Angels Hiding in Darkness…
Angels Hiding in Darkness…
-OR-
Random thoughts as I write volume 2 of my Angels of Mercy series. Establishing my angelic boys in the world I’ve built for them. Pondering what it means and why these things and man on man sex matter as I continue this journey.
I know my journey is different from other authors. I know that many won’t get what I am on about. But you see, I have this need to write from somewhere deep in my gut – yeah, not so different from any other author, right? So what’s the diff?
Simple: My success at it has very little to do with it’s marketability. If it succeeds on that front, all the better. But it is NEVER going to be a requirement. My stuff may never sell. So not the point for me.
I write because these are stories I want to write. These are stories that matter deeply to me – they are my worlds, they are my characters and they are unapologetically who they are. Again, I get that many authors take this stand.
But my boys are a hot mess – and I have little interest in holding to the m/m romance genre as it stands currently. And they are a product of this internet rife with porn age. They are products of the social media world where a sixteen year old boy can have more followers on Twitter than Justin Bieber (and there is such a boy). Internet celebrity, while I rail against celebrity for celebrities sake, is fascinating to me. Surely they are filling a void that the regular media channels don’t fulfill.
So my boys have to deal with that.
Most of the M/M genre doesn’t play with that. Most of them write using formulas and stoic writing narratives that unless the writing is uber crisp and engaging I just yawn and take a pass. The implied rules are that whatever theme is prevalent in the genre is what everyone is writing about. Shape shifters, vampires, etc. They’re all in the mix because it’s simply not enough to write about young men who are coming out their confusing teen years and find the wherewithal to establish themselves as confident in their sexuality. To embrace it whole heartedly. To even revel in the messiness that boys often get into and not bat an eye whilst doing it.
It comes down to this for me. I want to give back. When I was sixteen I found my way into a Walden’s Bookstore (remember them?). Or sometimes it was a B. Dalton – another one that has long since bit the dust. Anyway, there I was – fully cognizant that I was a gay boy struggling to figure out not only how I was going to work my way into the big gay world I just knew was out there, but I was in desperate need of a primer. I needed a gay daddy figure to show me the ropes.
Head out of the gutter now, we’re not discussing BDSM (though I have no judgments for those that do partake of that scene – even I can see the sexiness in it). No, what I am talking about was some real honest man on man instruction guide on how things were going to go for me. What was out there.
So yeah, there I was at 16 and knowing what I was but having not a single clue about how to go about it. The upshot? I could drive and I had a part-tine job which meant money in my pocket.
Then something magical and mysterious happened: I found a book.
City of Night by John Rechy.
John Rechy circa the late 1970’s.
This book gave me exactly what a 16 year old (hormonally charged) gay boy wanted. I wanted a primer on what was out there. I mean, I loved my parents and they were great. Never once did I ever feel like my home life was ever in question. I had the unconditional love – that part was secure. Just not a road map of where I could go with the whole thing. Remember, this was way before the internet and online porn sites aplenty that permeate every corner of our media and information laden lives.
But back then – this was all I had. It was gritty, it was dark and deeply hormonal. It spoke about the emotions and urges I was going through that I couldn’t talk to anyone about. I mean, it’s one thing if your a straight boy and wanna talk about boning some chick you think is hot. Imagine having that exact same conversation and your buddy tells you he thinks he could so get into boning Susie Whats-her-name and looks to you and all you have to say is, “Yeah? I’d so rather be popping one up your ass or down your throat, but hey, that’s just me.”
So wouldn’t go over very well, no matter how much hotness cred you were trying to give your best bud that you thought his ass and cock you spotted in gym had your blood boiling.
So yeah, I only had John Rechy in my court. But what an ally. His world was gritty, it was emotively volatile, it was gripping from the very first page. I drank it in like a parched man to a river. Then I found the other two books of his that would also color my young gay life: Numbers and The Sexual Outlaw.
This was at a time when promiscuity wasn’t the most prudent course. HIV and AIDS were just making themselves known – well, I say known but no one really knew what that meant. Without a doubt, those books changed my life. Without a doubt, those books saved my life. That was when I learned unequivocally the power of writing and the written word.
In the course of writing this blog entry my mother called to give me an update about the state of my brother’s current drama. I’ve blogged about it before so I won’t go into the details at this juncture again. What I will say is that, and you’d have to know my mother and me, we ramble quite a bit over the course of our conversations. We’ve always been this way. Somehow, in the middle of hearing about my brother’s woes, we ambled over to when it was like for me growing up and figuring things out in my life. Trying to sort out why I write the things I write.
Why M/M erotica? Well, in reality, I don’t really look at it from that standpoint. Sex and men are hard to separate. We think about it constantly. It’s just built into us. To varying degrees I’ll grant you – as it is with all facets of life. But the urge is still the same. Men feel the need, the burning need to do what we’re built to do. It’s why porn has the industry it does. I am sure some women enjoy it but they are far outweighed by their male counterparts – I don’t believe anyone would seriously challenge me on that.
We have porn because of that sexual drive that ekes into every corner of who we are as men. I see it every day. The furtive glances from the guys I work with when one of the cuter girls happen by. Married or not, their eyes rove. I know my sex – and sex is what’s going on in those looks.
I have a buddy who is happily married to a man he loves whole heartedly. They love each other, they complete each other. It’s a very beautiful thing. They also have an open sexual relationship and actually find joy in sharing other men in their lives. They are honest and open about it and work at it as adults should who are confident enough in who they are to know that they will be there for each other no matter what. They’ve been together for ten years now and they act around each other as if they had just started dating.
