A memento from my twenties. "Heat: Real Men Tell Their Gay Sex Stories."
This is a paperback. The cover has a young man in fine condition, peering through blinds at something. We can imagine what the something is! Each chapter is its own vignette. In "Cycle Sluts," two strangers meet on a loop--maybe the loop in Central Park!--and retreat to the bushes to get to know each other. One story involves a narrator sniffing his neighbor's underwear in the communal laundry room, and you can guess where this leads. And a third: Naval captains, or something like that, have forbidden passion on the last night of "active duty." In the morning, they won't even acknowledge each other. Heaven knows where my ex acquired this book. I kept it, during and after the separation. This wasn't deliberate. I guess I felt I had earned it.
There's a secret in the world of smut. It's this: Verbal smut is better than filmed pornography. Think about it. It's for the same reason that the novel "Bridget Jones's Diary" is better than the filmed version of "Bridget Jones's Diary." If your mind has to do some imaginative work, then you find yourself fully invested. The greatest gift to any gay man--and I write this for posterity, for any young gay reader looking for new material--is the corpus of Alan Hollinghurst. That's because Hollinghurst has literary cred; you don't have to feel embarrassed when you buy his books. But, in every one, around page thirty, some stud beautifully deflowers some other young man. Or the two protagonists meet on a beach and rekindle old passions. Or they're strangers in a public bathroom. Or one is the tutor and one is the protege. Or some combo of these scenarios. Recently, at the Strand, I found myself pawing through Hollinghurst's "Sparsholt Affair," looking for the landmark page-thirty scene, and I couldn't find it. Reviewers aren't so thrilled with this new novel, if you read between the lines of their respectful pieces; I think I know why. Anyway, after a moment, I recalled I was in public and moved on.
At twenty-two, I was very eager for (gay) sexual experience and willing to overlook certain major red lights. My boyfriend at the time would go on Manhunt and advertise that he and I were in an open relationship. But I hadn't consented to any of that. But: I was so addled, and living in such a thick fog of antidepressants, maybe I had signed on for something I hadn't believed I'd signed on for? He also presented me with a copy of "The Ethical Slut," which is a guide to the world of consensual polyamory. Poor guy. He was looking for escape hatch after escape hatch after escape hatch. This was only year two, and we would drag around the bloodied corpse of our relationship for an actual half-decade. I had no boundaries, so I would break into my boyfriend's email, and it was there that I found a solicitous note to a former (potential) flame. "Do you remember when you grabbed my crotch in that elevator? I wish I'd let you do more."
Anyway, back to "Heat." The thing that distresses me is the poor quality of the writing. "His tight little rosebud." "His man meat." ""His sweaty basket." "My joyous hole." How could you string any of those series of words together and still keep a straight face? To me, it's overreaching. In the acting world, we call this "indicating." It's when you haven't done the emotional work of really inhabiting your character, so you just make some flailing gestures to try to cover up your lack of research. John Legend did this over and over in "Jesus Christ Superstar"; his performance seemed to say, again and again, I have very little depth, but look, I can swing my arms around with great zeal!!! Show, don't tell. If you find yourself reaching for the phrase, "my joyous hole," then, probably, you're phoning it in.
That's not to say I'm disowning "Heat." For all gay male readers: It's highly recommended.
My ex and I did not last (of course). In the waning months of our dreadful tenure, I found myself doing anything to drum up excitement. Mostly, this meant pumping my then-boyfriend for details regarding his former conquests. And there had been many former conquests. He would talk about the stranger who fed him pad Thai, then tried to enter him, a bit too forcefully. Or the guy who wanted to do it in front of an open window, high above W. 57th. Or the former roommate who became something other than a roommate during one brief drunken night. And this is the reason for the gratitude I have toward my ex: He made me aware of possibilities I maybe wouldn't have uncovered on my own. We made use of each other. And then we went off into our own separate worlds.
Certainly, there are worse things that can happen.
This is a paperback. The cover has a young man in fine condition, peering through blinds at something. We can imagine what the something is! Each chapter is its own vignette. In "Cycle Sluts," two strangers meet on a loop--maybe the loop in Central Park!--and retreat to the bushes to get to know each other. One story involves a narrator sniffing his neighbor's underwear in the communal laundry room, and you can guess where this leads. And a third: Naval captains, or something like that, have forbidden passion on the last night of "active duty." In the morning, they won't even acknowledge each other. Heaven knows where my ex acquired this book. I kept it, during and after the separation. This wasn't deliberate. I guess I felt I had earned it.
There's a secret in the world of smut. It's this: Verbal smut is better than filmed pornography. Think about it. It's for the same reason that the novel "Bridget Jones's Diary" is better than the filmed version of "Bridget Jones's Diary." If your mind has to do some imaginative work, then you find yourself fully invested. The greatest gift to any gay man--and I write this for posterity, for any young gay reader looking for new material--is the corpus of Alan Hollinghurst. That's because Hollinghurst has literary cred; you don't have to feel embarrassed when you buy his books. But, in every one, around page thirty, some stud beautifully deflowers some other young man. Or the two protagonists meet on a beach and rekindle old passions. Or they're strangers in a public bathroom. Or one is the tutor and one is the protege. Or some combo of these scenarios. Recently, at the Strand, I found myself pawing through Hollinghurst's "Sparsholt Affair," looking for the landmark page-thirty scene, and I couldn't find it. Reviewers aren't so thrilled with this new novel, if you read between the lines of their respectful pieces; I think I know why. Anyway, after a moment, I recalled I was in public and moved on.
At twenty-two, I was very eager for (gay) sexual experience and willing to overlook certain major red lights. My boyfriend at the time would go on Manhunt and advertise that he and I were in an open relationship. But I hadn't consented to any of that. But: I was so addled, and living in such a thick fog of antidepressants, maybe I had signed on for something I hadn't believed I'd signed on for? He also presented me with a copy of "The Ethical Slut," which is a guide to the world of consensual polyamory. Poor guy. He was looking for escape hatch after escape hatch after escape hatch. This was only year two, and we would drag around the bloodied corpse of our relationship for an actual half-decade. I had no boundaries, so I would break into my boyfriend's email, and it was there that I found a solicitous note to a former (potential) flame. "Do you remember when you grabbed my crotch in that elevator? I wish I'd let you do more."
Anyway, back to "Heat." The thing that distresses me is the poor quality of the writing. "His tight little rosebud." "His man meat." ""His sweaty basket." "My joyous hole." How could you string any of those series of words together and still keep a straight face? To me, it's overreaching. In the acting world, we call this "indicating." It's when you haven't done the emotional work of really inhabiting your character, so you just make some flailing gestures to try to cover up your lack of research. John Legend did this over and over in "Jesus Christ Superstar"; his performance seemed to say, again and again, I have very little depth, but look, I can swing my arms around with great zeal!!! Show, don't tell. If you find yourself reaching for the phrase, "my joyous hole," then, probably, you're phoning it in.
That's not to say I'm disowning "Heat." For all gay male readers: It's highly recommended.
My ex and I did not last (of course). In the waning months of our dreadful tenure, I found myself doing anything to drum up excitement. Mostly, this meant pumping my then-boyfriend for details regarding his former conquests. And there had been many former conquests. He would talk about the stranger who fed him pad Thai, then tried to enter him, a bit too forcefully. Or the guy who wanted to do it in front of an open window, high above W. 57th. Or the former roommate who became something other than a roommate during one brief drunken night. And this is the reason for the gratitude I have toward my ex: He made me aware of possibilities I maybe wouldn't have uncovered on my own. We made use of each other. And then we went off into our own separate worlds.
Certainly, there are worse things that can happen.
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