RIP Sebastian Horsley – a rather telling incident remembered

I replaced ‘very’ with ‘rather’, up there in the title. It seemed more fitting.

I was very sad to hear of the death of Sebastian Horsley last week. I knew him only slightly, having met him a couple of years ago, but I went to the launch of Tim Fountain‘s lively and very entertaining stage production of his memoir, Dandy In The Underworld at the Soho Theatre last week, and so saw him only the day before he died. The party was so crowded that I hadn’t even got round to saying hello, when suddenly the place – the gorgeous Quintessentially Soho – seemed to empty and he and all the lovely people were gone. I had been admiring his blue velvet suit, which I preferred to the red one he wore later, and I very much regret saving my hello for last. Perhaps it was shyness.

Anyway, *wavy lines; dissolving xylophone*.

Two years ago I was on the judging committee for the Erotic Awards, a wonderfully chaotic annual giving of giant golden penis trophies to a truly diverse range of erotic/adult acts; everything from websites, strippers and sex workers, to artists, writers and campaigners. The accompanying annual ball has been described by bestselling erotic author Suzanne Portnoy as ‘The Glastonbury of Sex,’ and the doughty folk who support and run it as ‘The good people in a gloriously mucky business’ by artist Grayson Perry.

As I remember, we all, or at least the vast majority of us, loved Dandy In The Underworld, and felt it had to win something, so we gave him publication of the year. [Incidentally, writer of the year went to the wondrous James Lear for his Mensa-level gay erotica, which itself pipped another excellent book, Daddy's Girl, by Stella Black, to the post. 2008 was an exceptionally good year for books. Bafflingly, though, the 2008 winners seem to be missing from their website.] I loved Sebastian’s book, despite it needing an editor for the excess of – cough, at times borrowed – aphorisms. That didn’t matter – it had a really compulsive energy to it.

Cut to the launch of the awards exhibition, where finalists’ work was shown for the week or two up to the ball. I found a gallery in Redchurch Street in Hoxton, which seemed ok and a decent enough space. These gatherings were always fun, with a stripper or two and a few fetish types all dressed up. Someone read from a spanking memoir, Dances with Werewolves, while the author, Nikki Flynn, was spanked. Then it was Sebastian’s turn. He turned up, as I remember, in the red suit, with the giant hat almost touching the ceiling, and read from his book. There was quite a crowd squashed in there. With a flourish, he began to read.

He read about sex with amputees. Sex with senior citizens. Sex with ethnic minorities. I think he covered just about every group save children and animals, and even then, from memory, I can’t be sure. But, guess what? The only people in that whole crowded sweaty room who were laughing were me, and Tuppy Owens, the organiser. Otherwise, you could have heard a pin drop. The room was silent as the grave, save for the air con and the drinkers outside.

Not surprised? Hold on a minute. His reading may have been wildly un-PC, but the crowd consisted of people who attend sexual freedom meetings and assert their right to do all sorts of unusual things to each other, using all sorts of implements, and sometimes in public. Despite this alleged subversiveness, not one of them could see the humour, or the irony, in what Sebastian was saying. There was a tiny bit of huffing at a couple of the fruitiest points, but neither did any of these iconoclasts actually take him to task or even dare to boo him.

He had them fair and square. I suddenly felt deeply embarrassed. What on earth were these people claiming to be, that their edifice could be cracked so easily? ‘Call yourselves swingers?!’ I wanted to shout. I winced inwardly. I exchanged a handful of emails with Sebastian, (in which, on sad re-reading, I found myself becoming increasingly arch, for some reason), and I ran into him again at the ball. He seemed extremely nice and kind, and despite his merry use of industrial swearwords, of which I approve, very non-judgemental.

Sebastian had the last laugh that night, but now he has left many bereft. I only wish I’d got to know him better.