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We still haven’t finished all the champagne from our PEN Literary Awards celebration, but yesterday Guernica received more good news: Tim Elhajj’s essay, “An Unfortunate Discharge,” featured last August in our magazine, has been selected for Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today’s Sexual Culture from Cleis press, edited by Susie Bright and Rachel Kramer Bussel.

Elhajj’s essay, detailing the writer’s brief sojourn in the Navy, is both surprising and intimate right from its opening line, “My first year in the United States Navy, I let another boy give me a blow job.” Within that hazy void of anxiety and discomfort magic happens.

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  An Unfortunate Discharge: When he was young and looking for a little direction, our writer turned to the Navy. There, he found many more questions than answers. More
 
  My First Time, Twice: Ariel Levy on the rush to lose her virginity at fourteen. More
     
  Early Sexual Experiences: Clancy Martin recollects. More
 
  Memoir Manifesto: Deb Olin Unferth offers insights into the art of the memoir and introduces the present and future stars of the genre. More

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