Christie Gordon's Blog, page 6

Why Do Women Love M/M Romance? by Amber Kell

Image from www.homotography.com

That's the question I'm posing today. What makes us like the thought of hot manlove? Is it because one guy is hot and two guys only makes it hotter? Or is it because we're a group of romance readers who like things that aren't on the purely traditional pathway?

There are only so many woman-abducted-by-pirate stories a person can read in a lifetime before we think maybe John instead of Jane would make a better character for a sexy twist (hmmm, jotting down a note).

I started reading traditional romances when I was in my teens. You know the ones; sophisticated, rich man falls for naïve, clueless virgin and they live happily ever after. Over the years I've pretty much read every scenario known to author, starting at traditional m/f, progressing to ménage and now, having cut out the girly parts, read and write m/m romances.

Some people try to draw parallels to society and all kinds of psychological reasons behind the onslaught of male/male reading by a mostly female audience, but sometimes it's just about a hot man and an interesting story. I'd love to read feedback as to why you read m/m romance or maybe why you don't.

Contest: I will be giving away one audio copy of my book, Blood Signs, to one lucky commenter!

Amber Kell is a published author of M/M Erotic Romance. You can find more information about her at her website at: Amber Kell

Here is information on her latest release:

Series: Perfect Strangers , Book 2

Published By: OmniLit / All Romance eBooks, LLC

Published: Feb 02, 2011

ISBN # 9781936387205

Purchase at: All Romance eBooks

Blurb: Everyone needs a little romance…

When artist Stephen Carter catches a glimpse of Master Jones on the security monitors of his brother's BDSM club he's entranced. A hastily drawn sketch manages to capture the Dom's high cheekbones, square jaw, and hot, hard body. A body the quiet, reclusive Stephen would love to explore.

The subs who fall for Victor Jones always get hurt. He has no desire to enter into a committed relationship and no room in his life for romantic entanglements. But then the seasoned Dom starts to receive intriguing gifts from a secret admirer. When Victor discovers his admirer is Stephen, he decides maybe it's time to try out something new, someone less experienced.

Purple Prose – Arch Villain Strikes Again by ZA Maxfield

Oh, how mighty is my sorrow when I think of the books I've slain… My bosom heaves, my brow furrows. Tears drip like rain. Blood runs in rivers like thick, dark wine. Meaty manflesh rises at my bidding, plunging like sausages into tight, tender rosebuds of fluttering anal muscles that grip like pythons and clench and milk stuff. (They MILK STUFF?) Women's parts weep like honey and flow like sap and glisten and goodness only knows what the hell else.

I am Purple Prose. I am a gate-crasher. I am a line-crosser.  And I will eat your lunch. (Then sometimes, I'll make you throw it up after, just for giggles.)

I'm not going to single anyone out here, and seriously, man. I'm not casting that first stone. We all try shit that doesn't work. I've HEARD my editors clear their throats from several states away. Thank heavens God made editors. They provide that much needed reality-check for aspiring authors everywhere.

To see what I mean, it only takes a little trip to our beloved "weepingcock" community at live journal HERE: weepingcock

Let us refer to the text shall we? There's an abundance of You Might Be A…(Fill in the Blank) self-help books out there. To that I'd add:

You might be a friend of Purple Prose if you've ever written…

Anyone's anus itched to have someone inside it.

This isn't prose. It's an STD.

eloquent phallic erection

Okay, hello. Talking dick?

The ultimate male explosion

To be fair this came from a vitamin supplement add. But it made me wonder about the penultimate male explosion and from exactly where on a man's body that might come.

And for the ladies…

hot slimy fluids into her sexually ravaged swampy depths

There are no lengths to which some women's swampy depths won't go to build up a good head of SLIME.

bathed him in her cherry-red smile (Credit belongs to Jonathon Franzen for this one.)

Jonathon, I know you can take criticism from me all the way to the bank, laughing. But seriously. Dude. I liked the "jismic, grunting butt-oink". But the cherry red smile? No can do, man. Purple Prose has flown over your WIP once too often and left a surprise you forgot to wipe off.

