‘All Together’ by Dirk Vanden
Posted on December 4, 2011 by Chuck Forester in Erotica, Reviews
I wrote ‘The Problem with Gay Porno’ because if I’m going to be aroused by erotica, I need the good story to know what’s going on in a man’s head not just his orifices. As erotica editor of this webpage I celebrated authors who kept my attention by showing me men who revel in the full range of their sexuality and their emotions. I confess, having come out in the Seventies, that I have a penchant for stories that revel in freedom and Dirk Vanden’s characters deal with it daily (more…)
Literotic: ‘Teleny and Camille’ by Jon Macy
Posted on July 25, 2011 by Chuck Forester in Erotica, Features, Reviews
In the introduction to Teleny and Camille (Northwest Press)— the 2011 Lambda Literary Award Winner for Best Gay Erotica—the author states his desire is to make something from “the lush language and the erotic scenes” of an erotic novel written by Oscar Wilde and his circle of friends in Victorian England. (more…)
Modern Faerie Tales
Posted on June 21, 2011 by Chuck Forester in Erotica, Features
2011 Lambda Literary Award Finalist
When I picked up the short story collection A Twist of Grimm: Erotic Fairy Tales for Gay Men (Lethe Press), by William Holden, and read, “Once upon a time…” I thought what followed would be some tired porno story for men who fantasize about blond Disney characters. What followed was William Holden’s story of Mr. Knightboots based on the Grimm Brothers’ “The Boots of Buffalo Leather.” He kept my attention and I read it through without stopping. (more…)
Gay Erotica: Alive and Throbbing
Posted on February 24, 2011 by Chuck Forester in Erotica, Features
Looking back at 2010 in Gay Erotica
With 18 books submitted for this year’s Awards, Lambda Literary has a healthy showing of erotica written by a number of men and one woman.
The year’s nominees include mythical creatures with hard dicks and wet holes, skaters and bottoms, one about bears, one on sex in Vancouver for diversity and several anthologies. (more…)
‘Blood Sacraments’ ed. by Todd Gregory [NSFW]
Posted on January 24, 2011 by Chuck Forester in Erotica, Reviews
For men who are into sucking blood, Blood Sacraments (Bold Strokes) is the collection for you: nineteen stories of vampire sex edited by Todd Gregory. It’s my first exposure to blood lust, as opposed to lusty Bloods in South Central. Although, they could easily make another collection. (more…)
‘Hard at Work’ by Brad Saunders
Posted on December 14, 2010 by Chuck Forester in Erotica, Reviews
Hard at Work (Kensington Books) is a collection of erotic stories written by Brad Saunders, the author of Men I Might Have Known, a similar collection of missed connection stories.
The stories in Hard at Work are classic tales of lust based on the writers’ personal experience. Each involves sex with men who work as pastry chefs, hoteliers, realtors, porn stars, etc., and one who is a shy student. Don’t we wish?
His “victims” (his term) are always handsome and well built, and the narrator is always fit with a gym body. The sex is lurid and steamy. All the pieces are in play. Let the games begin.
If you want a quickie read when you come home from work feeling pissed that the hot guy in the next cubicle won’t go to lunch with you, there will be a chapter in this book to let you forget it and think hotter thoughts.
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Sam Steward: Scholar & Pornographer
Posted on November 29, 2010 by Chuck Forester in Features
Samuel Steward is a little known ancestor but one worth knowing. Not as the crazy uncle in the attic but the strong headed gay cousin a friend of Alice B. Toklas until her death and a keeper of a stud file of all his sexual encounters.
After teaching popular English classes for twenty years, Steward became a tattoo artist in Chicago with a steady stream of sailors from the Great Lakes Training Center and later in Oakland, where he worked on most members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. With a love hate relationship with the Catholic Church, he was sexually a masochist with encounters that often left him bruised and injured.
His homes were virtual museums of homoerotic art that would have put him in jail if it had ever been raided, common among gay bars and bookstores. He wrote pornographic short stories and longer popular Phil Andross novels when such books were routinely banned. Fortunately, copies of his works are preserved in library archives. Unfortunately, they are no longer available. (more…)
‘Hard and Fast’ by Sean Wolfe
Posted on November 22, 2010 by Chuck Forester in Erotica, Reviews
Hard and Fast (Kensington) was a good read. It met my criteria: My dick responded.
I was relieved to pick up a book or porno and after reading the first two pages know I wanted to read the rest of the story.
Sean Wolfe is a compassionate, erotic master. His characters come alive as human beings as well as sexual objects. The price is right, too. For the cost of a meal at Sizzler, you get a couple hours of dick hardening with this collection. (more…)
Remembering John Embry (1926-2010)
Posted on October 15, 2010 by Chuck Forester in Remembrances
Drummer Magazine Founder Dies
John Embry was born in 1926 in Winslow, Arizona. He died in his home in San Francisco on September 16, 2010. He was 83.
At 18, he moved to Los Angeles and attended art school before he was drafted into the US Army in 1949. After leaving the army, he pursued a career in advertising in LA, Hawaii and New York City before turning to publishing in the fledgling gay media.
He founded and published Drummer magazine in 1976—a magazine that celebrated the masculine gay male while embracing the literary values of the Evergreen Review, a publication famous for sexy, counter-culture content. (more…)
‘Muscle Men’ & ‘Biker Boys’
Posted on September 2, 2010 by Chuck Forester in Erotica
I consider Richard Labonté the Dean of gay pornography. I met him years ago at A Different Lights Books, which he managed when it had books of substance and was the place our community met to plan the next demonstration. Sadly, the store now is another of the rainbow five-and-dimes on Castro Street with glossy photographs of naked men, hard-on magazines, a limited selection of books, and the gifts you’d give someone if you really needed to tell them how gay you are. Richard encouraged me to keep writing and was polite enough not to say my writing had the excitement of unused toilet paper. Muscle Men is the second of his collections that I’ve read since beginning this assignment. In his introduction he gives us permission to touch the muscle comics and eroticize the writer of the “balls-on” essay on obsession with body building. Not a bad place to start. (more…)
