Bruce King's exciting story of a handsome young “leather boy” driven to the incredible excesses of sexual masochism is the only book I've run across—in the enormous volume of recent sex fiction—which documents honestly and vividly the hows and whys of the pain-pleasure world of the homosexual. This twilight world of leather and chains, boots and whips is illuminated with intelligence and vigor; orgiastic pain, fetishism and fantasy blend in a nightmare collage. The sex rituals are skillfully built up—the reader is bound to participate!
This books make sexual liberation look exceedingly tedious and while I suspect that aspects of it’s central love affair between Gary and Dale give an all too real look at being a gay man in post-stonewall NYC, it is as excruciating to read as it probably was to live through.