Homosex: Sixty Years of Gay Erotica
Edited by Simon Sheppard

Book Review by Erastes

Prolific writer and editor Simon Sheppard hardly needs any introduction and being a fan of his writing I was looking forward to reviewing his latest Homosex: Sixty Years of Gay Erotica.

Sheppard brings together a collection of stories gathered from various points in the last 60 years to attempt to demonstrate the width and scope and change in the homosexual erotic fiction market. A tough task for a book 10 times this size but he does a good job with just 23 stories and excerpts.

Sheppard begins his Odyssey after the 2nd World war because he points out that it was a defining event, queer men got together in the army, then demobbed and went to form gay communities in permissive areas on the coasts. Gay porn became a rallying and unifying force. Gays found they weren’t isolated. There were other men who did the things they did, wanted the experiences they wanted. Gay erotica entertained, aroused and educated—virgins learned "how to do it"—from a blow job to a full blown fuck.

Sheppard takes a few carefully chosen representatives of their eras—from mimeographed "slim and smutty" volumes like the enthusiastic bi-sexual tale called "Navy Daze" (Eldon Bernard, 1945) with a protagonist who enjoys himself so much he abuses the poor exclamation mark cruelly, to post-Stonewall pulp porn like "Mad about a Boy" (Jon Marsh 1971), to pre-AIDS tales to post-AIDS fucks—each story opens a little door in history and lets us peer through to how it was actually like in that other country called the past.

I've been reading a lot of educative books recently on a similar subject and in the main I'd found them dry and difficult to concentrate on, but I was immediately drawn into Homosex by Sheppard's very natural writing style. You can read an excerpt of his introduction to the book here:
http://www.simonsheppard.com/homosexintroduct.html

Each tale has its own introduction too, which does just enough to ease you in and make you feel at home. Then leaves you alone to enjoy the thrill.

With stories by writers such as Phil Andros, Jack Fritscher, Robert Glück, and, Bob Vickery, just to name a few—Homosex by Simon Sheppard is a rare blend. It (like the stories it contains) entertains, arouses and informs and there aren't many books that do that.

Highly recommended.

Erastes
August 2007

Homosex: Sixty Years of Gay Erotica
(Carroll & Graf; May 23, 2007; ISBN-10: 0786717556)
Available at Amazon.com / Amazon UK

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© 2007 Erastes. All rights reserved.

About the Author:  Erastes: Because somehow, men in waistcoats and breeches are even better when undressed by other men.
Website: http://erastes.com/

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