Friskbiskit

BishieCon: More Cosplayers!

BishieCon Dealer's Hall

This is Ariel Tachne of Dreamspinner Press. Rhianne Aile, Connie Bailey, and  Nicki Bennet were also in attendance:

And this is Kelly Lewis who does chair massage at convnetions and has a studio in Kansas City called Allure Sense Datum:

More BishieCon: Cosplayers

Live From BishieCon, it's Friday Night

Ameranth & Ash 15: The Last (but not final) Episode

Well, here we are at the last episode of Ameranth & Ash to be posted.  I say last to be posted because, as you'll notice when you read it, this is not the end of the story by any means.  But this rough first draft becomes even more rough, fragmented and sparse after this, so, this seemed like the best place to stop, not to mention that posting only part of the story here improves my chances as I seek publication for the finished product.  And, since my first-choice publisher wants the story off of here when they consider it, I will be taking down all of the Ameranth & Ash episodes next Friday (Nov. 13). 

I want to thank everyone who's followed A&A through this little experiment. Putting unedited first draft material up online was nerve-wracking at times. (Especially that opening scene.  Oy!  I can't tell you how many times I wanted to sneak online in the dead of night and take that down.)  But overall, I found this to be a wonderful way to produce a first draft.  Your suport has really kept me motivated, and I think I'm going to stay motivated through the second draft, because already I'm eager to get this story polished and published so I can share with you how it all comes out.

If you happen to be just tuning in, here's the rundown:

Ameranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics, and the ability to heal. Ash is a chel, a member of the underclass. Ash gets caught where he's not supposed to be and is brutally punished for it, but when Ameranth brings him to his home and heals him, that is really breaking all the rules. What begins as an act of compassion grows into a bond of love and ignites sparks that could set Ameranth and Ash's whole world on fire.

Please note: The Ameranth & Ash segments posted here are from a work in progress.  They are entirely raw, with author's notes, missing names, different versions of the same paragraph, and all manner of grisly error. They also include explicit, non-heteronormative sex, and graphic violence. And you should know that I will not post the whole story in its entirety.  At some point I will stop and pull the existing excerpts in preparation for submitting the work to a publisher. (Update: All Ameranth & Ash episodes will come down next Friday, 11/13/9.)  And now, if I haven't driven you away yet, ;) enjoy!

Ameranth & Ash main page

Ameranth & Ash 15

Kim Jong-il Institutes Totalitarian Slash Regime

Here's proof that yaoi will in fact take over the world.  And to think I limited myself to slashing the U.S. cabinet.

This is a fan vid for a Japanese erotic game based on the premise of dating a world leader. And here's more on that game.

Thanks for turning me on to this, Alex.

Ameranth & Ash 14

Hey, here's the second to the last Ameranth & Ash episode.  Enjoy!

Ameranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics, and the ability to heal. Ash is a chel, a member of the underclass. Ash gets caught where he's not supposed to be and is brutally punished for it, but when Ameranth brings him to his home and heals him, that is really breaking all the rules. What begins as an act of compassion grows into a bond of love and ignites sparks that could set Ameranth and Ash's whole world on fire.

Please note: The Ameranth & Ash segments posted here are from a work in progress.  They are entirely raw, with author's notes, missing names, different versions of the same paragraph, and all manner of grisly error. They also include explicit, non-heteronormative sex, and graphic violence.

Ameranth & Ash main page

Ameranth & Ash 14

Ameranth & Ash 13

Here's A&A 13, I hope you like it.  And I should probably warn everyone that I'm stopping after episode 15, which is not, by any means, the end of the story.  The first draft gets pretty sketchy beyond that point though, (Yeah, even sketchier than what you've already put up with.  I know.) and I decided it would be better to stop at a high point.

But I am planning to complete the story and polish it, and seek publication for it.

You probably know the drill by now, but just in case:

Ameranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics, and the ability to heal. Ash is a chel, a member of the underclass. Ash gets caught where he's not supposed to be and is brutally punished for it, but when Ameranth brings him to his home and heals him, that is really breaking all the rules. What begins as an act of compassion grows into a bond of love and ignites sparks that could set Ameranth and Ash's whole world on fire.

