Here we go. Three little words that will probably attract those Google search bots or whatever the hell they are called and this blog post will explode in a rush of letters off the screen and hang around in the air like letter confetti.
I’ll tackle the penis subject first. I read a lot of M/M Romance and have had quite an education in the size of erect penises. Now I understand that size matters. At least I think it does. This is a purely personal opinion and you may not share it so I don’t need to be tarred and feathered, thank you very much. I think some people are very happy with whatever they have in the penis department, whether it’s their own or they’re relying on someone else’s to bring them pleasure and I say jolly good luck to them. But given the choice of a penis that is the size of a mediocre Wiener sausage when fully inflated and a much larger German Bockwurst in full rampant mode, I know which one I’d prefer.
There is a wonderful article here on the size of sausages which I found highly entertaining considering the topic I was writing about.
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-great-wiener-debate-does-size-really-matter
And the picture above really brings it all home – just pure whimsy on my part 🙂
But I digress. The reason I started this train of thought was that I don’t really need to know how long a penis is when I’m reading about two men having sex, making love, getting it on. I know I said size matters but that’s when it affects me personally. What I don’t need to know is whether Tom’s dick is six inches, eight inches or nine inches. I think it detracts from the action going on when you have the math explained to you and possibly what’s even more distracting is when you take out a ruler so you can raise an eyebrow and drawl, “Really…? That big, eh?” (Oh-that’s just me then? Right….)
All I need to know is what the man does with it, how he uses it and how the other person feels whilst it’s being used. And this can be conveyed through description, through grimaces, through sighs of pleasure or pain -you get my drift. So enough of the ‘he whipped out his ten inch penis and stroked it lovingly’, and ‘his nine inch dick hit me in the face like a policeman’s truncheon’ – those sentences work for me, just leave out the numbers. Do you see what I’m getting at? Like I said, it’s a personal thing. I’m sure others out there won’t agree with me.
As for the sex – that was just to get the attention of those clever little bots that trawl the internet looking for interesting titbits. Now for the porn bit which will really ramp them up.
When I am asked what I write, I look people straight in the eye and say ‘Romance novels’. As the light fades from their eyes, I deliver the coup de grace. “Gay male romance novels’. That’s when they completely crack up and we have to call the men in the white coats. When they’ve recovered enough, they say ‘So you write porn for a living?’ Now how gay man sex can simply be construed as simply ‘porn’ is a mystery to me. Heterosexuals getting it on is okay but two men is ‘porn’? If I hadn’t qualified the fact I wrote gay romance, the next question would probably have been (and has been) ‘Oh, like 50 Shades of Grey?’ I simply shake my head wearily and look defeated. I was compared to 50 Shades when my first book came out even though I specifically told the reporter I was nothing like EL James in my writing but they still ran with the story and the comparison.
So I explain that no, I don’t write porn as people possibly understand the word today because my books have a story first and foremost, they have emotional impact and they are about people in a relationship together dealing with life and everything it has to offer. The sex scenes are part of it as a normal, human relationship, even explicit but they aren’t classed as ‘porn’.
Interestingly enough these are the actual definitions I found for the word ‘pornography’. They do make you think…
The Free Dictionary
The representation in books, magazines, photographs, films, and other media of scenes of sexual behavior that are erotic or lewd and are designed to arouse sexual interest.
The English Oxford Dictionary
printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary
movies, pictures, magazines, etc., that show or describe naked people or sex in a very open and direct way in order to cause sexual excitement
The author reflects. ‘Huh. Who would have thought it. Maybe I do write porn after all. *grins wickedly*’
There are a couple of interesting articles below in case anyone was interested in reading a bit further on this for other people’s point of views.
http://www.kstatecollegian.com/2012/12/06/difference-between-romance-novels-porn-lies-in-emphasis/
By that reckoning I’ve read a lot of porn.
And i totally agree on the whole not needing to know the exact measurements of a dude’s cock when i’m reading a story. Rulers may have their (kinky) place in a story, but I don’t like being interrupted at a critical moment trying to figure just how long exactly is 8 inches (besides being…well, eight inches).
Hi Carissa
Glad you agree, and as you say- I’ve probably read and written a lot of porn by these definitions lol. Thanks so much for stopping by.
Whenever they give me the exact inches I always get a picture of a Footlong Sub in my head and while rulers may have a kinky place in a story, bread…hmmm, not so much. Although, according to your map some of those sausages should be put in buns (you know, I’m just going to leave this comment right here because I can see where this is headed)
LOL Donna. Yes, best head that conversation off at the pass. Thanks so much for stopping by 🙂
Thank you for this.
Yes, I tend to agree on the size issue. Mentioning size can ruin the ambience of the moment by placing too exact of a visual. The beauty of reading is that the same group of words can bring different visuals to each reader’s imagination allowing them to have their own experience in addition to the one the author intended.
For me, the reader, that is what makes a book a good.
That said I am currently reading a gay fiction/ possibly romance book where the lead is an obsessive obsessive so size is mentioned often and makes the book hilarious. : )
On another note when 50 Shades was tittered about by the girls I work with, I took a gander and laughed. Someone took the yaoi/MM Romance formula and used the tall, dark and handsome, white knight syndrome and wrote a heterosexual novel.what’s yaoi they asked, and yes, I had to explain what kind of books I write. : )
Great blog btw.
Hi Alexa thanks for your comments. Absolutely, the book about the Obsessive obsessive sounds truly funny. You’ll have to tell me which one it is. And here you go, someone did this on yaoi, maybe you can pass it along for educational purposes.. 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNi2fds3Jts
Hi Susan,
It’s Diary of a Sex Addict by Scott Alexander Hess; I reading to review and it is amusing so far. : )
I’m Alex btw. And thank you for the link to the yaoi explanation vid, very amusing and I’ll definitely be using it.
*Slaps herself on the back of the head* Fingers run away with me, sorry about that extra ‘a’. Glad you think the video might come in useful 🙂
Thank you for this blog entry. I was reading a story the other day where penis length of both characters was mentioned. Thankfully, girth was not also given. I would rather stay in the story and use my imagination, than be given specifications that take over my analytical brain – length, width, volume of output, velocity of output, color, anything else which can be measured.
I loved what you said about penis size given in inches. Whenever I read those descriptions I stop and look an my kindle and estimate the size of what I’m reading. Then I realize I’ve lost my place in the book.
What I can’t understand is how with all those giant cocks, the men can invariably get one hand around both of them at the same time. Not happening – and that’s the other spot I stop reading – have to curl my hand around and ponder.
Thanks for the comments Andrea and Katherine. Thank heavens it’s not just me being nit picky 🙂 Andrea, I now have this visual image of you when you read a book and all the hand and action movements that go with it lol. Thanks both for stopping on by!
My pal B G Thomas started his writing career by writing gay porn for magazines in the 90s and told me that the two things that were essential in every story was that it had to be clear how big everyone’s penises were, and fully described in loving detail, and it had to be clear were the cum ends up – all over the floor, ceiling, each other, mailman, etc. Maybe that’s an expectation that has hung over into all other fiction concerning men in relationships with other men?
Elin, I guess it’s like anything. Some like it, some don’t 🙂 Thank goodness everyone is different. This doesn’t mean it’s wrong at all. Just that it can be a reader ‘preference quirk’ 🙂