First, Antonia Crane interviews Jill Soloway, writer, producer, and director, about her film Afternoon Delight, which earned her the US Dramatic Directing Award at Sundance.

Then, a short story by Tom Kealey about the strange, imaginative love between a brother and a sister. A preview:

They had a rubber ball, the size of a tennis ball but bright red, that they played a game with, sometimes down an empty aisle and sometimes in the parking lot. There were rules involved in the game, it was clear to the manager the times he watched them: the number of bounces, the left or right hand that they sometimes grabbed with, sometimes slapped back. Often enough, they simply rolled the ball to each other, set it to strange spins, and after, they would hold up fingers – between two and five, he could never predict. When he asked the girl about the rules, she simply blushed and looked at the floor, like she’d been caught stealing something.

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Like all of Soloway’s projects, Afternoon Delight is sexy and playful, femme and feral, provocative and intimate. Radically intimate. Steve Almond used the term “radical intimacy” when he referred to Cheryl Strayed’s column “Dear Sugar” because of the way she answered her readers with the most wise, sincere and personal answers as if her naked quivering heart was flopping for all to see. Since that epic Valentine’s Day, which was Sugar’s coming out party, I’ve been searching for signs of radical intimacy everywhere.

Afternoon Delight is a side splitter but it’s not clever for the sake of being clever. Nor is it boundary busting for the sake of being subversive. Afternoon Delight peels the skin back on our intimate relationships by giving the audience a peek at what happens when a fine life, husband, kids, a dog and minivan are not enough. Time for a lap dance, right?

That’s when Afternoon Delight protagonist, Rachel takes an all access pass to a world dominated by men, forbidden sex, teasing and raw sensuality. When Rachel breaks the male frontier and penetrates, she longs to find what she’s been missing out on: sensuality, horniness, empathy and radical intimacy.

I spoke with Jill about radical intimacy, breaking boundaries and feminine wholeness, meaning, this idea that women are encouraged to split themselves off from sexuality when they have kids. They aren’t allowed to be sexual at the same time that they are mothers. Her characters all have a really sexy feminine side, even Jeff, the App-y husband who is more interested in his phone than his wife — has a feminine side. I was struck by how much femme was packed into all of the characters and how three dimensional they all were, especially McKenna. Where most films about sex workers punish or glorify them, Soloway shows a sex worker who is both innocent and savvy. McKenna and Rachel are neither degraded nor idealized. They are whole women trying to find their naked quivering hearts.

 ***

The Rumpus: You have tapped the g-spot of why men go to strip bars in the first place. They want those same things that Rachel longs for in the film.

Soloway: Yes. So often we have the story of the man who goes off and disappears into a strip club or to his porn cave, chasing the dark mistress. But in Afternoon Delight, Rachel gets to do it. Rachel enters the man-only daytime distraction space while everyone else is at work or at school. She enters the secret lying space of lunch hour porn. Rachel dares to explore the world and then participate in it.

The Rumpus: In that context, what strippers offer is lack of accountability. The boundaries get them in the door.

Soloway: But breaking the boundaries is the real turn on, I believe.

The Rumpus: Another boundary you busted was the way that our culture divides female identity. Women are often viewed in  a limited and constricting way. They are separated into compartments: mother/daughter or slut/princess.

Rachel is a mother who is cut off from her sexuality and humored by her work-a-holic hubby. He barely sees her. She becomes obsessed with this idea of eyes open sex– profound intimacy and expectations. In contrast, McKenna is sensuality personified. These layered identities dance together in the film and sometimes it gets messy.

Soloway: I think the average man is very comfortable to say all my ho’s over here, the bad girls, the booty calls, porn stars, bad girls, the girls I think about all day and get me hard. Then over here are the other women: mothers, cooks, sisters and daughters. This movie is a tango between all of those women trading places and dancing together. McKenna wants to be a daughter. But she also wants to be a mom to Rachel. Rachel wants to sink into an awkward adolescence.

Early on, people told me, “This movie can either be about mothering or sex, it’s too confusing to be both. “ I told them, “It has to be about both or it won’t work.” I honestly think this movie is about the notion that inside every woman, is many women.

The Rumpus: I loved how you allowed the desire in the room to get very uncomfortable in many scenes and stay that way. For instance, Rachel’s friends in the movie are the women whom strip club customers marry: cute, crafty, nice, devoted moms who seem sexually reserved and have expensive hair. They are tight knit and sororal—like a coven. In the film, on poker night, when all hell breaks loose, the friends talk about sex and consent and abortion — universal and horrible moments that have everything to do with being a sexual woman.

Soloway: They get drunk and boundaries are crossed and the women get heated and angry with red teeth from the wine and it’s kind of witchy and fantastic.

