks as if it is some preference and something that you choose as opposed to just who the fuck you inherently are. But I didn't know that at that point. And I, in spaces where I was, that was what folks were saying and I hadn't come to that knowledge yet. So not judging myself, but being able to see how learning comes in. Right?

Erica: Oh yeah. I mean...

Kenrya: Yeah. And then I said “crazy” twice, which is super ableist language that I never use anymore. So I was just like, “Kenrya.” So I have those moments. Also I sounded very peppy. I haven't heard myself sound that way in a really long time. I had so much energy.

Erica: How did that feel?

Kenrya: That's a great question. A little sad, actually. Yeah. A little sad, but...

Erica: Who's that lady?

Kenrya: Yeah. But I mean, what'd they say, "Don't be sad because it's over..."

Erica: Be happy.

Kenrya: “Be happy that it happened,” or some shit.

Erica: It is either a fucking, that's a, yeah. That's a quote from somebody.

Kenrya: Somebody.

Erica: On Instagram probably.

Kenrya: Yeah. So.

Erica: Next to a live, love, laugh poster.

Kenrya: Okay, now. You, do you remember used to have live, love, laugh photo frames? Do you?

Erica: Cause my mama bought them for me.

Kenrya: Did she?

Erica: It was literally ’cause Judy Easter bought them not because...

Kenrya: I don't think I knew that those was from Miss Judy.

Erica: Do you think I would by that shit?

Kenrya: I don't know, but I distinctly remember they were outside the bathroom down on the first floor.

Erica: No, it was because, it was more mama bought them for me. So it was like, okay, then we living, loving and laughing.

Kenrya: “Ooh, this is my shit.” Some shit you found in Marshall's and was very excited about.

Erica: Yeah.

Kenrya: They were pretty.

Erica: Judy Easter found it in Marshall's.

Kenrya: I'm sure she did.

Erica: Or at the hospital gift station.

Kenrya: That costs too much.

Erica: But she worked in the hospital.

Kenrya: She probably had a discount. Yeah.

Erica: Okay.

Kenrya: Exactly. Okay.

Erica: Yeah. Well, anything else?

Kenrya: I said "that's what's up" too many times.

Erica: Girl, don't even go there. So, that's what's up. That's sad. All right y'all, sit back.

Kenrya: Well wait, wait, wait, wait, wait with all of that it's a beautiful interview. Leone is fantastic.

Erica: Yes.

Kenrya: At one point we thought we were going to get off and then she asked us a question and then we kept talking for...

Erica: Oh, shit yeah.

Kenrya: Another 10 minutes. And at one point she said something like “transness in all is complexity and gorgeousness,” and I just was like, “Oh you and your words.”

Erica: That whole piece where we were talking about gender and I was just like, “Oh, this is great.” It felt good going back to that. And yeah.

Kenrya: It was really beautiful. So, yeah, like come for the, I don't know. I don't know what you come for, come for the shit that we just laughed about, but stay for the beautiful, beautiful interview with Leone. It was, yeah, one of my favorites and a great way to start the show. So, yeah.

Erica: Okay. So now, wine, weed, whatever you need, enjoy.

Kenrya: Enjoy.

Erica: Yes. I like it.

Kenrya:
Come here. Get off.

[theme music]

Kenrya:
Today we're excited to have Leone Ross, the brilliant mind behind Drag. Leone is a Jamaican-British fiction writer, editor, and academic, who writes literary fiction, magic realism, horror, and erotica. Leone is a two time novelist whose short stories have been published widely. Leone's novel, Orange Laughter, was named one of the most influential British novels of the last 25 years. Yo, that's crazy.

Leone:
That's ridiculous. Whatever. But thank you!

Kenrya:
And your, the 2017 short story collection "Come Let Us Sing Anyway," which is where Drag appears, has been described as remarkable, searingly empathetic, outrageously funny, and unforgettable. Yo, that's crazy. A former journalist, Leone is currently a senior lecturer in creative writing at Roehampton University in London, commissioning editor for Fincham Press, and Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Whew, yes. Leone.

Leone:
That makes me sound like I'm not going to swear, but it's not true.

Kenrya:
Oh, well good, you in the right place.

Erica:
We love cursing academics, so, yes.

Kenrya:
You got it! So first, we just want to ask, what are your preferred pronouns?

Leone:
She and her, that's just fine.

Kenrya:
Great, okay. Awesome. Always want to make sure we get it right.

Kenrya:
So, we just heard your whole bio, I just read it. It's fantastic. But can you tell us in one sentence what it is that you do?

Leone:
I suppose I pay attention to small spaces, and try to recreate them. That's what comes to mind, yeah. I've been doing that since I was a little girl, paying attention to small spaces.

Kenrya:
That's what's up. So, where are you from originally? I said earlier you're Jamaican-British-

Leone:
Okay, yeah, so you're going to hear a lot of weird accent things going on, and this very irritating thing that I do that when I'm in the company of people who have a different accent from me, I start creeping into it, which is just really embarrassing, so wait for that one.

Leone:
But the background is that I was born in England, and when I was six, my mother, who is Jamaican, took me back to Jamaica, and I stayed there until I was about 21, and I did my first degree there, and then I returned to England. So all of my formative years were spent in Jamaica, and if I'm among other Jamaicans, I sound much more Jamaican than I sound now. All Jamaicans tease me that when I lose my temper or have sex, I sound Jamaican, and if I'm speaking formally, I sound British. British people tell me I don't sound British at all, and Americans, Jamaicans say I also sound... no, British people say I sound American, and Americans tell me I don't sound American at all, so who the fuck...

Leone:
But that's, my basic background is a lot of mix. I suppose, at its heart, I feel Jamaican more than anything else, but I think that's a formative year thing. You know, wherever you grew up, wherever you went to high school, I think as well, makes a difference. So yeah, that's kind of

Kenrya:
Love it.

Kenrya:
So, Leone, where are you based now?

Leone:
I now live in London, where I have lived for 20... many years. Which is presently imploding and totally screwing up, and Brexit is driving us all crazy, and the Conservative government is driving us possibly just as crazy as Trump is making you guys feel.

Kenrya:
I was about to say, we might know a little something about that.

Leone:
Yeah, so yeah, exactly, I don't want to assume, but I assume. I assume that, considering you guys like sex, that you don't like Trump, so-

Erica:
Not at all.

Kenrya:
Yes

Erica:
Not at all.

Kenrya:
It's the best assumption anybody's made all day.

Erica:
Spot on. So-

Leone:
Basically that man has never given a woman an orgasm, and that's his problem.

Kenrya:
I mean, he's probably had them, but he's never given one.

Erica:
Oh my god, no.

Leone:
Oh, no, definitely I mean, it takes two minutes to have an orgasm, especially if you're a man, but especially if you're giving it to yourself. But to give a woman an orgasm

Erica:
That would require-

Leone:
To share in a woman's orgasm requires... many things.

Erica:
Yeah, a level of consciousness.

Leone:
None of which is like... yes exactly.

Erica:
Not at all, not at all.

Leone:
I don't believe I'm spending the first five minutes cursing the President of the United States.

Kenrya:
I mean, I feel like it's probably how we should open all spaces, so it's fine

Erica:
It's like an invocation of fuck this shit.

Leone:
The best invocation of all.

Erica:
So, Leone, did you always know that you wanted to be a writer? What did you want to be when you grow up?

Leone:
Yeah, always. I mean, there was a period in which I wanted to be a vet, a veterinary surgeon, because I really love animals, but that was to accompany the writing. I think I always knew, and I was one of those children who, you'd take me to the beach and I'd sit down and be reading a book, and people would be like, "Look at the waves," I'd be like, "But there are waves in the book, so I don't know why you're bugging me about waves in reality."

Kenrya:
Right, and I can picture how they look however I want, right?

Leone:
Yes, exactly right, I can make them green, or blue, or purple, or orange, so leave me alone. Having said that, I really like the water and I like the beach.

