By M. Christian (Guest Blogger)
Once again, before I start in on the
subject at hand I want to give a well-deserved tip-of-the-hat to the
fantastic folks here at The Grip for allowing me this little space to
write about ... well, we'll get to that in a second.
A bit of background should probably be
in order before I begin: I'm a writer. I write a lot of things, from
science fiction to horror to mysteries to non-fiction to – let’s
not dance around it – smut. Quite a bit of smut, actually.
But what's rather unique about my life
in pornography ("erotica" if I'm talking to people of a
'delicate sensibility') is that I've written – and even sold –
more a few stories, and even several novels, that are not in my own,
sexual, 'familiar territory.'
Or, to put it another way, I've written
(and still write) a lot of gay and lesbian fiction ... but I'm
straight.
This (ahem) has naturally raised more
than few eyebrows – straight ones as well as queer ones: how, they
ask, can a heterosexual fellow write – somewhat successfully as
well -- to such an orientation not his own?
I've given this a lot of thought
myself, of course, a good amount of pondering. One thing, though; I
want to be very clear about, is that I never, ever, tell the editors
and publishers I work with that I'm gay: I'm very upfront about by own
sexuality – and that they still accept me and my work is, honestly,
something that keeps me somewhat toasty during those long, dark
nights of the soul.
The why is much easier to answer: I'm a
writer. In fact it’s way up there even above my sexuality, on my
Things Important To Me list. So when an editor or publisher asks
for, or a reader appreciates a story or book I've written, and for
more ... let’s just say I’ll do just about anything, write just
abut anything, to keep that praise coming.
After more than a bit soul-searching I
have come to what I feel is a pretty close answer to how I can write
gay stories, lesbian stories, bisexual stories, or kinky stories
(when I say I mean I'm straight, I mean I'm straight ... to the point
where I worry sometimes I'm a tad boring, sexually) – though it was
an interesting conclusion, to say the least.
The thing is, you see: I don't write
about gay men and lesbians.
But first, a bit more background:
another odd thing about me is that I sit on another fence, but not a
sexual one this time: I've edited some 25 anthologies (or more, I
always lose count) and am now an Associate Publisher for Renaissance
E Books – which means that I'm not just writing but I'm actually
the guy on the other end buying what others are writing.
This means I quite often see other
writers trying to write beyond their own sexualities – and when
they succeed and, sadly, sometimes fail.
This is a large part of where my own
revelation came from – that I write, more than anything, about
people. It came from seeing quite a few stories and books where the
author focuses – often from the get-go – on the sexuality of
their character(s), especially if they are different from the
author's own, which is where they too-often fail.
When I read those failures -- where the
story clearly feels false, forced, staged -- where it’s painfully
clear the writer has created a character that isn’t their native
orientation it rings a very loud
bell in my mind: a ringing that caused
me to reflect – and finally understand -- on my own work.
These less-than-successful writers, you
see, were writing about differences. From the onset, they're looking
at their queer characters ... and there is a big difference between
looking at a character and looking through a character.
There are a lot of things that separate
us – ethnicity, race, age, sexuality, gender, orientation ... the
list is long – but despite all these things that separate us, we
all have much more in common.
This is what I mean when I say I
actually I don't write about gay men and lesbians.
I write about people.
When I sit down to work on a book or
story with a queer character I try very hard to make them human
beings first – with their orientation as part of their lives ...
and not the only defining thing about them: I try to look through their eyes --
using my own emotional life as reference.
Sure, I may not know the nitty-gritty
sexual details – I've never had a gay or bisexual experience and
aren't equipped for a lesbian one – but I do know the emotional
landscape of sex and desire: the fluttering heartbeat, the flashes of
fantasy, the elevation of hope, the nervousness ... these are things
that everyone, of every orientation or gender, feels at one time or
another. These are the things that people feel.
When a writer only looks at a character
they're stepping back – losing that connective humanity. When I
write I always work to connect with the reader: to tell a tale that
pulls them in and that hopefully allows them to see the story through
the eyes of the character – and you simply can't do that by
focusing on their differences.
Gay, straight, bi, kinky, straight,
whatever ... it really doesn't matter if a writer remembers that
behind it all is what unites us all.
Gay, straight, bi, kinky, straight,
whatever ... we are people, human beings. I work very hard in my
writing to never forget that -- to see their story through my own
eyes as well as through theirs.
And, even more importantly, I try to
see the world the same way. Down deep, where it really matters, we
have an unshakable, inescapable, and – best of all – glorious
humanity.
***
Bio: M. Christian is - among
many things - an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 400
stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay
Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica,
and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and web sites.
He is the editor of 25 anthologies
including the Best S/M Erotica series, Pirate Booty, My
Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, The
Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of
Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road
(with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of
Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant).
He is the author of the collections
Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine,
Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun
Control, Rude Mechanicals, Pornotopia, How To
Write And Sell Erotica; and the novels Running Dry, The
Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, Finger's
Breadth, and Painted Doll. His site is at
www.mchristian.com
For a taste of the other – check out
the re-release of the controversial Me2!