There was a scene in the script where the moon was full and Rachel and McKenna both had their periods and kissed while reaching for a tampon, but it was too much for the final film to hold.  This was meant to be a metaphor where they handed back one another’s identities. But it just tilted the movie too much toward a literal love story between the women.

The Rumpus: Even the men in the film are subversive. They are atypical personalities. The men in Afternoon Delight are not irrelevant jobless man-babies, arrogant hipsters nor hostile, unavailable neurotics.

Soloway: The main character, Jeff, is patient and he doesn’t punish her or act out. He leaves but it’s not the typical masculine story. He takes space and is good at taking that space. He realizes the idea of “happy wife, happy life” that so many men parrot is a cop-out. He wonders, “Is she really happy? What is making her happy? Is it good for the marriage?”

The Rumpus: One more uncomfortable boundary you crossed was the issue of profound and difficult intimacy. Like what happens after you fall in love, marry and have some kids and have this neat life? How do you pee in front of that person every day and continue to get deeper and closer with that person without totally sabotaging it, cheating or killing the person? How do you accept a love so profound and continue to grow the relationship, allowing it to grow? You address this radical intimacy inAfternoon Delight in a way that I’ve not seen before.

Soloway: You feel a deep love with someone, you make a baby, you make a family, and then you want your sex to catch up to that depth. It’s true that it’s a boundary because I don’t think anyone is fully exploring that issue for couples right now in popular culture. I love treading new territory in my work so I’m happy to lead the charge if need be!

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The women:

Faith 45, mother of one, a lesbian, left L.A. for Boston about ten years ago. Her life is about comedy musical theater and teaching inner city youth, and she is writing in red font.

Jill, 44, mom of two, straight, eighteen months younger, lives in L.A. as a TV writer, and is writing in the more traditional black font.

***

Faith asks Jill

Faith: What was your real honest response when I announced my gayness?

Jill: I think I was in my early twenties. We were at Anne Sather’s restaurant on Belmont. I was eating a delicious pancake, I believe. Mom had already prepped me with, “Faith has something very important to tell you,” so I’m pretty sure I wasn’t expecting you to tell me you had lupus.

Faith: What is it you like about hetero sex?

Jill: I have a new baby so I guess the answer is nothing. Ask me what I like about sleep, and I’ll go on and on. That I’m totally naked and I love the feel of my sheets. That I just got this new body pillow that I can put between my knees and boobs at the same time. That I can do it from 8 at night until 8 in the morning and it never gets boring.

Faith: Why do you like to fem it up? Nails, waxing of brows, etc.?

Jill: I really don’t. I hate putting on makeup and looking like a lady. I always feel like I’m in drag or like I look like a real estate agent. I like doing my nails because the cute little chiclets of perfect color give me some odd feeling of control. But it has to be a non-ladylike color like green or white or pink. I couldn’t have red fingernails if you paid me. If I didn’t wax my brows I would look like dad.

Faith: Is it obvious to you that I am jealous of your creative and financial successes, or do I hide it pretty well?

Jill: Is it obvious to you that all I want is for you to move to L.A. and try making TV with me so that I can share it with you, or do I hide that pretty well?

Faith: At what age did you stop caring that you didn’t know how to ride a bike?

Jill in high school

Jill: Never. It still drives me crazy. And embarrasses me. WHY ARE YOU TELLING EVERYONE?

Faith: Did you know I feel incredibly guilty that I told you that you had a bad voice?

Jill: You should. I actually think you and dad shaming me about not being able to sing did a lot of damage to my spirit. That is, for a rich Jewish girl who didn’t have a hell of a lot go wrong in her childhood. It’s not like I was Precious or anything. I feel bad complaining.

Faith: Why do you think you’re a writer?

Jill: When I write, I lose time. I’m happy in a way that I have a hard time finding in real life. The intimacy between my brain and my fingers and my computer. . . . Yet knowing that that intimacy will find an audience . . . it’s very satisfying. It’s like having the safety of being alone with the ego reward of being known.

Faith: What was the voice that told you to follow that?

Jill: No voice really. I was always just compelled to make up stories. I did it naturally as a child. Remember how I cut people out of the catalogs and made up lives for them?

Faith: When did you know you were a good writer?

Jill: I think when I wrote “Courtney Cox’s Asshole” and two editors of two important literary magazines wanted to publish it at the same time. Until then I thought all of my talent came by way of collaboration, either with you or with our groups o’ improvisers.

Faith: Do you believe in God?

Jill: I do, actually.

Faith: Why do you think we both enjoy reality TV so much?