Leone:
But yeah, I was that kind of kid. So I think I always knew that one of the best ways to spend time was to read a book. Then when I began to start writing, I always think I had an impulse to... I wanted to make people feel. I think that was my initial impulse. When I began to work out that I could write things down on a piece of paper and make people laugh, or get upset, or be delighted, or moved... I'm aware that other people did that, because obviously when I was a little kid I just had ambitions to do that, I thought that was a kind of magic. I still do. Like, you know when you write something on page 49 on section 3, paragraph 2, that's intended to make your audience laugh, and then you read it out loud, and wherever you go, and wherever you are in the world, they laugh in that moment... I love that shit. It's like yes! That's what I wanted to do. Laugh at that moment, get aroused at this moment, cry at this moment, yes. Maybe I was just a control freak when I was a kid, but that's what I wanted.

Kenrya:
I mean, who isn't.

Erica:
Leone, I feel like you are describing my best friend right now.

Leone:
Tell me, tell me, was it like that for you as well?

Kenrya:
Yeah, I have control issues, but I think more than that, I mean, this sounds sad, but books have always like been just a really great friend. I mean, obviously not as great of a friend as Erica, but-

Erica:
I was about to say, I'm a bad bitch, but okay.

Kenrya:
Yes, you are a bad bitch, and the books could never compare. But books have been my constant companion. I started reading really young and I was never without one, and now that we have tech where it's just in my phone, I mean it's everything. I spend so much time writing books, and reading books, and they are just a comfort to me. So, yes.

Leone:
Yeah, there's no question, and all of the research shows just that actually nothing does things to the brain like reading does. Nothing still. No kind of art form.

Kenrya:
That's right.

Leone:
No kind of orgasmic experience, even, does exactly what is done to the brain when we read. So, yes. I mean, obviously, we're all fans.

Kenrya:
That's what's up.

Kenrya:
So, as we were saying up in your bio, you write a lot more than erotica, and in fact, Come Let Us Sing Anyway has stories in lots of different genres. I'm wondering what pushes you to dip into so many different areas with your writing?

Leone:
Probably because I read so many different areas. I'm not, and have never been the kind of novelist or reader that dismissed any particular genre. As long as it was well-written within its own context I was fine. I've always wanted to be an accessible human being, not to mention a writer. It wouldn't trouble me if someone read my work and thought, "This is challenging. This makes me think. I'm not quite sure what this means, I need to go check." That's all fine, but if I can't access your basic emotions quite swiftly, I think that I personally haven't succeeded. Genre writing is some of the best writing there is.

Leone:
So, I remember once making some weird reference, this is years ago, to an editor that I had. I mentioned something about the word obsidian, and he said some highfalutin academic thing in response to the word. I said, "No I meant the Obsidian Order on Star Trek," and he's like, "what?" He's like, "But you're such and intelligent woman!" I thought, "What does that even mean? That you can't be an intelligent woman, and read Shakespeare, and pay attention to Star Trek?" I mean popular and high culture, whatever that means.

Leone:
So, I supposed that's all a way of saying that I'm interested in all ways of moving people. Complex literary fiction, I make an attempt at, and I hope that I can make a metaphor like the next person. I'm interested in complex ideas and features of language, in fact I love that. But I also want to be able to chill your bones. I want to be able to turn you on. I want to be able to surprise you. I want to make you laugh. So, if I manage to do all of those things, great. I wouldn't limit myself to any one genre in order to try to get that kind of emotional response.

Kenrya:
I'm wondering, I mean I love that you have never thought to limit yourself in that way, but I'm wondering, I guess as a writer as well, I write quote-unquote serious non-fiction. Did you ever struggle with the decision to add erotica to the mix? Does it-

Leone:
No. I mean, the erotic was always there. The irony is that a lot of people in Britain who, the few who know me, of that subset associate me of being the sex writer, which is really funny because it's the smallest amount of the genre I do. I mean as you can see in Come Let Us Sing Anywhere, there are only like three stories, I think, that have any kind of explicit sexual reference. But I remember trying to work this out at one point, laughing, of all people, with my grandmother, about it, who by the way, before she passed, read everything I ever wrote, including the explicit sexuality.

Erica:
Love that.

Kenrya:
We Stan a supportive granny.

Erica:
We love a supportive granny.

Leone:
I love her so much for that. It's so totally wonderful. I remember saying to her, "Maybe a little sex goes a long way." I've just become this kind of sex writer when that's not the whole story. I didn't have a problem with it, it just wasn't the whole story. So, she just looks at me, she said, "The thing with you is that not only do you write explicit sexuality, you've also injected your entire work with a sense of sexuality, with the sense of the body." She said, "You do that all the time in ways that I don't even think that you recognize." So she said, "I think people mistake that sense of sensuality and the body, they think sex. So you're not always talking about sex but you're being sexual a lot of the time." This, note, was my grandmother. And I'm like, "Yeah, I can go for that." She's like, "You have intellectual ideas about sex as well as sensory ideas about sex, and language based ideas about sex, and then the sex." So, she's like, "Because you see the world through many lenses but one of them is human sexuality, I think people then get the impression that you're writing more sex than you are," or something like that. That was her view, anyway, and I thought, "Okay. That'll do as a theory. That's fine."

Kenrya:
I like it.

Erica:
So, let's jump into Drag. I loved the story, absolutely loved it. I'm a reader, but not as much as Kenrya, so this was kind of my first foray into erotic fiction and-

Leone:
Oh, how wonderful so you were a virgin?

Erica:
Yeah, I was a virgin.

Leone:
I took your virginity, that's so cool.

Erica:
At 30...bleh, yeah, you took my virginity, and I loved the story, so where did your inspiration for the story come from?

Leone:
Thank you.

Leone:
I was thinking about this earlier because you also have to remember, I don't know if you've noticed, this is an old story. This is like 18 years old. Where the hell did it come from? I was trying to work it out earlier. It was something to do with... I do remember the first moment I thought about it. I was walking down street and I was, I think as you Americans say, feeling myself.

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
Felt quite cute that day, and felt very confident in my stride in that moment, and really began to work it, really began to think, "I like this. I like my body today. I like the vibes I'm giving out." Then I began to think just wandering down the street, the phrase, "I feel like a boy," came to me. Now this is not a matter of transsexuality or that complexity and gorgeousness. It was more to do with I'm taking on a stride that might be associated with masculinity because it is so confident, because it is so unquestioning, because it takes itself so much for granted. I remember thinking, "Let me play around with that idea, a woman who's feeling like a boy today." How might a woman who's feeling like a boy today want to be approached sexually? How might ideas, whether or not they're stereotypical or not, how might ideas of masculinity affect the way a man might approach her, sexually?

Leone:
Then I began to think, "Oh, I could make this into a story." So, I thought maybe what we can do is come up with an example of three experiences a woman has with one single man who returns to her three times in her entire life, and each one marks a period of development.

Leone:
So that was her first period of development. She's young, she's 18 when she meets him. She's walking down the street feeling like a boy, and they have an experience that has to do, hopefully, with ideas of gender and masculinity and femininity. She's young, so she's playing and she's really open to playing around with identity and taking chances. When he meets her the second time, it's different. When he meets her the third time, it's different again. So, that's maybe where the idea came from. That was the genesis.

Leone:
A lot of ideas, lot of stories come to me, both in moments and with sentences.

Erica:
Wow.

Kenrya:
I'm wondering, the genesis really came from you strutting, are there any ways more specifically that you relate to Josephine? Have you found yourself trying on different roles to figure out your place, whether it was sexually or otherwise?

Leone:
I think so, but I think my gift, just to backtrack slightly for context, my gift has been a really great sex education from both parents and extended family. It's not that my family doesn't, like any human family, have their own limitations or nervousness about human sexuality, but they certainly nurtured my kind of natural curiosity. It's a kind of family joke that I was so interested in sexuality so young and asked questions so young. Their gift to me was that they answered without any kind of shame, without any kind of guilt.

Leone:
I may have to say that again, my computer just did something annoying, sorry.