It’s a beautiful thing to watch the two of them. Embracing each other and yet knowing that the way to do that – and to remain true to how they are that they were open enough to clear the air about how their lives were going to be with regards to love and sex. I admire them. I am sure it’s not always easy. But the love they have for one another is palpable.
They’re two rough and tumble boys that have matured into sexy as hell men. And they embrace who they are.
So anyway, back to my writing. It was important for me to write from that perspective. I want to write books I wanted desperately to read when I was young.
It isn’t enough that it’s just about the romantic feelings. As a young man (teenager) sex was important to me even though I hadn’t had any at that point. To deny young gay boys the gratification that what goes where and why, and to let them know that those ‘nasty thoughts’ (which by the way are NOT nasty at all… they’re human, folks… I am so over the fucking moon pissed off about how we infantilize young men). I am not postalizing pedophilia in any way – let’s be clear about that. But if a boy (say around the age I was) wanted to become sexually active and the opportunity presented itself with another boy at the same school? Well, personally, if everyone involved was safe and sane about it, no coercion involved, then I’d be down for it. Boys feel those urges when puberty hits. While I understand they may not have the emotional maturity to handle it, sometimes, especially with regards to young gay boys, experimentation is probably the only recourse for them if it presented itself.
It’s why I grouse when YA novels never seem to cover this subject adequately. These boys are having sex – if the internet is to be believed, some of them are having enormous amounts of sex and what’s more they are posting it online. To think that we can’t put down what really goes down in a teen sexual situation is just plain ludicrous. The shit is going to happen if it’s going to happen and writing about it or reading about it will not promote it.
A potential for how i describe Elliot Donahey in my book Angels of Mercy
What it will do, in my opinion, is tell these boys who don’t have the means that they are not alone, that there is someone out there who feels just like they do. Someone out there may find Elliot Donahey (my protagonist in Angels of Mercy Volume 1) and how he processes having not only a boyfriend for the first time in his life, but the jock stud that every girl is after might give them hope that their dreams of an Ever After Happily is in the cards for them.
Rechy’s work allowed me to vicariously live through those tumultuous times of the 80’s and 90’s when HIV was nothing short of a death sentence. Sure I experimented myself. My first boyfriend and I evolved to having an open-ish relationship. In the end it wasn’t even a consideration of why we parted company – that was something else altogether. The openness in the sex wasn’t an issue at all. So I get my buddy and his hubby. I really do. I fully support them and how they’ve defined it for themselves.
Those are the stories I want to write.
Those are the characters and the sexual scenarios I want to put out there because they are born of experiences either I went through or friends of mine did.
Those are the books that have to be out there somehow. Because those were the books I would’ve wanted to read. Stories that are emotively and sexually charged – pulling no punches in either department. The emotive moments were equally important, but the words that had the power to stimulate my erotic mind and allowed me to vicariously live through the sensations that the character goes through when he’s fucking or being fucked. The draw they have to cum (and I deliberately use that spelling because for me it is inherently crass and male (not that all males are crass – but we have it within ourselves to be so)). The desire they have to seed and for it to be a big hot mess. Cum play is just one element I explore with these boys. Again, this was drawn from personal history and my own explorations.
These are the stories I would want to read. They are honest in scope and in expression of thought. Elliot is all over the map – thoughts and emotions roil around like a tumultuous ocean. He wavers, he is adamant, he hides and he comes out swinging. Gay boys have to. We bob and weave our entire lives. We live in a world, that while it grows with increasing acceptance and tolerance, where we are constantly reminded that we are not the same. We are not in a relationship that can honestly and without fanfare be expressed in the course of a TV show or movie that still doesn’t cause a stir.
Every time I see two straights going at it in a series or TV I am so over it. And before any detractors flip lid over that position, think about it for a moment – It literally soaks every form of media around us.
Swimming upstream, remember?
Yeah, well, this pink gayboy salmon is gonna start taking nips out of those that swim downstream. I don’t have to buy into that hetero-normative play in life. It’s secure enough in the human condition that it doesn’t require my support or proliferation.
My worlds will be gay oriented because that is my real existence. Straight people will cross into those worlds because that is how the world works. I get that. I would be ape-shit cray-cray not to include it. But it will sooooo not be the focus of my work. There are more than enough on the printed/digital page to read about that.
A potential young man that resembles how I describe the quarterback Marco Sforza in Angels of Mercy.
That’s probably why my gay boy hero in the story comes from the Jock quarter. I wanted a story for one goddamn time to be that the jock is rock solid in who he wants and won’t take no for an answer. Marco Sforza is dead set on Elliot as the only one for him. Their world would seem letter perfect. The first book begins to bear that out.
But as with all drama, these boys don’t have an easy path to their Ever After Happily. Forces conspire to separate them. The boys have their allies. There is definitely a Team Sforza-Donahey. They aren’t alone, even if at times they feel like they are. But that’s how heady love is. That’s how it goes sometimes. While you may know deep down inside that you’ve found your one and only, others in your world may not be so comfortable with that.
My villain is also über sexy in that straight hetero-normative way. He’s a womanizer, he tosses the girls he bangs like used Kleenex to the ground. I think the phrase I use is: “Still smelling from the last pussy he banged.” Yeah, that’s Beau Hopkins. Tall, dark, handsome as all fuck but with a heart as black as pitch that pumps the sludge of tar. And he absolutely hates faggoty boys like my Elliot. He is the quintessential preacher’s son.
I ended volume one on a helluva cliff hanger. My beta-readers were all up in arms about that. They wanted to know WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. So I guess I got something here. We’ll see.
As for me, if I like it, if I feel proud of the effort and am not embarrassed by it at all, then I am good with it. It’s a success on that all by itself.