ZA Maxfield is a romantic, erotic writer. You can find out more about her at her site: http://zamaxfield.com/

Here is some information on her latest release:

Stirring Up Trouble

ZA Maxfield

Manlove Romance Press

Available in Ebook & Print

LGBT Contemporary Romance

Buy at:

Amazon

MLR Press

Blurb:

Toby Andrews is cooking up more than a little trouble for Evan Blankenship. Because of pranks, indiscretions, and plain bad timing, his ability to work in New York's temples of haute cuisine is a thing of the past. When Toby's sister tells him he should look up an acquaintance whose restaurant — Le Potiron –is failing, he doesn't have much choice.

Pretty soon he's in bed, literally, with a cook who hates people, trying to save a restaurant that only the neighborhood mothers seem to love, and on the verge of another –possibly painful — lesson or two about what it means to be successful.

Evan hates everyone but Toby. Toby likes to stir things up. See what's on the menu at Le Potiron, in Stirring Up Trouble.

For more information about her latest release, Stirring up Trouble, please click on the cover.

Call for M/M Romance and Yaoi Bloggers

Picture from www.homotography.com

As most of you may have heard, I put out a call last week for authors and readers of M/M Romance and Yaoi to be guest bloggers right here. There was a really great response and I'm pleased to say that for the next few months, there should be some fun discussion from avid readers and authors alike about the subject. I've asked the bloggers to talk about things like:

Why they write M/M Romance or Yaoi
What funny or interesting things they have come across in the M/M Romance and Yaoi genres
Purple Prose (you know, those wacky ways us authors like to describe sex)
Why do they think women like M/M Romance and Yaoi
Any funny quirks of the genre and so on.

Some of the authors I've already booked are (in order of appearance):

ZA Maxfield
Amber Kell
Belinda McBride
Louisa Brown
Julie Hayes
Laura Tolemei

Plus I've got a few readers to blog as well. If anyone reading this wants to join in and guest blog, please contact me at: Contact

All in all, it should be a fun couple of months here, so please check by often to see what's up. Of course, I'll be announcing the guest bloggers at all my usual places, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace (Links and follow info to the right there).

And that picture at the top, holy cow – I swear that is exactly what I picture Logan to look like in my next full-length novel, "Secrets".

Lolita in JRock: What's Up with That?

If we're going to have a quick discussion on Lolita and how it pertains to JRock, I suppose we have to talk about what it is first. Historically, the term Lolita can be referenced back to a book. Wikipedia says,  "Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian. The book is internationally famous for its innovative style and infamous for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, middle-aged Humbert Humbert, who becomes obsessed and sexually involved with a 12-year-old girl named Dolores Haze."

Okay, so the first "Lolita" was a fictitious, 12-year-old, sexually active girl who had a thing for much older men. Got it.

Anyone who knows anything about JRock and anime culture knows that "Lolita" is a term for a certain type of fashion – frilly, lacey dresses that are similar to something you'd see in "Gone with the Wind", but have a decided sexually provocative and sometimes Gothic flare to them and we've seen some of our favorite JRockers sporting these dresses on stage. It sprung up amongst the Visual Kei (Visual Style, translated) thing back in the late 1980s, when all rock stars at least wore make-up. Except, the Japanese took this to an extreme.

I've personally seen many a woman wearing a Lolita outfit at an anime/yaoi con and I must say I've investigated getting one for myself to wear on Halloween, my favorite holiday. A forty-something mother of two wearing a Gothic Lolita outfit for anything but Halloween seems a bit strange, dont' you think? Not that I'm above that, LOL. There are also many an anime in which boys are forced to wear princess outfits that look suspiciously similar to Lolita outfits. Hmmm…

So how did this 12-year-old-girl named Dolores inspire a fashion culture in Japan that culimnated in cross-dressing Japanese rock musicians? I have no idea. But I do know one thing, it's both intriguing and just plain silly, at least in my opinion. I have to say, I find these Japanese cross-dressing rock stars courageous. There is no way any respectable American rock musician would have the balls to prance around onstage with his guitar in a Lolita dress. Okay, maybe Marilyn Manson… but do you really want to see that? I think the closest we did get to seeing something like that was Boy George in the 80s, LOL.