Leone:
Yeah, they answered my questions about sexuality when I was a kid without giving me any kind of shame, without giving me any kind of guilt. So that created a context in which I then, in the process of working out who I was sexually and what I wanted, which I believe, by the way, is a lifetime's job, just like writing, because things change all the time and grow. What I am really grateful for is whatever roles I've played like the protagonist in this story, or not, I haven't felt any shame about it. Pure, straight up curiosity and joy. Which is not to say we don't have issues, we wonder whether we're with the right person. We have certain feelings about our bodies, and so on. It's not that it's without pain or complexity. But sex, as a pure experience, to me, doesn't actually have anything to do with what the body looks like. It doesn't have anything to do with anything but its own gorgeous sense of energy. Do you know what I mean?

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
It's just something unto itself, and an acceptance and love of sexual energy unto itself has allowed me to play with roles or likes, or dislikes, as they've come up in my life without feeling like I was bad, or nasty, or wrong. Which I love, and I notice a lot of women and men haven't had the same experiences.

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
I don't know if that makes any sense.

Kenrya:
No, it makes total sense. I think it's a gift that they gave you.

Leone:
They really did.

Kenrya:
So many of us are walking around out here broken in that regard, that we weren't given that space to be able to develop and to find the joy in ourselves, and in our bodies, and who we love, and the ways that we love. It manifests in so many awful ways. In hate, in-

Leone:
Yeah, and I mean I've also been blessed because I wouldn't... I mean one has to be careful when you talk about this, to be sensitive and to be compassionate, but I also have been lucky enough not to be the one in three or one in four women who will have some kind of sexual abuse of some type in their lives. So I'm really grateful for that privilege as well. It's not come to me and it could come to me any minute now, let's be real about the way that the world works. So that also hasn't come to compromise my kind of unfettered joy. Jesus, I sound like an academic. It feels good, okay. It feels good and I'm cool with it feeling good, and I'm cool with finding it.

Leone:
I'm quite sentimental about sex, actually. Sometimes people don't expect that of me. I remember once having a conversation, my girlfriend's going to kill me, but once having a conversation with a girlfriend of mine, who... You know that numbers question?

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
What's your number? When you're in your twenties, what's your number? Now, I don't give a fuck about anybody's number. It doesn't make any difference to me. But she wanted to know my number so we sat down and we counted up numbers, and then when we compared numbers, she went, "You can't have such a low number," because she had a higher number than me, right. So, I was like, "Why?" She's like, "But it's you." I was like, "What does that even mean?"

Leone:
You're the sex one.But that doesn’t mean i’m fucking everybody.

Kenrya:
Right.

Leone:
Which means I'm working with what works for me. I said, "Why do you have to bring emotion to this number? Your number is just a number." So then she made me re-count. She was like, "Okay, you're bisexual, so now you have to count the women," cause we were counting men. I was like, "Okay." So I counted the women and I was still lower than her. She's like, "Okay, screw you, let's count non-penetrative sex."

Erica:
When did you brush past someone in the grocery store?

Leone:
The number went up again with the non-penetrative sex. Exactly.

Kenrya:
Shit, I don't even think I can remember all the non-penetrative sex.

Leone:
I know, truly, I couldn't remember. I was like, "This is getting ridiculous," right, this is just not necessary. Now having said that, in her defense, she was also joking. It became, of course, a laugh. But just that initial response from her, which was, "But I can't have a higher number than you," made me also think about the complexities of sexuality and how women are expected to behave when they're cool about sex. So therefore you're expected to sleep with lots of people. I mean, do what you want to do, that's my thing. Do you what you genuinely want to do and what feels good.

Kenrya:
That's what's up. So I have a question that, people ask me this question all the time and it feels like choosing a baby, but you can do it. Do you have a favorite line in Drag?

Leone:
Oh my god, you should've warned me of this before. Do I have a favorite line? I will start looking for the favorite line while we talk about the things that [inaudible 00:20:58]. Crap. Probably. I'm really tempted to just look at page 33 and just say, "A single crumb sits on his neat mustache," but that's only the page...

Erica:
Oof, that

Kenrya:
And I want to lick it off, yes

Leone:
I want to lick it off.

Erica:
You do such a great job of building that frenetic, like every single bit in me-

Leone:
Everybody likes that, yeah.

Erica:
-is about to lose it if I don't do this in that particular part of the story. That was... yeah.

Leone:
Yeah. For the listeners, what we're doing is we're referencing a scene in which the male protagonist comes and finds the female protagonist who's having a professional meeting, and whose client arrives, but he's masturbating her under the table. I love that. They're so, I don't know how they do it. I quite like "my hand is frothy." Frothy is a good word.

Kenrya:
Frothy is a good, nasty word.

Erica:
Yeah.

Leone:
Frothy is a good word. But I'll tell you what I really like as well. I know I'm choosing random lines and being irritating, and not obeying you, but the moment I like is when she starts coming and the client doesn't know what she's doing, and of course her lover does know what she's doing, and he's trying to cover it up, but he's also wanting to laugh, and the client's just shocked and thinks that she's having a fit. And the whole restaurant's just kind of erupting and thinking, "Oh my god, oh my god, the woman's having some kind of heart attack."

Kenrya:
Right.

Leone:
And she's just coming, and I love reading that to people because, whoever the audience is, they're in tears of laughter at this point

Kenrya:
Yeah.

Leone:
Because it's silly, apart from anything else, which is what I like. But it is supposed to turn you on, so I hope it turns you on.

Kenrya:
Oh, yeah.

Erica:
No, it's silly, and so... damn sexy. And I think so often, we forget that sex is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, and we have moments where we laugh. So that was a great choice.

Kenrya:
So I-

Leone:
I think that's one of the things that kind of made me the saddest when people have fed back to me about this particular story, which is that they say to me it's so joyful, and they're not used to that. And I think, "Really? I mean, how are you people fucking?" What? Why-

Erica:
You're doing this all wrong.

Leone:
I mean there are all kinds of ways to have sex, of course. There are all kinds of ways to have sex, loving, and intense, and dark, and beautiful, and all kinds of things. But joy, it seems to me, if laughter is too far away from the sexual space, I think you need to rethink who you're sleeping with.

Kenrya:
Listen, that is a whole word. So y'all about to learn something about me that is very personal.

Leone:
Go! Go, go, go.

Kenrya:
When I'm having sex with someone who I really care about, I laugh when I come.

Erica:
Whoa.

Leone:
That's so good.

Kenrya:
I do! It's the best. I'm having so much fun. And the first time they're always like, "What? Are you laughing?" And then they start laughing, and they get really excited that they made me so happy.

Leone:
Are you sleeping with men?

Kenrya:
Yeah.

Leone:
I'm just not assuming about anybody's sexuality. Okay, so you're sleeping with men, but sometimes men have to be coaxed into laughter, that it's okay, that we're not laughing at them.

Kenrya:
At them.

Erica:
Yes I've learned, I find that in my experiences, men take sex as a job, whereas women take sex as a journey.

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Erica:
Women, we just want to enjoy every bit of it, whereas men want to perform and-

Kenrya:
They're focusing on that task, yeah.

Erica:
Yeah they-

Leone:
I think it, isn't that what's expected of them?

Erica:
No, I'm sorry, you can go Leone.

Leone:
No, I was just saying that it makes sense, there must be a certain kind of masculinity, that's all.

Erica:
Yeah, and even when they...

Leone:
It's like I have to be good at this so I will now try to be good at it.

Erica:
Exactly.

Leone:
And I think, "You poor thing, you don't have to be good at it, you just have to be present, which will make it good."

Kenrya:
It's hard to be present when you're stuck in your head, thinking about, "Oh, does this feel good to her," all the time.

Erica:
Well, Leone, since this is our first episode, and I lost my reading erotic fiction virginity to you, we're going to be talking about first times. So do you have a first time story you'd like to share? And it can be anything, first time I tried yogurt, or first time I tried a woman, whatever.

Leone:
You don't want me to tell you about yogurt. I have to think of what I can tell you without my best friend cursing me tomorrow morning about it. First times... Actually okay, no. This will be a story that's a best friends story.

Kenrya:
Yay!

