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The interviewing process in Italy is very different from the United States. Jon and I got to sit in our hotel and the journalists, photographers, television, radio (with one, or two, exceptions) came to us. It reminded me of the scene in the movie Notting Hill with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, where Grant’s character pretends to be a journalist. If you haven’t seen the movie, then, sorry, but apparently bringing the media to the interviewer is the way they do it in Europe. It’s a little intimidating at first, having interviews scheduled from nine in the morning until six or six-thirty at night. A different interview every hour to half hour. I mean that was intimidating, and exhausting. But after the jet lag got better, and I learned how to work with Paolo our interpreter (he was very gentle in getting me used to the whole process)even with the packed schedule it was still less exhausting than touring the U. S. In this country they make you go to most of the interviews, rather than the other way around. And here you’re doing nightly book signings. In Italy there was the one amazing one, then we didn’t have to worry about the physical and mental marathon that is one of my book signings. I love meeting everyone, but some of you were at the six and seven hour signings we had in the States, and you know what it was like. My agent, Merrilee, has actually voiced the idea that we might do a speaking, rather than a signing tour, of the U. S. Don’t worry all you eager to get your books signed, the next mini-tour for MICAH will be our traditional method. At this point a talking tour is just that, talk.
One of the interesting things about the interviews in Italy was that answering their questions made me think about things I hadn’t before. Some of the questions were the same as in the U. S. but many were not. One of the most surprising differences between countries was the sex question. Here in the States I am still being asked why I chose to have sex on paper at all, as if there is something inherently wrong with sex, especially if a woman is having it. (I strongly disagree with both those attitudes. Sex is a wonderful gift, and if it is wrong then it should be equally wrong for both men and women, not that old double standard.) In Italy, I had more than one interviewer say that Anita was not a very modern woman because she waited so long to have sex with anyone. Others asked why had I waited so long? Why hadn’t she just had sex right away with Richard, or Jean-Claude, or somebody? Why wait? I couldn’t really answer the question except to say, it never occurred to me to have sex sooner on paper. I tried to avoid it all together. Honest. I then explained to the Italian journalists how different their question was from the American counterparts. They were very puzzled why Americans had so much trouble with the sex in my books, or sex in general. I was left trying to explain the American attitude towards sex. I mean, sex is everywhere in this country. We use it to sell almost everything. It’s in our programs, our music, and yet, we still are very uncomfortable with sex. There is still a strong feeling that it’s wrong, and it’s still especially wrong for a woman to be having sex, and enjoying it. I did get a couple of the journalists to admit that the attitude that if a man has sex he’s a stud, and if a woman has sex she’s a slut, is still alive in their country, too. But sex is still more okay there, than here. It was kind of interesting after defending my honor over here, to be explaining my prudery over there. Interesting, huh?