My Angels may be in the dark, hidden, remote for beta-readers eyes now. But not for long. Book one is in the can – still polishing it here and there. But I am also sourcing my ISBN’s and galley art with a cover artist. Then I’ll explore the marketing facet and promotions venues. I’ve even sorted that it will also be offered on my website directly. I am willing to invest in my own work enough to do the whole she-bang. I am down with it all.
It may come to nothing, but if my readers thus far are spot on with their assessments and their desire to know what happens next, then maybe, just maybe I’ll get it there.
Maybe my boys will be heard – they will walk out from the darkness.
It might be a nice thing after all, if my Angels got to see the light…
NO SHADE REQUIRED – Youth, Entitlement and the Dance of the Sexes
NO SHADE REQUIRED – Youth, Entitlement and the Dance of the Sexes
A random generalization…
Author’s Note: Okay, apologies – I’m all over the map on this one – it’s more of a stream of consciousness… sorry!
This one is both historical in reference as it is in the moment. It has to be. There is no other way to deal with what I want to explore here. It has to have context and only time will provide that.
Primarily because it deals with time. It deals with aging.
And before we get started let me be clear – it is (as I clearly state above) a generalization. I am completely aware and cop to the fact that there are anomalies within the spectrum of youth that don’t adhere to this generalization I am commenting on – either they’ve been brought up to respect the value of age or they just don’t feel the need to express their ideas and opinions when they clearly don’t have the life experience to back it up.
This was born from a post from Instinct Magazine that hit my FaceBook account this AM. The original Instinct Mag article can be found here.
The posting in my FaceBook account from Instinct Magazine…
Now, admittedly my first reaction was to do a stupid knee-jerk response and go all postal on their ass – succinctly demonstrated by one such responder to the story by posting a fairly accurate summation of my in the moment response:
In the heat of the moment this made total sense…
It all stems from what seems (on the surface) to be a carefully metered expression of why this certain boy (and in this case I am using the term deliberately) decided to make his point about those of his age bracket and how immature they are only to subvert his argument that the older men who congregated or patronized the local gay bars or clubs as ghosts of their former selves – the Peter Pan Syndrome is the term he cites. Needless to say his youthful myopic observations were completely colored by his youth striving to rise above his own at the expense of those who came before him.
You can read his original post here.
While I believe I understand what he is saying, he doesn’t realize that by using older (gay) men who seek a life outside of the clubs as the ideal progression, he completely undermines it with a rampant disrespect of other’s freedoms or those who have paid the social price (something his generation NEVER had to deal with on the scale we older cats have) and therefore he feels an entitlement to take what he perceives is his turf and scold those who aren’t “moving on” to “better” things in life.
Many men have commented on this posting and it has created a social media shit-storm both within and external to the community.
While I think it’s admirable that he is willing to cop to the fact that life beyond the clubs is the end goal for achieving a degree of personal success in life, it is by no means the barometer for how we choose to express what is success for any of us – whether it be individual or as a greater community.
Secondly, the myopic expression of how the men who are in the clubs past 30 are ghosts of their former youthful selves is both ludicrous in the extreme as it is laughable that he even pretended to use it as a sound footing to begin his position.
You see sweetie, as Edina Monsoon would say (and if you don’t know who she is then your pop-culture refs need some brushing up), age happens to all of us. There’s no escaping it. You’d do well to embrace it because the only way to stop it in its tracks is to die young. And that’s not really a viable option, or at least, it shouldn’t be.
The folly of youth is that once they achieve the blessed state of adulthood, eschewing their teen years and the awkward expressions of emotions that clouded them as they struggled to establish who they were going to be, they seem to think that that act (in and of itself) has earned them something that they can postalize to the greater (and decidedly more aged) community.
To put it bluntly – as my mother says – Kid, you ain’t old enough to know how to wipe your ass correctly let alone talk about things you have no business talking about. Yeah, mom can be like that. She is very good about kicking you in the rubber parts to knock you down a peg or two.
But to understand this, you’d have to know something about my past. You see, in my house the family dinner table was ground zero for debate and discussion.
Nothing was sacred.
We talked about it all. From the weather, to relationships, to sex and yes even the topic of shit came up once that ended in a hysterical fit of laughs to where dinner had almost grown cold before we could finish. You don’t want to know how that one got started… it’s innocuous enough as a discussion of linguistics was the topic of debate but then devolved rather quickly to the evolution of the word shit. It started there.
Why did I take you down that dark and scat laden road of my youth? Because I wanted you to know that my parents withheld nothing. Not a damned thing. If we asked, and it was in earnest, then we got an answer – straight up. My parents were strong proponents of knowledge at all costs. In that I learned a very valuable lesson: my elders did know a thing or two about life.
Did I take their advice at every turn? Hell no. I was a teenager for fuck’s sake. We teens are driven to separate from our parents only to try like hell to ally ourselves with another group our age where we can blend in and become just like them. Seriously, sometimes I wonder how any of us make it through our teen years (I guess the reverse is that some of us sadly don’t). I lament these lost souls – probably far more than it’s healthy for me to do so.
I remember being boastful with what I’d learned in life as I had conversations with others. But here is the rub – here is what separates me from the guy who posted this drivel of an argument – I was fully willing and able to pick up my stick I’d put in the sand on any given topic and be willing to move it once I had new information that bore contemplation and reflection. That came from my elders. The ability to step back from my own youthful exuberance and to listen, truly listen, to what was being given to me by my elders.
The “gay community” (I often use the term with implied air quotes because I feel we haven’t really reached a communal level yet – we still bicker and pick and throw shade upon our own when we get enough of that from the conservative segment of the hetero-normative quadrant) is not much of one. We’d do well to embrace and take care of our own. We’re down enough in many people’s eyes – no need to do it ourselves. Though sadly, we do. This article from this well intentioned but maligned young man, as highlighted by Instinct Magazine, points to that fact.