Please note: The Ameranth & Ash segments posted here are from a work in progress.  They are entirely raw, with author's notes, missing names, different versions of the same paragraph, and all manner of grisly error. They also include explicit, non-heteronormative sex, and graphic violence. And you should know that I will not post the whole story in its entirety.  At some point I will stop and pull the existing excerpts in preparation for submitting the work to a publisher.  And now, if I haven't driven you away yet, ;) enjoy!

Ameranth & Ash main page

Ameranth & Ash 13

Unpacking the Case Against M/M: Part 6, the Last Lambasting

Well, even though there's probably still a lot more that can be said in defense of m/m, I'm going to wrap up the Unpacking series here with six installments.  It's not really in my nature to be this serious for this long (And I'm running out of alliterations for the titles, can you tell?), so while I'm sure we'll be revisiting this topic many times here on Friskbiskit, for the moment, I'm running out of steam.

One thing I want to stress before wrapping things up is that none of what I've said in the course of this discussion is intended to be universal.  Women write and read m/m for a wide range of reasons and -- and this is the really important part -- all of them are legitimate.

Which brings me to porn and other forms of art designed to engage with reader fantasies. As I mentioned in the last installment, I think women are entitled to their own porn, and their own fantasies. And I think that romance novels, m/m, yaoi and slash all do for emotions something similar to what porn does for bodies. The right m/m story pushes emotional buttons for me, and that is exactly what I want it to do.

I've noticed a tendency for some folks to make a one-to-one correlation between what appears in fantasy-driven narratives and real life. For instance, if a story has two men in it who fall in love and have sex together then that story must reflect the author's views of and intentions toward real gay men in real life. I think that's a pretty broad assumption to make, and one that ignores the fun-house mirror nature of fantasy. For example, it's widely understood that women who engage in rape fantasies do not wish to experience rape in real life.  The fantasy is about being absolved of responsibility for having sex, or about relaxing and letting someone else take control, or about any number of things except actually being raped in real life.

Now I know that a number of women who write about gay men work hard at making their stories as true-to-life as possible. And I'm not slamming that at all.  What I do find distressing is a tendency to position the women authors who strive for realism as the "good" authors of gay male romance, whereas those of us who approach a love story between men from a fantasy-driven angle, are often dismissed as (all together now) voyeurs fetishizing and objectifying gay men for our own sexual gratification. And of course, we write m/m, which term in and of itself is considered a slam in these instances.

Well, you all know how I came to be an m/m fan.  I read it as an escape from real life.  Now, to each their own, of course, but for me personally, the last thing I want in an m/m story are men that act just like men in real life, gay or straight.  I'm into hurt-comfort.  I like my male m/m characters crying and in pain, and then, by the end of the book, I like them to win through to a richly deserved happy ending.  

Just as with a rape fantasy, that does not mean that in real life I want to hurt men.  It's something much more complex than that.  Something that has to do with differing aspects of my personality going through emotional catharsis and finally integrating. To be honest, what an m/m story does for me doesn't really have much to do with men at all.

I've sometimes played around with the question of whether the men in my stories are really men, and in Ameranth & Ash, I'm fooling around with it even more.  But of course, if I'm writing an m/m contemporary, and the characters are male, and they are involved romantically and sexually, then they are, within the context of the story itself, gay men. 

As a human being I feel a responsibility not to perpetuate negative stereotypes.  As an author it is my job to create a self-consistent world in which the reader can suspend disbelief, to write three-dimensional characters the reader can root for, and craft a story that holds reader interest.  And I feel that is the sum total of my obligation to realism.

Now I feel we have come full circle, and are back to the Lambda awards decision again. I see m/m and LGBT literature as two different areas of writing with different creative impulses and audiences.  That those impulses and audiences overlap creates wonderful opportunities for two marginalized communities to work together strategically.  And I do think that we overlap quite a bit, but I think I've made it pretty clear that I come to a story about two men falling in love from a different direction than a gay man would, and for different reasons.

