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I Like It Like That: True Stories of Gay Male Desire
From the editors of the Lambda Award–winning First Person Queer: intelligent, sexy, true-life tales of gay men's desire. The stories push at the parameters of queer erotic life, featuring contributors both novice and well-known; subject matter ranges from single, significant encounters to the ephemera of emotional desire that never lead to physical pleasure. Throughout, the book deals with the essential erotics of queer male life, to be used as a launching point for exploring the queer male condition: essays that delve into the diverse manifestations of desire between and among men.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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About the author
Lawrence Schimel
336 books138 followersI'm a full-time author, anthologist, and translator (Spanish->English) living in Madrid, Spain.
Writing in both Spanish and English, I've published over 90 books in a wide range of genres, including poetry (DESAYUNO EN LA CAMA and FAIRY TALES FOR WRITERS), children's books (LA AVENTURA DE CECILIA Y EL DRAGÓN, COSAS QUE PUEDO HACER YO SOLO, LITTLE PIRATE GOES TO SCHOOL, etc.), short stories (TWO BOYS IN LOVE, HIS TONGUE, THE DRAG QUEEN OF ELFLAND), graphic novels (VACATION IN IBIZA), and many anthologies (STREETS OF BLOOD: VAMPIRE STORIES FROM THE AMERICAN SOUTH, SWITCH HITTERS: LESBIANS WRITE GAY MALE EROTICA AND GAY MEN WRITE LESBIAN EROTICA, KOSHER MEAT, FOUND TRIBE: JEWISH COMING OUT STORIES, CAMELOT FANTASTIC, etc.)
I've twice won a Lambda Literary Award, for FIRST PERSON QUEER and PoMoSEXUALS: CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT GENDER AND SEXUALITY.
My picture book ¿LEES UN LIBRO CONMIGO? was selected by the International Board of Books for Young People for Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities 2007 and my picture book NO HAY NADA COMO EL ORIGINAL was selected by the International Youth Library in Munich for the White Ravens 2005.
My poem "How to Make a Human" won the Rhysling Award for Best Science Fiction Poem.
I am also the publisher of A Midsummer Night's Press, a small poetry publisher, which has published THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED IN OUR OTHER LIFE by Achy Obejas, THE GOOD-NEIGHBOR POLICY: A DOUBLE CROSS IN DOUBLE DACTLYS by Charles Ardai, BANALITIES by Brane Mozetic, translated by Elizabeti Zargi, and FORTUNE'S LOVER: A BOOK OF TAROT POEMS by Rachel Pollack, as well as the annual series BEST GAY POETRY and BEST LESBIAN POETRY.
Writing in both Spanish and English, I've published over 90 books in a wide range of genres, including poetry (DESAYUNO EN LA CAMA and FAIRY TALES FOR WRITERS), children's books (LA AVENTURA DE CECILIA Y EL DRAGÓN, COSAS QUE PUEDO HACER YO SOLO, LITTLE PIRATE GOES TO SCHOOL, etc.), short stories (TWO BOYS IN LOVE, HIS TONGUE, THE DRAG QUEEN OF ELFLAND), graphic novels (VACATION IN IBIZA), and many anthologies (STREETS OF BLOOD: VAMPIRE STORIES FROM THE AMERICAN SOUTH, SWITCH HITTERS: LESBIANS WRITE GAY MALE EROTICA AND GAY MEN WRITE LESBIAN EROTICA, KOSHER MEAT, FOUND TRIBE: JEWISH COMING OUT STORIES, CAMELOT FANTASTIC, etc.)
I've twice won a Lambda Literary Award, for FIRST PERSON QUEER and PoMoSEXUALS: CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT GENDER AND SEXUALITY.
My picture book ¿LEES UN LIBRO CONMIGO? was selected by the International Board of Books for Young People for Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities 2007 and my picture book NO HAY NADA COMO EL ORIGINAL was selected by the International Youth Library in Munich for the White Ravens 2005.
