From the Inside of the Edge
I want to know you. I want to lose myself here.
The experience of craving touch while being denied it is one queer men know intimately. Not familial hugs or friendly pats, but the touch of someone who longs to lose themselves in the landscape of your skin, to know you through closeness. This period of self-denial, however long it lasts, is a touchstone of both our queer and masculine identities. It feels fitting, then, that my monograph From the Inside of the Edge was conceived in a year when all of society was told to keep physically apart.
Gay boys become men carrying confusion, shame, and loneliness, malignant companions born from the yearning for forbidden touch. Some wrestle with these throughout their lives; others, in allowing themselves to simply be, find trepidatious freedom and euphoric release. Through this embrace, hope and love can live..
From the Inside of the Edge explores queer men’s emerging desires and their struggle with guilt, offering the understanding that for some, a touch is more than skin on skin but is the realisation of self.
