The book and the film on which it's based share a tone of hipster sexual frustration metaphor in the Jay McInerney mold, here caged, as it usually is, in pumped - up bodies trying not to seem
gay so as to ease admittance into these exclusive cults of machismo and
sadomasochism.
It was also a statement to the
gay community, which Opie saw as chasing respectability at the expense of sexual radicals like her and her friends, who were avid practitioners of
sadomasochism.