Richard Labonté (1949–2022)

Every year, erotica writers gear up for the O Henry Awards of erotic writing: mainly Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica, and Best Woman's Erotica (as well as the Susie Bright's Best American Erotica, but that ended in 2008--this must be brought back!). For me, Best Gay Erotica (aka BGE) is always something to look forward to. The collected stories always show that erotica writing is like any other form of writing, where craft is king and emotional resonance is as show more important as sexual turn-ons. These are not quickie Nifty (NSFW) stories, these are writers with two hands on their keyboards, working the lines between porn and literary intellect.

While last year's BGE was at best uneven, the 2011 edition is strong and I'd say more mature.

Like previous editions, the judges (this year, Kevin Killian) and editor (as always the legendary Richard Labonte...and this guy still doesn't have a Wikipedia page yet), point to the dangerous fact that erotica is a dying art. "In recent years, I culled fewer stories from the gay glossies," writes Labonte. Likewise, Killian questions the thin line between porn and mainstream culture in his introductory essay "When Porn is Everywhere and Everything Is Porn, What Is The Place for A Book Like This?" Killian writes: "Sex mutates into front pages of newspaper, all over the Internet, used to sell everything from cars to shoes to kitchen appliances. Gay sex is fashionable and mainstream."

The question here is can erotica be erotic when we are living in a "trans-sexual" (that is, the movement of sexuality into the public sphere) age?

Some of the stories here attempt to answer or at least explore that question. If there was a theme for BGE2011, it could easily be these blurred lines.

In "Counterrevolution" for example, Thomas Ree deals directly with the question of sexuality and pornography as a narrator masturbates and watches the same loop of internet porn. The narrator muses about how technology as infiltrated not only our sex lives, but our experiences of public space: "A former lover of mine tweeted a while back that Grindr at the airport makes U look at EVERY1 diffrrntly."

The story seems to assert that sexual technologies (A) have erased our sense of the real (on the amateur porn star, the narrator says, "Georgies is posting videos of his svelteness to the Internet because he's teasted at school for holding his Diet Coke with his pinky up, or because he does Irish dancing on weekend, or because everyone knows what he tried to do to Keenan last summer during the camping trip;" in this reality is masked: one can be anybody on the internet) yet at the same time, (B) make us know our own desires better (the narrator concludes "I wish I had an iPhone.")

Traditionally, or perhaps falsely assumed, erotica is about fantasy. BGE2011 showcases literary erotica in which reality is clearly present within the fantasy and this perhaps makes the set of stories here so strong: we can relate to it. From talking politics in Jeff Mann's "Saving Tobias" (here, he uses the speculative genre to explore a very real issue) to racism in James Earl Hardy's "The Last Picture. Show." One of the best stories here is Natty Soltesz's very short "I Sucked Off An Iraqi Sniper," originally published on the BUTT blog. The sex is hot and awkward but still hot, yet at the same time (when you get to the end) he breaks your heart. Sex is ambivalent and dangerous in this book. From the necrophilia in Boris Pintar's "Blossom in Autumn" to Rob Wolfsham's rape fantasy in "Attackman" (after following the career of this particular writer for while, I would say his writing has matured since last year's BGE [not saying that "The Bed From Craigslist" was bad, I'm just saying...]) and the slave/master relationship in Jonathan Asche's "Shel Game."

Another thing that BGE2011 debunks is the myth of poorly crafted writing in erotica. In this volume, we see works that are close to prose poetry (as in Shane Allison's "I Dreamt") to short stories that are spot on in wording. Johnny Murdoc's "Bodies in Emotion" displays such adept craftsmanship. Murdoc's style is simplistic that while uses beautiful metaphors ("I try not to, but I'm like a meteor that can't avoid Earth's gravity. I'm like the moon."), also uses deadpan and spot-on sentences that expresses perfectly sex as not just fucking, but complicated matters of heart, mind, and cocks:

"I want to suck your dick," I say. I want to suck his dick, I want to eat his ass, I want to fuck him. I want to cuddle with him. I want to punch him.