My poem "How to Make a Human" won the Rhysling Award for Best Science Fiction Poem.
I am also the publisher of A Midsummer Night's Press, a small poetry publisher, which has published THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED IN OUR OTHER LIFE by Achy Obejas, THE GOOD-NEIGHBOR POLICY: A DOUBLE CROSS IN DOUBLE DACTLYS by Charles Ardai, BANALITIES by Brane Mozetic, translated by Elizabeti Zargi, and FORTUNE'S LOVER: A BOOK OF TAROT POEMS by Rachel Pollack, as well as the annual series BEST GAY POETRY and BEST LESBIAN POETRY.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 18, 2010
Full disclosure: I'm in this book.
I think the strength of this book is in the way it so elegantly displays the range of desire - and of how desire manifests - even among a single group (in this case, gay men.) When I wrote my piece, I went back to the (literal) beginning with my first real encounter with another man, but by no means is this the typical entry. The range of passion (and lust!) in this book is sure to have something for everyone looking to read about gay passion.
I think the strength of this book is in the way it so elegantly displays the range of desire - and of how desire manifests - even among a single group (in this case, gay men.) When I wrote my piece, I went back to the (literal) beginning with my first real encounter with another man, but by no means is this the typical entry. The range of passion (and lust!) in this book is sure to have something for everyone looking to read about gay passion.
February 3, 2010
THE BLURB
From the editors of the Lambda Award-winning First Person Queer come these intelligent, sexy, true-life tales of gay men's desire. The stories push at the parameters of queer erotic life, featuring contributors both novice and well-known; subject matter ranges from single, significant encounters to the ephemera of emotional desires that never lead to physical pleasure. Throughout, the book deals with the essential erotics of queer male life, to be used as a launching point for exploring the queer male condition: essays that delve into the diverse manifestations of desire between and among men.
I Like It Like That features smart, savvy writing about desire and sex. Unlike mainstream porn imagery that by default dominates our cultural (and therefore personal) references, contributors reach into the far reaches of memory to tell true tales about personal erotic space.
REVIEW
I have discovered I have a reading fetish, or kink, if you will. I like to read forbidden books. Books that I am not supposed to be reading, for whatever reason. Those are the books that give me a thrill, make my pulse race a little faster, my breathing become a little a shallower. They even create a tingling in my groin. Yes, those are the books I like.
I probably realized this when I was about 8 or 9 and discovered a book called The Importance of Wearing Clothes. It had a chapter on nudist colonies and oh my God, that was the greatest thing ever! All those naked people! I’d sneak down to the living room and read that chapter over and over again, under cover of darkness, when the rest of the house was asleep. Talk about living on the edge.
As I got older, I graduated to evermore illicit books: Catcher in the Rye, Portnoy’s Complaint, In Cold Blood (which I read when I was 11). My mother hit the roof when she caught me reading Rabbit, Run by John Updike and confiscated it. I’ve never finished that book.
I bring this up because at the ahem, rather mature age I am now, I can read anything I want and thus it’s pretty hard to come across forbidden books. So that illicit thrill has been largely gone from my life for many years. Occasionally I’d try to recapture it by reading alt.rec.sex on the Internet, but it just wasn’t the same.
Then this week, unbidden and unasked, I Like It Like That appeared in my mailbox. I removed it from the padded mailer and noticed the fabulous cover (for once, I was glad to have the book, not the ebook!). “True stories of gay male desire,” I read. I flipped it over. “The book deals with the essential erotics of queer male life…essays that delve into the diverse manifestations of desire between and among men.” Oh, a book written by gay men for gay men? And they sent it to me, straight married lady in Maine? I was an instant puddle.
Let’s get the facts out of the way. This is a series of 34 essays, written by a variety of authors, some well-known, others up and coming in the writing world. The stories are short—1000 to 3000 words each—and all come from “the contributors’…sexual memories to tell true tales about personal erotic spaces.” The back cover says erotica and that’s true, but it is literary erotica. I’ve tried to read random-ass porn and it doesn’t work for me. At the end of the day, I’m a reader and I need good writing, even if I am looking for a little titillation.