Leone:
And she will curse me because she says I have this wrong, but this is the way I remember it, whether it's wrong or not. I'm remembering the first time I met my best friend, who I have known since we were 10 years old, so that makes it 40 years this year that we've known each other. This is my memory, this is not hers, so it's fair for me to say before I say it, but she says I'm talking rubbish. This is my memory of us knowing each other.

Leone:
We'd been at school with each other for a while and we'd never spoken. And then both of our parents were late to pick us up one day. I was reading a book, I was reading a large book. But slipped inside the large book was some sex book. It wasn't porn but it was something about human sexuality, that I remember. And at one point it became evident to her that I wasn't reading the book that she thought I was reading, and so she realized I was reading this sex book. I mean, it could've been Shere Hite, it could've been some sort of report on how babies were born, I have no idea, but it was something sexual.

Leone:
So I remember us both having a giggle about this moment, because I was expecting her to be judgemental but she wasn't at all. And then I remember going into the bathroom, this is not sexual by the way, she's totally straight, but going to the bathroom maybe to wash our hands or whatever we were doing. We use the loo and whatever. And then when we came out, or maybe when we didn't come out, but at some point I said to her, "Tell me something, do you masturbate?" And she said, "Yeah." And I said, "That's cool."

Erica:
I'm like, "This is a 10 year old conversation?"

Leone:
And we're like 10 or 11, right? And on some level I thought, "This is my tribe." This is someone who is also so comfortable with sexuality that there's no condemnation, there's no judgment, and that was the start of our connection. Again, I'm gonna say this, my best friend would say that this is a total lie but that's how I remember it. And I remember thinking that I could trust her because this was the first time in my memory I'd said to another human being, "Do you masturbate?" And they'd come back with, "Yes." And that was just understood and

Erica:
Wow, that's so beautiful.

Kenrya:
Wow.

Leone:
Apparently

Kenrya:
I wonder what her version is.

Leone:
You can never tell with these bloody novelists.

Leone:
No, she just says it never happened, and I'm a liar. I say she has a bad memory.

Kenrya:
I mean, you are a writer, but I feel like you didn't make that up whole cloth.

Leone:
I promise, I usually know the things I make up, even if I'm trying to pass them off. I promise you. The best I can do is say to me it is the truth of what happened.

Kenrya:
Yes, I like it.

Leone:
Put it this way, at some point she and I had a conversation about masturbation. That I know.

Erica:
That's so great.

Leone:
And she didn't condemn me for it.

Kenrya:
Well, I think we're done. This was so fun.

Leone:
Okay. Wow.

Kenrya:
Right?

Leone:
So that's how do it, huh? So how did this work for you guys with the first time? Are you disappointed? Are you, you know, did you have an orgasm? Is the afterglow good for you?

Erica:
The afterglow is great. I think you were a really great first guest, because you get our brand of-

Erica:
You get us. I feel like I found my tribe in you, in a writer.

Leone:
Seriously, this is the tribe. We could meet each other in Ohio tomorrow, and just go to dinner and be absolutely cool. We are sisters.

Erica:
Yeah, so this was a great interview.

Kenrya:
Yeah it's true. Also, I'm from Ohio, so that's the best place to meet.

Leone:
I just said Ohio because I think I read that one of you was from Ohio, so I just slid it in there.

Erica:
We're two Midwestern girls that have a love for a good casserole and... and sex.

Kenrya:
...and sex.

Leone:
We didn't talk about food, oh my gosh, we did talk for ages.

Kenrya:
No, this is fantastic. I mean, we really love this story. I've had Brown Sugar, where this originally appeared on my bookshelf, for years. It's literally moved with me maybe six times.

Leone:
Wow.

Kenrya:
And this has consistently been my favorite story. So for us-

Leone:
Wow, that is a huge compliment. Thank you.

Kenrya:
It is just fantastic from beginning to end, and I love-

Leone:
Indulge me in one last moment, why is it that you like it? What is it that you like?

Kenrya:
Sure. So much... cause I am the one, I use erotica to get off, and so much of it honestly becomes super formulaic. You know what's going to happen next. You know that he's going to talk about her pert nipples. You know that she's going to talk about his member. And it's none of that.

Leone:
Oh, Jesus. That's why I don't like, you know what, I'm going to tell you a secret, I don't like erotica.

Erica:
Girl...

Kenrya:
Yeah.

Leone:
Because so much of it is so badly written.

Erica:
We're learning that.

Kenrya:
Yeah. That is honestly the biggest challenge we've encountered so far, is that, I think Erica, you literally just said it-

Leone:
Promoting good erotica.

Kenrya:
Yeah, she was like, "We overestimated how much great erotica there was out there."

Erica:
Because we found such good erotica in the beginning, and so we're like, "Oh! The world is just teeming with this." And...

Leone:
No. It's teeming with members and bosoms heaving, and really bad orgasms that are not natural at all and... Oh my god. A lot of it's really, really shit.

Kenrya:
Yes, and Drag is not that.

Leone:
Thank you.

Kenrya:
And I love that it's not bound by... like the fact that she feels like a boy. I think that there are so many folks who have so many hangups and so many biases and all of these things, that that's not something that would even come out in their writing. But for me, I just immediately connected with the role play of it all, and of her trying on all these different things, and that it wasn't restricted by gender identity, and all of the crap that we put on ourselves.

Leone:
I just think that erotica, like anything else, like any other so called good writing, has to be writing of ideas. It doesn't, and a lot of erotica's bad because it so easily meanders into cliché and stereotype, and, as you say, what you expect to happen next. I'm actually running a course in erotica, in erotic writing at the end of June because I hate so much erotica and I want to encourage people to write it better.

Kenrya:
Yes, that's awesome. Okay.

Erica:
So please, as you have students that go through this course and come out of the course, we are always looking for good work.

Kenrya:
Right.

Erica:
Because... By black writers.

Kenrya:
By black writers, about black people.

Leone:
Okay, yeah. I'll put it your way. In fact, I'll go and I'll sit down and have a think.

Kenrya:
Oh, thank you.

Leone:
And not a lot of people are doing it, even less people are doing it well, but I'll go and sit down and do that.

Kenrya:
Thank you. That's super helpful.

Erica:
And one of the things that I want to know about your story is that it centers the woman. So often so much of the writing is in the guy's mind about how he's pleasing a woman and it was just... Our goal with this, our ideal listener, not to say we don't want all listeners, but our ideal listener is a woman.

Kenrya:
Or fem, or anybody really that doesn't identify as a man.

Erica:
Thank you, Kenrya.

Erica:
And we want to center those type of people. We want to feel, we want to read ourselves and see ourselves reflected in the work. So often we don't. So this was just a great story all around.

Leone:
Yes.

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you saying so. And just for the record, in case this affected your sound, I now have a cat sitting on my bosom. Purring. So clearly she was a blessing. I don't know how that's going to mess with your recording, but she's clearly blessing your first virgin journey.

Erica:
Blessed by the pussy.

Kenrya:
I love it, and it always comes back to bosoms, so hey.

Leone:
Always comes back to pussy. If you send to the pussy, nothing will ever go wrong.

Kenrya:
You're absolutely right.

Kenrya:
I feel like we need to put that on a tee shirt.

Leone:
Please do.

Kenrya:
Absolutely.

Leone:
Please do and give me my 10%

Kenrya:
Absolutely, got it.

Kenrya:
Well, thank you so, so much for joining us.

Leone:
You're really welcome. I wish you all the luck in the world with it. You obviously sound like two gorgeous, special, thoughtful, sexy women, and I love that.

Kenrya:
Oh, yay, and we love you.

Kenrya:
Where can people find you and your work?

Leone:
They can, I supposed the easiest thing for American readers would be to look for Come Let Us Sing Anyway on Amazon, you can find it on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk or you can Google my publishers, I think this is important because they're a small indie and they need the support, and actually, I make more money if you buy it from them than Amazon. Fuck Amazon. So their name is Peepal Tree, P-E-E-P-A-L, Peepal Tree, Peepal Tree Press, and they are the biggest Caribbean and Black British publisher. So they need some bigging up, so I would just Google Peepal Tree Press.

Kenrya:
Fantastic. And you're on Instagram @leone.ross, and Twitter is @leoneross all together?