The author of the blog post that caused a shit storm.
So on one hand I commend this misguided young man for holding to an ideal. BUT it is in the expression of how he sees the path to it as the definition of success on the backs of his elder brethren, those that have paid a price to society for the freedoms he takes for granted, that shows his lack of maturity that only years and experience can supply. Say nothing that he is trying to apply the hetero-normative standard as the benchmark of success. Believe me, there are many hetero counterparts that have no business being in the business of breeding and having families. Though sadly, they do and they fail spectacularly. Sometimes, news worthy and epically so.
Ya know, I never thought I’d get to the age where I could look back and see what asinine things I got up to thinking I knew better only to look back on them now and face palm my youthful self. But I have oodles and oodles of fucked up moments in my past. Years and years of it to draw on and say I learned. I got by. Perhaps this young man will one day look back with a face-palm moment of his own. In that, he will grow and mature immensely.
My mother has a head of silver hair. When it first started to come in she used to color it. Pushing back on it’s advancing sign of age creeping in on her. Then she had a sudden (well, it seemed sudden to me, anyway) change and let it all go grey. I asked her why she was no longer coloring it. I thought she’d say that it grew tiresome to keep chasing that youthful rabbit. But no, you’d have to know my mother, she has a unique way of looking at things that truly astounds me from time to time.
She’s a bitty thing, but her wisdom is monumental and often knocks me on my butt time and again. So when I asked her why she wasn’t coloring her hair she said,
“I just realized that my grey hair wasn’t something to be ashamed of. I call them my trophies. They let the world know I survived, and I earned every single one of them.”
Yeah, I needed to take a page out of that book, I’ll tell ya.
It’s something I try to impart to my granddaughter. Learn from our pasts to get ahead where and when you can. I think she gets it. My granddaughter can be quite humble at times. Humility, when called for, can be a beautiful thing.
Part of me thinks this club happy gay guy poked the ageist hornets nest just because he knew it would get a rise and thus, gain him notoriety. He epically succeeded on that front.
But I am also cognizant of youth in it’s other folly where they try to stake a claim as they mature. Young adults and sex. The internet is rife with it. Something my generation certainly didn’t have anything of the sort to stand upon and learn from.
I am taking a Human Sexuality class right now. Being an erotic writer I thought it prudent to get the official 411 on the topic. We’ve had one meeting but the takeaway from it was rather astounding. To set the mood it was in a collection of portable trailers that are now somehow permanent when they were supposed to be transitory. I suppose that the subject of talking about sex was such an awkward one (though from the turn out immensely popular) that we had to be relegated to the outskirts of the campus (beyond the Physical Ed building which you need three donkeys and a camel to get to, but I digress).
I took a seat along the far wall in the front row. From my perspective, it was a proper viewing spot to gauge the rest of the class. I’m a people watcher – it stems from my being on the stage since I was a child. Actors are trained to watch people because it is those observations that color how we play who we play on the stage. You can’t breathe life into a blow-up doll so flesh and bone people are the only real source.
It is very interesting to watch the faces and listen to the comments (or lack thereof in most cases) from the young people who are taking the class. On one hand it is emboldening to see so many youthful faces on a topic that, while it has importance in their young lives, often is an awkward one to approach openly. Some of the young men tried to project that they were über cool with it. They had it down. They were bonafied stud material.
If they only knew of my past… but again, I digress. (Very, very few would probably exceed the breadth of my experiences.)
Some of those young men walked in with no small degree of swagger – all tatted up and seemingly confident in their skins. Their body language professing their assumed comfortability with the topic and their prowess in the bedroom (or whatever room is at hand). I get that. Even being young and gay at one time, I had no small degree of that – now, compound that in a room of other men with the exact same drive and the situation escalates. This is something our straight brethren don’t seem to fathom.
Our straight brethren seem to hold onto the old (and foolish) concept that all fags are swishing queens. Nothing could be further from the truth, though I suppose (and this is just a generalization but there are ample proof around that the perception is still pervasive) that their belief in this somehow keeps them elevated about those swishing queens who crave cock. This is why I write and blog about this misconception – to put our voice out there. I have my work reviewed by every gay man I can get my hands on (head out of the gutter now, I am a happily and devote married man – the openness of our relationship is confined to the characters I play with in my head and on digital paper in my books) – I want my stories to ring with a degree of truth in how we experience our lives – as gay men of every spectrum.
Sadly, M/M romance is the equivalent to mommy-porn for the most part. It is rife with novels written BY women FOR women. Often they devolve to chicks with dicks, in my opinion. In fact you’ll find I only have a couple of female authors I follow. The majority of them are male. It may be prejudiced, but there is something intrinsically male that all the wishing from a female just can’t put her finger to it quite as well. Which is why I am adding my voice to the mix. I need to represent and clear the air from a real gay man’s perspective. It may not win me many female author friendships but I am not doing it for that. I will write what I want to write and I really am not considering whether there’s even a market for it (though my beta readers would disagree whole-heartedly – they are fairly across the board ravenous to find out what’s next… so that’s a good sign that there is an audience out there for what I do).
Yeah, here’s the deal: At least, as gay men, we own our shit (in this hopefully ever increasing world of tolerance) and are man enough to swim upstream while owning it. It would be akin to a straight boy trying to get married to a girl, have babies and such with no sex organs to speak of with which to accomplish the task. It can be debilitating. It can be extremely tiring to have to keep coming out to people and clear up the fog that permeates their hetero-normative and myopic precepts when it comes to queer life.
