If there was any doubt about the need for intelligent writing on sex, international relations, and that current political catch-phrase – globalisation – look no further than last month’s United Nations General Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS. Convened by the Secretary-General, the session ground to a halt as Syria, Egypt, and Malaysia objected to the observer status of the San Francisco-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Forced to a vote, thirty countries abstained, including China and Russia.

More disturbing was the watering down of the final declaration. At the behest of the Vatican and a number of Islamic countries, out went the specific recognition of men who have sex with men, prostitutes, and intravenous drug users. You can see the reasoning here. Recognition of these groups in a United Nations forum would grant them some legitimacy, which institutions like the Roman Catholic Church bitterly oppose. While the Vatican opposes homosexuality, other nations refuse to even acknowledge its existence. For them, homosexuality, prostitution, and drug use are the exports of a permissive West, at odds with local tradition and culture. Such ‘traditional’ attitudes promote unlikely international alliances. The Bush administration, in deference to its domestic supporters on the religious right, quietly supported the watering down of the communiqué.

Global Sex enters into this complex brew of politics, prejudice, appeals to local tradition and the rhetoric of globalisation. Dennis Altman has been writing on globalisation for the past decade, primarily through his work on international HIV/AIDS politics and the global gay/lesbian movement. Ever the public intellectual, he wrote an opinion piece on the UN special session for The Australian urging governments to address, not ignore, the behaviours that lead to the spread of HIV. But Altman casts his net widely, beyond AIDS and homosexuality, to sketch out a theory of the connections between sexuality, political economy and international relations. It’s a big ask – an unfashionably modern task, perhaps – and I suspect that Global Sex will garner as many brickbats as plaudits.

Attending a poetry festival is not normally considered a life-threatening event (not even if you are prone to deep vein thrombosis from constant sitting) but when I told my family I was going to Struga, I was greeted by worried looks and expressions of deep concern. Struga is in the Republic of Macedonia. Just days before, Macedonian hotheads had set fire to a mosque in Prilip (not that far from Struga) in revenge for the death of a Prilip policeman in a road-mine explosion planted by Albanian terrorists. The hair-trigger tensions in that country were clearly dangerous, and possibly escalating.

Travelling to the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference on the morning tram, I marvel at Melbourne’s sophistication and self-regard. In Swanston Street, new sculptures honour John Brack’s satire of Melbourne’s regimented workers, while in front of the State Library there’s a classical portal half buried in the pavement, as if the ancient world lies below. At the Trades Hall in Carlton, the framed wall directory is ‘Heritage Only’, so I follow the photocopied paper arrows to the conference venue. There’s more historical self-consciousness here than in the new National Museum in Canberra. Banners assert the importance of eight hours’ work, recreation and rest, and there is a massive socialist realist representation of good Australian workers toiling to keep the country alive. We’re in the sacred place of the Left: Frank Hardy, Stephen Murray-Smith, Judah Waten surely haunt us here.

The politics of the Australian literary world, however, have moved on. Even feminism has given way to the values of post-colonialism and a continuing anxiety about the literary academic’s relationship to Aboriginal reconciliation. Some of the liveliest papers address Australia’s relationship to Asia and the place of Asian-Australian culture, with ‘hybridity’ and ‘diaspora’ keywords in the discussion. Throughout the conference, Asian visitors ask punchy questions that reveal how much we take for granted about our conference culture.

Samuel Johnson once wilfully said, ‘Sir, we know our will is free, and there’s an end on’t.’ One can understand Johnson’s sentiment. Talk about will can be interminable. If we feel our will to be free, does it matter if it really is? Right now, I’m willing myself to write this review, instead of having dessert or watching Big Brother (‘Will to Power in Big Brother: Or, Are You Smirking at Me?’ would make an interesting paper). But my will is weak. I’ve just returned from making a cup of tea. Writers – like everybody else – are notoriously good at finding distractions. But what does it mean to say that my will is ‘weak’? How much am I willing my writing of this review, and how much am I forced to write it? Is writing determined by economics (need for money), psychology (desire to see one’s name in print), or class (aspirations learned through upbringing and education)? And yet I’m free, am I not, to pass my own judgment on the book? Sooner or later, we give up and go to the pub with Dr Johnson.