Leone:
Yep, that's me.

Kenrya:
Awesome.

Kenrya:
Y'all go follow her. We're gonna drop details to her writing in the show notes for this episode to make it that much easier, so...

Leone:
I think the other thing as well, obviously we needn't put this on the recording if you don't want to, but I think this is important for people just if they want help. I run an occasional blog called Dear Writer Girl on my website, which is leoneross.com, just that can be of help to people and it includes someone asking me about how to write erotica really well, and there's quite a long answer on that. So if people are interested in that they're welcome to go find it.

Kenrya:
Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Erica:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Leone:
Thank you so much for your time. I'm so glad you asked me to do it.

Kenrya:
This was lovely.

[theme music]

Kenrya: This episode was produced by us, Kenrya and Erica, and edited by B'Lystic. The theme music is from Brazy. Hit subscribe right now in your favorite podcast app and at YouTube.com/TheTurnOnPodcast, so you'll never miss an episode.

Erica: Then follow us on Twitter @TheTurnOnPod and Instagram @TheTurnOnPodcast. And you can find links to books, transcripts, guest info, what's turning us on, and other fun stuff at TheTurnOnPodcast.com.

Kenrya: And don't forget to email us at TheTurnOnPodcast@gmail.com with your book recommendations and your pressing sex-and related questions.

Erica: And you can support the show by leaving us a five-star review, buying some merch or becoming a patron of the show. Just head to TheTurnOnPodcast.com to make that happen.

Kenrya: Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon. Holla.

Episode 1.5 | The Turn On x Leone Ross

7/11/2019

Book, "Come Let Us Sing Anyway": IndieBound | Amazon
Author, Leone Ross: Website | Instagram | Twitter
Peepal Tree Press
Dear Writer Girl

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TRANSCRIPT
Kenrya:
Come here. Get off.

Kenrya:
Today we're excited to have Leone Ross, the brilliant mind behind Drag. Leone is a Jamaican-British fiction writer, editor, and academic, who writes literary fiction, magic realism, horror, and erotica. Leone is a two time novelist whose short stories have been published widely. Leone's novel, Orange Laughter, was named one of the most influential British novels of the last 25 years. Yo, that's crazy.

Leone:
That's ridiculous. Whatever. But thank you!

Kenrya:
And your, the 2017 short story collection Come Let Us Sing Anyway, which is where Drag appears, has been described as remarkable, searingly empathetic, outrageously funny, and unforgettable. Yo, that's crazy. A former journalist, Leone is currently a senior lecturer in creative writing at Roehampton University in London, commissioning editor for Fincham Press, and Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Whew, yes. Leone.

Leone:
That makes me sound like I'm not going to swear, but it's not true.

Kenrya:
Oh, well good, you in the right place.

Erica:
We love cursing academics, so, yes.

Kenrya:
You got it! So first, we just want to ask, what are your preferred pronouns?

Leone:
She and her, that's just fine.

Kenrya:
Great, okay. Awesome. Always want to make sure we get it right.

Kenrya:
So, we just heard your whole bio, I just read it. It's fantastic. But can you tell us in one sentence what it is that you do?

Leone:
I suppose I pay attention to small spaces, and try to recreate them. That's what comes to mind, yeah. I've been doing that since I was a little girl, paying attention to small spaces.

Kenrya:
That's what's up. So, where are you from originally? I said earlier you're Jamaican-British-

Leone:
Okay, yeah, so you're going to hear a lot of weird accent things going on, and this very irritating thing that I do that when I'm in the company of people who have a different accent from me, I start creeping into it, which is just really embarrassing, so wait for that one.

Leone:
But the background is that I was born in England, and when I was six, my mother, who is Jamaican, took me back to Jamaica, and I stayed there until I was about 21, and I did my first degree there, and then I returned to England. So all of my formative years were spent in Jamaica, and if I'm among other Jamaicans, I sound much more Jamaican than I sound now. All Jamaicans tease me that when I lose my temper or have sex, I sound Jamaican, and if I'm speaking formally, I sound British. British people tell me I don't sound British at all, and Americans, Jamaicans say I also sound... no, British people say I sound American, and Americans tell me I don't sound American at all, so who the fuck...

Leone:
But that's, my basic background is a lot of mix. I suppose, at its heart, I feel Jamaican more than anything else, but I think that's a formative year thing. You know, wherever you grew up, wherever you went to high school, I think as well, makes a difference. So yeah, that's kind of

Kenrya:
Love it.

Kenrya:
So, Leone, where are you based now?

Leone:
I now live in London, where I have lived for 20... many years. Which is presently imploding and totally screwing up, and Brexit is driving us all crazy, and the Conservative government is driving us possibly just as crazy as Trump is making you guys feel.

Kenrya:
I was about to say, we might know a little something about that.

Leone:
Yeah, so yeah, exactly, I don't want to assume, but I assume. I assume that, considering you guys like sex, that you don't like Trump, so-

Erica:
Not at all.

Kenrya:
Yes

Erica:
Not at all.

Kenrya:
It's the best assumption anybody's made all day.

Erica:
Spot on. So-

Leone:
Basically that man has never given a woman an orgasm, and that's his problem.

Kenrya:
I mean, he's probably had them, but he's never given one.

Erica:
Oh my god, no.

Leone:
Oh, no, definitely I mean, it takes two minutes to have an orgasm, especially if you're a man, but especially if you're giving it to yourself. But to give a woman an orgasm

Erica:
That would require-

Leone:
To share in a woman's orgasm requires... many things.

Erica:
Yeah, a level of consciousness.

Leone:
None of which is like... yes exactly.

Erica:
Not at all, not at all.

Leone:
I don't believe I'm spending the first five minutes cursing the President of the United States.

Kenrya:
I mean, I feel like it's probably how we should open all spaces, so it's fine

Erica:
It's like an invocation of fuck this shit.

Leone:
The best invocation of all.

Erica:
So, Leone, did you always know that you wanted to be a writer? What did you want to be when you grow up?

Leone:
Yeah, always. I mean, there was a period in which I wanted to be a vet, a veterinary surgeon, because I really love animals, but that was to accompany the writing. I think I always knew, and I was one of those children who, you'd take me to the beach and I'd sit down and be reading a book, and people would be like, "Look at the waves," I'd be like, "But there are waves in the book, so I don't know why you're bugging me about waves in reality."

Kenrya:
Right, and I can picture how they look however I want, right?

Leone:
Yes, exactly right, I can make them green, or blue, or purple, or orange, so leave me alone. Having said that, I really like the water and I like the beach.

Leone:
But yeah, I was that kind of kid. So I think I always knew that one of the best ways to spend time was to read a book. Then when I began to start writing, I always think I had an impulse to... I wanted to make people feel. I think that was my initial impulse. When I began to work out that I could write things down on a piece of paper and make people laugh, or get upset, or be delighted, or moved... I'm aware that other people did that, because obviously when I was a little kid I just had ambitions to do that, I thought that was a kind of magic. I still do. Like, you know when you write something on page 49 on section 3, paragraph 2, that's intended to make your audience laugh, and then you read it out loud, and wherever you go, and wherever you are in the world, they laugh in that moment... I love that shit. It's like yes! That's what I wanted to do. Laugh at that moment, get aroused at this moment, cry at this moment, yes. Maybe I was just a control freak when I was a kid, but that's what I wanted.

Kenrya:
I mean, who isn't.

Erica:
Leone, I feel like you are describing my best friend right now.

Leone:
Tell me, tell me, was it like that for you as well?

Kenrya:
Yeah, I have control issues, but I think more than that, I mean, this sounds sad, but books have always like been just a really great friend. I mean, obviously not as great of a friend as Erica, but-

Erica:
I was about to say, I'm a bad bitch, but okay.

Kenrya:
Yes, you are a bad bitch, and the books could never compare. But books have been my constant companion. I started reading really young and I was never without one, and now that we have tech where it's just in my phone, I mean it's everything. I spend so much time writing books, and reading books, and they are just a comfort to me. So, yes.

Leone:
Yeah, there's no question, and all of the research shows just that actually nothing does things to the brain like reading does. Nothing still. No kind of art form.