My main question here becomes: what's up with Lolita fashion and male JRockers? Are the Japanese really insane? Are they just doing these things to make us say, "What the fuck?" I'm laughing to myself on that one. I'd love to hear your comments and views on the subject. Do you like it, hate it, want to be it?

Yaoi, M/M Romance Character Interview: Shannon Sullivan

I thought it would be fun to post some "character interviews" from my books and maybe give some further insight to their background and such. First off – Shannon Sullivan, the main character from "A Summer Without Rain." If you haven't read the book, here's a quick blurb and you can access more information here. If you've read it, feel free to skip the blurb;)

The picture to the left there is my first character sketch of Shannon. It's very rough and I used charcoal and paper as the medium, then of course took a photo of it and uploaded it from my camera. The paper this is drawn on is 18×24 inches, so it's huge! I wanted him to look pensive and a bit shy:) Anyhow, thought anyone reading this might get a kick out of seeing my first impression of him. Maybe I should call this "Behind the Book", LOL.

Blurb:

In 1920's Ireland, Shannon understands all too well that the love and hunger he feels for his best friend, Ciaran, is forbidden.  He's already shunned by his town and emotionally damaged from enduring painful confessions after a male teacher's molestation at age fourteen.  But when he finds Ciaran in a barn, grieving over the sudden death of his mother, a hasty and desperate embrace shatters an unspoken boundary between them.  Then, Shannon and Ciaran are sent on a journey to Dublin to bring a family heirloom to Ciaran's aunt.  Along the way, a drunken evening leads to an illicit act in a hotel room, confusing Ciaran and forcing them both down a treacherous path of deceit and desire.  Can love overcome the obstacles of Irish society, the Catholic Church, and political unrest?

So, on with the interview (and yes, we're back in 1920′s Ireland. Fiction is magic, you know):

Me: I'm sitting here at a small square table in a dark Irish pub called, McFlynne's Whiskey River, with Shannon Sullivan from "A Summer without Rain".

Me: *turns to Shannon* Hi, Shannon, it's great to see you again after what was it, two years now?

Shannon: Almost two years. I've been quite busy, you know, in all that time.

Me: Busy doing what?

Shannon: *blushes and looks away* Getting ready for a serious thing with Ciaran.

Me: Serious? What sort of serious thing?

Shannon: *wringing hands* Well, seems we've come to a point where just living together in Aunt Iona's flat isn't enough. We want our own place, a bloody right place for us. One with thick walls and windows that shut real tight now.

Me: *laughing* So no one hears you having sex?

Shannon: *eyes wide* Christie, I can't believe you would bloody say that! I thought you were a right decent woman…

Me: I'm the one that wrote all those torrid sex scenes, remember?

Shannon: *blushes again* Right… *he looks up at me with a twinkle in his eye* And I bloody well thank you for that.

Me: Okay, so how are you and Ciaran doing?

Shannon: Ah, he's all right. I do love the bloody bastard and all, but sometimes he angers me something fierce. *sits forward in his chair* Like the other day, he thought it was a grand idea to write a letter to me ma and da, trying to explain how much their silence over these years pains me. And now they're coming out from Enfield to see me. Can you bloody believe that? I about shat myself.

Me: *smiling and taking Shannon's hand* I'm glad they're finally coming to see you. And you should thank Ciaran for loving you so much that he did that for you. It must have been one hell of a letter to get them to actually come out. It's got to be  a very tough thing for them to face.

Shannon. Yeah, Aunt Iona and Ciaran's da say they'll stand behind me no matter what when they come. But I'm bloody petrified. What if me da tries to have me arrested or sent off to the bloody nuthouse?