While some stories come off as outlandish (Hardy's "The Last Picture Show" and Cox's "The Nose Commit Suicide" and Pike's "And His Brother Came Too") these stories's absurd tone add variety to a solid collection that year after year explores gay sexuality that is smart, complicated, and fully human as well as erotically stimulating. show less

Kind of put off by the fact that two of the first three essays are by a cis woman who only dates queer men and calls herself a "queer heterosexual" (it's not like queer is a reclaimed slur or anything, nooo) and a cis woman who only dates trans and gender variant people and casually throws around a lot of slurs. I'm sticking this out for Ivan E. Coyote, but I'm not as excited about it as I was. :/

ETA: Okay, it turns out that those two essays were the most iffy in the book. Lots of show more interesting stuff about different relationship models from gay and queer guys. Some other good ones I'm not remembering. Ivan's was all the way at the end and worth the wait, but sad. Overall: decent, but not amazing. show less

This is an easy, enjoyable read. It's full of essays that reflect the ever-changing definition of queer, and how one can be socially ostracized from the heterosexual scene for being queer and from one's own queer group for not being queer enough. One essay that I particularly enjoyed, written by Karen Taylor, discussed how, for her, being a lesbian and a strong woman was linked to her Jewish faith. This anthology is also filled with blatant truths that left me smiling and chuckling to show more myself. A worthwhile read. show less

I was very excited when my book club announced a science fiction title for our next read. Normally the club tends toward "literary" fiction with an occasional non-fiction book thrown in for good measure. Being a speculative fiction fan, I was thrilled one of my favorite genres was getting a turn as well. At first glance, The Future is Queer seemed to be a decent choice. The anthology features some fairly recognizable (and award winning) names in SF and queer literature: L. Timmel Duchamp, show more Candas Jane Dorsey, and even Neil Gaiman, among others. I was looking forward to reading it.

Richard Labonté and Lawrence Schimel are both probably most well known for their work as editors for anthologies. They each wrote their own introduction to the book. While both introductions were strong, Labonté's "My Love Affair with Queer Boys, Gay Lit, and Science Fiction" was particularly good. The anthology's initial theme was to be queer inspired "near-future, social science fiction, depicting plausible, possible realities" although this was eventually expanded to included "future-based fantasy." If I was excited about this book before (and I was), I was even more so after reading the introductions. Unfortunately, the collection didn't quite meet my expectations.

I did appreciate the wide variety of stories that the editors included; it's particularly impressive as there were only six short stories, an even shorter comic, and a novella. Most of the stories had at least a glimmer of something that spoke to or interested me, but ultimately didn't do much for me. The comic, "From Homogenous to Honey," that Neil Gaiman (a favorite of mine) collaborated on with Bryan Talbot was particularly disappointing. I love the fact that comics are appearing more frequently in anthologies, but this one, while not bad, was nothing special. The strongest story was also the last one--"The Beatrix Gates" by Rachel Pollack. (I knew Pollack as a tarot expert; I had no idea that she was an award-winning fiction writer as well, so that was pretty cool.) As for the rest of the contributions, I generally enjoyed the underlying concepts more than the stories themselves. However, this was often enough to interest me in the authors' other works.

While not a horrible anthology, The Future is Queer wasn't fantastic either. Short story collections seem to be a tricky format to work in, and it probably didn't help that the last couple I read (Dreams Underfoot, Sex in the System) were particularly well done. I might not insist everyone drop everything to go read a copy of The Future is Queer, but there is enough in it that if it happens your way it might not be amiss to glance through it.

Works included: "Introduction: My Love Affair with Queer Boys, Gay Lit, and Science Fiction" by Richard Labonté; "Introduction: Looking in All Directions" by Lawrence Schimel; "Obscure Relations" by L. Timel Duchamp; "Instinct" by Joy Parks; "The Chosen Few" by Caro Soles; "...the darkest evening of the year..." by Candas Jane Dorsey; "From Homogenous to Honey" by Neil Gaiman and Bryan Talbot; "My Long Ago Sophia" by Diana Churchill; "The Sleep Clinic for Troubled Souls" by Hiromi Goto; "The Beatrix Gates" by Rachel Pollack.

Experiments in Reading show less