Kenrya:
That's right.

Leone:
No kind of orgasmic experience, even, does exactly what is done to the brain when we read. So, yes. I mean, obviously, we're all fans.

Kenrya:
That's what's up.

Kenrya:
So, as we were saying up in your bio, you write a lot more than erotica, and in fact, Come Let Us Sing Anyway has stories in lots of different genres. I'm wondering what pushes you to dip into so many different areas with your writing?

Leone:
Probably because I read so many different areas. I'm not, and have never been the kind of novelist or reader that dismissed any particular genre. As long as it was well-written within its own context I was fine. I've always wanted to be an accessible human being, not to mention a writer. It wouldn't trouble me if someone read my work and thought, "This is challenging. This makes me think. I'm not quite sure what this means, I need to go check." That's all fine, but if I can't access your basic emotions quite swiftly, I think that I personally haven't succeeded. Genre writing is some of the best writing there is.

Leone:
So, I remember once making some weird reference, this is years ago, to an editor that I had. I mentioned something about the word obsidian, and he said some highfalutin academic thing in response to the word. I said, "No I meant the Obsidian Order on Star Trek," and he's like, "what?" He's like, "But you're such and intelligent woman!" I thought, "What does that even mean? That you can't be an intelligent woman, and read Shakespeare, and pay attention to Star Trek?" I mean popular and high culture, whatever that means.

Leone:
So, I supposed that's all a way of saying that I'm interested in all ways of moving people. Complex literary fiction, I make an attempt at, and I hope that I can make a metaphor like the next person. I'm interested in complex ideas and features of language, in fact I love that. But I also want to be able to chill your bones. I want to be able to turn you on. I want to be able to surprise you. I want to make you laugh. So, if I manage to do all of those things, great. I wouldn't limit myself to any one genre in order to try to get that kind of emotional response.

Kenrya:
I'm wondering, I mean I love that you have never thought to limit yourself in that way, but I'm wondering, I guess as a writer as well, I write quote-unquote serious non-fiction. Did you ever struggle with the decision to add erotica to the mix? Does it-

Leone:
No. I mean, the erotic was always there. The irony is that a lot of people in Britain who, the few who know me, of that subset associate me of being the sex writer, which is really funny because it's the smallest amount of the genre I do. I mean as you can see in Come Let Us Sing Anywhere, there are only like three stories, I think, that have any kind of explicit sexual reference. But I remember trying to work this out at one point, laughing, of all people, with my grandmother, about it, who by the way, before she passed, read everything I ever wrote, including the explicit sexuality.

Erica:
Love that.

Kenrya:
We Stan a supportive granny.

Erica:
We love a supportive granny.

Leone:
I love her so much for that. It's so totally wonderful. I remember saying to her, "Maybe a little sex goes a long way." I've just become this kind of sex writer when that's not the whole story. I didn't have a problem with it, it just wasn't the whole story. So, she just looks at me, she said, "The thing with you is that not only do you write explicit sexuality, you've also injected your entire work with a sense of sexuality, with the sense of the body." She said, "You do that all the time in ways that I don't even think that you recognize." So she said, "I think people mistake that sense of sensuality and the body, they think sex. So you're not always talking about sex but you're being sexual a lot of the time." This, note, was my grandmother. And I'm like, "Yeah, I can go for that." She's like, "You have intellectual ideas about sex as well as sensory ideas about sex, and language based ideas about sex, and then the sex." So, she's like, "Because you see the world through many lenses but one of them is human sexuality, I think people then get the impression that you're writing more sex than you are," or something like that. That was her view, anyway, and I thought, "Okay. That'll do as a theory. That's fine."

Kenrya:
I like it.

Erica:
So, let's jump into Drag. I loved the story, absolutely loved it. I'm a reader, but not as much as Kenrya, so this was kind of my first foray into erotic fiction and-

Leone:
Oh, how wonderful so you were a virgin?

Erica:
Yeah, I was a virgin.

Leone:
I took your virginity, that's so cool.

Erica:
At 30...bleh, yeah, you took my virginity, and I loved the story, so where did your inspiration for the story come from?

Leone:
Thank you.

Leone:
I was thinking about this earlier because you also have to remember, I don't know if you've noticed, this is an old story. This is like 18 years old. Where the hell did it come from? I was trying to work it out earlier. It was something to do with... I do remember the first moment I thought about it. I was walking down street and I was, I think as you Americans say, feeling myself.

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
Felt quite cute that day, and felt very confident in my stride in that moment, and really began to work it, really began to think, "I like this. I like my body today. I like the vibes I'm giving out." Then I began to think just wandering down the street, the phrase, "I feel like a boy," came to me. Now this is not a matter of transsexuality or that complexity and gorgeousness. It was more to do with I'm taking on a stride that might be associated with masculinity because it is so confident, because it is so unquestioning, because it takes itself so much for granted. I remember thinking, "Let me play around with that idea, a woman who's feeling like a boy today." How might a woman who's feeling like a boy today want to be approached sexually? How might ideas, whether or not they're stereotypical or not, how might ideas of masculinity affect the way a man might approach her, sexually?

Leone:
Then I began to think, "Oh, I could make this into a story." So, I thought maybe what we can do is come up with an example of three experiences a woman has with one single man who returns to her three times in her entire life, and each one marks a period of development.

Leone:
So that was her first period of development. She's young, she's 18 when she meets him. She's walking down the street feeling like a boy, and they have an experience that has to do, hopefully, with ideas of gender and masculinity and femininity. She's young, so she's playing and she's really open to playing around with identity and taking chances. When he meets her the second time, it's different. When he meets her the third time, it's different again. So, that's maybe where the idea came from. That was the genesis.

Leone:
A lot of ideas, lot of stories come to me, both in moments and with sentences.

Erica:
Wow.

Kenrya:
I'm wondering, the genesis really came from you strutting, are there any ways more specifically that you relate to Josephine? Have you found yourself trying on different roles to figure out your place, whether it was sexually or otherwise?

Leone:
I think so, but I think my gift, just to backtrack slightly for context, my gift has been a really great sex education from both parents and extended family. It's not that my family doesn't, like any human family, have their own limitations or nervousness about human sexuality, but they certainly nurtured my kind of natural curiosity. It's a kind of family joke that I was so interested in sexuality so young and asked questions so young. Their gift to me was that they answered without any kind of shame, without any kind of guilt.

Leone:
I may have to say that again, my computer just did something annoying, sorry.

Leone:
Yeah, they answered my questions about sexuality when I was a kid without giving me any kind of shame, without giving me any kind of guilt. So that created a context in which I then, in the process of working out who I was sexually and what I wanted, which I believe, by the way, is a lifetime's job, just like writing, because things change all the time and grow. What I am really grateful for is whatever roles I've played like the protagonist in this story, or not, I haven't felt any shame about it. Pure, straight up curiosity and joy. Which is not to say we don't have issues, we wonder whether we're with the right person. We have certain feelings about our bodies, and so on. It's not that it's without pain or complexity. But sex, as a pure experience, to me, doesn't actually have anything to do with what the body looks like. It doesn't have anything to do with anything but its own gorgeous sense of energy. Do you know what I mean?

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
It's just something unto itself, and an acceptance and love of sexual energy unto itself has allowed me to play with roles or likes, or dislikes, as they've come up in my life without feeling like I was bad, or nasty, or wrong. Which I love, and I notice a lot of women and men haven't had the same experiences.

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
I don't know if that makes any sense.

Kenrya:
No, it makes total sense. I think it's a gift that they gave you.

Leone:
They really did.

Kenrya:
So many of us are walking around out here broken in that regard, that we weren't given that space to be able to develop and to find the joy in ourselves, and in our bodies, and who we love, and the ways that we love. It manifests in so many awful ways. In hate, in-

Leone:
Yeah, and I mean I've also been blessed because I wouldn't... I mean one has to be careful when you talk about this, to be sensitive and to be compassionate, but I also have been lucky enough not to be the one in three or one in four women who will have some kind of sexual abuse of some type in their lives. So I'm really grateful for that privilege as well. It's not come to me and it could come to me any minute now, let's be real about the way that the world works. So that also hasn't come to compromise my kind of unfettered joy. Jesus, I sound like an academic. It feels good, okay. It feels good and I'm cool with it feeling good, and I'm cool with finding it.

