Dusk

Here's a full list of the gay and male friendship stories I've posted/reposted in the past year that deal with BDSM/leather, have dark settings (imprisonment, slavery, war, or prostitution), or feature servants, liegemen, apprentices, or mentors. As the boilerplate warning for my stories puts it, "All of the stories feature love or respect, though sometimes it takes a while to get there."

You're welcome.

My gay e-zine True Tales is currently offering news coverage of Hurricane Gustav, with breaking news of the hurricane's effects on the gay community, as well as the leather/BDSM/bear communities. As with our Katrina coverage, I'll be keeping a special eye on the effects of the hurricane on gay writers and artists.

The August 2008 issue of True Tales: An Erotic E-zine of Masculinity and Power links to texts, photography, and a video in tribute to Larry Townsend, late author of The Leatherman's Handbook. The issue includes links to interviews by Jack Rinella and Bob Wingate, as well as writings by Larry Townsend, Thomas Roche, Jack Fritscher, and others. For adults only. E-zine's warning page | Latest issue.

"Leather, Licking, and Lawnmowers" takes leathersex out of its usual bars and back alleys, setting it in unexpected locations: A 5&10. A potluck. A hamburger joint. A college waltz party. Even when the leatherman who narrates these stories returns to the Eagle bar, things don't go quite the way he expected. . . . Written by the former director of the Erotic Authors Association, who is also editor of "True Tales: An Erotic E-zine of Masculinity and Power," this five-tale gay erotica collection includes the story "Spontaneous," runner-up for the 2006 Rauxa Prize for Erotic Fiction. For adults only. Book preview, booktrailer video, and links to ordering pages.

I don't know whether anyone has posted about this yet, but here are the finalists. Finalists from very small presses (i.e. the type that attract authors on the scale of most of us here): MLR Press has a finalist in the erotica category: William Maltese & Wayne Gunn's "Ardennian Boy." Blind Eye Books has a finalist in the SF/F/H category: Ginn Hale's "Wicked Gentlemen." Interestingly, all the finalists in the Men's Romance category (which is where the very small presses have made their biggest mark) are from larger presses.

(Links lead to an adults-only site, True Tales: An Erotic E-zine of Masculinity and Power.) Links on the Military Men page have been added to stories by Ranger, Parhelion, and Marquesate that are set around the conflicts in World War One, World War Two, and the modern British army. Links on the Leathermen page have been added to bondage art that is an exercise in minimalism, an article about a bottom-man's efforts to overcome a phobia, and a video about power play that starts in a leather bar. Next year's theme will be Prisoners and Prison Officers. (Yes, the 2008 theme has changed. There have been some good stories coming out in this category recently.) Please e-mail me if you have any suggestions for links to gay erotic and non-erotic narrative nonfiction, fiction, narrative poetry, drama, book excerpts, blog entries, art, photography, videos, and audio. The links can be to your own works or anyone else's. Suggestions for links to military and leather works continue to be welcome. Take a look at past issues to see what types of works True Tales links to. Link submission guidelines.

The first volume of the series is now in print.

Here you go: Online male homoerotic fiction recommendations, divided by topic. There's a "Military Men" category. And I promise you, my taste runs toward long stories.

True Tales: An Erotic E-zine of Masculinity and Power (adults only) has been updated with links recommendations. Links on the Military Men page have been added to fiction about unusual twists to life in the British army in 1951 and to a Tom of Finland drawing that departs from his usual style. Links on the Leathermen page have been added to a 1965 interview with a member of a Danish leather club, an accompanying photograph, poetry about a slave who discovers his limits, and a video that's definitely not just for the leather crowd.

I haven't gotten past the first couple of chapters yet, but Marquesate's previous work, Her Majesty's Men, is wonderful.

JSmith said: "We do have an 'Ask Me' option" Oh, believe me, I noticed that you were in advance of a lot of other sites. But I still prefer the option of not having to choose an option.

I tell people, "I have a sexual orientation that it takes PowerPoint to describe." Seriously. My sexual orientation just doesn't fit into the normal boxes. I usually tick "bisexual," because that's as close as I can get to a standard label, but being forced to choose a label is annoying. I wish that every site on the Web would stop requiring gender and orientation labels, except on a voluntary basis. Now, I think voluntary labels are wonderful. As rknapp and others here have said, there should be a place for labels for people who can easily say what they are and want to share that information with others. But as colinian says, being required to pin a label on oneself is annoying.

eliotmoore asked: "Would women be so quick to write rape into their stories?" Yes. Rape stories are a popular subgenre in the fan fiction community, which is predominantly female. Sometimes those stories are written for titillation, sometimes to explore serious issues of abuse. The stories that are written for titillation aren't necessarily by authors who aren't concerned with real-life abuse. Sometimes rape survivors write such stories. The authors make a strong distinction between fantasy and reality, as I imagine many authors in the gay fiction world do. Personally, I can't easily read stories where rape is presented for titillation, but I do very much enjoy stories that explore abuse issues.

What I write: Fantasy, historical fantasy, contemporary leather fiction, friendship fiction, gay fiction, gay erotic fiction, and various genres of nonfiction. What age groups I write for: Ages ten to fourteen (if you count my nonfiction), young adult, and adult. What I read: Um . . . everything? Well, okay, I'm especially likely to steer toward stories that have hierarchy or power dynamics of some sort in them, such as historical fiction or spy novels. And most of my online reading is of original slash.