You may be the majority, though I’ve certainly seen enough on the down-low to challenge that concept in its entirety, where enough “straight” boys/men have played the other side quite passionately as long as it wasn’t talked about or that no one else knew. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge… yeah. They’d be surprised how many “straight” men were doing gay porn (and sure it’s for the money… yeah, that paycheck ain’t gonna keep it hard or allow you to fully “go there” if there isn’t some facet of who you are that is intrigued and titillated with the prospect of slamming man on man action – just sayin’…).
And the gay porn stars who are gay – and own it whole heartedly – get my absolute respect. This is a muthafucker who owns his shit – and how! I fucking LOVE this guy! Levi Michaels is very witty and he is doing something so sex positive that I find it utterly amazing to watch. He’s humanizing the industry, putting a normal face to it – a human face in all its varities. I think it’s bang over the moon brilliant. He and Colby Keller totally rock my senses on all levels and are wickedly sexy guys because they are brilliant and so thoughtful in how they express themselves. I admire them both greatly – and the sex scene they did together was one of the hottest in gay porn history in my book!
Colby Keller and Levi Michaels from Cockyboys.com
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On the flip side though, emotively those gay for pay sex workers may connect with the opposite sex, but the homosex is undeniably hot when they are banging some guy on a video set- they’re into it on some level. And before there are any detractors, let’s be clear – I’ve been on porn sets, I’ve been on “legit” sets, I know it’s work. Hey, I’m on your side when it comes to the porn industry you glorious sex workers. So no bones there. If you’re in the drivers seat in your life and are controlling your own destiny and OWNING YOUR SHIT, then I am all for ya.
But the reality is that it’s much more basic than that. Society places restrictions or boundaries on men in the arena of sex (and to a great degree on women as well, but my blog isn’t about that side of the fence so I’ll stick with what I know).
Men love to seed – it’s how we’re built. We think about it on average every 8 seconds. We can condition ourselves or convince ourselves that it doesn’t happen, but it does. It’s in our DNA to so what we’re anatomically and biologically built to do. To seed, to breed. We smell it, we see it, we taste it (even if it’s just on the air). Pheromones. Heady, musky stuff that it is. One of my all time favorite smells is a debauched bath house or an adult bookstore with a particular “reputation.”
Is it pervey of me to say that? I don’t think so. It is what it is.
What I find interesting is what will become of that swagger these boys/young men express now with potential women partners in the classroom or beyond (and don’t kid yourselves boys, I know exactly how you “see” the room you walk into). I may be gay, but I know my sex – probably because I’ve spent a great deal of time with it – in the gay and straight world. I get you far more than you know.
I write about male relationships in all their varying degrees. I get how we think about them. I listen, and I listen, and I listen – whether I am listening with my eyes or my ears. As my father said, if your talking too much then you’re not listening and therefore you aren’t learning. Men get a lot of grief from their female counterparts that they don’t share enough about themselves.
Here’s the secret – they do. But what those women don’t often understand is that they share it usually with their male friends in ways that men understand. Men bond in a way that women don’t get or often don’t understand. And often if we really click it is for life. We need to – its what we count on in times of war and strife.
WWII sailors huddle up and supporting one another. It’s what we do when amongst ourselves.
We may go our separate ways for a bit, but when we come back together it’s like the party never ended. We need to. It’s how we survived defending and hunting back in our Lower Paleolithic ancestry days.
Men are very expressive creatures. It’s just a cleaner line in how they do it (even when they’re messy about it).
I’ve found that women often want to examine a singular thought or emotion from every angle. To the point of ad nauseam. Men state their feelings plainly – at face value. There is nothing there to mine that’s deeper. But that’s what women want – depth. What they fail to realize is that men feel deeply. We’re just direct and succinct in how we communicate that. Brevity is key. Men can often communicate with one word or two to convey what it takes women several words to accomplish. Sex is the same thing.
It doesn’t mean we don’t like conversation. We just don’t have the need to over examine every subtle nuance. It’s not because we can’t – we’re often accused of this – but because it isn’t worth our time to do so – and not because we don’t value our partners, we do, we just have other things that press upon us that we’re better at. Men are still very much the hunter gatherers. We are pressed from the time we’re small to produce. If we err, as we no doubt do, we learn, adapt and move on. Women, on the other hand, when they err, have to examine it to the point of absurdity. It is this over indulgence of examining a point or facet of an emotive moment that separates us. Perhaps the ideal is more in the middle.
This is where gay people can be ideal. It’s something that a few have figured out.
In Native American cultures (many of them – though not all) have traditional values that recognized the duality of gay people in carrying ‘two-spirits’ – a blending of the two. In some nations with those native peoples, they even held an elevated position within the greater community. It was just another facet of life but one that was valued because gay people appeared to be of a balanced nature and the community recognized it and put it to work to help them prosper as a whole.
Two-sprited men regarding one another.
Sex, when it’s hot and heavy and coordinated, is a dance. No matter the partnership arrangements – though, to be honest, my lesbian friends would say it is dancing with a huge amount of critique because again, they over analyze about everything. Seriously – the joke goes: how do lesbians have a three way? Two women go at it while the third sits nearby and discusses what it means. I make light of it but it’s just how people are.
A modern Berdache (two-spirited) Native.
I am excited to see how this Human Sexuality class will play out. The girls not so much. But don’t get me wrong ladies, I think you’ve got it in the can. Women are far more empathic and inclined to absorb so they can analyze it later, with careful reflection. The men however, I can’t wait to see them lean into what makes them feel awkward and uncomfortable. Something tells me when the gaybone gets thrown into the room there will be some fairly awkward moments to be had. That’s what I can’t wait to see.
American males are so fucking hung up on themselves.
