Seeking Same: Helen Razer

In her latest book, The Helen 100, writer and humorist Helen Razer chronicles the sudden, life-shattering evaporation of her 15 year relationship. This grief (and a subsequent dare from her beauty therapist) prompted her to go on 100 dates over a year – in search of renewal, distraction and good old-fashioned porking.

McCann and Razer in conversation

For no one, least of all a writer in the business of cranky analysis, is dating straightforward. Razer found that in writing and representing herself, whether online or face-to-face with others, the limits of identity tended to shift – often rather nastily. In her own case, she learned that exiting a same-sex relationship came with particular instability; lesbians, she found, were ‘supposed to stay together forever and provide an inspiring liberal example to others.’

In an energetic and hilarious conversation with sex and gender researcher Hannah McCann, Razer talks about what she discovered about queer identity, profound affect and our broad social values about dating, power and desperation.