Me: Arrested? I don't think so…

Shannon: But he bloody well could.

Me: I don't think so.

Shannon: *looks around a moment* I s'pose Aunt Iona and Mr. O'Kelly would put  stop to it.

Me: Don't worry, Shannon. Ciaran would be the one who'd put a stop to it. You know he'd find a way and I doubt he'd allow your dad to visit knowing that something like that might happen. He loves you and I know he'd do anything for you.

Shannon: *smiles* Yeah, the bloody bastard.

Me: So how've you gotten on here in Dublin?

Shannon: Bloody great, actually. I have lots of friends now and even female friends that don't care so much about me and Ciaran. I guess they're more like Aunt Iona. See, we all belong to this sort of underground club. One that's just for people like us, you know, *chuckles* people who like mint ice cream. In fact, that's what we call it.

Me: Mint ice cream?

Shannon: *sits back and shakes head* No, the Mint Club. Aunt Iona started it before we even came down here the first time. Now it's all bleedin' political and stuff.

Me: *smiles* So did you ever learn how to drive a car?

Shannon: *frowns and rubs table surface with fingers* Sort of.

Me: Sort of ? Is that a no? *chuckles*

Shannon: No, that's a sort of. I bloody hate driving automobiles and I can't fathom why Ciaran can't just leave it be.

Me: I got a hint for you, *sits forward* they're not going away.

Shannon: Ah hell.

And there you have it. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I liked writing it;) Oh, and the picture on the right, there, is the final drawing of Shannon for the book cover. If you click on it, it'll open up bigger:)

My Top 10 Anime Opening JRock Songs

Okay, so I have updated my site, finally, after enduring much mental anguish because of a crashed hard drive:( That's a whole blog in itself… and I'm still waiting to get my data back so I can finish my next book >.<

But, I did post on Twitter and Facebook about another blog that listed the "10 Best Anime Songs" and most of these songs were not to my taste, so I thought I would do my own. Granted, this is really hard because I like so many, but I'm giving it a shot. So here goes. Remember, I am no music critic. I like what I like and that's about it. So please forgive some of my lamer comments, LOL. Let me know what you think!

Honorable Mention: Gundam 00 – Daybreak's Bell by L'arc en Ciel

 

This song captures Gundum 00 so well, it's just stunning. But I already have a place for a L'arc en Ciel song… alas…

10. D Gray Man – Innocent Sorrow by Abingdon Boys School

 

I just found this song (because I'm stupid and I just found D Gray Man, LOL) and it's fast becoming a favorite.

9. Gankutsuou – We Were Lovers by Jean-Jaques Bernel

Okay, so not a JRock song specifically, but a very beautiful song for a really well-done anime. The artwork is fantastic and let's face it, it's yaoi:)

8.  Full Metal Alchemist –  Ready Steady Go by L'Arc en Ciel

This was the song that started it all for me. I literally fell in love with JRock after hearing this song for the first time and I've never looked back. I even stayed up one night until 4am turning this song into a ring tone for my old Motorola Razr cell phone. Yes, I'm that dedicated;) Thank you, L'arc en Ciel!

7. Bleach – Life is Like a Boat by Rie Fu

If you've never heard the full version of this beautiful song, you're missing out.

6.  Casshern Sins – Aoi Hana by Color Bottle

What can I say? Awesome artwork and a very angst-ridden plot, but a happy sounding song. I have to say I listen to this song pretty much every day right now…

5. Death Note – The World by Nightmare

Ah, a cool song for an anime that has some of the best artwork ever (my opinion). I love the way the music gives you a feel for the story and how the opening follows it.

4. Blood + – Season's Call by Hyde

Um… Hyde is a vampire, isn't he?  This was also a ring tone of mine, he he he. I love Hyde's voice…

3. Blood Trinity – Dress by Buck Tick

This song says vampire all over it. Haunting. Perfect. And love that bass line!

