Martha Davis's Blog: Quixotic Orchid

About a year ago, I had a wild hair bright idea. I already wrote erotic romance for women. I wanted to be able to write it for men, too. Expand as an author. Dare myself to cross my boundaries and be that much better.

It didn’t hurt that watching men kiss to me is kinda hot. Yeah, I had a gay friend tell me, “No Martha, I’m not going to make out with my boyfriend for your personal entertainment!” — “But, but…Why not? I’d make out with him for you.”

And apparently what used to be my little secret is now a fad. Women everywhere are admitting the same thing and female writers are writing gay erotic stories for their personal amusement, what’s called M/M (Man/Man) fiction. (It’s so popular now, a gay author, Josh Lanyon, has even written a how-to book on the budding genre just to help us ladies out.) Of course, M/M fiction makes gay men grump and growl the same way real lesbians do with lipstick lesbian porn for men. — And I agree, a lot of it is way too cheesy and way too fake.

I had a personal catch attached to my goal. Out of respect for my gay friends, if I did it, I was going to do it right. I couldn’t call myself a writer of straight and gay erotic fiction unless both parties were aroused by it. So when I came across a submission call for gay male stories, I checked out the editor, Shane Allison, a very gay man out of central Florida. I ordered and read a couple of his anthologies. If I didn’t submit the real thing to him, he’d be the first to toss it in the circular file cabinet under his desk and send me a chain letter rejection slip. After he grumped and growled.

I thought about it and thought about it, scribbled a few words and threw them away. Thought some more, wrote some more. The story began to take a little shape, I shortened it, elongated it, rewrote the damn thing about seven times before I tossed the whole giant mess in a maybe-next-year folder, just to dig it out two days later, “I might have something here.” The night I submitted it, I pressed the send button on my email with two fingers in case one of them did a last minute chicken out.

That story? It’s called TILF (Teacher I’d Love to Fuck) and it will come out September 10th in the book anthology Big Man on Campus. It was the first of three stories that editor purchased from me to be published in the near future. I saw the galleys for the book last week, a sneak peek gift from Shane, and I cried. It’s one of the coolest stories I’ve ever written. I can’t wait to see it on shelves!

The two big Supreme Court decisions this week, the repeal of the voter rights act here in the south and the repeal of DOMA, both linger heavily in the air this weekend. I overheard, "People are so excited about the gains in homosexual rights that they forget the tremendous blow to voting freedoms we received the day before." I'm very guilty of this mentality and I'm spending the whole day at work today questioning why.

Racism is still very real around these parts. Last spring, one south Georgia county had its very first integrated prom. In 2013!! That means, in 2012, the whites went to get their groove on in one corner and the blacks another. And it was legal. Not a soul looked at it funny. Our governor Nathan Deal was asked to speak up and endorse the belated desegregation -- something he adamantly refused. Again, with very little news coverage and very little WTF. Y'all this is the same dude that is writing our laws into the books. There's not enough humanity in our politicians to allow them to be unsupervised.

But I still feel if we are only allowed one big decision this year, give it to the LGBT community. They need it more. Besides the biggest reason that various races can get married and they can't, why?

It's leather vs. fur. Both come from animals yet animal rights activists scream loudest at fur wearers. Cowardly if you ask me. Rich little old ladies and two pound, plastic IQ Barbie socialites wear fur and big, bald, 300lb, tattoo-covered biker dudes wear leather. Who are you going to bully into submission and who are you going to look at and keep your opinions to yourself? - I thought so.

I think the Black American population has grown big and powerful enough to be intimidating, to make people think twice about what they say and do. Prime example...Paula Deen. She let a racist slur exit her mouth 25 years ago and this week seven companies dropped her in two days. (I believe this is an excellent example of jumping the rich old lady when our oversized, head in the sand governor makes a better target, but you get what I'm trying to say. The Black voice is so strong it has its haters scurrying under bedsheets to hide. Racism against black people will hurt.) Actor Alec Baldwin spewed a batch of homophobic comments this very week. What happened to him? Is anything going to happen to him?

The LGBT community is growing, but it is still a smaller voice, a smaller presence. That equals easier target for bullies and hate crime. It needs our help more so it can grow and flourish. It needs people to step up and defend it until it's big enough to throw its thick-muscled thigh over a leather Harley seat, rev the engine and speak, "What was that again? -- I thought so."

I remember all the way back to my first home computer. It wasn't actually a computer, it was a WebTV, the poor girl's plug into the TV version of those big expensive home computers they sold at Best Buy. Even way back then, we knew whatever we typed would be out there in cyberspace forever, never erased. Warnings over and over again popped up from citizens in chat rooms all over the world. I understood the rules, researched what I wanted to research and spoke my peace anyway. My little bitty world is of no interest to international government agencies.

I made several friends with my little WebTV. There was this one older lady in England named Jeannie, who did the telephone Tarot card readings. The writer soul in me sought her out. I loved her stories about her clients, raising her daughter, the guy next door she wanted nothing more than to "snog" regularly with. Conversations like the ones we had made me grumble at my little WebTV. So engrossing, then the phone would ring, and we'd get disconnected.

"Grrrr! Jeannie, I'm trying to stay online."

Time frame of this conversation, less than a month after the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. Jeannie and I had already had several conversations regarding the government using online chat rooms, instant messaging to watch for more terrorists. She replied, "Just type: airplane, tower, and bomb in a sentence and you won't get disconnected again. The government will become very interested in keeping you online."

The towers falling too new, I gasped in shock that she could laugh about it, but when in Rome, well England... "Airplane. Tower. Bomb."

Sure enough, my WebTV didn't cut out again that night. Common sense. I knew it was just a coincidence, but Jeannie had me laughing hysterically, something I really needed in those creepy days.

"Now that we are being listened to, we should make our demands."

I typed back, "Dear President Bush, while I have your attention. I need you to call my boss and get me a raise!"

"Yeah, and now that you are on government watch lists, you know you're going to have to stop doing all that computer chat room sex. No more dirty bits."

"What?! No way! I can't give up chat room sex. That's the best part of having a computer. I refuse..." Then I thought about it. "Hell, if the CIA has to listen to me every day, the least I can do is make it interesting for them! All those neighbors complaining about other neighbors, chats with grandmas, and then -- ME!"

Sure enough, there was this one guy (my favorite of the computer guys) who was everything I fantasized about, educated and worldly, reserved computer geek in public, and naughty as fuck in the sheets. He got some of my best dirty bits later, all to help those poor geeks sitting in little plywood office cubicles somewhere out there.

I'm sitting here now in my underwear, wondering about what I'm going to wear to work, listening to the President speak about the Verizon wiretapping of phone calls, etc. and thinking....

The complaints are funny. Oh yeah, President Obama and Michelle are sitting there listening to you bitch about that hoochie next door, the unfairness of your brother inheriting more of grandma's will money than you, etc.

Dear Mr. President, I'm here to rescue you. Give me a minute to hook up... Wait! Now that I'm older, I don't stalk computer chat rooms for naughty bits any more. Why?! -- I don't want to be one of those boring people! Do they still have computer chat rooms? Dear CIA, I'll get to working on it... I'll never be too old for that!