So, straight woman reading about gay male desire? Is there a disconnect? Absolutely not. I like men and all their body parts and gay men do too. They find cocks endlessly fascinating and since that’s one thing I don’t have, I find that discussion to be—well, endlessly fascinating. And on that level, this book really, really works for me.
My original goal for writing this review was to read every essay but after I got through about half of them, I decided to stop. It was clear that the editors had done their work. The essays are uniformly well written and edited and clearly selected for their literary merit. So I don’t need to read every one to tell you this is a good collection. My sampling has verified that. So, why did I stop? Because I wanted to be able to savor and enjoy. See my earlier comment. I don’t get many books like this nowadays. I take pleasure in the thrill. I realized I wanted to make this last and not buzz through it in a day or two. I hope everyone understands.
As to what the stories contain…these are about male desire and how that comes in all its forms. Different themes will resonate with different people. A few of the essays I read, I said, “interesting, but eh” at the end. Others stand out in my mind, such as The Eroticism of Football: Thank You, Jim Harbaugh by Aaron Hamburger. Like Aaron, I like quarterbacks and I have watched a lot of football over the years, even though I still, to this day, don’t completely understand all the nuances. (I watch baseball for the same reason and I see there is a baseball essay included in the book. I am saving that one for later.) The author’s description of quarterback Jim Harbaugh—meeting him on the beach in Waikiki when he was 13—I ached with the longing of young adolescent desire. I remember it well. Another essay I loved was The Telephone Line by Jerry Wheeler. Clint/Curt/Chet arrives at Jerry’s home to install a second phone line and Jerry decides, “I was determined to have his dick in my mouth before the paperwork was done.” Sigh. It brought back a whole slew of erotic fantasies about when the gas man was here hooking up the propane line to our grill and I was determined to be doing the nasty with him before the service call was over. Unfortunately, I wasn’t successful. Jerry was.
And that’s what this book is. A collection of really sexy, well written stories, some sweet, some not so, that have the ability to simultaneously turn me on and make me think—and that, for me, is the biggest turn on of all. This book has earned a place on my bedside table, to be savored as an amuse-bouche before the more entertaining main course (aka, my husband). I look forward to reading the unread stories and re-reading some of my favorites. I hope that everyone here who reads this review and decides to buy this book has the same pleasure.
NB: In the interest of research, this book might be useful to m/m writers who endeavor to be realistic in their depictions of sex scenes and struggle, at times, with coming up with the right words to describe the action. This book could be, in that context, very informative. If you need an excuse to buy it, that is.
(originally posted on reviewsbyjessewave, November 2009)
From the editors of the Lambda Award-winning First Person Queer come these intelligent, sexy, true-life tales of gay men's desire. The stories push at the parameters of queer erotic life, featuring contributors both novice and well-known; subject matter ranges from single, significant encounters to the ephemera of emotional desires that never lead to physical pleasure. Throughout, the book deals with the essential erotics of queer male life, to be used as a launching point for exploring the queer male condition: essays that delve into the diverse manifestations of desire between and among men.
I Like It Like That features smart, savvy writing about desire and sex. Unlike mainstream porn imagery that by default dominates our cultural (and therefore personal) references, contributors reach into the far reaches of memory to tell true tales about personal erotic space.
REVIEW
I have discovered I have a reading fetish, or kink, if you will. I like to read forbidden books. Books that I am not supposed to be reading, for whatever reason. Those are the books that give me a thrill, make my pulse race a little faster, my breathing become a little a shallower. They even create a tingling in my groin. Yes, those are the books I like.
I probably realized this when I was about 8 or 9 and discovered a book called The Importance of Wearing Clothes. It had a chapter on nudist colonies and oh my God, that was the greatest thing ever! All those naked people! I’d sneak down to the living room and read that chapter over and over again, under cover of darkness, when the rest of the house was asleep. Talk about living on the edge.