2. Bleach – D-Technolife by Uverworld

Just a plain cool song. The way they pull off the changes in tempo in the full version is awesome. They used this song back before Bleach turned into Inuyasha and had a million episodes that were all the same – just a new character to fight:( Sorry, but I got a bit tired of Bleach…

1. Ergo Proxy – Kiri by Monoral

I will never tire of this song and I must say this is in my top three all time favorite animes. The song fits the anime so well, it's uncanny. The plot is just like the song – philosophical, dark and brooding and put together so well, every time I play it for my non-JRock friends, they all stop and listen in awe of it's greatness:)

Death Note Yaoi Fanfiction: Why We Make Men Who Hate Each Other Fuck Each Other

This is a common theme in yaoi, is it not? Us fangirls and fanboys taking two characters of a series on clearly opposite sides, who clearly hate each other and then making them, well, fuck. I can think of so many it's not even funny (okay, maybe it is). There's Kira and Athrun, Ed and Roy, Ed and Envy (isn't Envy really his homunculus brother?), Lalouch and Suzaku, Zero and Kaname and of course pretty much all the men of Death Note including Light and L, Near and Mello, and every combination in-between.

I think this may be a left over from the classical romance days. Wasn't the heroine always supposed to hate the man she was secretly attracted to? And the man is always an ass to the woman initially, until he's been scorned repeatedly and then somehow miraculously decides he's in love with her, changes over night and off into the sunset they ride on their gleaming white horse. Oh my, I seem to have gotten off on a tangent. Tsk tsk to me for having so much hetero talk on a yaoi and M/M romance blog! Ack! So my point is that in yaoi and M/M romance fandom, it seems like we're following this age old theme. We take two hot guys on the opposite sides of a war, who battle against each other (and if they happened to be childhood friends and very angst-ridden it's even better;) ) and somehow in our fanfiction world, they come together and their passion for each other is so overwhelming… they fuck. In the ass. First time. Okay, so maybe not the first time. You want your reader to wait for that, but you want to give them a little something so the characters like, bump into each other, get drunk, whatever and soon they're kissing on each other and groping like the sexually frustrated virgins we make them out to be;)

And it's hot, I have to admit. So what makes it so hot to read about Light and L getting it on? Well, there was that handcuff thing, but I think I've beat that one to death, LOL. Maybe it's because it adds an even higher level of the forbidden. I mean, for me at least, the "forbidden" is part of what makes yaoi and M/M Romance such a great love story to read. It adds angst and lots of drama for not only these guys to be OMG, gay for each other, but to not supposed to like each other at all. And in Death Note, we have two extremely smart individuals who in the series are playing this sort of cat and mouse game with each other. Can you imagine the reaction of Light's father if he found out his son was sticking it to L? Hah!!! How about the other guys on the case? And Misa would be heartbroken. Good, I hated her anyway. The shock and horror on her face if she walked in to L and Light in the middle of a hot and heavy boinking session would be a sight to behold. But back to the cat and mouse game, I wonder how many fanfiction stories have this being played out in the bedroom as well: 

Pinning L's arms up above his head on their bed, Light looked down upon a naked L with a smirk. The chains connected to their handcuffs jingled. He ground his hips onto L's erection and leaned down to savor L's lips, sweet with the mint candy he'd eaten. "You know, I've heard mints are great for blow jobs."

"So…I guess I'll be giving the blow job tonight?" L's eyes sparkled with mischievous intent.

Light thought a moment. If he gives me the blow job, then that means he knows I'm Kira. But if he doesn't give me the blow job, then maybe he wants to fuck me instead. If he wants to fuck me, then maybe he'll find out that Kira can kill with more than just heart attacks. But if we just kiss, then maybe he's found out about it already.

Ryuk leaned down and peered up into Light's face. "Jesus, kid, would you just do it already? I need my apple fix." 

See what I mean? LOL. So why do you think we love to make men who hate each other fuck each other?

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