The political bug has bitten Playboy.com’s Scott Stealey, and rather than go to some boring rally, he’s been reading. Here is his interview with Stephen Elliott, author of Sex For America:

After campaigning for John Kerry in 2004. novelist Stephen Elliott wrote a memoir called Looking Forward To It: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About It and Love the American Electoral Process. In honor of this political season, he has collected an anthology of erotica stories, Sex For America, that all carry a political message or slant to their climaxes. The book features popular fiction writers, journalists, and sex workers taking an engaging look at the intersection of sex and politics, and in the process showing how fantasies can borrow from both Machiavelli and De Sade. We caught up with Elliott to ask him a bit more about the book, and how exactly the Bush Administration bears resemblance to a dominatrix.

PLAYBOY: What can "politically inspired erotica" tell us that political reporting can't?

ELLIOTT: Fiction can always go places where non-fiction can't. You can explore things in stories, take events to their logical conclusions, and evaluate the conclusions. Politics is sexy. Every election cycle there's all these marriages broken up on the campaign trail. Because people in politics are very passionate about their beliefs. I've heard it referred to as "mactivism". Volunteering for a campaign has to be the easiest way to meet a lover.

ELLIOTT: Well, in California, the most important political issue is rent control, which some extremely evil people snuck onto the June 3 ballot as a proposition disguised as eminent domain reform. But in the presidential election the most important issue has to be the war in Iraq. We've already put half a trillion dollars into that war, every dollar wasted. For that money we could free healthcare and free college tuition. It's the biggest mistake of my generation. I'm pretty sure we've never wasted as much on anything else. It would be very hard, maybe impossible, to vote for someone who participated in that mistake by authorizing the war.

PLAYBOY: Pollster Frank Luntz recently did a comparative sex survey for the February issue of PLAYBOY. Among other things, his numbers noted that Republicans aren't as sexually conservative as some Democrats would like to believe. What have you noticed about the differences in sexual attitudes between political parties? Did Luntz miss something?

ELLIOTT: I've spoken with some sex workers about this during the Republican convention. They said Republicans were more into shame. The dominatrixes said they noticed a spike in requests for verbal humiliation and anal sex. I'm sure there's ways in which Republicans aren't as sexually conservative as we think. At the same time, I think of people like Mark Foley. He was so repressed about his sexuality that he victimized these congressional page boys. It would have been so easy for him to have a boyfriend dress up as a schoolboy and bend over the desk for a spanking. If he was open he could have lived his fantasies. I think because Republicans are less public, less open about their sexuality, they're more likely to be sexual predators.

It's a great poll, fascinating. Kinky people are clearly under-represented. Something like 10 percent of the population engage in "kinky" sex. But you can't get everything every time. More obvious is that the poll doesn't deal with gay-lesbian or transgender. But I love all the information about the sex habits of Republicans vs. Democrats. It's very interesting to read that Republicans are "more likely to pay for it."

PLAYBOY: A few of the stories in the anthology are set in a bleak future for sex, sort of like the Vonnegut story "Welcome to the Monkey House." In your opinion, do you think the future holds more or less sexual freedom for citizens?

ELLIOTT: That's an interesting question. In Muslim countries these past fifty years, I've been told, we've seen less sexual freedom with the rise of fundamentalism. America seems very divided on this topic right now. At the same time, with all this access to the internet, I think we're going to see a liberalizing of our views toward sex. But there will be battles between the states on this issue.

PLAYBOY: Do you think there's something inherently political about sex stories?

ELLIOTT: Sex is inherently political. It's about personal freedom versus government legislating morality. It's about what we do with our bodies. There are 11 FBI agents in the obscenity squad. There is no Osama bin-Laden unit in any intelligence agency. The Bush administration is obviously more concerned in tracking down perverts than terrorists.

PLAYBOY: One metaphor I noticed at least twice in the book is one of the current administration as a dominatrix. Can you elaborate on why an S&M metaphor is appropriate for it?

ELLIOTT: That's funny. In S&M, which I am a practitioner, we often eroticize evil. Not always, but sometimes. I remember Condi Rice in that sexy dress and dominatrix boots. I thought she looked so hot. I definitely fantasize about Republican women that I've met on the campaign trail. In regards to this administration what we're looking at, if you read George Lakeoff, is the "stern father model" of government. So you have this angry parent in the White House. And of course, we're practicing torture. Though it's not consensual, not safe, and not OK. The whole things just tragic, actually.