They are such damed babies about what’s out there that isn’t like them. The straight guys I think are sexy? Fucking smart guys (James Franco, Mark Morford, and Jared Leto to name a few) who have figured it all out and while it may not be their particular cup of tea, they are not freaked out about it – they chose to lean INTO it. They also don’t pay it lip service in that they’re cool about it like most American men do when their eyes and physical deportment clearly reveal it is the reverse. Men from around the world are far better with it than their American counterparts – a generalization too, I grant you. But one that does bear out.
So back to my entitled youth.
Quick switch, right? Not necessarily so. What I did want to swing back to so I can tie it all up is that while the impetus for this little rant of mine has covered quite a bit, it is all about the folly of youth and the on-going, ever meandering conversations between and within the sexes. I find it all utterly fascinating to watch. Sometimes it’s quite breathtakingly beautiful – and at other times, it is like watching a slow train wreck with no signs of stopping. Either way its awesome to behold.
Such was the case with that seemingly well intentioned but grossly maligned young man who penned that absurd blog post.
I hope what he was really after was his 15 seconds of fame. Cause that’s what he ultimately got.
Now to keep them coming back, he’s got to top himself – which means he’ll have to make himself more absurd to garner the same or greater level of interest. Eventually he’ll become a caricature of himself (*cough* Perez Hilton *cough*).
That would really be a sad way to carry forth. I hope the maturity that he holds in high regard actually comes to him and he gets what he professes he wants: a life outside the clubs – after 30 of course if we’re following his template for success, with a man by his side in a steady and domesticated relationship (and PLEASE refrain yourselves from guessing who will be the woman – we’re gay, fuckers, women don’t enter the equation – period) with the 2.5 kids (though I never got the whole .5 of a kid thing cause uh, yeah, bun in the oven not on my list of thinking even when kids were on the way in our family) and the big home with a two car garage and the… wait, whose dream is this?
I mean, I live it.
But my success in this doesn’t mean it’s someone else’s. And therein lies the rub of that silly blog entry – each person gets to define success for themselves (man/woman – gay/straight or anything in-between).
It’s like I tell my girls (especially when I see a fucking diamond commercial – don’t get me started on those fucked up pieces of shit marketing) – “Don’t buy into that get the rocks before you suck the cocks” mentality. That relegates you to being a whore. If you want to be a success as a woman – do it on your own terms, but not at the expense of your partner (no matter what sex they are). And if your goal is to be a whore, then fucking embrace it but don’t say your not and then go about setting a double standard by driving your man to bedazzle you like some fucked up Disney Princess. Set a goal for yourself and do everything in your power to get there. You may not be perfect, you may not get there in one piece, but godddamn it it will be your journey, your achievement and nobody or no one can take that away from you… and that makes you a success! Your terms, your life, your control.
Freedom to be – it’s a beautiful thing.
No SHADE required.
My Character’s Meanderings… the road less traveled
Character Meanderings
-or-
How all the planning in your life can’t prepare you for the surprises your main character has in store for you…
Lovely footballers going at it…
It goes a little like this…
You never really know what surprises are in store when you write a novel (or a series – like I am). You can plan. You can outline to your heart’s content, but it never really sticks to the mold you’ve set when you have rich characters who organically want to say something in the moment.
I had one such moment a few days ago with one of my main characters (Marco Sforza) that came to me as an utter shock and knocked me for a loop (so much so that I had to step back for a few days just to absorb what it meant).
It wasn’t like it completely derailed what I wanted to do with my outline that I’d worked really hard on, but rather it was a small diversion that colored who he was and how he came to being the man he was becoming. It was significant enough that I couldn’t simply ignore it (for there are some writings that never make it into the book – I have to write them so I can be clear in my mind where things go – it’s not enough to just imagine them, they have to be down on digital paper so I can fully render them out).
And here’s how I sort of see Marco Sforza (if a slight bit older than in the book).
Marco is proving to be a rather complicated young man. Far more than I’d realized when I started the series. Complicated is good; it drives the drama forward – of that I have no doubt. And it appears that I am often just along for the ride – a vessel for him to channel and breathe life into him. There are many times where I feel he is communing with me and not the other way around. It’s how it goes most of the time. I know their world, I know what’s going to happen down the road. What I don’t plan are the little diversions that they bring to me along the way.
This model has been my inspirational source for Elliot Donahey in my story.
Elliot (Donahey) had such a moment for me in Volume 1 of the series when Danny entered the picture. I had no plans for Danny Jericho. Not really. I mean, I knew that Elliot would find someone who was gay (other than Marco) who he could become close to. Greg (Elliot’s on and off sidekick) is great and all, but there are just some places he won’t go. And Greg loves Elliot too, just not in the whole I’ll go gaily down rainbow road with you sort of way. There are limits a cool, secure in his shit kinda straight boy that he has for Elliot.
I mean, Greg is the Cyrano to Marco’s Christian. So Greg’s had more than his fair share of involvement in getting my two boys together. For a straight guy, Greg is über cool. Clark Kent/Superman cool. And by the way, sidebar: Greg Lettau and his brother Kevin are really real people in my life. Greg was an über cool geek kid who was smarter than fuck. I miss him and wonder what he ever got to. So yeah, Greg is one of three characters who relate to real people in the real world.
But Danny’s different. Elliot needs a GBFF in a BIG ol’ way. Danny does that for him. In ways Marco can’t be because he’s too close. Danny is the balance in the passion that drives them. He’s their remote eye to all things Marco/Elliot. Plus I have the added discovery that while I love my main characters it is a couple of side characters that have really stolen my heart (I actually get a bit giddy when I get to write about them): Angus Carr and Nick Donahey.
