A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Sex Party

“I’ve had most of the 20 odd short stories inside me for years and every now and then they’d put pressure on my creative colon and beg to be released..”

After decades spent on the fringes of politics, publishing and Australia’s sex industry, Robbie Swan finally tells the stories he could never quite leave behind.

Part memoir and part social history A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Sex Party is a collection of short stories drawing on Swan’s 25 years as a magazine editor and parliamentary lobbyist for the adult industry, a world where censorship battles, moral crusades, unlikely friendships and political absurdities collide daily. In the book, he reveals the human side of an often-misunderstood industry: the humour, the resilience and the strange, sometimes surreal encounters that shaped a generation of activists and outsiders.

Spanning half a century and bookended by the creation of the Australian Sex Party with his partner, trailblazing MP Fiona Patten these stories chart how a life spent challenging taboos and fighting hypocrisy ultimately helped reshape public debate and law reform.

Wry, candid and funny, this is a behind-the-scenes look at the remarkable profiles of people behind the intersection of sex, politics and power.