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D.V. Sadero was born and raised in Los Angeles, went north to Cal Berkeley and never looked back. He has been living in San Francisco for a number of years.  Sadero  is the author of Revolt of the Naked, originally released by BadBoy Books and now again in paperback.  He is also the author of In The Alley.  D.V. has worked as a lifeguard as well as a private investigator.  He has said a lot of his fiction comes from asking half-drunk men in bars about the weirdest sex they’ve ever had.

Hi, D.V.  I don’t have any vodka to ply you with, but without incriminating yourself, could you either tell us about the weirdest sex you’ve ever had or, so as not to put you on the spot, tell us some of the weirder things the guys from the bars described?  

The weirdest sex I ever had was when I picked up a guy up in a San Francisco Tenderloin bar because he looked so out of place there. He was about 30, nice waspy features, and came on like a well bred graduate of like Harvard or Princeton, in his button-down shirt and Dockers. What did he come to this dump for? Something heavy-duty, I figured. Well, curiosity, often enough, is the beginning of a turn-on. 

I chatted him up, and he, giving me no idea of what he was into, suggested we go to his room. Much to my surprise the guy led me to one of the many crummy hotels in the area. I’d been expecting us to end up at one of the nice ones a few blocks in the other direction. 

Inside his depressing room I saw no equipment or clothing to indicate just what his interests might be. 

Bed proceeded kind of the usual. I’d made it clear I was going to do the fucking, and he was happy with that. So there I was, between his legs and holding his arms down on the mattress, which he liked. As I moved back and forth he began talking, obsessively and without stopping. In a short while his words made me realize that he was deep into a fantasy of being fucked by Richard Nixon. The guy encouraged me to fuck him harder, harder. I did, being in a real hurry to pop and split. 

Guess I don’t need to mention that I had (and have) zero resemblance to that then ex-president.  So... that's the weirdest sex I’ve ever had, and about the least fulfilling. 

D.V. Sadero is a pseudonym.  Where did the name come from?  What does D.V. stand for?  

A Spanish word, name of a street in San Francisco, Divisadero. I like the initials and that, to me, "Sadero" sounds vaguely sinister, nonspecifically foreign. And it’s also a quiet little homage to a guy who lived on that street for many years and was the greatest oral artist in the Bay Area.

Could you in general tell us how far off (or how close) television and mystery novel representations of private investigators are from reality?   What kind of situations did you actually wind up in would have made for a good book plot?   

My private investigator experience was extremely limited. I worked off and on for a one-man agency, got called in when he had cases involving gay men. He felt that was "another world". The cases mostly involved business deals gone wrong, often along with relationships turning bad. Could get really messy. TV and novels are necessarily a lot more dramatic. Much of my job consisted of following, waiting around, making notes of who came/went, and otherwise just picking up gossip by talking with guys in bars. Not exciting, never dangerous. No guns, no crime figures, though I certainly observed and recorded some really trashy, low-down behavior.  

In the society you create in Revolt of the Naked, there are no women, and bottom men are basically naked slaves treated with no small amount of disrespect.  Being the passive partner seems to be the ultimate shame and something a father prays never happens to a son.  There’s a scene where a “bad guy” gambles and, to his great shock and horror, loses his ass despite using loaded dice.  He then gets fucked for the first time which ruins his life forever since he’s now fair game to be constantly gangbanged by one and all.   Where did these ideas come from?  Do you have a theory about why many people find that dubious consent or non-consent a huge turn-on instead of a nightmare? 

Basically, on the planet Talanta a lot of the men are straight but have only other men for sex. Active is the masculine way, rough and crude are commonplace. So, to be a bottom is not so good. This situation sets up the plot for certain characters to learn some useful lessons about themselves as the story goes on, and for certain points of view to get modified. And is real handy for some sweaty, raunchy sex scenes I very much enjoyed writing. 

