SOURCE: Ortiz, Ricardo L. “Sexuality Degree Zero: Pleasure and Power in the Novels of John Rechy, Arturo Islas, and Michael Nava.” In Critical Essays: Gay and Lesbian Writers of Color, edited by Emmanuel S. Nelson, pp. 111-26. London: Haworth Press, 1993.

In the following essay, Ortiz examines the works of gay Chicano writers John Rechy, Arturo Islas, and Michael Nava in terms of how they use sexuality to create a literary voice that attests to their “doubly marginalized but defiant” status.

The writer is always on the blind spot of systems, adrift; he is the joker in the pack, a mana, a zero degree … his place, his (exchange) value, varies according to the movements of history … he is asked all and/or nothing. He himself is outside exchange, plunged into non-profit … desiring nothing but the perverse bliss of words … the writer suppresses this gratuitousness of writing … he stiffens, hardens...