As I got older, I graduated to evermore illicit books: Catcher in the Rye, Portnoy’s Complaint, In Cold Blood (which I read when I was 11). My mother hit the roof when she caught me reading Rabbit, Run by John Updike and confiscated it. I’ve never finished that book.
I bring this up because at the ahem, rather mature age I am now, I can read anything I want and thus it’s pretty hard to come across forbidden books. So that illicit thrill has been largely gone from my life for many years. Occasionally I’d try to recapture it by reading alt.rec.sex on the Internet, but it just wasn’t the same.
Then this week, unbidden and unasked, I Like It Like That appeared in my mailbox. I removed it from the padded mailer and noticed the fabulous cover (for once, I was glad to have the book, not the ebook!). “True stories of gay male desire,” I read. I flipped it over. “The book deals with the essential erotics of queer male life…essays that delve into the diverse manifestations of desire between and among men.” Oh, a book written by gay men for gay men? And they sent it to me, straight married lady in Maine? I was an instant puddle.
Let’s get the facts out of the way. This is a series of 34 essays, written by a variety of authors, some well-known, others up and coming in the writing world. The stories are short—1000 to 3000 words each—and all come from “the contributors’…sexual memories to tell true tales about personal erotic spaces.” The back cover says erotica and that’s true, but it is literary erotica. I’ve tried to read random-ass porn and it doesn’t work for me. At the end of the day, I’m a reader and I need good writing, even if I am looking for a little titillation.
So, straight woman reading about gay male desire? Is there a disconnect? Absolutely not. I like men and all their body parts and gay men do too. They find cocks endlessly fascinating and since that’s one thing I don’t have, I find that discussion to be—well, endlessly fascinating. And on that level, this book really, really works for me.
My original goal for writing this review was to read every essay but after I got through about half of them, I decided to stop. It was clear that the editors had done their work. The essays are uniformly well written and edited and clearly selected for their literary merit. So I don’t need to read every one to tell you this is a good collection. My sampling has verified that. So, why did I stop? Because I wanted to be able to savor and enjoy. See my earlier comment. I don’t get many books like this nowadays. I take pleasure in the thrill. I realized I wanted to make this last and not buzz through it in a day or two. I hope everyone understands.
As to what the stories contain…these are about male desire and how that comes in all its forms. Different themes will resonate with different people. A few of the essays I read, I said, “interesting, but eh” at the end. Others stand out in my mind, such as The Eroticism of Football: Thank You, Jim Harbaugh by Aaron Hamburger. Like Aaron, I like quarterbacks and I have watched a lot of football over the years, even though I still, to this day, don’t completely understand all the nuances. (I watch baseball for the same reason and I see there is a baseball essay included in the book. I am saving that one for later.) The author’s description of quarterback Jim Harbaugh—meeting him on the beach in Waikiki when he was 13—I ached with the longing of young adolescent desire. I remember it well. Another essay I loved was The Telephone Line by Jerry Wheeler. Clint/Curt/Chet arrives at Jerry’s home to install a second phone line and Jerry decides, “I was determined to have his dick in my mouth before the paperwork was done.” Sigh. It brought back a whole slew of erotic fantasies about when the gas man was here hooking up the propane line to our grill and I was determined to be doing the nasty with him before the service call was over. Unfortunately, I wasn’t successful. Jerry was.
And that’s what this book is. A collection of really sexy, well written stories, some sweet, some not so, that have the ability to simultaneously turn me on and make me think—and that, for me, is the biggest turn on of all. This book has earned a place on my bedside table, to be savored as an amuse-bouche before the more entertaining main course (aka, my husband). I look forward to reading the unread stories and re-reading some of my favorites. I hope that everyone here who reads this review and decides to buy this book has the same pleasure.
NB: In the interest of research, this book might be useful to m/m writers who endeavor to be realistic in their depictions of sex scenes and struggle, at times, with coming up with the right words to describe the action. This book could be, in that context, very informative. If you need an excuse to buy it, that is.