Leone:
I'm quite sentimental about sex, actually. Sometimes people don't expect that of me. I remember once having a conversation, my girlfriend's going to kill me, but once having a conversation with a girlfriend of mine, who... You know that numbers question?

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
What's your number? When you're in your twenties, what's your number? Now, I don't give a fuck about anybody's number. It doesn't make any difference to me. But she wanted to know my number so we sat down and we counted up numbers, and then when we compared numbers, she went, "You can't have such a low number," because she had a higher number than me, right. So, I was like, "Why?" She's like, "But it's you." I was like, "What does that even mean?"

Leone:
You're the sex one.But that doesn’t mean i’m fucking everybody.

Kenrya:
Right.

Leone:
Which means I'm working with what works for me. I said, "Why do you have to bring emotion to this number? Your number is just a number." So then she made me re-count. She was like, "Okay, you're bisexual, so now you have to count the women," cause we were counting men. I was like, "Okay." So I counted the women and I was still lower than her. She's like, "Okay, screw you, let's count non-penetrative sex."

Erica:
When did you brush past someone in the grocery store?

Leone:
The number went up again with the non-penetrative sex. Exactly.

Kenrya:
Shit, I don't even think I can remember all the non-penetrative sex.

Leone:
I know, truly, I couldn't remember. I was like, "This is getting ridiculous," right, this is just not necessary. Now having said that, in her defense, she was also joking. It became, of course, a laugh. But just that initial response from her, which was, "But I can't have a higher number than you," made me also think about the complexities of sexuality and how women are expected to behave when they're cool about sex. So therefore you're expected to sleep with lots of people. I mean, do what you want to do, that's my thing. Do you what you genuinely want to do and what feels good.

Kenrya:
That's what's up. So I have a question that, people ask me this question all the time and it feels like choosing a baby, but you can do it. Do you have a favorite line in Drag?

Leone:
Oh my god, you should've warned me of this before. Do I have a favorite line? I will start looking for the favorite line while we talk about the things that [inaudible 00:20:58]. Crap. Probably. I'm really tempted to just look at page 33 and just say, "A single crumb sits on his neat mustache," but that's only the page...

Erica:
Oof, that

Kenrya:
And I want to lick it off, yes

Leone:
I want to lick it off.

Erica:
You do such a great job of building that frenetic, like every single bit in me-

Leone:
Everybody likes that, yeah.

Erica:
-is about to lose it if I don't do this in that particular part of the story. That was... yeah.

Leone:
Yeah. For the listeners, what we're doing is we're referencing a scene in which the male protagonist comes and finds the female protagonist who's having a professional meeting, and whose client arrives, but he's masturbating her under the table. I love that. They're so, I don't know how they do it. I quite like "my hand is frothy." Frothy is a good word.

Kenrya:
Frothy is a good, nasty word.

Erica:
Yeah.

Leone:
Frothy is a good word. But I'll tell you what I really like as well. I know I'm choosing random lines and being irritating, and not obeying you, but the moment I like is when she starts coming and the client doesn't know what she's doing, and of course her lover does know what she's doing, and he's trying to cover it up, but he's also wanting to laugh, and the client's just shocked and thinks that she's having a fit. And the whole restaurant's just kind of erupting and thinking, "Oh my god, oh my god, the woman's having some kind of heart attack."

Kenrya:
Right.

Leone:
And she's just coming, and I love reading that to people because, whoever the audience is, they're in tears of laughter at this point

Kenrya:
Yeah.

Leone:
Because it's silly, apart from anything else, which is what I like. But it is supposed to turn you on, so I hope it turns you on.

Kenrya:
Oh, yeah.

Erica:
No, it's silly, and so... damn sexy. And I think so often, we forget that sex is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, and we have moments where we laugh. So that was a great choice.

Kenrya:
So I-

Leone:
I think that's one of the things that kind of made me the saddest when people have fed back to me about this particular story, which is that they say to me it's so joyful, and they're not used to that. And I think, "Really? I mean, how are you people fucking?" What? Why-

Erica:
You're doing this all wrong.

Leone:
I mean there are all kinds of ways to have sex, of course. There are all kinds of ways to have sex, loving, and intense, and dark, and beautiful, and all kinds of things. But joy, it seems to me, if laughter is too far away from the sexual space, I think you need to rethink who you're sleeping with.

Kenrya:
Listen, that is a whole word. So y'all about to learn something about me that is very personal.

Leone:
Go! Go, go, go.

Kenrya:
When I'm having sex with someone who I really care about, I laugh when I come.

Erica:
Whoa.

Leone:
That's so good.

Kenrya:
I do! It's the best. I'm having so much fun. And the first time they're always like, "What? Are you laughing?" And then they start laughing, and they get really excited that they made me so happy.

Leone:
Are you sleeping with men?

Kenrya:
Yeah.

Leone:
I'm just not assuming about anybody's sexuality. Okay, so you're sleeping with men, but sometimes men have to be coaxed into laughter, that it's okay, that we're not laughing at them.

Kenrya:
At them.

Erica:
Yes I've learned, I find that in my experiences, men take sex as a job, whereas women take sex as a journey.

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Erica:
Women, we just want to enjoy every bit of it, whereas men want to perform and-

Kenrya:
They're focusing on that task, yeah.

Erica:
Yeah they-

Leone:
I think it, isn't that what's expected of them?

Erica:
No, I'm sorry, you can go Leone.

Leone:
No, I was just saying that it makes sense, there must be a certain kind of masculinity, that's all.

Erica:
Yeah, and even when they...

Leone:
It's like I have to be good at this so I will now try to be good at it.

Erica:
Exactly.

Leone:
And I think, "You poor thing, you don't have to be good at it, you just have to be present, which will make it good."

Kenrya:
It's hard to be present when you're stuck in your head, thinking about, "Oh, does this feel good to her," all the time.

Erica:
Well, Leone, since this is our first episode, and I lost my reading erotic fiction virginity to you, we're going to be talking about first times. So do you have a first time story you'd like to share? And it can be anything, first time I tried yogurt, or first time I tried a woman, whatever.

Leone:
You don't want me to tell you about yogurt. I have to think of what I can tell you without my best friend cursing me tomorrow morning about it. First times... Actually okay, no. This will be a story that's a best friends story.

Kenrya:
Yay!

Leone:
And she will curse me because she says I have this wrong, but this is the way I remember it, whether it's wrong or not. I'm remembering the first time I met my best friend, who I have known since we were 10 years old, so that makes it 40 years this year that we've known each other. This is my memory, this is not hers, so it's fair for me to say before I say it, but she says I'm talking rubbish. This is my memory of us knowing each other.

Leone:
We'd been at school with each other for a while and we'd never spoken. And then both of our parents were late to pick us up one day. I was reading a book, I was reading a large book. But slipped inside the large book was some sex book. It wasn't porn but it was something about human sexuality, that I remember. And at one point it became evident to her that I wasn't reading the book that she thought I was reading, and so she realized I was reading this sex book. I mean, it could've been Shere Hite, it could've been some sort of report on how babies were born, I have no idea, but it was something sexual.

Leone:
So I remember us both having a giggle about this moment, because I was expecting her to be judgemental but she wasn't at all. And then I remember going into the bathroom, this is not sexual by the way, she's totally straight, but going to the bathroom maybe to wash our hands or whatever we were doing. We use the loo and whatever. And then when we came out, or maybe when we didn't come out, but at some point I said to her, "Tell me something, do you masturbate?" And she said, "Yeah." And I said, "That's cool."

Erica:
I'm like, "This is a 10 year old conversation?"

Leone:
And we're like 10 or 11, right? And on some level I thought, "This is my tribe." This is someone who is also so comfortable with sexuality that there's no condemnation, there's no judgment, and that was the start of our connection. Again, I'm gonna say this, my best friend would say that this is a total lie but that's how I remember it. And I remember thinking that I could trust her because this was the first time in my memory I'd said to another human being, "Do you masturbate?" And they'd come back with, "Yes." And that was just understood and

Erica:
Wow, that's so beautiful.