Angus sort of just sprang up organically (in the moment – I wanted a BFF for Marco’s second phase of his life when he goes to college. Angus will take that role front and center in Marco’s life). Nick, on the other hand, is my true passion in this story. Elliot’s perceptions of his father couldn’t be further from the truth. His father’s love for him goes far deeper than Elliot is comfortable admitting.
It’s something that is proving to challenge me as I write volume 2 of my Angels of Mercy series. Marco Sforza is a character worth the challenge. He is a jock who never waivers in his devotion to the guy he loves – society be damned. He is fully committed – the whole enchilada. But it was in discovering what he had to say to me as I write him that became a journey in and of itself.
And there’s the fleshing out of Marco’s relationship with his twin brother – Pietro. Pietro is far more complex than any of the boys and in some ways far more simplistic. Pietro does see black and white where the rest only see grey. He has to. He has his brother’s happiness to consider. And Pietro has been quite the busy bee in Marco’s life. Even when Marco doesn’t fully realize it.
My boys are right pieces of work. But I love them. My beta readers have often commented on how real they seem to them. One of them is now beginning his search for his own Elliot to love and call his own. So in a real way Elliot has achieved benchmark status. I’m cool with that. Elliot is far from perfect.
But aren’t we all? And isn’t that why we read things like Angels of Mercy? To glean some understanding that we’re not alone in the world. That we have quite a bit more in common with one another than we realize or want to admit. This common thread of our humanity and the way we either cope with what life throws at us – or watch like an enormous train wreck when it all comes crashing around you.
Drama – it’s the stuff of life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
50 Shades of Gay
So I know it’s been a while.
Life inserted itself fully. There was work to be done. There was more writing and editing. Honestly, I don’t know what I am doing most of the time. I know what I like and I write to that. It’s a contemplative and fairly lonely existence. It is not something I talk freely about. Not that I am ashamed of what I do. I’m not. Let’s be clear about that.
I think that I needed some distance from my last long winded entry. Turning 50 was much bigger than I wanted it to be. Not in the celebrations or in the thick of the moment – they were all well and good. They are what made me what I am today – a collection of experiences and moments that have molded (for better or worse) into the man I am today.
There’s the hubby, our girls, the two cats – all the hallmarks of domesticity. Yet I burn with other thoughts and ideas. I have men coming up to me (in my mind – head out of the gutter now) who have their stories to tell. They burn with it too. I try to put passion into what I do. Tweaking it here, imbuing it there.
*sigh*
So I heard back from a publisher yesterday (one that I had to ping several times to get ANYTHING from them – something the hubby kept asking “Do you really want to work with a group of people that you constantly have to chase down?”) The hubby has a point. I write fiction that is predominantly gay in nature – it’s what I know. It’s what I am passionate about because in a sea of how we are not like everyone else out there (the heterosexual norm) I think our voices are important enough that I can’t help but write from that perspective.
Anyway, the publisher didn’t get what I was doing. They took a pass on the material. They didn’t get that it was more of a character study than a standard cookie cutter narrative. They’re obviously looking only at the profile margin. I am not there. I never want it to be about the money. The comments back weren’t even that helpful. They were conflicted (rushed and fantastical vs. prose that broke momentum – I mean, what the fuck do you do with absurd commentary like that?). It was very evident that they didn’t even really read the material or try to understand what I was doing. It is not your standard cookie cutter formulaic m/m romantic fair. It was never intended to be that. I know it’s different – THAT’S WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO! Jesus, it was evident to me that publishers don’t have a fucking clue what the market will bear.
I have given the book to people I’ve just met – who don’t know me well enough to know what I am fully about or about what voice I am trying to put out there. In each and every case thus far I have heard how they have emotively connected with my protagonist. How his inner monologue was what pulled them in. They got it. THAT’S the audience I am after. Not some housewife who wants to be swept cursorily away on some cookie cutter adventure for a few hours on some vapid inane storyline that will be instantly forgotten the moment the last page is flipped.
I have two beta readers who have read it and both are not avid readers. Both have said that my characters stayed with them. They loved that they knew so much about them that they wrote back and said that they felt real to them. They both said that this was the first book they’ve gotten through that they actually read like a fiend to finish it. One of which hasn’t read a book in 20 years. But he read through mine like a bullet train with no signs of stopping – almost in one sitting. So there is something there. I can feel it.
Another one is a young man in Britain who I met through a LGBT support site. He’s smart, bright and funny. He’s also hard on himself. My heart goes out to him in so many ways. He embodies my main character (Elliot) in so many ways. He told me that he identified with him and that the voice is very much where his head is at and it rang true for him. He’s in his early twenties (just beyond where my main character is). But the publisher doesn’t consider the market really. They look at statistics, they look at data. And I get it that its supposed to be the business of selling. I get that it’s supposed to be about the bottom line.
My work is epically long for the standard M/M fair. I know it’s not an easy work to market. For god sake you’re inside my main characters head listening to how he processes all of the information that keeps coming his way. And he has issues – it’s what drives the drama forward. But they didn’t get that. I know they didn’t. They just aren’t seeing the work for what it is.
“And it’s only one opinion.” They said. Yeah, it is – and it’s fairly clear that they aren’t invested in finding new talent as they profess to be. They just are struggling to survive selling the same cookie cutter formula (sorry guys/gals I have bought close to 700 books from the genre – as research on what types of stories are out there) and 98.9% of it is pure schlock. It’s absolute rubbish. But they sell what sold yesterday because it’s just GOTTA sell today too. Well, guess what, eventually they will get tired of the same bland Cheerios that you’ve been spoon feeding them. And no, changing the protag from your last best seller from a fireman to a police man doesn’t count as being creative. It’s the same formula. Shake it the FUCK up, will ya? Or the genre will tank.
