He's been talking to OutUK's Mike Gray about his Sex Talk column and his first solo collection of stories Hotter Than Hell published by Alyson Books.

OutUK: Does anything surprise you anymore?
Simon: There are things that still amuse me. Actually I have to tell you that I'm a fairly decadent old man and there's very few things sexually that I have curiousity about that I haven't satisfied in one way or another in the flesh. The column up on OutUK at the moment on Gunge - guys who like to be spattered with food - I did not previously know about until I was contacted by a reader in New York. I did not know how extensive that stuff was. He sent me a number of pictures of him spattered with chocolate syrup, styrofoam peanuts and one with his arse with raw eggs over it. I was a little taken aback by that! I love the intensity of people's fetishes and every once in a while I do get surprised by the commitment that people have to one variant or another of their sexuality.

OutUK: Do you ever make fetishes up just to fill a column?
Simon: I don't make it up. No.
OutUK: Is there a little artistic licence?
Simon: There sometimes is, in a way, because some of the quotes are based on conversations I've had with people, and unlike this conversation those don't get tape recorded. But no indeed those people are not invented, though sometimes, of necessity, their quotes are accurate-as-possible synopses rather than exact quotes. Often, if there's someone that I'm quoting that I'm in continuing contact with, for instance the guy I quote at length in the forthcoming Long Hair column, I will send them the completed column and get feedback from them, even though they're not identified by name, to make sure they're not misrepresented.

OutUK: Tell me about your new book Hotter Than Hell...
Simon: It's a couple of dozen of what I think are the best pieces I've written. I've been writing gay smut for about 8 years now. My publisher Alyson and I decided it was time to do a one man collection. I write fairly varied kind of things, as you know I've co-edited Rough Stuff a book about power based sex..not necessarily S&M, but the intersection of sexuality and power which fascinates me. I purposely did not include some of my hardest core S&M stories in Hotter Than Hell, however it's really a broad cross-section of queer sexuality. I love telling stories and I love the possibilities that are there in writing intelligent but hot erotica.

OutUK: Do you ever get bored with writing about sex..do you ever yearn to write say a comic novel?
Simon: You mean the comedian who wants to play Shakespeare. No. Actually you know that's a very interesting question. I'm reminded of Annie Sprinkle an ex-porn star turned sexual healer.. I once heard her say People ask why I write about sex. I just say I can't imagine being interested in writing about anything else. The deepest level of desire really interests me. I don't even necessarily have to have explicit sex in the story for it to work. I feel I'm very committed to queer sex. I believe in the power of queer sexuality a lot and I feel like that at this point in literary history this particular genre has not been fully explored yet. It's what it must have been like writing detective novels in the 1920s when people weren't writing like Agatha Christie but she was writing and setting some of the parameters, or the 40s when Raymond Chandler was doing something that hadn't been done before.

OutUK: What do you think makes a good erotic story?
Simon: I'm fascinated by desire for one thing, far more than I'm fascinated by plumbing. So the mental aspects of sex, of need and wanting, fulfillment and frustration, those are things that make up a hot story. I try and go beyond the cliches. I try and keep things pretty smart while not getting so abstract or so pretentious that people can't actually jack off to the stories.

It's possible to talk about serious and meaningful things in ways that make guys wanna jack off. It's like you can do very serious themes in comedy or very interesting things with mysteries. I think in the erotica genre in the last ten years there's been an opening out of that kind of writing so you can address all sorts of things. So I have this weird selection of stories which range from a post- World War One story about a guy finding himself in Morocco in a search for the Magicians of of Fez, which is a sort of magical-realist coming out story, to a foot-fetish story in the office of a right-wing U. S. senator, to a pastiche of Kafka's Metamorphosis, a story in which a guy wakes up to find he's become a giant penis. The title story Hotter Than Hell takes place in the 50s in the American South and is about a Korean war veteran coming back to his family.

It all sounds like it's pretty rough going but I hope that readers find it entertaining and sexually arousing and either helps people find themselves or broaden their horizons or at least gives them something to beat off to before they go to bed.

Simon is the co-editor of Rough Stuff: Tales of Gay Men, Sex, and Power (Alyson Books) available from Amazon at £7.99. His latest collection of gay erotica Hotter Than Hell is published soon but can be pre-ordered now from Amazon at 20% off. His regular column Sex Talk can be found each week in Outspoken.