Jill: I think regular, written TV is boring. It’s from one person’s brain to us. One very direct and singular story. Whereas when I watch Real Housewives, I’m watching five women interact with one another unimpeded by traditional notions about the way female protagonists usually act.  Plus it’s SO REAL. The New Jersey housewives, Atlanta, it’s THEM. The fact that a segment producer has told them what to do doesn’t bother me at all. It’s like watching first-time actors improvise. They do it so badly, you can see right through it, and they don’t know how bad they are at it, and they don’t know how many layers of themselves they are inadvertently revealing, and it’s so satisfying.

Faith: In the business of TV and film, how would you describe your learning curve?

Jill: I learn every day. I constantly struggle with trying to be both powerful and effective and kind and well-liked. And spiritual! I try to let things happen, trust others, be there to witness, allow things to take their natural course. And guess what? You can get sorta fucked believing in good things like that in a business setting.

Faith: Who was your first kiss?  And where?

Jill: You!  In the bathtub.

***

Faith in high school

Jill asks Faith:

Jill: Do you think we watched too much TV?

Faith: Yes. I still fight the addiction. My daughter knows one of the reasons she likes staying with me is she watches way more TV with me. Just this morning we had the TV on in the background and were playing balloon toss. Harlie, my ex, hates television, would never have it on as ambient noise. I’m pretty proud of myself, because I have public radio’s Celtic Twilight on as I write this. But our family used used used TV like a drug. I still do and am trying to put myself through my own twelve-step program with it.

Jill: Okay, moving away from that time frame, this next chunk is just going to be about your lesbian-ness.

Faith: Lesbian Chunks? Did you really have to word it that way?

Jill: At what age did you know you were gay? We all had crushes on our girlfriends. How did you know you were different?

Faith: I think I wanted to be a boy. I rode around topless on my bike knowing that people might think I was a boy. I was always the dad when we played house. And I made out with my girlfriends in these games and couldn’t wait to. I think I knew I was gay really young. Like, ten.  But then I did move through really falling for boys. I really liked my seventh grade boyfriend Jacques Sandburg. I remember loving him. I did connect to a lot of boys and loved them.  Loved their souls.  In high school I loved Robin Brown and Chris Clemente. But in high school I also had the kind of secret pining for other girls. Never my friends, always on-sideline girls; friends of my friends. And when I was younger through high school, huge crushes on my female teachers and camp counselors. I remember a certain camp counselor at the Hyde Park JCC who actually made me feel weak.

Jill: I think I remember you characterizing your childhood as depressed because of this feeling. Is that true?

Faith: I’m sure. It added to my feeling that I couldn’t relate to the norm.

Jill: Did struggling with your sexual identity define your childhood?

Faith: I’m sitting here staring at this question because it probably does, but I don’t know what came first: my shyness, my fear, or my gayness. I knew other girls my age in high school who were out and doing their gay thing. But I had a fear of them, and of being ostracized even for admitting these feelings.

Jill and Faith, first collaboration

Jill: Did I make you a lesbian because I was so cute? Was I your first love?

Faith: Yes. You still are, and always will be.

Jill: Did we know any gay people as children?

Faith: No women that I can remember.  I think there was a Reverend at the church where we all practiced for Community Theater.  As I got older, any lesbian that I met or knew made me not want to be a lesbian.

Jill: Do you remember when I was cutting school and stalking bands? Were you worried for me?

Faith: Never worried. Again, just slightly jealous that you had these experiences. Though when I was older and we went to Jamaica, I only slept and hung out with the islanders to hang out with you. I never liked the adventure, and in fact, it scared me. It felt like none of this stuff ever scared you.

Jill: Do you believe in God?

Faith: I believe in our need as humans, to recognize that in order to help and heal, we need to look outside of ourselves and harness our goodness. But I don’t think I believe in one God-like entity.

Jill: What does the word Soloway mean to you?

Faith: I believe it is Russian for nightingale, right? Solovechik?  But I like to think of our last name as meaning the one way or our certain way of doing things. Or “the chosen.”  You pick.

**

To read the interview in its entirety, purchase many copies of Freud’s Blind Spot: 23 Original Essays on Cherished, Estranged, Lost, Hurt, Hopeful, Complicated Siblings, edited by Elisa Albert (published by Free Press).

In addition to the darling Soloway sisters, you’ll own original essays about all kinds of brothers and sisters by: Steve Almond, Daphne Beal, Nat Bennett, Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, James Cañón, T Cooper, Lauren Grodstein, Nellie Hermann, Joanna Hershon, Nalini Jones, Etgar Keret, Victor LaValle, Vestal McIntyre, Jay Baron Nicorvo, Mary Norris, Eric Orner, Peter Orner, Angela Pneuman, Margo Rabb, Edward Schwarzschild, Robert Anthony Siegel, and Rebecca Wolff.

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