DE: Although I do kind of like the cinema verite aspects of people making their own. The results aren’t necessarily great art, but when you have a whole population of people trying to figure out how to document sex, how to communicate eroticism, it’s really fascinating stuff.

AK: Changing topics a little bit, The New York Times Magazine recently published an article titled “The Egalitarian Marriage Conundrum,” which posed the question “Does an increase in marital satisfaction lead to a decrease in sexual satisfaction?” Do you have a response to that? Can you comment on how marriage is changing as feminism advances?

DE: Well, we live in a culture, which, for the past two hundred and fifty, three hundred years, has been suppressing sexuality very much. We have lived in a culture that has said pleasure is not important. Nobody ever talks about it; pleasure doesn’t count. I don’t think egalitarian marriage or not makes that much difference.

AK: You and Janet Hardy have written a number of books together; I’m wondering what it’s like working with a co-author, and especially a co-author you’re involved with.

DE: Well, we still wrote most of these things alone. Periodically we’ve gone and rented a cabin somewhere, for a long weekend or such, to finish up a book or to get through the hard parts. When we were in the middle of writing a book we would meet for lunch at the same sushi place every week. If we came in and something had happened, or we got stuck, or we didn’t get anything done, we would just talk about it and get each other’s ideas. Then we would look at what was coming up next and say, okay, you write this chapter, I’ll write that chapter, or section, or part, or whatever. Then we would bring them back and discuss them.