What is it about two beautiful men wrapped around each other that ignite the imaginations of so many women? Expanding our horizons past the familiarity of our own sexual experiences is a powerful aphrodisiac. Forever we’ve expected straight men to drool over cutie-pie lesbians rolling around on a picnic blanket. But the fascination flows in both directions. In my early years of sexual exploration I snagged my first copy of Playgirl while “naively” looking for some hetero stimulation and found a much more interesting bonus publication shrink wrapped inside. That was my first peek at manlove and I’ve been a fan of the genre ever since.
It’s commonly agreed that no person is all gay or all straight. That Kinsey’s scale of homosexual and heterosexual ratings gives us a way to quantify our same-sex tendencies is old news at this point. Still the attachment to labels is almost as conspicuous as it was when Kinsey made his ground breaking studies. Nicholas, one of the main characters in my new release, By Surprise, struggles with the idea of being attracted to a woman. Having self-identified as gay, it’s frightening and confusing to feel his body react in her presence. I truly enjoyed exploring this idea and walking the journey with him towards the realization that his body wasn’t at odds with his mind. In the end, his heart would speak for both.
For fun I took this ultra-simplified version of the Kinsey study. Can’t say I was surprised by the results. Would you be? As times have changed and the discussion about sexuality has broadened, many feel that Kinsey’s scale is way too broad to correctly designate a person’s degree of sexual preference. Too broad or too narrow, labels only serve to limit. I don’t need a study to know that.
