I'm a little reluctant to make this post, but I think it's important, so here goes.
I'm working on finishing Palimpsest starting next week. Now, this book has a lot of sex in it, for a lot of reasons. It's important to me that all four major characters are functionally bisexual, especially considering the plot element of the sexually-transmitted city access some of you may remember from the short story. This is not a shy book when it comes to sex.
I have no trouble talking about sex between men and women, or women and women. I know all about both, having, you know, done it once or twice. But I am minus the necessary experience to write authoritatively about love between men.
Now, I've read and watched porn and I've read a great deal of books which have m/m sex in them--largely written by women, actually. (Is spit-lube really that common? I highly doubt it.) And I've heard the mockery of such scenes as unrealistic, and while I have a good idea of everything physical that goes on, I don't know anything about the intimate experience of being a man making love to other men.
And I want to do it well, I want to do it right. This is extremely important to me.
So I'm asking my gay or bisexual male friends on this list to talk to me about it. Email me, for privacy's sake, if you like, (comments are also screened), but if you would be kind enough to help a girl out--what bothers you about the sex scenes you've read, if anything? What do you want to see? And most important and most strange for me to ask--what does it feel like? What, if you've had sex with women, is different beyond the obvious? (I could go on for hours about what's different with a woman as opposed to men, if reciprocation is desired by any other authors out there.) I'm looking for the specific, the peculiar, things not obvious to your local bisexual author girl, both receptive and penetrative experiences.
Yes, I could read a book. I have. I'd rather ask, I'd rather listen to real humans. I know this is a private and personal subject, but I'm trying to treat us all with equal dignity and love and realism. I very much appreciate anyone who shares their thoughts.
- Research Query
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yuki_onna- November 9th, 2007
hopeful
(Write On My Skin)
(Write On My Skin)
Should I repost in places that many of your target audience are likely to visit and see?
Delurking to suggest you send an email to Steve Berman - I'm suggesting him not only because he's gay, but he also writes erotica and has edited a number of erotic/queer anthologies. I think he'd be able to articulate very well what he thinks works and doesn't work in M/M sex scenes, both personally as a gay man and professionally as a writer/editor. If you've never spoken with him online or in RL, you can tell him that I gave you his name as a way of introduction.
"Steve Berman" <sberman8@yahoo.com>
"Steve Berman" <sberman8@yahoo.com>
Steve and I are friends and he reads this journal, so if he wants to share, I'm sure he'll speak up.
I have no experience to offer up here (duh), but I'd be extremely interested to hear what kinds of things you learn, and what your own thoughts are on m/f and f/f differences. Maybe consider boiling down what you get e-mailed in private, so it isn't connected with anyone in particular?
I don't write terribly smutty stuff, but it all goes into the compost bin of "I know this, even if it doesn't make it into the book." And I've got at least one m/m couple that features prominently in a novel I haven't written yet, so it would be good to see such things discussed in a *non*-porny way.
And yeah, I've been curious for a while -- absent the wonders of modern purpose-designed lube, what can one safely use?
I don't write terribly smutty stuff, but it all goes into the compost bin of "I know this, even if it doesn't make it into the book." And I've got at least one m/m couple that features prominently in a novel I haven't written yet, so it would be good to see such things discussed in a *non*-porny way.
And yeah, I've been curious for a while -- absent the wonders of modern purpose-designed lube, what can one safely use?
Replying to this so you can get responses.
I would assume oil of any kind would have been acceptable in The Day. However, Palimpsest is present day, so KY is widely available.
I would assume oil of any kind would have been acceptable in The Day. However, Palimpsest is present day, so KY is widely available.
Are there any hygiene concerns with oils, though?
Man, the things writers find themselves wondering about . . . .
Man, the things writers find themselves wondering about . . . .
Well, but in The Day, hygiene was not a high priority to begin with.
I am gay.
Spit lube? *snigger*
I will tell you this much though. Lube is not actually a requirement, merely a very welcome facilitator. I do recall times when my partner of that moment took me without ANY lubrication whatsoever - that includes spit. He was, i think, very in love. When emotional involvement is present, you'd be surprised of the kinds of things one can pull off.
What's it feel like? The first time i kissed a boy, forever forsaking skirt chasing, it felt like stealing candy. I was elated.
Doing it with another guy? I've been numerously asked by my incredulous mother if i never yearned for the touch of soft skin, etc. I could never even intellectually understand the part of heterosexuality. That a guy would need a bundle of perfumed tenderness to turn himself on always seemed to me like cheating on the grand test of Masculinity Assertion. How can you even begin to claim that you are asserting your masculinity in a sexual way when the partner you are comparing yourself to is something like a flopsy kitten? What i *like* about sex with men is the sensation of hardness against hardness, the ever-titillating question of who's gonna do what, and the delicate balance between lascivious surrender and understanding conquest. Power games, pissing contests, oneupmanship and struttery, essentially. Boy stuff. ;)
Am i comprehensible?
Spit lube? *snigger*
I will tell you this much though. Lube is not actually a requirement, merely a very welcome facilitator. I do recall times when my partner of that moment took me without ANY lubrication whatsoever - that includes spit. He was, i think, very in love. When emotional involvement is present, you'd be surprised of the kinds of things one can pull off.
What's it feel like? The first time i kissed a boy, forever forsaking skirt chasing, it felt like stealing candy. I was elated.
Doing it with another guy? I've been numerously asked by my incredulous mother if i never yearned for the touch of soft skin, etc. I could never even intellectually understand the part of heterosexuality. That a guy would need a bundle of perfumed tenderness to turn himself on always seemed to me like cheating on the grand test of Masculinity Assertion. How can you even begin to claim that you are asserting your masculinity in a sexual way when the partner you are comparing yourself to is something like a flopsy kitten? What i *like* about sex with men is the sensation of hardness against hardness, the ever-titillating question of who's gonna do what, and the delicate balance between lascivious surrender and understanding conquest. Power games, pissing contests, oneupmanship and struttery, essentially. Boy stuff. ;)
Am i comprehensible?
Actually, what you're talking about is exactly what I'm looking for, the ideas of attraction and so on, so totally comprehensible.
2007-11-09 08:06 pm (UTC)