Kenrya:
Wow.

Leone:
Apparently

Kenrya:
I wonder what her version is.

Leone:
You can never tell with these bloody novelists.

Leone:
No, she just says it never happened, and I'm a liar. I say she has a bad memory.

Kenrya:
I mean, you are a writer, but I feel like you didn't make that up whole cloth.

Leone:
I promise, I usually know the things I make up, even if I'm trying to pass them off. I promise you. The best I can do is say to me it is the truth of what happened.

Kenrya:
Yes, I like it.

Leone:
Put it this way, at some point she and I had a conversation about masturbation. That I know.

Erica:
That's so great.

Leone:
And she didn't condemn me for it.

Kenrya:
Well, I think we're done. This was so fun.

Leone:
Okay. Wow.

Kenrya:
Right?

Leone:
So that's how do it, huh? So how did this work for you guys with the first time? Are you disappointed? Are you, you know, did you have an orgasm? Is the afterglow good for you?

Erica:
The afterglow is great. I think you were a really great first guest, because you get our brand of-

Erica:
You get us. I feel like I found my tribe in you, in a writer.

Leone:
Seriously, this is the tribe. We could meet each other in Ohio tomorrow, and just go to dinner and be absolutely cool. We are sisters.

Erica:
Yeah, so this was a great interview.

Kenrya:
Yeah it's true. Also, I'm from Ohio, so that's the best place to meet.

Leone:
I just said Ohio because I think I read that one of you was from Ohio, so I just slid it in there.

Erica:
We're two Midwestern girls that have a love for a good casserole and... and sex.

Kenrya:
...and sex.

Leone:
We didn't talk about food, oh my gosh, we did talk for ages.

Kenrya:
No, this is fantastic. I mean, we really love this story. I've had Brown Sugar, where this originally appeared on my bookshelf, for years. It's literally moved with me maybe six times.

Leone:
Wow.

Kenrya:
And this has consistently been my favorite story. So for us-

Leone:
Wow, that is a huge compliment. Thank you.

Kenrya:
It is just fantastic from beginning to end, and I love-

Leone:
Indulge me in one last moment, why is it that you like it? What is it that you like?

Kenrya:
Sure. So much... cause I am the one, I use erotica to get off, and so much of it honestly becomes super formulaic. You know what's going to happen next. You know that he's going to talk about her pert nipples. You know that she's going to talk about his member. And it's none of that.

Leone:
Oh, Jesus. That's why I don't like, you know what, I'm going to tell you a secret, I don't like erotica.

Erica:
Girl...

Kenrya:
Yeah.

Leone:
Because so much of it is so badly written.

Erica:
We're learning that.

Kenrya:
Yeah. That is honestly the biggest challenge we've encountered so far, is that, I think Erica, you literally just said it-

Leone:
Promoting good erotica.

Kenrya:
Yeah, she was like, "We overestimated how much great erotica there was out there."

Erica:
Because we found such good erotica in the beginning, and so we're like, "Oh! The world is just teeming with this." And...

Leone:
No. It's teeming with members and bosoms heaving, and really bad orgasms that are not natural at all and... Oh my god. A lot of it's really, really shit.

Kenrya:
Yes, and Drag is not that.

Leone:
Thank you.

Kenrya:
And I love that it's not bound by... like the fact that she feels like a boy. I think that there are so many folks who have so many hangups and so many biases and all of these things, that that's not something that would even come out in their writing. But for me, I just immediately connected with the role play of it all, and of her trying on all these different things, and that it wasn't restricted by gender identity, and all of the crap that we put on ourselves.

Leone:
I just think that erotica, like anything else, like any other so called good writing, has to be writing of ideas. It doesn't, and a lot of erotica's bad because it so easily meanders into cliché and stereotype, and, as you say, what you expect to happen next. I'm actually running a course in erotica, in erotic writing at the end of June because I hate so much erotica and I want to encourage people to write it better.

Kenrya:
Yes, that's awesome. Okay.

Erica:
So please, as you have students that go through this course and come out of the course, we are always looking for good work.

Kenrya:
Right.

Erica:
Because... By black writers.

Kenrya:
By black writers, about black people.

Leone:
Okay, yeah. I'll put it your way. In fact, I'll go and I'll sit down and have a think.

Kenrya:
Oh, thank you.

Leone:
And not a lot of people are doing it, even less people are doing it well, but I'll go and sit down and do that.

Kenrya:
Thank you. That's super helpful.

Erica:
And one of the things that I want to know about your story is that it centers the woman. So often so much of the writing is in the guy's mind about how he's pleasing a woman and it was just... Our goal with this, our ideal listener, not to say we don't want all listeners, but our ideal listener is a woman.

Kenrya:
Or fem, or anybody really that doesn't identify as a man.

Erica:
Thank you, Kenrya.

Erica:
And we want to center those type of people. We want to feel, we want to read ourselves and see ourselves reflected in the work. So often we don't. So this was just a great story all around.

Leone:
Yes.

Kenrya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Leone:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you saying so. And just for the record, in case this affected your sound, I now have a cat sitting on my bosom. Purring. So clearly she was a blessing. I don't know how that's going to mess with your recording, but she's clearly blessing your first virgin journey.

Erica:
Blessed by the pussy.

Kenrya:
I love it, and it always comes back to bosoms, so hey.

Leone:
Always comes back to pussy. If you send to the pussy, nothing will ever go wrong.

Kenrya:
You're absolutely right.

Kenrya:
I feel like we need to put that on a tee shirt.

Leone:
Please do.

Kenrya:
Absolutely.

Leone:
Please do and give me my 10%

Kenrya:
Absolutely, got it.

Kenrya:
Well, thank you so, so much for joining us.

Leone:
You're really welcome. I wish you all the luck in the world with it. You obviously sound like two gorgeous, special, thoughtful, sexy women, and I love that.

Kenrya:
Oh, yay, and we love you.

Kenrya:
Where can people find you and your work?

Leone:
They can, I supposed the easiest thing for American readers would be to look for Come Let Us Sing Anyway on Amazon, you can find it on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk or you can Google my publishers, I think this is important because they're a small indie and they need the support, and actually, I make more money if you buy it from them than Amazon. Fuck Amazon. So their name is Peepal Tree, P-E-E-P-A-L, Peepal Tree, Peepal Tree Press, and they are the biggest Caribbean and Black British publisher. So they need some bigging up, so I would just Google Peepal Tree Press.

Kenrya:
Fantastic. And you're on Instagram @leone.ross, and Twitter is @leoneross all together?

Leone:
Yep, that's me.

Kenrya:
Awesome.

Kenrya:
Y'all go follow her. We're gonna drop details to her writing in the show notes for this episode to make it that much easier, so...

Leone:
I think the other thing as well, obviously we needn't put this on the recording if you don't want to, but I think this is important for people just if they want help. I run an occasional blog called Dear Writer Girl on my website, which is leoneross.com, just that can be of help to people and it includes someone asking me about how to write erotica really well, and there's quite a long answer on that. So if people are interested in that they're welcome to go find it.

Kenrya:
Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Erica:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Leone:
Thank you so much for your time. I'm so glad you asked me to do it.

Kenrya:
This was lovely.

Kenrya:
This episode was produced by us, Erica and Kenrya, and edited by B'lystic. The theme song is from Brazy. Every five-star review that you post on Apple Podcast between now and July 31st, 2019 will be entered into a raffle to win a copy of one of the books that we read on the show. We need your help! We're giving away five books. You just need to post your review, and then email a screenshot of it to theturnonpodcast@gmail.com to enter. And please take a minute to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app, follow us on Twitter @theturnonpod, Instagram @theturnonpodcast, and find links to books, transcripts, guest info, and other dope shit at the turnonpodcast.com.

Kenrya:
Peace.

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Season 5 | Double Dippin' | S1, E1.5 | The Turn On x Leone Ross

Episode 1.5 | The Turn On x Leone Ross

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