(originally posted on reviewsbyjessewave, November 2009)
June 25, 2018
A quirky, sometimes sexy and largely successful erotic journey.
March 20, 2017
I’ll admit that I wanted it both ways. And yes, that is a bisexuality pun.
I Like It Like That is not just a collection of testimonials for I’ve read and still own several books like that. Most books about queer men tend either to be outright pornography, or else testimonials about their first time or about their coming out. Books like that are valuable and should be read and studied, tumblr_ohxfbxqo3g1tkjvpco2_1280but again there was always something missing for me whenever I read them. The way my own mind works I always prefer a work that takes the time to introspect or analyze a condition or situation. The men writing their personal essays are not just describing their sex life, they’re offering assessments and deeper understandings of what sex has meant to them, or how it has changed their life, or shown in what way they have explored or expressed their sexuality. Each essay acts alone and independently from the other, but while reading this book each essay feels like it’s is arranged in reaction to others so at times the book is like reading a group of men talking together about their sexuality. The best part about the collection however is the actual range of sexual expressions that are understood and discussed. One article titles Tom Selleck’s Mustache is one man’s realization that he possesses a fetish for mustache’s in general and therefore kissing men with mustache’s is his favorite erotic act. Another essay, which is in fact a comic strip, titled Amanuensis is a short story about a top who helps two husbands who are both bottoms. Big Black Daddy-Dick, or The Joys of Being Fetishized is really everything the title suggests as a middle aged black man explores Gay-Guys-Pahing-On-The-Fencethe pleasure derived from others who look at him and his dick in a kind of worship. Bathhouse Desires covers the territory of a man visiting a bath house for the first time and feeling lost in lust and desire. Straight Guy Fetish explores a personal essay of a man caught in a one sided relationship with a straight man. And finally Evil Bear Man is a comic strip about a man who works as a fetish escort and has sex with his boyfriend in front of his client dressed up as Batman and Robin.
This last one, for the record, is my favorite only because I couldn’t stop laughing while reading it.
My entire review for this book appeared originally on my site White Tower Musings. To read it, simply follow the link below:
https://jsjammersmith.wordpress.com/2...
I Like It Like That is not just a collection of testimonials for I’ve read and still own several books like that. Most books about queer men tend either to be outright pornography, or else testimonials about their first time or about their coming out. Books like that are valuable and should be read and studied, tumblr_ohxfbxqo3g1tkjvpco2_1280but again there was always something missing for me whenever I read them. The way my own mind works I always prefer a work that takes the time to introspect or analyze a condition or situation. The men writing their personal essays are not just describing their sex life, they’re offering assessments and deeper understandings of what sex has meant to them, or how it has changed their life, or shown in what way they have explored or expressed their sexuality. Each essay acts alone and independently from the other, but while reading this book each essay feels like it’s is arranged in reaction to others so at times the book is like reading a group of men talking together about their sexuality. The best part about the collection however is the actual range of sexual expressions that are understood and discussed. One article titles Tom Selleck’s Mustache is one man’s realization that he possesses a fetish for mustache’s in general and therefore kissing men with mustache’s is his favorite erotic act. Another essay, which is in fact a comic strip, titled Amanuensis is a short story about a top who helps two husbands who are both bottoms. Big Black Daddy-Dick, or The Joys of Being Fetishized is really everything the title suggests as a middle aged black man explores Gay-Guys-Pahing-On-The-Fencethe pleasure derived from others who look at him and his dick in a kind of worship. Bathhouse Desires covers the territory of a man visiting a bath house for the first time and feeling lost in lust and desire. Straight Guy Fetish explores a personal essay of a man caught in a one sided relationship with a straight man. And finally Evil Bear Man is a comic strip about a man who works as a fetish escort and has sex with his boyfriend in front of his client dressed up as Batman and Robin.
This last one, for the record, is my favorite only because I couldn’t stop laughing while reading it.
My entire review for this book appeared originally on my site White Tower Musings. To read it, simply follow the link below:
https://jsjammersmith.wordpress.com/2...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews