In Gay Sex, Charlie Lou Evans explodes the boundaries of body, gender, and desire in a debut chapbook that is as unflinching as it is tender. These poems move through the aftermath of trauma and the ongoing process of self-making, tracing a journey from violation and fragmentation toward reclamation, pleasure, and chosen becoming.

Evans writes a body into existence-again and again-through surreal transformations, erotic imagination, and intimate encounters that blur the lines between self and other. Sex becomes not just an act, but a language: a way to unlearn harm, to rewire memory, and to imagine new forms of embodiment beyond the constraints of gender binaries and expectation.

Across these poems, lovers become mirrors, collaborators, and witnesses. Queer intimacy offers both risk and refuge, allowing the speaker to untangle inherited violence and rediscover softness, connection, and agency. Even in its most visceral moments, Gay Sex is driven by a deep yearning for recognition-for a self that is not imposed, but chosen.