Sluts, Freaks, and Sinners: An Interview With Writers R.O. Kwon and Amanda Montell

The co-editor of Kink and the author of Cultish discuss what “cults” and kink have in common (and more).

As someone who exclusively writes books on topics that tend to make people squirm — sex, feminism, religion, and cults — sometimes I wonder why I can’t be one of those nice wholesome authors who write nice wholesome novels that wind up getting turned into Lifetime movies. Then I’ll talk to an author like R.O. Kwon, and I’m reminded that, for me, it’s so much better (or at least more interesting) to be a bit of a freak.

Kwon, whose first book, The Incendiaries (2018), was a dazzling debut novel about a violent cult and whose second book, Kink (2021), is a new fiction anthology about exactly what it sounds like, is afflicted by the same impish curiosity that prompted me to write my books Wordslut (2019) and Cultish (2021): we’re into society’s fringes. We come to these topics from different perspectives: Kwon grew up in a religious Korean household on the West Coast, where she wasn’t even allowed to go to sleepovers; I grew up the daughter of staunch atheist scientists on the East Coast, where I wouldn’t have been allowed to believe in God, even if I’d wanted to. The similarity is that, to our good fortune, our very different families allowed us to let our freak flag fly… as long…