So I don't feel any embarrassment about m/m being identified as a genre dominated by women and women's fantasy versions of men. And authors who want their stories to reflect the lives of real life gay men should keep that up too.  I think there's plenty of room for everyone. But when women m/m authors look to the LGBT community for affirmation of their legitimacy, then I think the Lambda decision is a good illustration of how that can become problematic for everyone.

I want to thank all of you who've taken the time to read these posts.  I hope that some of you come away with some talking points to help you address misconceptions about m/m when you encounter them in your own lives.  And I hope what I've said will encourage those of you who disagree with me to do your own exploration of your relationship with m/m.

Do we need to justify ourselves to our detractors? Of course not. But if we want to counter the myths about m/m so the genre can grow and reach wider distribution in the culture at large, then we do need to make our own voices heard.

Who benefits when m/m is acknowledged as a legitimate genre in its own right?

Unpacking the Case Against M/M: Part 5, The Objectification Obfuscation

In Part 4, I mentioned the sex-negativity inherent in the statement that women authors and readers of m/m are voyeurs, fetishizing and objectifying gay men for our own sexual gratification. 

A lot of women of my association have had one particular response to that statement, and since I've embarked on this series, I've heard it quite a bit: So what?

I think it's a pretty reasonable question. Why is that men can look at women, gay men can look at men, drag queens can present stereotypical portrayals of women, and straight men can watch women pretend to get it on with each other, but a woman reading a work of fiction with men falling in love and having sex together is a moral reprobate of the first order?

Well, we've already been over the whole thing about how women are not entitled to their own sexuality in our society, so that's part of it.  And of course, many people certainly object to lesbian porn for straight men.  In fact, that's another comparison that's often made with m/m as a shaming tactic. 

But here's the thing: if in fact you believe that sexually objectifying anyone is wrong, why would you focus your ire on li'l ole m/m?  For the love of Mike, we don't even use real people!  Why aren't the objectification objectors going after all that fake lesbian porn for straight men?  Or any porn for straight men, for that matter? Personally, and this may be uncharitable, but, I think it's because m/m looks like an easier target.

Some branches of the feminist movement have been trying to put a stop to het porn since the seventies, and they haven't had much luck with it. And our culture is filled with images of women which, while they may not be outright porn, are certainly objectifying. As a woman who, through no fault of my own, cannot hope to meet the ridiculous physical standards of beauty that still count as the gold standard of feminine value, I get pretty sick of it myself.

I sometimes hear people say things like, well, by objectifying men you're just giving men permission to continue objectifying women.  This makes me laugh.  As far as I've ever seen, men are not waiting for my permission or anyone else's.  I don't see het porn for men or the ubiquitous airbrushed supermodel going anywhere any time soon.

Beyond that, I personally don't think objectification is necessarily, in and of itself, sexist.  As noted, I have a few things to say about unrealistic beauty standards that I do in fact think are misogynist, but, just looking at someone and fantasizing about them sexually -- actually, I think that's okay.  What's sexist is the imbalance in who gets to objectify who. 

My pals over at Erotica Cover Watch are all over this, fighting tirelessly to prove to the world that men make great sex objects.  I think m/m can be part of that movement too.

I wonder what a world with gawking parity across genders and sexual orientations would look like?

Ameranth & Ash 12

Hello and welcome to the 12th episode of Ameranth & Ash.

Ameranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics, and the ability to heal. Ash is a chel, a member of the underclass. Ash gets caught where he's not supposed to be and is brutally punished for it, but when Ameranth brings him to his home and heals him, that is really breaking all the rules. What begins as an act of compassion grows into a bond of love and ignites sparks that could set Ameranth and Ash's whole world on fire.

Doesn't she rock?  I can imagine a really kick-ass vasai looking like this.

Please note: The Ameranth & Ash segments posted here are from a work in progress.  They are entirely raw, with author's notes, missing names, different versions of the same paragraph, and all manner of grisly error. They also include explicit, non-heteronormative sex, and graphic violence. And you should know that I will not post the whole story in its entirety.  At some point I will stop and pull the existing excerpts in preparation for submitting the work to a publisher.  And now, if I haven't driven you away yet, ;) enjoy!