In short it was a waste of a very long period of time that they could’ve just piped up and owned their fuckedupness in not managing their time well (at one point they actually used deadlines looming as a reason for the delay). They are a small publishing house. If they can’t manage the deadlines they have now and I got added to the mix… see where I am going with that?
So I realized that I’ll either have to keep looking or self-pub it myself. I have author friends who self-pub. It’s not an easy path because the type of stuff I write (while it is deeply rooted in a M/M (sometimes more) relationship slant and thus carries a bit of erotic undercurrent as all relationships do) isn’t mainstream. It isn’t what I think will sell millions and millions of copies.
But is that the type of success I am looking for? I don’t know. I think I’d much rather be successful at putting out something I think is of quality but may fall by and large completely unnoticed by the masses.
I was contemplating all of this when I came upon this little posting on HuffPo Gay Voices on gay men reading 50 Shades of Grey and commenting on it. Gay boys reviewing straight porn/erotica. I thought it was something that would get me to smile a bit. Gay boys have such an aversion to anything lady part wise… so I certainly expected some giggles over that. I got it.
Now here’s the deal – what I didn’t expect was the actual lines from this world-wide bestseller to actually be as badly written as they were. It seemed very amateurish or slightly – awkward when it came to the sex that was portrayed in the book. I am sure that the context helps but the actual inner monologue that they were reading was like some fourteen year old girl was trying to describe a sexual situation.
I was stunned…
See for yourself –
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I like Neil McNeil’s stuff on YouTube. He’s clever and he’s certainly crafty in telling his amusing slices of life (from a gay man’s perspective) and it’s light, it’s funny but there’s also a thread of really bright and innovative moments where he’s pulling back the curtain on how gay men survive in this hetero-normative world we’re immersed in. I think he’s pretty fucking brilliant and I love that he’s unabashedly gay in a big way. I admire his courage and his fortitude to get his stuff out there. He believes in what he does, he’s passionate about it, he doesn’t accept that someone else may not – or rather, he is unfazed by it all.
Then I think about my musical muse for Angels of Mercy (Jay Brannan) and how he doesn’t have a big record company backing him up. He doesn’t have a marketing department or a promotional touring company to do all of his stuff. It’s just him cranking out what he does because he’s passionate about it. And his passion is infectious. It permeates wherever he is.
I need to take a page out these men’s book. They strive forward. They press when the world presses back. So I will continue to develop Angels because I believe in what I am doing. I believe in the nature of the work. I take heart that the people who have read it want to read more (it ends on a cliff hanger – which by the way I was told by a publisher that series of that nature are not really what’s selling). Yeah, that’s why sequels in film and serialized television doesn’t work. That’s why the Potter series languished in obscurity.
Elliot and Marco will see the light. Even if I have to figure it all out on my own. I may not command a huge audience from it all, but in the end they will be unabashedly mine. They will be my boys/men – telling their own stories. Why? Because they come to me in dreams – both waking and in sleep. They have things to say. They have surprises even for me.
The hubby commented that Thomas Wolfe (who wrote the hubby’s favorite book – Look Homeward Angel amongst other things) that he had to shop his masterpiece around and really didn’t understand what he wrote in its entirety until he sat down with the editor who he would continue to work with during his writing career and they discovered the absolute breadth of what he’d assembled. Even he didn’t know what was in there. He just struck a creative vein and went with it.
That’s what Elliot and Marco are to me. Life’s blood in writing. They feed me in ways I had never imagined. I have to finish their tale; I have no choice.
Will it ultimately find an audience (of any kind)? I don’t know. I may never know (hell, I’m 50 – it could take several years or decades before it finds people who get me and what I am on about). I may get recognized long after I’ve expired from this world. I may never see the success. Or it could languish for all time. But ultimately, does it matter?
I need to tell their story no matter what. That’s what matters. It’s the only thing that matters.
Elliot is a sea of conflicting emotions. He’s an out gay kid who is shy and sticks to the shadows to survive the hell that is high school. It isn’t until the brightest light from that hellish world sees him and says – you’re mine – that he has to deal what a life in the light means. It isn’t easy for him – for them both.
But then again, isn’t the work we have to strive for it worth it? Doesn’t it make the attaining and the having all the more sweeter because of it?
So I’ll press on – navigating waters I am not sure I know how to do. But I’ll press forward and figure it out. I have a brain, I have friends and family for support. What more do I need to make a go of it?
Not a damned thing…
We can all use a little expert advice…
31 Days of Brannan – Day 24
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Today’s Playlist – Relax your neck (and breathe through your nose)
I’ve always wanted to play this video. I am a big Margaret Cho fan. So the idea of Brannan and Cho whooping it up together – no matter what they did, I just knew I’d be entertained, was beyond anything I could’ve hoped for.
Seriously, it’d be the same thing if it was him and Sandra Bernhard – Now there’s a conversation I’d like to be a fly on the wall for…
Anywho… so Cho and Brannan. Or how about Cho and Jay? Yeah, they could be Jay-Cho (sorta riffing on J-Lo) – no? Just me? Okay.
But doesn’t that just sound like the ultimate gay chat show moniker?
Groan every early morning with Jay-Cho!
But just think of the solid life advice that would just pour forth from these two? It’d be a cult I’d be happy to join, I can tell you what.
Anyway – some sound solid cock sucking advice here and who doesn’t need that in life? I mean, we’ve all done it…
This is advice you can actually do something with. Nothing like those vapid infomercials on TV. This shit would actually help a brother get ahead in life. Oh, brother, do I need to stop here.
N-Joy!
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
- Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com