My own theory: Well, my notions: First, virtually all gay men are raised in straight society, and many, however wild and free and liberated as adults, carry some sense of guilt for committing “forbidden” sex acts. They don’t feel so guilty when they are forced (or “forced”) to submit to something they actually find quite pleasurable. Second, since so many of us have such a wide range and number of experiences, we explore a lot of fantasies, ours and others’. Including ones that may be minor, lurking in the shadows. A man with no real interest in submission-dominance might well give it a try now and again, when he comes on a more interested partner. Third, some of us are just programmed for sub-dom as an important factor in a sex life. A primal acting-out, I’d say, quite powerful, but can’t make a guess as to its source in the mind.

Fourthly, and this won’t be a popular view, but I believe most gay men are by nature more bottom than top. Which means that supply-and-demand can come into play. A cock-hungry bottom will do what it takes to get fucked. Which could get heavy in certain circumstances. “You want my oversized uncut, kid? Well, fer a start, why don’t yew just get on yer knees and unbutton my 501s? An’ we’ll go from there.” 

How do people treat you differently (if they do at all) when they learn you’ve written fantasies as wild as those in Revolt of the Naked?  

Occasionally a friend will tell me he really liked this scene or was really put off by that one. I smile and listen, because usually the friend is telling me more about himself than about the book. Any insight I pick up might be useful when I write my next fiction. 

After seeing that used copies of Revolt, which was a mass market paperback, were selling for $200 each, you decided to issue a new edition.  What was your experience like with re-publishing the work?  Do you have tips for other authors who might want to do the same?    

When I first published Revolt of the Naked, it was a matter of typing up the manuscript and sending it in. This experience was totally different, all so computerized, quite new and sometimes confusing. But I've had more say in the production this time around. For instance, I hated the cover on the original paperback. It was a black-and-white, generic photo of a muscled young tough on an ugly green background, nothing in it suggesting science fiction. This time a friend of mine in Mexico City, a professional illustrator, did up an appropriately weird interplanetary cover, showing a gorgeous young man with strange eyes. 

My only tip, and this is based on my experience alone, is to get it all done as fast as reasonably possible. For various reasons I had several interruptions, one running as long as two weeks, and picking up the threads every time was kind of tedious. 

What gay erotica have you enjoyed the most?   Overall, which authors or books have had the greatest impact on you?  

In gay erotica: I like the Dirk Vanden books, the I Want it All series. And Lars Eighner (BMOC and Bayou Boy). Haven’t read much in the last few years, probably all kinds of work I’d enjoy is out there.

Overall, the authors/books who’ve had the greatest impact on me are those who get closest to the nitty-gritty: Balzac (especially his famous Vautrin character, the gay, very macho master criminal and genius manipulator,) the early Robert Stone (Hall of Mirrors, Dog Soldiers), Nathanael West, Hubert Selby, Jr., and the hardboiled/noir guys, Cain, Hammett, McCoy, et al. 

What elements do you think a story (or a sex scene) needs to have for it to be successful at arousing the reader?  

I think a sex scene has to have feelings going between (or among) the participants. Feelings besides lust. If it's just some bods slapping together, who cares? But if one guy, for instance, hates the other, or wants to dominate/take over/enslave the other, or adores/worships the other, or is inexperienced, confused, a little afraid of what's to come, and if the other is having his own set of feelings for his sex partner, then you get real people having real sex. 

What genres besides erotica do you enjoy writing? What do you see yourself working on in the future? 

I keep a daily diary, have since age 15. Not sure why, but I can’t stop now. Hardly literature. 

Future writing: Considering some ideas for a sequel to Revolt, but we’ll see how well the new edition sells. Have a lot of erotic short stories, published and not, but I keep hearing that they don’t sell all that well these days. And, um, on one level writing is w-o-r-k, and I do like to get paid. 

Thanks very much, D.V.!

Thank you!

For more information about D.V. Sadero and his books see:  

http://www.amazon.com/Revolt-Naked-D-V-Sadero/dp/1563332612