Erastes Day 3 - My DIK Books (cont'd)

http://reviewsbyjessewave.blogspot.com/2008/12/standish.html

Hello again. Ah you've caught me in the waterfall pool with... well, a few of the cabana boys, I'm afraid. I was just explaining to them some of the principles behind my penname...Seems some of them are fans of the Greek already! Who knew?



While we watch the pretty men cavorting together in the water, let me talk a little about the difficulties that the gay historical author has in attempting to write an historical scene in times when hygiene wasn't at the top of anyone's agenda. In some earlier times, water was not only thought to be bad for you, but it could actually make you ill. Some people considered that it was positively evil, and that by getting naked and

letting the water touch you—particularly in intimate areas, such as Guido and Jesus are doing over there…er hem, I'm still speaking…thank you…was to let the Devil enter your body. Whereas in Guido's case it seems that he's lucky – it's just Jesus.

So how to create a sex scene—set in an era where people might, if they were lucky, have a bath once a year—which will titillate and not nauseate? Where there's more lust than lice?

Well, I tend to make my boys be a little fastidious, even pernickety about cleanliness. Ambrose (In Standish)is considered by Fleury to be a little eccentric about his faddiness for keeping clean, but Fleury works hard to keep his lover in soap. This was particularly important because at the time they are making love in Newgate Prison, which, unless you had money (in which case anything was available) you were likely to wallow in your own filth. Create love scenes in Newgate weren't easy and I probably, having read Bernard Cornwell's versionof the prison in The Gallow's Thief, underplayed the noxious aspects of the place.


Baths are always good,
showerbaths existed even in Regency times, and a sponge bath is doable at any time.

Of course it's easier to keep clean if you are rich, which is why, I suppose, many m/m historicals include the nobility. Filling a bath is much easier when you have a handful of staff doing your bidding!Of course there are always times when hygiene was as important as politics, such as the Ancient Roman civilisation and the Greek, so keeping clean for sex is easy there!

In Transgressions I use swimming as a prelude to sex, when I know both young men are nice and clean, and I resort to the dear old sponge bath when my heroes are covered in sweat and mud. "I have no idea how you got mud there" says Tobias as he sweeps his sponge over David's intimate areas. I can assure you that David probably put it there on purpose!

Anyway, let me finish with the remaining Essential Reads that I started yesterday. I hope that you enjoyed my time here and I'd like to offer a signed first edition of Transgressions to one commenter, which I'll pick and announce by Good Friday 10th April.

5. The Back Passage by James Lear
The reason this makes my list is that it's huge fun. It shows that gay historicals don't have to take
themselves at all seriously, and it does not pretend to be more than it is, a funny, hot sex romp. However it DOES achieve more than that – the main character is brilliant, and there's a proper mystery in there to be solved, even if Mitch bends over backwards (*snorts *) in order to solve it.

6. The Boy I Love by Marion Husband

This is a beautiful, quiet and quite underrated and under read piece of work. Set just after the First World War it's a character piece, in an A J Cronin style, of a man returning home, after a ghastly time in the trenches. Can one come home after something like that? Can one really pick up where one left off? What about the lovers you left behind? I was wrapped up in this, and I recommend it to anyone.

7. Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

I don't suppose there's anyone here who hasn't read this, but if you haven't – you must. Don't be put off with the "fantasy" label, because it isn't really, not at all. It's a story of a rising swordsman, Richard and the way he lives his life in the intricate and convoluted court life in the city where he lives. Beautifully plotted, immaculately described and although the sex is, like Renault's, pretty much off stage it's incredibly erotic and the love between Alec and Richard will break you into pieces.

Well – thank you once again to the ladies of the Island for letting me play, it's been fun being here, and meeting you all. If you are interested in gay historical fiction at all, check out the excerpts on my website http://erastes.com/ and The List on Speak Its Name http://speakitsname.wordpress.com/the-list/