Which to Publish?

I can't decide which of my novels to submit for publication. I Get No Kick From Champagne is fairly polished and it was the first novel I really felt comfortable with while I was writing it. It's got some explicit sex in it, though -- which I think is necessary to the story, which is about a straight guy finding out he's more than that -- which will limit its placement to the gay shelves of straight bookshops (dear old Borders, for example). Maybe not even there -- lots of gay blokes won't even read books with bisexual characters. Some kind of gay fascismo. The novel I'm working on right now (intermittently, I do confess), which is provisionally called The Torc, also has bi characters, but will have no explicit sex, and will therefore be able to safely go on the fantasy shelves of Borders. Of course, even there, the thin-lipped Christian-Fascists might have a heart attack (if they had hearts), but still, it will be available for a wider readership. Trouble is.... it's not written yet! And it still needs substantial rewriting -- too much 'tell' and not enough 'show'. So....

BTW, the charming dragon picture is from this website. Hope they don't mind me using it (I'll take it down, honest, if you complain). And yes, there are dragons in The Torc. Definitely.

What makes us gay?

There's a young bloke who gets on the train at my station. He's -- well, there's no other way to say it -- feminine. The way he walks, the way he sits, everything about him suggests 'gay'. Now, don't get me wrong. There was a time when my own internal homophobia made me look down on femme guys (including myself) but I think I've gotten over that. What it made me think, though, is that a guy like that (or perhaps like me) was born gay. Someone up there decided to give him an added mixture of the feminine. Frankly, I'm glad of the feminine in me. I wasn't though, at school, when I was beaten up every day for not conforming to the model. But now... I'm a better father and husband and boss because I can do the 'feminine' things in a way the big macho 100% straighters simply can't.

But this isn't the only way guys are gay. I know some guys who had to live on the streets for a while, and whored to get cash. They're mostly het now, but say that they see relationships with men differently than all the guys who didn't have sex with other blokes before they found a long-term female partner. They prefer women, but men are OK, too. There was two pieces in the last issue of Forbidden Fruit about male sexual fluidity, this one and this. These and other anecdotes suggest that many men would have sex with guys if they lived in a different culture. The poisonous opposition by the Abrahamic religions to same-sex sexual activity and love has made same-sex relationships a taboo. And if your distaste for the taboos is worn away by experience, well, then, you stop caring. My own first experience of sex with a man was entirely completely right. It felt as if I had come home.

So far, then, we have those born gay, and those who have gay thrust upon them. But what about those who achieve gayness? There's this story by one of the guys who wrote one of the articles for FF. In it the protagonist falls in love with with his best friend. It's fiction, but like so many semi-autobiographical stories is based, one suspects, on a fair bit of fact. And this one, which is true, as it was written by my friend Sam, whom I miss so much. Once again, a man falls in love with his best friend, and because of that overcomes the stupid and damaging taboos against male/male love (as will be revealed in future chapters) This is of course a perennial theme in 'slash' -- part perhaps of its compelling emotional power. These guys love men. And they love women. As well, they grew to love men without being compelled to. Someone like me, and perhaps that guy on the station, has to face the way he is. We don't have the option of denying our nature. But these guys achieved gayness. Yet lots of bi men perhaps go all through their lives without ever having the trigger that makes them think about sex with men. The two stories I have cited suggest that the trigger is love -- against all odds. It goes further. I know of three straight guys who responded to the love close male friends had for them by having sex with them. And let's not quibble about the word 'straight'. These guys are -- were -- straight. They're not interested in men other than the guy they love. They're not bi. Or, if you insist on a label, they're one of the many kinds of bi's. As one of the guys' (male) lovers said, I watch where his eyes go, and they follow women. Or in my case, where I love my lady very deeply, but am not especially interested in another woman. I'm gay. Or some kind of bi. Better to say that there is more than one kind of bisexuality. Hence my distaste for labels.

I know that there are many 'causes' of gayness or attraction to and love for one's own gender. I know (who better?) that there are many complex sexualities. I don't subscribe to the Christian-Fascist theory that if you knew the cause you could eliminate it (you can just see how the Southern Baptists and their ilk would embrace abortion if they ever discovered a gay gene). Why bother? Only those meatheads think it matters. But it still interests me. In my fantasy stories I write about worlds where same-sex love is normal and accepted. But in this world I am intrigued as to how ppl face all the taboos and hostility and celebrate their gayness. What are their roads? How many ppl would have at least some same-sex experiences if we didn't have the rabid right-wing religious rooties and their constant drip of poison?

Any comments, anyone?

Youth vs Age

Why is it we (well most of us, anyway) are programmed to find youth physically more attractive than age?

The scientists argue that good health and good looks go together with being good for having babies. We are, supposedly, drawn to beuties (that spelling again!) because they have good genes. Or something. But how does that work with same sex attraction? No babies there. I explain it by saying that the well-springs of pure attraction are similar, but that which gender you're attracted to is determined by other forces. If you're gay or bi it's something in your childhood (for the psychologists) or your genes (for the geneticists). Who knows?

Anyway, I thought you might like this pic. OK, so the whole post was just an excuse to show the image. Eat my shorts.

Nikos

Male Beuty

First off, 'beuty' is my little rebellion against the absurdities of English spelling. I know it's spelled 'beauty'. So there.


I take as my exemplars of male beuty Ben Cohen (the English rugby player) and Mitch Hewer (a Brit actor, who acts a gay teen in a Brit soap). Both men are straight. Now I'm not averse to Mitch Hewer's looks. He has a lovely lithe body and a pretty face. Wish mine were half so good. But Ben Cohen does it for me far more that Mitch does. That chunkier man's body, that squarer face.


Who knows why?

It just is so.



Judge for yourself.


Mitch Hewer is the blond, Ben Cohen the dark one with the cropped hair. And doesn't Ben have a lovely smile?

Nigel The Plain

My first royalty cheque

I'd heard nothing about the royalties for the anthology Night Moves 2 and I assumed it had sunk without trace. So I emailed the editor of Aspen Mountain Press and found that I had $50! Woohoo! I am a published author. I have actually earned something from my writings.

I was totally chuffed by this news. I'd more or less assumed my writings were rubbish and no one wanted to read them. OK, I know, I'm only one of the four authors in Night Moves, but still. So now I have decided to submit my third novel, I Get No Kick From Champagne, to a publisher. It was the first novel I wrote where I felt confident about my writing, where it moved easily and where I felt confident that I knew what I was doing, that I could handle character and setting and description and plot. I thought of Torquere. We'll see -- this time next year I could have doubled my royalty income. At this rate by the time I'm 80, I'll be rich!

Nigel