Bodice Rippers

I have taken to read a lot of erotica. M/M, of course. I have always liked erotica but I just noticed that most of the reading for fun I'm doing right now is either straight up gay erotica or I find myself circling back to gay romance. You see, I've hit a dry spell. I have not had a close encounter of the third kind for awhile now (complications of having moved away from the north-western suburbs to the south-western suburbs and all that jazz) and so my libido has been a little out of whack these days. And because I find the apps to be a hurdle, it's been me, myself and I these days. Yep.

I have been going back to my pile of books and my Kindle for some steamy entertainment lately.  Reading gay slash and erotica has been one of my fav pastimes since forever but lately it had been relegated to long flights and some cold nights. But now I've been going back to it. I don't know if you still remember when Men magazine, Honcho and Blueboy would have all that one-handed reading that accompanied their photo spreads (yeah, this is way back in the age of pre-internet erotica when people actually bought gay magazines) and all the joy they brought. I'm talking 2000 here, not 1990, mind you. Well, those magazines usually had fantastic passages that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, the internet basically killed all printed erotica and now you have to resort to Amazon or the few gay bookstores left to get some good anthologies or even gay romance books.

I'm a sucker for gay bodice rippers (or would they be jockstrap rippers, if they're smut? IDK) and I have a small collection both in paper and in electronic form. One thing I have noticed though, is that a huge percentage of the authors writing gay romance and erotica nowadays are actually females (or writing under a female pen name?) and that there's very few well-known male authors writing gay erotica. What is amazing, though, is that most times the descriptions of the sexual encounters are uncannily accurate and detailed and I have not realized a female author had written the book until I get to the end of it and I read their bio.

Not that I mind that it is a female writing them, of course. Fiction is fiction is friction, no matter who writes it. Men have for centuries written under female pen names and vice versa, so no biggie here. What I think is that these authors should do a fairly good amount of research to write their narratives because everything, from the description of the sensations of having a man fuck you or sucking another man off and the intricacies of an M/M narrative are eerily accurate (mind you, some straight women cannot fathom what two men fucking could feel, the same way some straight men often cannot imagine the feelings a woman experiences when having sex with another woman) and also the feelings and frustrations two men experience when in a relationship. The man-to-man dynamics are very different to the man-woman dynamics (as many bisexual men and women can attest to) and to get them so right on the page throws you off a little when you read the author was a female and not a gay man.

It should not be surprising, though, taking into account that there are many women directing gay porn nowadays and doing an excellent job. As people noticed during a recent gay porn awards show, there are many women who are directing the porn we watch and enjoy and that should not surprise us. Women directors probably focus on the mechanics of the shoot and also the mood they try to convey and I imagine they use the actors as a conduit for the vision they have.  I am aware that many women   enjoy gay porn as much if not more than straight porn because good erotica is good erotica, no matter who are carrying out the action. What I'm glad about is that many of these female porn directors are also being recognized by the outstanding work they do:

the gay porn awards nominated more female directors than the oscars

— ty mitchell (LA 1/9-18, LV 1/18-21) (@TyMitchellXXX) January 13, 2020

I know I should not be surprised by the fact of so many women writing erotica but have to recognize that I actually am. Who knew? They are providing me with hours of entertainment and and some good memories. So on with my reading. And talking about that, who are your favorite gay romance/ gay erotica authors?  Here's some of my fav: Shaun Levin, Paul Russell, Alexander Chee and also Matthew Rettenmund, and Felipe Picano. Who would you recommend? Asking for a friend...

XOXO

P.S. I'm not forgetting Dave and the dreamy Rick Reed.