Ameranth & Ash main page

Ameranth & Ash 12

Ameranth & Ash 11

The eleventh episode of Ameranth & Ash, for your pleasure.

Ameranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics, and the ability to heal. Ash is a chel, a member of the underclass. Ash gets caught where he's not supposed to be and is brutally punished for it, but when Ameranth brings him to his home and heals him, that is really breaking all the rules. What begins as an act of compassion grows into a bond of love and ignites sparks that could set Ameranth and Ash's whole world on fire.

Let me tell you guys, it's really hard finding good pictures for these episodes.  Pics of guys in modern street clothes just don't cut it, you know?  And the characters are all separated right now so semi-nude couples shots are just going to set everyone up for disappointment.  So, I apologize for the shameless Tudors gank here, but, in my defense, when I saw this I thought -- Evanscar!

Please note: The Ameranth & Ash segments posted here are from a work in progress.  They are entirely raw, with author's notes, missing names, different versions of the same paragraph, and all manner of grisly error. They also include explicit, non-heteronormative sex, and graphic violence. And you should know that I will not post the whole story in its entirety.  At some point I will stop and pull the existing excerpts in preparation for submitting the work to a publisher.  And now, if I haven't driven you away yet, ;) enjoy!

Ameranth & Ash main page

Ameranth & Ash 11

Ameranth & Ash 10

Hey, here's the tenth episode of Ameranth & Ash!

Ameranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics, and the ability to heal. Ash is a chel, a member of the underclass. Ash gets caught where he's not supposed to be and is brutally punished for it, but when Ameranth brings him to his home and heals him, that is really breaking all the rules. What begins as an act of compassion grows into a bond of love and ignites sparks that could set Ameranth and Ash's whole world on fire.

Please note: The Ameranth & Ash segments posted here are from a work in progress.  They are entirely raw, with author's notes, missing names, different versions of the same paragraph, and all manner of grisly error. They also include explicit, non-heteronormative sex, and graphic violence. And you should know that I will not post the whole story in its entirety.  At some point I will stop and pull the existing excerpts in preparation for submitting the work to a publisher.  And now, if I haven't driven you away yet, ;) enjoy!

Ameranth & Ash main page

Ameranth & Ash 10

Ameranth & Ash 9: The Triumphant Return of A&A

Hey, it's been a long summer with no Ameranth & Ash installments, I know, and I appreciate you A&A fans who've been hanging in there, waiting all this time.  Now, finally, the drought is over.  Here's the latest installment of my novel in progress. 

Please note: The Ameranth & Ash segments posted here are from a work in progress.  They are entirely raw, with author's notes, missing names, different versions of the same paragraph, and all manner of grisly error. They also include explicit, non-heteronormative sex, and graphic violence. By clicking one of the links below, you certify that you are 18 or older.

And you should know that I will not post the story in its entirety.  At some point I will stop and pull the existing excerpts in preparation for submitting the work to a publisher.  And now, if I haven't driven you away yet, ;) enjoy!

Ameranth & Ash main page

Ameranth & Ash 9

Ameranth & Ash 8

This may be the last A&A for a little while, because right now I have to give everything I've got to another project that's on deadline.  But I have had a great time working on A&A and appreciate everyone who has taken the time to comment on it.  Your encouragement is a great motivator for me.  My hope is to continue with this story as soon as time permits.

This is the world-building edition of A&A.  I'm finally at a point in the story where I need to establish some things about the setting and the society at large.  But there's some story in here too. 

Here's an illustration (very badly drawn) of the city where A&A takes place.  More of a graph really, outlining each of the districts where the various castes live.  That line down the middle is supposed to be a river and where it curves out at the very bottom, beyond that is the sea.  The straight line running horizontally across the middle is a mistake.  :P

Anywhoo, without further ado, here is the latest installment of Ameranth & Ash:

Ameranth & Ash 8

Ameranth & Ash Main Page